People often compare their hurt to other’s. Comments such as “yes, I may be suffering but there are people in the world who have no homes or no food.” It’s easy to downplay your conditions based on worldly conditions. But I think it is a very thin, and most times hardly visible line, which separates perspective from reality. I once read in a book something that has stuck with me for many years since. The lead character, whose husband was away at war, was missing him terribly. She feared daily for his life but felt guilty for this since there were many women who had actually lost their husbands in the war. Her father asked her if she cut her thumb and someone else cut her thumb off, would that make the pain she’s feeling less real because it wasn’t her whole thumb. I have meditated on that many nights since. We may not be suffering as much as many others around the world, but that doesn’t mean our suffering doesn’t exist or isn’t valid. I am learning more and more that suffering is suffering no matter what form it comes in. A broken heart may show it’s ugly face in millions of different masks, but a broken heart is it still. Though, in our pain, it is important to keep some perspective, and that is where the very thin, almost invisible line appears. I still have no idea when I cross it. Do you?
This morning I woke to the terrible news that one of the younger international volunteers, who sleeps two tents away from mine, suffered a horrific family tragedy. I was affected by it all day; devastated by how affected by it he must be. It is easy to believe you live in a bubble where bad things don’t occur. It’s even easier to believe that when you’re in a place half a world away helping other people heal their pain. It just doesn’t seem right. Then again it never does. But you don’t think such terrible news can reach you so far away. As if you’ve crossed outside it’s dreadful borders and beyond it’s grasp. But the truth is you never are far from it, never far enough. And hurt is hurt, no matter where you are; no matter what form it comes in. Hurt is hurt. Whether by earthquake or by phone call at 2am. Hurt, dear reader, knows no border and no language barrier.
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On a lighter note. The orphanage had another successful day. It’s amazing to watch the kids grow. To see how much they remember and their excitement at knowing answers. When I’m exhausted and worn down and sometimes even dreading the amount of energy it will take to teach at the orphanage, these children always lift me up. In their bare feet with their smiling faces they inspire in me a strength that I didn’t know was there and an energy I thought was exasperated. I always leave the orphanage completely void of all oomph, but I rest assured that that oomph was left in good hands.
As a teacher, there is no greater compliment than to hear that children respond well to you and that you have a great control of the environment. Because as a teacher there is nothing worse than losing control of your class. It made all the exhaustion of lesson planning time well spent to have the director of the orphanage compliment the success of the new format of the orphanage and plead with me not to leave but to stay permanently with them. If only loans and debt did not exist. If only…
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