Mike told me, you should publish this photo on your blog

rowing

One of the most vivid clips I've ever seen on television was during an old episode of M*A*S*H. (It was an old rerun when I watched it, and that has to have been at least 10 or 11 years ago.)
Anyway, Hawkeye has been hammered with surgery after surgery, losing a lot of young men, and has gone days without sleep.
He finally succumbs to slumber, but has this terrible nightmare. He is rowing a canoe with his nurse, but instead of rowing through water, the river (inside a cave) is instead filled with body parts. Legs and arms and torsoes, on and on he rows, trying to find his way out of that damned (literally!) cave.

My head kind of feels like this lately, that I'm rowing in a river of victims and facts and images. Not that I've physically gone through anything as awful as Alan Alda's character, but in the past few weeks I've learned more about human trafficking than I ever wanted to know. Not that I don't want to know the truth. But the fact is that in addition to the truth 'setting you free' it also can set you on fire.

Tonight, I attended a meeting that discussed human trafficking both nationally and worldwide at St. Michael's (their peace & justice society...) with some friends & students from Malone . The presenters were phenomenal. Because of the writing & research I've done for another friend & his ministry, I was somewhat aware of the sex slave trade in Cambodia... but I guess tonight really woke me up to what is going on in the U.S. as well.

Ugh.

I want to do something real to help stop this problem. I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet, but I know that I have to do something. Soooo... there are trainings in March and April, in Toledo and Youngstown respectively. I'm not sure what they'll lead to, but I've gotta do something.

Romans 9:15 & 16
God told Moses, "I'm in charge of mercy. I'm in charge of compassion." Compassion doesn't originate in our bleeding hearts or moral sweat, but in God's mercy.

funny old finds

Unlike Megs, Matt & Andrew, I'm not getting a new home.
But in the past few weeks, I've gotten two new offices.
I created an office for myself at home from my old throw-everything-in-there-room that now, as Carrie says, is sooooo New York :) And yes, Mom, I promise, photos to come. It's really inviting... and inspiring.

I also, this week, on Tuesday in fact, moved from one building to another at work. It's only 2 x 5 inches bigger than my old office, but it's so much nicer, and things are working out, to be frank, so much better than I think everyone expected them too. And now that my creative juices are flowing from creating my home office, my new work office is looking pretty good, too, despite the fact that I'm 'not allowed' to choose the paint color (at least yet!) . But I definitely can't complain - I have my own office.

And the other day, as my boss was purging her office, she came across a funny old card, thanking her for sending me to The Rep to interview for an internship. It's so funny to think of what might have happened if I wouldn't have gotten that gig...

Though we've been purging tons of stuff lately, we're definitely not getting rid of that note!