Tag Archives: Sudan

Feeding Each Other

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female hummingbird flying near red feeder

This summer, we’ve been blessed to feed hummingbirds in our yard, both through flowers like bee balm, and also through our little red hummingbird feeder that we fill with a sugar solution. Earth creatures feed each other. Everyone needs to eat. This happens through the incredible natural chain of life, some animals eating plants, other animals eating animals. But the deepest natural order is that all animals must eat. The interconnected circle of life. We participate in this circle, by what we eat, and by how we feed others.

Perhaps this is why forced starvation is such a horrific crime. To cut off a people from food is a crime against humanity, and also a crime against the natural order of life. I have been daily bearing witness to the forced starvation of people in Gaza by the Israeli government. There is food aid literally waiting at the border being denied entry. My heart is breaking every day. As the starvation goes on, it becomes impossible for people to heal from the damage it does to their bodies, even if they survive. Every day more people are dying and more people are reaching a point of no return. One action that is being organized is to pressure mainstream media to cover the fact that Israel is starving Gazans, which should be headline news everywhere in the world. You can find a template to flood media inboxes at https://writersagainstthewarongaza.com/action.

I also want to bear witness to the starvation happening in Sudan. I am not seeing so much about it in the news. When the current regime in Washington closed the doors on USAID, the situation there became dire. According to an article today in Closer to the Edge:

“The U.S. was once Sudan’s largest humanitarian donor. USAID funded almost half the international aid reaching the country. Then, with the flick of a legislative pen and the grinning cruelty of budget hawks who will never see a famine up close, that support was ripped away. Community kitchens—lifelines for displaced families—shut down. Nutrition programs vanished… The numbers are so obscene they should scream off the page: 25 million people acutely food insecure, over 770,000 children under five on track to suffer severe acute malnutrition this year, and nearly 100,000 cholera cases since last summer. ” 

We are all connected. I am remembering that the very first moral imperative according to the parables of Jesus, was simply this: “I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and you gave me drink.”

Happy Solstice!

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Santa at Kettle Cove Beach.

For a Solstice treat, Margy and I went to Kettle Cove beach a little before sunset. Santa was gathering seaweed for the garden. Now you might not think Santa would be out on Solstice, but the ancient European pagans laid claim to this gentle gift-giver from the north much before St. Nicholas. In fact, in the old old days, they say Santa was female. I think they might be right.

A group of hikers passed by and seaweed-gathering Santa was a big hit, with many photos taken. Job done, it was time for a little rest. Thankfully, there was a handy log nearby to sit on.

Oh look, who is that with Santa? It’s me! I was also sitting on that log. It’s a Santa selfie. The setting sun was bright upon our faces and we gave thanks for all the sun brings to us.

And then we had another surprise treat. The local mermaids came to the beach for a Solstice swim in the cold ocean. We did not join them but we had fun watching them brave the waves.

May all the blessings of this Solstice day be upon you! May the darkness be fruitful, and peace return with the lengthening days, peace upon Gaza, upon Ukraine, upon Sudan, and all the hidden sorrowful places.

Facing Up to the Reality of Evil

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It is an amazing thing to feel safe in our homes and communities. A while back I was reading a novel about the Lost Boys of Sudan, What Is the What, by Dave Eggers. The story stirred up questions in my heart.  What would it feel like, I wondered, to have marauders showing up in your village, shooting people, burning houses, assaulting women and children? What would it feel like to lose your whole family, and your whole village?

When the death camps of the Nazis were discovered after World War Two, people swore, “Never again!” Yet, genocide continues in our day. Bosnia, Rwanda, southern Sudan, Darfur.

We asked ourselves, “How could someone fly a plane into a building with thousands of innocent people inside? How could someone massacre thousands of women and children of their own country?” Elie Wiesel, a survivor of Auschwitz, spoke of the incredulity of his village of Sighet in Transylvania in the months leading up to their deportation to the camps.

One man of the village had been taken away earlier and managed to escape, returning with terrible news. The Gestapo had forced the Jewish prisoners to dig huge graves, and then slaughtered the prisoners. “Each one had to go up to the hole and present his neck.” The villagers refused to believe the man. How could such a thing even be imagined? Right up to the moment when they themselves arrived at Birkenau, they clung to the impossibility of such a horror. Most of us feel incredulous in the face of evil.

Elie Wiesel wrote,

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night… Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever… which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust…

I have never had to face personally the horrors described by Wiesel or by the Lost Boys of Sudan. Am I willing to listen to their stories and the stories of others who have encountered evil? Am I willing to let go of my own incredulity to face up to the reality of evil?  And what about those of us do experience such horror? How do we make sense of evil in the world? Where does it come from, and what can we do about it?

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Elie Wiesel quotes are from Night.