A leper community
In Nepal.
Riding through the traffic, packed like sardines on a city bus
Ten World Racers traveled through time but not space
In a regular timely manner
To find God’s children.
Ten adventurers living another day,
Ten Jesus lovers loving like Jesus loves
Ten souls making a pilgrimage to honor the souls of others.
We are alive in order to exist outside of ourselves. Not to live in a vegetative state.
Before I literarily reach this leper community, let us time travel through ink and paper [keyboards and computer screens], back to a month far far away. Behold, a world race baby, a mere three months old.
In Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where, not two days in, we visited the S21 Prison compound from the Khmer Rouge genocide. One fourth of the Khmai population was killed in the 70’s—and now, in 2018, nearly every living human of Cambodia has been affected by it in their past by one way or another.
S21 had been a school, where children were imbued with knowledge
and shouts of laughter had filled the air; that is, before officials took over
making it a makeshift jail
to hold prisoners,
torture innocents,
to murder.
Such a contrast.
Where Children were once taught how to live, humans then were forced to endure a revelation that their lives were worthless, and better yet they learned their lives were offensive to others and deserved to be terminated.
I walked through the compound touching the walls of the rooms that once bound them, the patched up windows that brought no relief to yearning eyes and hopes and dreams.
How often did those wandering eyes count tiles, marks on walls. Whose blood was stained upon this cursed ground?
I touched the walls and counted tiles
“I acknowledge that you once suffered here,
unseen by the rest of the world—not rescued
not ever knowing relief from pain
The pain come from evil
shouting in your head
that
you’re not worthy,
you are lower than animals”
“I honor your memory
The story once not known
Nor understood—
as you were tortured by the fact you yourself did not know its end.”
Those eyes pierced mine as I memorized faces,
mugshots of the S21 victims
And the S21 villains.
I felt I was the only one who could tether them to this earth, so as not to vanish them into the unknown.
It became imperative that I hear every second of every story in my headset recording. Clearly overwhelmed as any human would be, I discovered the deepest canyon in my heartbreak..
No matter how many tears,
or determined meditation on their
plight of the past,
prayers,
pleadings with God—
no matter how desperately I tried to love them too late,
The fact IS that I loved them too late.
They can never receive love from me.
I am too late
These people…are dead.
And they cannot know I see them.
How desperately I wanted to see them.
Back to the end of June/end of six months of traveling
and loving
and serving
and relationship making
and listening and encouraging
and eyes opening to the sea of stars
we swim in
And the Son that lights our day in day out.
The leper community
Getting off that bus, ear buds—
music in my ears
Swaying,
Outside
—the world is without music, nobody tapping their foot to the beat
And it’s a good walk to the community of “untouchables”—
Away from the rest,
crossing a long suspending bridge over a wide brown river.
Hands faces limbs “deformed”
No
Re-formed by disease
Elderly
Hands holding my own
Two sets of them grasping at the other
Half fingers squeezing my face
Not understanding each other’s spoken language,
each word
completely falling
Not hitting anything
Mine, theirs.
But not every beautiful thing
has to hit its mark
Because words fell like flower petals riding the breeze on a peaceful
spring day
I watched them as they fell, gathered them in greedy fingers
Pressed them in my heart
The unspoken language of love and laughter
Are cemented in understanding
Even when our words are not.
Words are too often misunderstood anyway.
In a little leper community in the country of Nepal
Nestled amidst the timeline,
lies a moment where a strange girl and six Nepalese folk laughed and laughed
Exchanging hand holds and hugs and compliments of beauty at one another,
And NAMES.
Hearts cried out,
above all—my own,
“You remember my name
and I remember yours
I don’t understand what you tell me
but I recognize your name.
I see you
I hope you see me too
But I SEE you.”
Is that enough?
I know I have two ears, but unfortunately they can’t follow two separate conversations, hear two prayers,
They both follow the same noise.
But GOD…I don’t know how many ears He has but His are pretty cool in that they can hear ALL OF EVERYTHING AT ONCE. and even then He is not confined to just a moment on a timeline in a little town in Nepal
-separated from the rest of the city-
and to the prayer of one strange girl.
But to each and every soul that exists in that moment and down through the timeline.
God is like a train on the Time Line and I’m just a railroad tie stuck to my moment but He goes all over
And hears the universal soul cry of multitudes
Even those lost in genocides and murders that I so long to love.
My great heartbreak,
to love those who had gone.
AND Before me are countless ALIVE
I can honor your soul, acknowledge
your suffering
your story
your passions
your thoughts
your faces
I can LOVE you and the bestest [yes bestest] part is you can RECEIVE IT
I WILL love you
Don’t be discouraged that we do not bring answers to long asked questions
To stories we cannot fully know
I do not bring to anyone absolute assurance of better days ahead
but let me tell you ONE thing
I carry assurance of eternal freedom with Jesus
and YAH better days ahead
Don’t back away from people because of their suffering
Thinking you have no right to share news.
What if that had stopped someone from loving you, the fact they couldn’t quite understand you and thought they didn’t have the answers.
The best sort of comfort is the kind that doesn’t tell you what to do,
but rather understands and loves
Sits with you
Mourns with you
And dances with you when it begins to rain
My squad mates brought good Jesus stories and prayers and words of wisdom
I brought hugs and laughs and prayer
Those who lived in this home brought light and open smiles and that is not underestimated by me.
Jesus brought us, Nepalese and Americans,
having the beautiful audacity to create us all in the first place
Let’s all bring something to each other, offers of best-friendship
Acknowledgments and respect.
The world.
It’s bad but it’s also good
And
In my head the world is DROWNING in a lyrical melodious song
We are all tapping fingers to the beat of the earth
But I wanted to say.. to the suffering
A message in a bottle for the world
I see your soul.
I’m pacing and counting tiles along with you
