Muddy Toes

Joy rises up in me. It is simple. It is incomprehensible. Yet, I feel joy. I just went to a funeral… I don’t quite understand myself right now.

It was a somber experience. The room was full of people. The family that was left behind stood as a tight cluster of well dressed people. They hugged each other protectively while they shared one at a time, “He was such a wonderful man.” “I always felt special when he danced with me.” “He and I caught a fish, named him William, and then threw him back.” Their stories were simple, real and heartfelt. He will be missed. The lack of his presence will be noted. Being in that room reminded me of other times I have grieved. It reminded me that when we love we have so much to lose.

I left that place and came here. Driving through the early afternoon sunlight, I felt my heart pull me towards this place. I took off my shoes, my socks and left my car parked on the incline. I could feel the thick mud sticking to my feet. I got a few strange looks from the locals. One woman said, “Careful of your clothes honey, you are going to get muddy.” I just smiled.

I am sitting on a rock in the full sun. Sometimes a cloud floats by and I am temporarily touched by the chill of winter shade. Birds fly overhead, occasionally planes drone across the sky. My feet are muddy. I flip up into a handstand to dry them. Yes, this is real joy. And I can see across the ocean to Catalina. It is beautiful.

You know those moments when life is just so full that your body cannot take it in? This is one of those moments. I look at the world, and even though I know that so much evil and suffering exists in it, I don’t quite believe it. There is something both inside of me and outside of me, pressing down on every pore of my skin. Breathe in and out. Breathe in and out. Wiggle those muddy toes. Yup, that is joy. I’m glad I know what this feels like.

Shake your houses. Rock your lives. Find it in you to Love a little deeper.

Where I come from an earthquake does not mean an entire nation plunged into darkness. It means that the buildings rock and roll on their government approved foundations and remain. There may be a crack or two in the sidewalk, the dogs might bark a little louder, children may be evacuated from their schools and the cell phone service might be disrupted, but the majority of the population is only disturbed from their lives for a few hours.

But the rest of the world does not live the way that I live;
I have been to places where raw sewage runs openly next to cooking food, where people live next to graves so that they don’t have to pay property tax, where houses are made of paper, where tidal waves have wiped hundreds off the face of the earth, and today added another place to that list. I have been to Haiti, where today 9 million people were plunged into darkness and surrounded by death.

I know that sounds a bit melodramatic. But, let me tell you a few of the unknowns that I am processing right now, and then maybe you will understand.

One year ago exactly I was in Port Au Prince, Haiti. Today, that same city was rocked by a 7.0 earthquake at 4:53 pm. The city was flattened. The guest house that I stayed in last year is rubble. Many of the people that I know and love are unaccounted for. They could be among the wounded or the dead.

My western mind has a lot of difficulty understanding this. How could so many people live and die in such a violent way? My mother’s heart has a hard time knowing that the babies I held last year could be out there abandoned, wounded, or just gone. I want to run through the streets and pull the little ones out of the destruction, and take them away to somewhere safe. They are there now, or if they are not, then there are others. Countless innocents are surrounded by the chaos and the screams, the bleeding and the dying. The lines of the wounded that we treated at the wound clinic have been multiplied exponentially. These people’s lives have been shattered. It is a place where so much suffering has already occurred, and now. More.

A few simple things comfort me now. First, I know that God is there. He is there. He walks among the wounded and the weary. He holds the inconsolable. He touches their foreheads with his lips and closes the eyes of the dead. He is embodied in people, those nuns in their blue and white habits tending the wounded, the mothers and fathers with their children, the relief workers. And He is simply there in spirit for all who seek His presence. Secondly, there is a reason that I am not there now. I do not know what it is, but there is a reason. Maybe, it is because my arms are already full of children here. Maybe, it is because there is a better time for me to return to Haiti.

I remember that prayer that the sisters prayed, “Jesus, have mercy on us and on the whole world.” And I remember what the Lord said to me this evening, “Amanda, I have only called you to suffering because yours is the greater Joy,” which makes no sense when you first think about it. But, then when you think again… The only reason I am in pain right now is because I have loved deeply. Those moments with the children and the nuns brought some of the greatest Love, Hope and Joy of my whole life. And now, every day is precious and meaningful because it is a chance to share that with another human being. Life is precious. People are the only thing that is real and lasting. When all of this is over, people endure. When the cries of men cease, the sound of heaven is heard. The beauty of His presence ignites and changes us into what we were meant to be.

Hope endures.