Justice

We Need To Open Eyes To The Terrors Foreigners Are Exposed To For One Powerful Reason

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment
close-up photo of persons eye

So I seized the homeless kid by the neck and violently shook him because he tried to grab my dime when I wasn’t looking at it for a moment.

Well, not exactly.

As proven HERE, you can’t trust EVERYTHING you read online!

The true story is HERE.

The summary of this event is:

  • We were on the other side of having relational connections that could help us (we were travelling)
  • We didn’t have a place to stay or some food either (we were robbed)
  • We were in a hostile situation (teen females travelling in a country that believed women brought trouble on ourselves for having the nerve to travel alone)
  • We were below being helped (the police wouldn’t let us use their phone to call our embassy!)
  • We were up the creek without a paddle (as the saying goes).

After the local police pushed us out of their office and told us to solve our problems ourselves, we looked around, stunned.

What do we do next?

“I know!” I announced energetically, my Ned Flanders optimism in high gear, even back then, more than twenty-five years ago. “Let’s return to our lodge and read what to do in our “Let’s Go, Europe!” guide!

“This is the worst thing that could have happened to us!” my friend yelled. “Nothing in that book tells us what to do next!” The truth of our situation was dawning on me, like a light bulb on a dimmer, slowly illuminating.

We sat on the curb, watching the street kids, whose faces had more grime than ours, though all our faces were marked with tear stains. They had bare feet, but otherwise, our hearts entwined as one as we experienced the beginnings of the emotions any other human would have felt in a similar situation – despair, alienation from “the rest” of culture, and fear. A few short hours had erased much of the divide between “us” and “them”.

“What now?” my friend and I asked each other silently. We were sitting curbside outside our motel. Despite our protests, the motel owner told us to get our stuff and ourselves out onto the streets where we belonged.

And then she came.

A local woman arrived bringing a tray of fruit and local bread to share.

She had heard about our “misfortune” from her daughter.

The one hiccup in this story of rescue is that her daughter was the one who immediately told us NOT to chase after the guy who robbed us. Was she an accomplice? Was her mother? Were they all working together as one terrifying mob? We didn’t have many choices, and so after inhaling the food, our eyes still wide with fear, we begged this stranger to let us stay at her home that night.

And she opened her home to us.

And she shared the Gospel with us.

In the years that followed, I had often wondered, did Jesus prompt her compassion so she would want to show up and check on us?

Maybe.

But opening her home to two teenage strangers until the embassy representative could arrive after Spain’s long weekend holiday altered the trajectory of my life.

What would my life have been like had I been tossed out onto the violent streets of the city for a week instead, I have often wondered.

This woman, obeying the inner voice of God, or perhaps the outer voice of a Pastor, or the words of a Sacred Text, saved my life from physical, emotional and/or spiritual trauma.

Oh, and so, why do we choose to open our eyes to dangers foreigners are susceptible to being exposed to?

But for the grace of God, that foreigner could be you or one of YOUR loved ones.

When he saw the man’s condition, his heart went out to him. . . Then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn, and made him comfortable. . . . Jesus said, “Go and do the same.”

The Message

And so now I can put myself in more dangerous and stupid situations because I KNOW that you will help me!

Thank you!

And you’re welcome for the advice!

Good luck!

Seriously though – Who is God asking you to remember in prayer, or what is He asking you to do this morning as you open your eyes to another? Who can you share your measly lunch with? Who could use a heart of compassion and an “I see you” smile?

And I wonder at the joy unveiled, like the opening of a present, when we meet the people in Heaven who credit us as those who were the hands and feet of Jesus through listening and obeying and changing the trajectory of their lives for the better.

How much future joy are you stockpiling? Got your heart open to the promptings of Holy Spirit? Oh, and thanks from those of us who appreciate your open eyes.

a row of gold bars sitting on top of a shelf

Photo Credits: Eyes Open by Amanda Dalbjörn on Unsplash, Gold Stockpiled by Yana Hurska on Unsplash

Thank you for liking me! I like you too! Let’s journey together!

The Truth About Your What Happens To Your Heart In This Situation – You’d Never Believe It

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment
white arrow through red heart road signage

I realized with terror when I stepped back and surveyed my heart weeks after the event that I would have strangled that kid if he stole my quarter.

He was a homeless kid trying to survive.

So was I.

In one moment, I dropped precipitously off the other side of the cliff of privilege.

low-angle photography of rock formation under cloudy sky

The day before, I was swinging my handbag, contemplating digging out a quarter to give to the poor homeless child with his hand out toward me.

The next day, I was on the same side of the divide of privilege as him.

This is what happened.

And more importantly, this is what I learned.

I was a teenager, traveling in Spain with a friend the same age. This was the 1990s, when our “Let’s Go!” travelers information book read that “Women travelling alone in Spain are assumed to be seeking sexual adventure.”

We weren’t.

We were high school students on a Rotary exchange, testing our wings a bit by stepping out on a one-week travelling adventure without the Rotary families responsible for keeping us alive as the fledgling birds that we were.

After the guy slowly extracted our backpack from within my astonished arms and strolled away, I yelled, “There he is! I’m going after him!”

A nearby stranger put her arm on my shoulder and quickly consoled me, “Don’t chase after him. He has a knife.” Was she an accomplice? Was she right? My brain raced, and my body tensed in a flight, fight, or freeze stance. What should I do? I searched my friend’s eyes, wondering her thoughts, and her eyes were already downcast.

And in that millisecond, the decision of what we should do was made for us because he had already disappeared into the crowd, enclosing around him.

That bag contained all of our “Traveler’s cheques” (which is how we did money back then before those nice little ATMs spit out bills in the local currency), our passports and everything else we needed to survive and travel in a foreign country. We had to wait until after the long weekend and “Spain’s national boat day” holiday before we could expect help from our local embassy representatives.

We were up the creek without a paddle, as the saying goes.

Where would the river take us?

The rest of this story is for next time, but fast forward to a few days later when I shakily put the remaining quarters into the “Take your photo!” machine to make emergency passports. I was shaking so much that I dropped the quarter. Thoughts like, “Where would we sleep tonight?” were churning like waves of a violent sea inside my mind. We hadn’t eaten anything except wormy cabbage in three days.

“What are you DOING!?” my friend angrily admonished at my failed attempt to put a coin into the little slot. “That’s all the money we have!” she yelled angrily.

Grabbing the remaining coin from my hands, she glared at me before attempting to deposit it.

Drop, roll . . .

She was also shaking so severely that her fingers wouldn’t cooperate with her brain. Another coin rolled down the street as we both frantically lunged for it. At the same time, the homeless child ran with outstretched, desperate fingers towards the money.

“My kind, gentle demeanor is only a façade,” I realized with horror as I sipped an ice tea poolside months later and contemplated this event from the comfortable distance opulence and security affords.

I seriously thought I might strangle that street kid if he stole my quarter, an amount of money I would have gladly given a dozen times over the day before, as I looked down my nose at this “other” and prided myself arrogantly for this generous act of “Goodwill.”

“I am an animal with bared fangs, drooling and ready to rip another to shreds from one breath and the next,” I realized with terror in the weeks, months and years following this event.

And your civility may be a façade too, covered with a freezer full of excess food, keys to a warm house to sleep in tonight, and relationships in your town that will open the doors for you when you need help.

But what if you look into your bag one day and find it empty of these advantages?

Welcome to who you really are.

Stay tuned next time to discover why this truth, though terrifying, has the power to set us free.

Photo Credits – Heart Arrow by Nick Fewings on Unsplash, The Other Side Of The Cliff by Daniel Lincoln on Unsplash

Thank you for liking me! I like you too! Let’s journey together!

How To Be Mature Even When You Don’t Want To Be! 3 Helpful Tips (To Change The World)

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment
selective focus photography of man using tobacco

I’ve already explained HERE how to be mature.

You’re welcome!

And since that covers everything I know about the topic, I don’t have much more to say, except that I found myself in a (very rare!) instance where I was tempted (but didn’t succumb!) to acting with less than total maturity – The usual way that I conduct myself.

As I travelled recently, I sauntered across the line into injustice, which roused my dormant immaturity. I don’t usually cross over to the side where injustice lives. I like to stand firmly planted where the power is. (For example, read my marriage advice here!)

This is what happened.

“Welcome to the USA!” the signs read, cheerful people reaching through the posters to greet us.

Then the signs directed “Foreigners”, like us Canadians, to a long line of about 500 people waiting to enter US Customs, but our line-up only had 1 (that’s “ONE”) Customs Agent.

And when we finally arrived at Customs, my teen daughter ADMITTED (“WHY OH WHY did I teach her to tell the TRUTH?” I lamented with agony!) to forgetting to throw away her banana peel. She ignored or was too intimidated by the guys with guns at the customs depot to obey me when my eyes tried every manner of saying, “DROP the banana peel confession!”

So this little truthful confession cast into a deeper level of airport hell with the other Felons.

And there were no bathrooms during that long line up OR in the extra hell section of the airport we were in waiting for the Banana Felony to be absolved. And there was no water fountain. The lady before us was faint and had to sit on the floor just before her turn at Customs.

I felt like an animal waiting in a cage, the justice for basic human needs rising within me.

Not long after this, 3 hours later, when my sing songs, manic video watching and dancing about could no longer contain the fact that “I would like to use the bathroom please”, I was finally, reluctantly, given a pass out of the “Banana Felony” section of the airport.

Then the toilet wouldn’t flush. (It wasn’t just a number one but something more significant).

“Take that LAX airport!” I thought with great satisfaction!

There is justice in the world, after all!

After washing my hands, I suddenly realized it would be the hardest working person in the airport, the immigrant without much English, the one who is a post-doc in Moldova and whose 8-year-old child will one day end the Ebola epidemic. It would be that person who would encounter my indignant attempt at injustice.

I found a way to flush the toilet. (As I reflect, it was surprising how EASY it was to flush the toilet when one REALLY wanted to do it!)

“Did I find myself rejoicing in what I think I was rejoicing in?” my more mature self asked my recently victorious self several minutes later.

Yes, BUT I rose to the occasion and ACTED MATURELY!

Here’s how!

You’re welcome!

Good luck!

Three Tips to acting maturely EVEN WHEN YOU DON’T FEEL LIKE IT:

1) Try to remember that there are other people in the world besides you.

2) It’s okay that you aren’t friends with Trump, or someone in high places who has “connections,” and can bail you out of deep water when you are in trouble. (In fact, this may be a very good thing!) Something good happens to our soul when we suffer a little and brush up against a tiny measure of the injustice that most people around the world experience daily. This small measure of injustice can build compassion for the less fortunate if we let it (See Point #1).

An estimated 5 billion people have unmet justice needs globally, including people who cannot obtain justice for everyday problems, people who are excluded from the opportunity the law provides, and people who live in extreme conditions of injustice.

Source: World Justice Project

3) Let’s let the small injustices we experience be fuel to help another who has no power and regularly experiences this.

As the song below plays, consider asking God, “Is there someone I know experiencing injustice I can help support?” Who comes to mind? How can you reach out to them this week?

Will you rise?

Photo credit: Wise looking man by Parker Johnson on Unsplash

Thank you for liking me! I like you too! (Proven HERE, HERE and HERE!) Let’s journey together!