Eardley and Tamara Mendes were members of the my seminary community for as long as I can remember. He completed his PhD and was pastoring a lively congregation of southeast Asians in Chicago. There was always room for one more in the van that made the trip up to the northern suburbs every Sunday, and the invitation invariably extended to the potluck of loaves and fishes proportions, from which no one left empty. Eardley and Tamara came from Sri Lanka, and didn't get to see their families near enough. This Christmas, Tamara got to go home to her family. She won't be coming back.
Certainly I am astonished and moved that the blue states and the red states, Clinton and Bush, finally agree on something that we need to be doing in the world, urgently and generously. The world is responding. But it is so bittersweet for me: why only this disaster? Why not AIDS and empty bellies and walls between families? Why these boundaries on compassion? So many lives were lost this week, on every continent.
Monday, January 03, 2005
Tamara
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2 comments:
I had the same mixed feelings when the news showed the three presidents joining as one to lead the fundraising effort for victims of the tsunami. I could not believe that Katie Couric actually said, "We need to see this as an image-builder." Of course it is. That's the problem. One of my huge pet peeves in life is when people do nice things just for image. I hate it in myself, too. I'm so sad to hear about Tamara. It just doesn't seem right that my family was cozily sipping hot cocoa and playing Catch Phrase by the fireplace in our brand-spankin' new home, with the reassurance that our children were snug and safe in their beds...while so many others spent the last week searching for their children's bodies along the shore. :(
I forgot to sign my name. It's me. :) Amy
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