We’ve all been there. A terrible something happens: the doctor says “cancer”, your best friend was in an accident, or the marriage is over—you're so totally out of sorts on the inside that even a coffee shop's “open" sign is jarring, maybe even a little foul. It would seem that surely the storm within you is boisterous enough for everyone and everything to stop being so blasé. For the love of God, what does it matter if someone doesn't get their Triple Venti Soy with no foam at such a time as this?
I’m not knocking a Venti, but I can’t help but wonder if that’s how these people feel today in the fight for Mosul, as they brace for another influx of refugees. Yet here I am on the other side of the world eating my chicken salad with perfectly thin sliced apples and lightly toasted pumpkin seeds—like children aren’t running for their lives wondering if they’ll ever come back, or even if they'll make it to tomorrow.
Anyway, forgive all the melancholy.
Actually, no, I take that back. Don’t forgive me. I’m not sorry. This moves me to pray—about real people, dealing with real stuff, right now—really. They’re not just a headline. Join me as I eat my salad—whatever you’re doing, wherever you are. Let us hold still and give some downright grievous thought to this mess and pray our guts out with them and for them.