Yesterday I was listening to the news as I was driving home
from work. Sitting in my air-conditioned
car, ambulating myself home on my own timetable, I heard the report of Syrian refugees
who had been stopped in a train station in Hungary. Attempting to get to Germany by train, the
issues of borders and politics and governments had stopped them in a station. To avoid being forced into a refugee camp
they had refused to get off the train.
And so they were still in the train. All day in the
heat. And then into the night. Men, women and children.
As I pulled into a gas station and turned off the key and
the news, I was struck at the intense contrast of where I was at that exact
moment, and where they were. I got out
of my own car. Swiped my debit
card. Filled up the tank of my personal
car with fuel. Got back in, turned on
the key, drove to my home. A nice house
in the country of my birth, in a safe neighborhood where I live as citizen in
freedom and security without fear. My
children are waiting for me there. They
are watching TV. We sit on comfortable
couches, eat dinner, use computers, talk, and go to bed in our comfortable beds.
This is utterly unfair.
It is unfair that I should have a home, and they should not. It is unfair I should have freedom to go
anywhere I want, and they do not. That I
can offer my children security, education and a future, and they cannot. I did not do anything to deserve to be born
in America any more than they did anything to deserve to be born in Syria.
I lay in bed, thinking about them. What can I do to reconcile this sense of
unfair contrast? I care. I pray.
I fall asleep. I wake up this
morning and wonder. Are they still on
the train? I roll over on my Egyptian cotton
sheets covering my pillow top mattress and reach for my iPhone to check the
news. They are, as far as I can tell. I feel slightly too hot. I go turn down the air conditioning, use my
private bathroom, and return to my comfortable bed for a few more minutes.
I wonder if someday I will be in a disaster or a crisis like
that and someone will be reading about me on the news. What would I want from someone on the other
side of the world completely unable to help?
I would want them to know. I
would want them to care. I would want
them to pray.
I do all those things.
And I go back to sleep.
(I also wake up, do my research, and find that I can donate online to the refugee crisis through the reputable Samaritan's Purse.)
Comments
Post a Comment