Haiden

I hold you close and feel your tiny lungs, breathing,

And I find myself appreciating life for what it is rather than

What it contains.

Mine, full and overflowing, bursting at the seams,

Is suddenly now full of empty space, so that the light can come in.

Your laughter, like music, reverberates around my mind.

Your tiny hand guides me here and there,

And suddenly there is nothing more important than to be here with you now.

I am unbound by definitions, a whole person reflected in your shining face:

“Itsy—” and you want to play with me.

The world becomes this very light and beautiful place when I’m with you.

Everything is in slow motion.

You guide me step by step,

Pointing out the most interesting and incredible parts of the world,

A pine cone and papa’s big car.

They truly are more amazing than I had given them credit for.

Your scheming eyes and well-placed kisses make me find playfulness in everyday moments.

You are a gigantic, bursting ball of light, completely shattering the conventions of the universe by your beauty.

You are like nothing I’ve ever seen.

My lungs ache, wanting to take in enough air to stay forever placed in this moment,

Where you are laughing, and playing, and you love me.

My hands could break with their desperation to grab you and hold you back from all of this terrible world.

You are just too beautiful to understand, they’ll never know what to do with you.

Your blue eyes are the most dazzling things I have ever seen, so chocked full of wonder and surprise and mischief.

Your tiny hands are my shelter.

Your unquestioning love is my hope beyond hope, my sole and single proof of goodness.

Your life is what holds me above water, what assures me of truth and frightens me about lies.

You are the very definition of beauty, my love,

What all our hopes are riding on.

I will love you until the day I die, I will give my very breath if it’s what you need, I will die for you.

And I will be, here, in this picturesque life with you, in slow motion and bathed in the most glorious light.

We can live in a painting,

We can stay in this beauty as long as I’m with you.

I will never let you go.

I love you, Bubba.

-"Itsy"
Sarah Sanders, '11

Jealousy is the Worst.

I am not the petty type you see

Not usually prone to fits of jealousy

But seeing you with her turns me

The slightest shades of green.

Sarah Sanders '11

"O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;

It is the green-ey'd monster, which doth mock
The meat it feeds on."

-William Shakespeare, Othello

On Learning What It Means to be a Woman

I remember when I talked too loudly

You looked angry.

I remember when I felt too strongly

You were shocked.

I remember when I dreamed too selfishly

You shook your head.

I remember when I cut my hair off

You were quite put out.

I remember when I questioned beauty

You were confused.

I remember when I got too angry

You were annoyed.

I remember when I didn’t listen

You were horrified.

I remember when I spoke instead

You thought me undignified.

I remember when I put my head down

You were satisfied.

Sarah Sanders '11

You asked me what I might desire from you...

You asked me what I might desire from you;

A couplet, nay, a song or a refrain.

You asked me, “Pray, my dear, what should I do—”

“T’wat coffer should my friendship be contained?”

You found me very silent, very still.

Complaints I held before, my speech now chaste.

I gave no indication of my will,

No counter to my previous distaste.

I sat in searching thought for my distress,

My mind unearthing matter, like a sieve.

And finally found the cause of my unrest:

A yearning whose reply you could not give...

No friendship I desire improved in shine,

But ever to be yours and call you mine.

Sarah Sanders '11

How Are You Okay?

“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.” -Mother Theresa

Several weeks ago I was sharing my experiences abroad and on LA Term with a friend of mine after Church. I told her about Raul, my homeless friend that sat on our route to catch the train, and how incredibly selfless he was. I told her about my experience at an expensive-looking Western Church smack dab in the middle of the most extreme poverty I had ever seen, in Kolkata. I shared with her how difficult and overwhelming, but extremely rewarding, LA Term was for me and my roommate. And all of the sudden she asked me a question that has had me reeling every since.

“How are you okay?” she said.

I was dumbstruck. I had no idea what to say, so I started rambling. I said something about the Lord’s provision and still processing things, but in all honesty I made something up. Reflecting later on the question, I realized why it was so hard for me to answer. “How are you okay?” was a surprising question, because I am not. Still I am learning about pain and oppression, and it is touching me more intimately all the time. And the truth is, I’m not okay about any of it.

I have not had the luxury of going abroad and witnessing poverty only to come home to comfort and prosperity and forget what I witnessed. No, I have gone abroad and seen poverty, and I have come back to the U.S. and seen it again, in my city. I have gone abroad and seen heartache, and I have come back home and encountered broken hearts more desperate than I could have imagined.  I have been forced to reckon with this painful truth: evil has gone everywhere, has touched everyone, and it has put on quite a convincing show of having won.

I have not been successful in compartmentalizing my pain; there are times when it has overtaken me. Still sometimes it is too much, and everything I see looks tainted. I hear many stories about rich white people who go abroad and see poverty for the first time, and they come home changed: ready to give their money and possessions to the poor in other countries, infinitely more grateful for what they have. I certainly saw poverty in my travels last summer, but instead of becoming polarized opposite of America in my mind, the two places became very similar to me. The poverty that I only glimpsed in Kolkata is not so different from the poverty I have had intimate contact with at home. 

Mother Theresa said that “Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody… is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.” And there are forgotten people on every corner of every city, trapped in oppressive systems that take away their personhood. Poverty does not exist only in third world countries. Poverty, both in its physical and spiritual forms, is lurking everywhere, and those who have not seen it in their homes have lived their lives with the blinders society has so mercifully given them. It is infinitely more painful to see evil in your backyard than it is in a third world country.

Miga is the girl standing in front of me. :)

When I feel overwhelmed with questions, I always think back to India. It was a time in which the Lord showed up so much, but not in ways that I often demand. He was truly embodied in not an earthquake, or a strong wind or fire, but in a still small voice-- in utter silence. He redefined what a miracle is, drawing my heart not to large problems and ambitious solutions, but to brief individual moments in which His love altered the cosmos in order to change a single soul. After studying the noise of marginalization and the messiness of oppressive systems, I am reminded that I must withdraw into the silence to hear God’s voice. In those times, God makes me remember a thirteen year old girl named Miga, whom I met in an orphanage in Darjeeling. She was working in the kitchen when God told me to barge in and see if anyone was back there. It was a little inappropriate, but I just had to go into that kitchen. And there she was. I introduced myself to her, breaking the ice that kept her from coming out and interacting with some of the team and the other girls. I’ll never forget her face when I told her she was beautiful: as if no one had ever said that to her in her life. That moment was a miracle. The condition of orphanhood was not eliminated in that moment. Poverty was not stamped out. A school was not built that allowed her to become successful. But God really wanted Miga to know how beautiful she was. And that was a miracle.

The college men we met in a village near Darjeeling, whom the Lord had healed of greed and apathy were living miracles. The freedom that gave an old woman permission to finally cry was a miracle. The hope I saw in Rozin’s eyes when Jesse held his hand and spoke life to him, who, after being prayed with for over an hour had not been healed of paralysis, was a miracle.

God is the one who breaks the heart of stone and replaces it with a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26). This is the greatest miracle there is! The human heart, the most formidable fortress in the universe, is not beyond true and lasting change: but the Lord is the one who does it. While in the Himalayas, God showed me the way His spirit was moving among His people. It was not like a great fire or a strong wind, but more like the mist that floated in through the windows during breakfast each morning in Darjeeling. God’s spirit is surely moving there, but it is not knocking people over with its force. It is gently unraveling the cords around people’s hearts, slowly opening their eyes, reviving the land one single person at a time. God works like this because He is merciful. For if the full force of His love was unleashed upon the world in a great fury, we would all perish. If the great and powerful systems suddenly collapsed under the Lord’s great power, we would all lose our minds. God is loving and merciful, and therefore His miracles occur in the darkest place of all: within our hearts. It is the most beautiful thing in the world, but also the most frustrating for many who want change. But no matter how frustrating it gets, I cannot deny the most basic and inspiring Truth there is: God is here. He has not left us.

This reminds me of a poem by Emily Dickenson:

Tell all the truth but tell it slant,

Success in circuit lies,

Too bright for our infirm delight

The truth’s superb surprise;

As lightning to the children eased

With explanation kind,

The truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind

I am still struggling to embrace the paradox Mother Teresa talked about. But it is my ultimate hope that I someday understand the simple and profound nature of love that she so intimately knew. Right now, I am only hurting. I am frustrated and angry about the way that the world is, and I believe it is ok for me to feel that. I continue to despair and cry out for change, and I believe that someday all of the little miracles might align in such a way that the Big Miracle, Christ’s return, will finally come and bring true and lasting justice and mercy. Until then, here we are, stuck in this place. May we learn to love until it happens.

Amen.