Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Picture 1: Motherless orphans and lost children rest at the Don Bosco Ngangi center in Goma, eastern Congo on Thursday Nov 13. Fighting in Congo intensified in August and has since displaced at least 250,000 people despite the presence of the largest U.N. peacekeeping force in the world. U.N. officials say both the rebels and government troops have committed crimes against civilians. AP / Jerome Delay
Picture 2: A government soldier stands in the hospital a day after clashes in the
What do you cling to in a time of distress?
I know I opened my last email with the question, “what do you put your hope in?” and so by now my readership may be getting tired of leading questions.
But in a time of tumult, of furious anarchy, of danger, destruction and chaos: What would you cling to? When everyone around you was looting what would be found in your hands? When the day’s work is done, but you haven’t been paid for it, and chance of a salary is slim, how would you reward yourself?
I have been looking at pictures of the conflict in
In this conflict there seem to be two kinds of pictures: those of the victims, and those of the soldiers.
The victims’ pictures are heart-wrenching—a husbandless woman carrying 2 children as she flees certain violence with three more, a child being beaten at the gates of the health department for trying too hard to get to the safety offered within, a 3 year old girl with shoes tied to her feet so that she can trudge 15 miles on a tarmac road to “safety”.
The pictures of soldiers carry a different mood. Either they are the proud, contemptuous, swaggering figures of the rebels as they revel in their latest victories, or the images of the despairing Congolese infantry, their faces listless or bitter, often clinging to a bottle of liquor, their rocket powered grenade launcher, or whatever they have stolen when dark last fell. They are an unfortunate assembly—unpaid, untrained, unkempt, they lose every confrontation and resort to fighting their own allied militias and pillaging and raping their own people.
So it was with surprise that I happened upon this picture today…one like no other I have seen of the Congolese army. Not the sullen face of a young combatant, not the slouch of despair, the mix of civilian and military garb, the weapon nor the bottle of booze. Instead I see the oldest face I have seen so far of the frontline Congolese army, wearing a look of sober calm, standing erect in full uniform and clinging to a Bible.
Perhaps I am making too much of this picture and the man in it. But indulge me for moment as I speculate, as I hope. I found this picture in a series of pictures where this man appears three times, but only in this one as the subject. In two others he is seen caring for a wounded soldier and again sitting in the background, with his Gideon Bible, New Testament and Psalms, in his hands.
I realize the picture of the Bible could be taken many different ways—perhaps it highlights the hypocrisy of a man who has committed the unthinkable, perhaps it’s only a prop, a gimmick, placed even by the photographer. Some might claim it’s a crutch—the opiate a man who stands nothing to gain deceives himself with.
I’m not unaware of the other arguments that could be made about this picture—but I have seen enough of this story, and prayed enough over Congo, and called out to God enough to hope that I am looking into the face of a man who shares the same hope I do—that somewhere in all of tragedy is a loving, just God who sent Jesus to this world not to condemn it, but to save it through unconditional love and sacrifice and the promise of grace—God’s healing for a broken world.
In Alcoholics Anonymous participants are called to recognize their “higher power”: one that can accomplish what they themselves cannot in their battle with addiction. I don’t know which higher power you recognize, or if you believe in one at all. We believe in the Living God, who works through people, and in spite of people, often in ways that we don’t understand. But nonetheless works, even, perhaps, in the hands of a few soldiers, a few rebels, a few refugees, even a few children.
So keep praying—pray for
God bless,
Labels: Congo
