Paris – Marilyn R. Gardner

#FighttheFear

Published on November 21, 2015November 21, 2015 by Marilyn3 Comments

Fight the Fear Quote

Today it struck me that we haven’t even been able to grieve the attacks in the world because the rhetoric so quickly changed from grief for Paris to finding a scapegoat. So today I pause to remember, love, and fight fear.

You are more than welcome to use the picture but you must give credit.

*Note: I purposely used Paris as opposed to Lebanon and Baghdad because it is the response to the Paris attacks that is causing fear of refugees. Please don’t think that the other places are of any less value.

I also thought this infographic may be helpful in fighting the fear.

wh_blog_refugee_workflow_1120b

A Life Overseas – For You in the Trenches

Published on November 16, 2015November 16, 2015 by Marilyn2 Comments

Readers, I’m at A Life Overseas today talking to those of you who are in the trenches, where world events happen all around you. I hope you join me in that space.

All weekend I have thought about what to write this morning. I think about world events and how they have filled up our newsfeeds, yet I also know that you live in your own world events. You live in places where bombs go off, where corruption runs rampant, where trash builds up because of anger at governments, where babies die too soon and young women and men lose their innocence to the evil of others.

So what do I say to you who live in the trenches; you who sigh as you hear the news, because you know how awful it is, you know how broken it is. You don’t need a bomb to tell you the world is broken. You heard God’s call to a broken world, a world he loves, and you try to live out that call every single day. You have given up what Rachel Pieh Jones calls the Western illusion of safety, instead you walk in the safety of God.

You have chosen a currency beyond fear. Because when fear is our currency, we cannot live effectively. Whether this be around parenting, around work, or around where we are called to live, this is truth.When fear is our currency, we forget that safety is not about where we live, or work, or play.

Safety is about knowing where our security lies, what we’re called to do, and who we’re called to be.

What are we called to when we face a broken world?

Read the rest here at A Life Overseas.

Paris is White, Lebanon is Brown, Mizzou is Black

Published on November 14, 2015November 15, 2015 by Marilyn35 Comments

[Poem is attributed to KARUNA EZARA PARIKH @karunaparikh http://www.dailyo.in/politics/pray-for-paris-isis-paris-attacks-prayer4paris-islamic-terror/story/1/7368.html%5D

I was off-line most of yesterday and so it wasn’t until late in the day that I saw the news about Paris.

Horrific news of multiple attacks throughout the city — a rock concert, a stadium, gun attacks at the center of the city in a heavily populated area. In all, 128 people dead and over 180 injured. France has closed its borders and ISIS has proudly taken responsibility.

The world has poured out its support and love for France, much like it did during the Boston Marathon attacks. My newsfeed fills up with people expressing sadness, outrage, and shock. Rightly so – it’s an evil, terrible attack and our minds try to make sense of the terror. I think the statement so many will not voice is this: “If it happens in Paris, it can happen anywhere.” If it can happen anywhere, than no where is safe.

*****

On Thursday twin suicide bombers attacked the city of Beirut. 44 people are dead and over 200 people are wounded. ISIS claims responsibility and Beirut grieves once again. It has been over a year since they have experienced this kind of violence. One person writes about it on her newsfeed – a friend who lives in Lebanon and loves the city. Otherwise I am struck by how unimportant it is to the Western world.

*****

In Baghdad, a suicide bomber targets a funeral while two roadside bombs go off in Sadr City. At the funeral 18 people are killed while over 40 men lay wounded, unable to do anything but wait for help. I don’t see this news on anyone’s newsfeed. It’s unimportant to the world. Because it happens all the time.

*****

In Missouri, a university continues to reel in chaos and anger. It’s been months, years even and black students have not felt safe. They have called out for help for a long time and no one has listened. A swastika is scrawled in feces across a residence hall wall, but there is no newsfeed outrage. This is a symbol known across the world as a symbol of violence and hatred of people groups. But still no news. Over and over again black students say they don’t feel safe, but they are largely ignored by both their administration and the rest of the nation. “White silence is violence, no justice, no peace” the protesters cry out for someone to listen. Why is it ignored until a president resigns? Racism is too hard, so much easier to ignore than address, both systemically and individually.

*****

I have a conversation with my daughter. She went to a Christian college, and her friends from college are outraged by Paris. They send off messages of prayer and hope and light for the City of Lights. But not one of them seems to know about Lebanon, or Baghdad, or Mizzou. Her high school friends are not Christian, yet they have stood in solidarity with Mizzou and tried to bring awareness to those issues. They care about Lebanon and Baghdad as well as Paris.

And I wake up troubled. The world feels so broken, so beyond repair.

And I too weep for Paris, for the grief and loss that cannot be quantified. But I can’t help thinking about how little the other events matter to our world. I can’t help thinking that somehow we have been deceived into believing that the white, Western world is more worthy of empathy and concern, not only in our sight, but in the sight of God. I can’t help thinking that the reason for the difference in interest is because Paris is white, Lebanon is brown, and Mizzou is black. I know in theory it may be more complicated – but it doesn’t feel complicated right now, because I watch this over and over again. I know my words when written will be subject to critique, but I write them all the same, because it’s the only thing I know to do.

I pray yet again the only prayer I know to pray during these times of sadness and frustration – Lord Have Mercy. Lord have mercy on our broken, hurting world – and on all of us who are just as broken. And I thank God that he does care, that he is not influenced by newsfeeds, that he weeps for the black, the brown, and the white, offering love and comfort to all.

Healing in the Midst of War

Published on March 14, 2012March 14, 2012 by Marilyn12 Comments

A month ago a 71-year old surgeon from France left his City of Lights and went to Homs, Syria. There in a makeshift operating room in a house that had been abandoned, with sporadic electricity and none of the fine surgical equipment that allows him and his patients to flourish in France, he operated on 89 people, 80 of whom survived. It is an amazing story.

I’ve stayed away from the topic of Syria – not because I want to, or because I think it’s right to avoid, but because every time I think about it I feel physically sick and a paralysis sets in. In a world where we are hesitant to use the word sin, preferring instead the less damaging words of “dysfunction”, “addiction”, or “self-defeating behavior” are we not confronted by sin, by pure evil as we look at what is happening in Syria? Would we not be foolish to surmise that Bashar Al-Assad, president of Syria, is doing what he is doing to his own citizens because he is “emotionally impaired”?

But today we have a story of redemption and sacrifice. I am struck by real-life heroes that do their part, those that carry out acts that reflect a God who heals and redeems, as well as the real-life heroes that are survivors and victims of the atrocities. I am specifically drawn to the story of this man.

The surgeon is a Dr. Jacques Bérès, one of the founders of Doctors Without Borders in the early seventies, and then another organization, Doctors of the World, in 1980. He is familiar with war zones, having spent much of his career helping from Saigon to Sierra Leone. In his picture he has the look of a benign grandfather, but the story belies that and you are left with a picture of compassion and courage; a man with a sense of purpose who doesn’t shy away from fulfilling that purpose. The worst of conditions awaited him in Syria. He was smuggled in through the Lebanese border with medical equipment, stopping on the way in another city to aid a Syrian physician. When he finally reached Homs and set up the temporary hospital, he treated war wounds of all kinds, some that will haunt him forever. Men, women, and children, the future of Syria, were treated from damage caused by war wounds – I think we call this “civilian casualties”, a nice, sanitary name.

In a radio interview in Paris on return from Syria he says this: “I was sad… I saw useless suffering, cruelty, meanness, the suffering of children, of families.” He used this sadness to energize a gift, to be a person who brought healing in the midst of war. A person whose countenance of “quiet energy and purpose” affected all those who were working with him.

I’ve heard it said that character during crisis doesn’t suddenly emerge, but is a product of daily decision-making when there is no crisis. If so then that is my challenge – to daily make choices that count. To have it said that in a crisis I worked with a “quiet energy and purpose” is the height of compliments; to be a healer in the midst of war like Dr. Bérès.

We all have stories of hope in the midst of tragedy, healing in the midst of war. Would love to hear some of yours through the comments!