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.