you will find war,

the ground s p l i t s
beneath our feet, jaws open
wide to swallow us
w h o l e

buildings quiver and collapse
what once stood tall —
plates s h i f t i n g in the rubble,

its all you can do to curl up
under a table and hold a pillow
over your head and wait for the
after s H o C k s –

the distance between you + i
seems greater than the love in-between

in the aftermath, you i close the blinds.

that’s how it feels, watching the news
reading the articles, listening to the stories –
that’s how it feels to open the blinds

i sit in class and listen to presentations
on systematic rape in the DRC,
discussing the the [un]sustainability
&[un]humanity of development,
reading about kurdish children with chemical
burns, and the kittens, don’t you know
how many unadopted kittens there are?

(&what does it matter anyway? climate
change will kill us all soon enough) —

and its a battlefield o u t s i d e ,
a raging storm within, the howls
of anxiety and the weight of depression
i can’t breathe from down here, i can’t

but somehow, i’m sitting here, in japan
living a dream come t r u e
(its a wish your heart makes)

and most days, i don’t know how
to reconcile that with everything else —

the thing is, i can’t.
i can’t make sense of it
because it doesn’t make sense.

there are things beyond
our comprehension

things i can’t fix
(the magnitude, its too B I G
and i’m too s m a l l )

i used to force myself to read every
bad thing happening in the news,
look at every gut wrenching picture
and ask force others to do the same

(—before i left for the world race,
my sister told me

please don’t come back and every time
we don’t finish something on our plate
remind us how people in africa are starving— )

the world always weighing heavy
and i wonder if it wasn’t a mix between
punishment for the guilt i felt for my blessings
and the desperate desire to do something
but too frozen by the magnitude of it all

so i decided a long time ago
i could either feel
E V E R Y T H I N G
and be crushed under
the weight of it all

or

i could feel
N O T H I N G
and at least somehow
get out of bed in the morning
for a long time, i chose nothing.
(its a hard road to come back from – )

the thing is, it isn’t so much a choice between
as finding the in-between.

but since being here as a rotary peace fellow
i feel that weight returning

against all odds God brought me here
i’ve been given this opportunity
for a reason

we expect big things from you –
from me?

lately, i’ve been asking myself,
what can i do? what will i do?
i will have to do something

the earth s H a K e S
and i don’t want to get out of bed

i’m just one person
the world is too broken
and i don’t want this.

…
wait a minute.
who do i think i am?

so stuck on me, me, me,
i must do something
i must solve this
i must feel this

somehow in all of this
i’ve forgotten
i’m no one’s savior.
that’s Jesus.

the thing is, i’ve been asking
the wrong question
and i’ve been looking
at the wrong person.

i can’t do everything
and there’s a certain amount
of narcissism in taking the world
upon my own shoulders

(oh a t l a s , )

i can’t do everything,
i can only be grateful for my blessings
and do the best i can where i am,
and hope that somehow God will use
what He’s given me, that He will use me

because i can’t do everything
but i can do something

yet, not what can i do? but rather,
what can God do? what is He doing?
and how can i be apart of it?

yesterday, the pastor of my Bible
study here gave me a verse:

for although they knew God, they
neither glorified Him as God nor
gave thanks to Him, but their
thinking became futile and their
foolish hearts were darkened.
— romans 1:21

my first thought was:
bite me.

that’s not my problem.
i thank God. i glorify God.

but okay…
yeah, lately, my thoughts are
futile and hopeless, and i feel
the darkness closing in and —

i’ve been struggling, agonizing
over what to do in this program
after this program, for a thesis, for
an internship, it had to be big, it had to
be right, it had to make a difference

[substitute it for i and – ]

the only person i’ve been
thinking about, is myself.
i put myself up on some pedestal

and the weight of the responsibility
threatened to crush me

pride is a funny thing,
it hides itself so well
behind good intentions.

the thing about service,
is you can’t put yourself first.

and you aren’t alone. there’s a lot of people
out there, working together to do something

first seek God and His will to serve
and then the path will become clear.

i can’t .
but God can.

be humble, learn, listen

stop thinking about what i can do
and look for what God is all ready doing

and sometimes?
sometimes we just need to

be still, and know that I am God.
—psalm 46:10