Thanks for the worth of souls.

Maya Angelou once wrote, "I am capable of what every other human is capable of. This is one of the great lessons of war and life."

I have been thinking about this as I've tried to wrap my mind around the Syrian refugee crisis. What....? How....? I think because I'm so snug over here in my safe little corner of the planet, wedged deeply in my own privilege, it just really makes zero sense to me. But add circumstances (corrupt government, various super-powers getting involved, etc.) and high stakes to tradition, anger, greed, deeply held beliefs. Suddenly it's a familiar story. I remember a scene from the book Suite Francaise, where a working-class man observes an exodus from Paris in 1940, not long before German occupation.

He had a unique way of thinking: he didn't consider himself that important; in his own eyes, he was not that rare and irreplaceable creature most people imagine when they think about themselves. He felt pity towards his fellow sufferers, but his pity was lucid and detached. After all, he thought, these great human migrations seemed to follow natural laws. Surely such occasional mass displacements were necessary to humans, just as the migration of livestock was to animals. He found this idea oddly comforting. The people around him believed that fate was tracking them down, them and their pitiable generation; but not Maurice: he knew there had been exoduses throughout history. How many people had died on this land (on land everywhere in the world), dripping with blood, fleeing the enemy, leaving cities in flames, clutching their children to their hearts: no one gave a thought to these countless dead, or pitied them. . . . As he walked along, he imagined their plaintive ghosts rising up, leaning towards him, whispering in his ear, "We've been through all this already, before you. Why should you be more fortunate than us?" "There's never been anything as horrible as this!" a big woman next to him groaned. "On the contrary, Madame, on the contrary," he replied quietly (pp. 54-55).

Mass displacement has never stopped happening and it won't stop happening. Bad things happen every second of the day. The world keeps turning without regard to sorrow. But each suffering person matters infinitely, and that's where I disagree with Maurice. Yes, there are a bazillion of us and our sorrows aren't new, even the worst ones. But our lives aren't cheap. Helping one person is not "a drop in the bucket"; it is everything.

I love this advice from Melinda Gates: "The world is full of what seem like intractable problems. Often we let that paralyze us. Instead, let it spur you to action. There are some people in the world that we can’t help, but there are so many more that we can. So when you see a mother and her children suffering in another part of the world, don’t look away. Look right at them. Let them break your heart, then let your empathy and your talents help you make a difference in the lives of others. Whether you volunteer every week or just a few times a year, your time and unique skills are invaluable."

I am thankful for the nudges to help in whatever small way, whatever the situation, because it's not as small as it seems; "the worth of souls is great in the sight of God." We are all capable of anything, good or bad, and we all matter.