Navigating Global Inequities

Jet-black eyes invite me in evoking
curiosity, laughter and fear.
Curious to know her story, his wants, her name.

Smells of curry and exhaust mingle with sewage
to litter air and earth
pulling me in, pushing me away.
Fear of a world I don't understand,
their endless staring announcing my place:
foreigner, outsider, other.



Horns blast and rickshaws demand passage
through the Red Sea of
buses, livestock, cars, pedestrian.
Curious to know the polio beggar's earnings for the day.
Frustrated by the child beggar
forced to forfeit her earnings
to a greedy, abusive pimp.

A voice pierces the commotion,
"See what I see."
And I'm awakened to deeper things.
Fear that I will see only the obvious:
difference, poverty, injustice.



How can a place so colorful be so dark?
How can a people so spiritual justify such corruption?
How can a people with so little possess so much?
I don't understand.
Fear that I will never understand.

Sitting on the cramped, cockroach train,
ipod in tow, sights aglow
with faces I try to memorize.
Our train rumbles through the slums,
kids playing cricket,
mothers washing clothes,
a young boy dancing alone on his tin rooftop.
I hear it again,
"See what I see. See me seeing this."
I don't know what to look for.



I see these people. I see myself.
Two worlds colliding, learning, listening,
shattering my small thoughts.
God's voice invites me in, announcing my place:
servant, friend, listener, witness.



Back at home. Work. School. Routine. Blah.
I complain about God's silence.
He whispers,
"Seeing and hearing are linked.
You'll never understand what you refuse to trust."
Curious what's on the other side,
Afraid to cross the threshold.

"Come and see," God says.
"Show me, and I'll come," I reply.
Silence.

Why this method, I would like to know.
Perhaps we'll never fully see
where we refuse to walk.
Does coming precede seeing
because trust precedes illumination?
This is the most difficult
tension in my theology.

The truth is I don't trust God as I ought.
Yet I have a deep longing
for a gracious God
to transpose in me old things
into a new song in a new key.
But without the surrender of listening
there is no genuine improvisation.
That's what I see so far.

"See what I see," God whispers to me
while on a double date with a gay couple.
I feel God's compassion burning in my heart.
Two worlds colliding, learning, listening,
shattering all my small thoughts.
Back in the car alone with Bruce I say,
"God is compassionate,
and for this I adore him."

Sometimes listening is
more powerful than speaking.
Listening says that others have
much to contribute and that
I have much to learn.
Listening teaches me how to speak,
how to see,
how to play a new song.
Listening invites others to lower their guard
and reveal valuable things.

"See what I see."
I still don't know what to look for.
But I'll listen.
I'll serve.
I'll try to trust
Until I fully see what You see.