Welcome Anger

Being reunited with the children and staff at Peace Village was wonderful, but being reintroduced to the reality of how war continues to inflict suffering on children 30 - 40 years later is painful. I appreciate that this blog helps to deepen my experience and keeps me connected, but truthfully, there hasn't been much energy at the end of each day for writing, so it's  a slower process than I'd imagined. Thank you for bearing with me.

Anger has become my almost constant companion and she shows up frequently. Her hands weigh a ton as she places them on my shoulders when I stand beside the bed of a child who's head is swollen to more than 10 times the normal size. And she deposits a lump squarely in the middle of  my throat, making it difficult for me to swallow, as I spoon gruel into the mouth of a child who has no eyes.  She stings my eyes as I fight to hold back tears when the boy whose skin resembles the bark of a tree scoots his chair beside me and engages in piercing eye contact. And she lights a fire in my chest when I notice the adolescent girl whose body is beginning to grow breasts, but is incapable of ever growing arms.

So I've decided to befriend my Anger, knowing that she's real and was conceived and born out of truth. My truth.

And my truth tells me that it is wrong that the leadership of my country used it's most brilliant and talented minds to concoct the deadliest combinations of chemicals known to man. And then proceeded to spray more than 20,000,000 gallons of the substance mixed with jet fuel over the homeland of these children's ancestors. My truth tells me that a huge injustice will remain until the day the United States government and the chemical companies who manufactured  this deadly toxin step up to the plate, claim their own truth, and provide restitution. And my truth tells me that the responsibility has been misplaced onto the souls of American veterans who were forced to carry out these atrocities and have suffered years of torment, guilt and shame for simply doing what they were ordered to do.

To deny or engage Anger would only create more turmoil and conflict.... Allowing her to perpetuate war within myself. But by making her my ally she works with me. Instead of zapping my energy, she fuels my fire of inner knowing. She makes me even more certain that we are one human family capable of working together for peace - the best and the brilliant, hand in hand with the last and the least.

The first step for me is inner peace.

So.....Welcome my friend Anger. We're in this together!

Half A World Away

Here I am half way around the world with half a day difference in clock time between VN and my home in NY.  I always manage to forget just how long the trip takes. And I can never quite wrap my head around the fact that the US government sent more than 2 million men and women, plus all the helicopters, tanks, weaponry and supplies this distance to sustain 10 years of what is known here as the American War.

So I've settled into my little $10 a day room, with a view of the rooftops of Saigon, rested and ready to see my friends at Peace Village tomorrow. I find myself wondering if some of the children who were there last year might be gone now. The severity of their medical conditions precludes the option of adoption for most. So I realize that those who are missing will have most likely passed from this physical realm at some point in time during the 330 days while I was...half a world away.

Ironing

Two days until I leave home for a month. Waves of uneasiness come and go, making their way throughout my body. But in my heart I know I'm ready.

Yesterday I bought some very cute little clothes for the children in Peace Village. It was fun picking them out, imagining who might wear what. I brought them home and washed them, laughing to myself as I tried to remember how many years have passed since the inside of my washing machine had seen clothes that size.

And then I ironed them, knowing full well that taking the time to iron wasn't practical. There were so many other things I needed to be doing to prepare, and the wrinkles would surely return and multiply during the 9,000 mile journey. But I ironed them anyway, with as much care as I would when ironing for my own children. That's when my innermost knowing showed up reminding me that we are one human family, and that these are my children.

As the iron glided, and the wrinkles vanished, I fantasized about being able to remove the children's disfigurements and deformities with the same ease. And I found myself wondering about the little arms and legs that would soon be filling the fabric.

Thread crossing thread. Interwoven to create one piece. One peace.