Of Justice and Shalom

Haiti's National Cathedral in foreground,
the Presidential Palace in the distance, both in ruins.

Three years ago I stood on the roof one of the few remaining upright buildings in downtown Port-au-Prince, doing a 360, trying to take it in, if that were even possible. In all directions and as far as I could see, crumbled buildings. I could see almost too much from this vantage point, my brain unable to process all that lay in front of me. My heart wept along with my eyes as I processed before me the broken icons of a broken land.  The Presidential Palace, crumbled in place. The National Cathedral, in ruins. Schools, churches, supermarkets, all reduced to piles of cinder-made-tomb.

Three years later, I find my self not crying so much and I have to admit that bothers me a little. I don’t want to not be able to cry. Does that make sense? 

I stand by my double negative.  For aren’t tears a measure of  impact? And might not a dry face betray at least a slight measure of callous disregard?

I still cry, just not as much. My tear glands are tired, I guess. Upsetting things that used to make my eyes well up now provoke other responses in me. (Rationalizing? Perhaps. But this is how I let myself off the hook).

These days, my reactions to pain and injustice are subtler, though no less real. Wet eyes have given way to clenched-jawed determination and grit... to right the wrongs that caused the anguish in the first place.  Planting trees and gardens. Helping families start businesses. Teaching sick villages how they can not get sick. Equipping peasant families to catch and to clean rainwater and use it to irrigate their gardens.  Assuring them that there is a God Who knows and loves them and desires more than anything that they know Him. Are not these the things of justice, of shalom? Of mending the broken and making wrong things right?

"My righteousness draws near speedily, my salvation is on the way, and my arm will bring justice to the nations. The islands will look to me and wait in hope for my arm."  Isaiah 51:5

Heavenmarks

Early in the morning last Monday, up in the mountains of an island off mainland Haiti, a couple of dentists and their staff journeyed along the remote and dangerous roads to get to a village hidden from the world. A village that has never ever had a doctor or dentist to come and show any interest in them.  They were waiting for us, these precious people of Makochon, bringing with them the awful caries and abscesses they had been living with for so long.

Last Monday, before even the first patient was invited into that little church-turned-dental clinic, we gathered in a circle. With our nervous and sweating hands clasped, we dedicated this day, this week to the Lord, for had it not been God Who had called us here in the first place?

Why else would one leave the comforts and familiarities of home: running and hot water, spiderless bedrooms, and Applebees?  Why risk bumpy-road-back-spasms? Why put up with daily PB&J sandwiches when back home we could run down the road for a five..... five dollar..... five dollar foot long? Why put up with rats and roaches and ankle sprains (we experienced them all) if it weren't that something much bigger were at stake?

Is pulling a few hundred teeth really worth all the time and expense and inconvenience?

I suppose the answer depends on whom you ask. Some might argue that traveling a couple thousand miles to pull teeth isn't that wise a use of resources, that other investments would yield higher return. But if you asked the 50-some year old man who, in howling pain, walked nine miles to get to us, the answer would be probably be yes, it's worth it.

I'm not a dentist, so I could not be much help chair-side. This allowed me the perspective of standing back and taking things in. What a view! Standing back, I was able to witness a miracle: modern dentistry being delivered high in the mountains to a village that has experienced neither electricity nor running water. A remarkable sight.  You ask me if a mountain really can be moved and I would have to tell you yes. Yes! And I saw it with my own eyes last week.

I suppose being on the receiving end of a miracle carries its own bit of risk, too, and might not exactly be for the faint-of-heart. You could see it in those wide-eyed, next-in-line kids watching the dentists dive in after putrid molars like pelicans diving for sea bass. Plenty frightened over their upcoming miracle, many of them needed a healthy dose of comforting to go along with their Novacaine.

Starfysh's new remote mobile dental unit was inaugurated with little fanfare, uncaptured by Google Earth satellites searching for landmarks, not heavenmarks. But I saw it, and a few others. And I'm sure that God, from His much grander vantage point, saw it too.

"Heavenmarks." Not GPS so much as HPS. Coordinates where God comes down and does His thing.

On These Things

“There’s a small hemorrhage in your left eye,” she said. “We need you to come back.” Wait, huh? Really? I was just there for a routine exam, to get some new glasses. I didn’t expect to be told something was wrong. But there I was, shoe squarely on the other foot. After all, am I not the one who should be making these kinds of calls? Nonsense. Am I not both doctor and patient? And could not bad things happen to any of us?

(My recheck eye appointment revealed a normal eye... no hemorrage. For this I am so thankful!)

Such tiny, exquisite organs, these retinas of ours. Just several cells in thickness, they are elaborately configured for providing crisp resolution in the center of our vision as well as the detection of minor movements in the peripheral parts. So critical to our lives, yet we pay them such little regard.

Meet my left retina. The darker spot on the right is
the macula, where millions of cones gather light and
color to provide the center of my eyesight with
crispness and clarity. The vast majority of the
retina provides for our peripheral vision.

God has seen fit to give me good eyesight and, the way I see it, I need to repay this kindness by using my eyesight for things that please Him. Like seeing and serving the poor and seeing and battling injustice. Like seeing deep human need so I might do something about it.

On these things I have set my sight. On these things I have chosen to focus.

"Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you."  Proverbs 4:25