He sees it all
Yesterday I stumbled over a dead cat, and then saw a dog with a large piece missing out of the back of his neck.
Yesterday I sat and had tea at the tailors, then returned to the home of my friends and had coffee under the mango tree.
Once I chose a cycle rickshaw walla who looked old and desperate, and it took me three times the normal length of time to get where I was going, because his cycle was broken.
And another time I chose the first cycle rickshaw walla who yelled at me, and we zipped home at breakneck speed, smashing into the wheel of an oncoming cycle rickshaw when we spent too long in the oncoming lane while passing a fruit cart.
This city and the country it embodies are like this. The best and worst, all in one parcel. A beggar with missing limbs lolling on the ground like a piece of trash. That’s a person down there, but everyone is walking on by. A circle of women laughing and pinching your baby’s cheeks. Flowers garlanding the necks of loved ones, lights on the river. God is here, like He is everywhere else. He sits in the dust with the beggar, watches the light change in the daily flow of his creation, and He never doesn’t see. His heart hurts for it all, even when I am too far away to know about the boy in the tailor's shop who just got cuffed over the head.
We're getting on the train tonight after an incredibly rich time with our friends. We love our Aussie friends and their ridiculously wonderful hospitality. We will miss them.
Some photos. You can click on an image if you want to see it larger.
[gallery link="file" columns="2" orderby="rand"]
Yesterday I sat and had tea at the tailors, then returned to the home of my friends and had coffee under the mango tree.
Once I chose a cycle rickshaw walla who looked old and desperate, and it took me three times the normal length of time to get where I was going, because his cycle was broken.
And another time I chose the first cycle rickshaw walla who yelled at me, and we zipped home at breakneck speed, smashing into the wheel of an oncoming cycle rickshaw when we spent too long in the oncoming lane while passing a fruit cart.
This city and the country it embodies are like this. The best and worst, all in one parcel. A beggar with missing limbs lolling on the ground like a piece of trash. That’s a person down there, but everyone is walking on by. A circle of women laughing and pinching your baby’s cheeks. Flowers garlanding the necks of loved ones, lights on the river. God is here, like He is everywhere else. He sits in the dust with the beggar, watches the light change in the daily flow of his creation, and He never doesn’t see. His heart hurts for it all, even when I am too far away to know about the boy in the tailor's shop who just got cuffed over the head.
We're getting on the train tonight after an incredibly rich time with our friends. We love our Aussie friends and their ridiculously wonderful hospitality. We will miss them.
Some photos. You can click on an image if you want to see it larger.
[gallery link="file" columns="2" orderby="rand"]