I am not going to choke on the shrapnel that is floating to the surface. It’s this stillness that gets to me, like a moving river that has reached an end. All memories, all thoughts, are fair game, foaming up, keeping me awake. Leading to bad poetry night and day; frustration and weariness are the words sifting through my fingers. My heart is pounding. I didn’t come to India to learn about myself, but India is so drastic. Did I think I’d come here, in the company of pale walls and a beating fan, or on the streets with a splatter of God’s loved ones, and not be confronted with my helplessness prevailing in both places? Not only that, but my own pain has silently been added to the queue. The Lord will have to save me this time. And I’m not at all worthy of his saving. When will I do something do deserve this awkwardly plush life? When will I give back? My photographs, films, and words, are clashing cymbals without action. And action is nothing unless motivated by love; and love is not on my mind when I wake up in the morning.
In Canada I go to work in the morning. If I still feel this in the evening, I race my motorcycle into the mountains. It is the awful weight of compassion, without the presence of God. Doubling over by my own evils. And I fear of turning to God, because God is love, but love is precisely what is hurting me.
Christ knows it deeper, he wept at the sight of his friends suffering, all while knowing he was about to resurrect Lazarus. Christ sees our brokenness, and he see the horrors on the street. He will heal. If not in this lifetime, than many times over in the next.
What I feel here I will likely feel more so in Kolkata. But my feelings aren’t as important as my diligence. After all, without adverting my eyes, it was joy that I came to record. And I hope that I am a blessing.
By the prayers of the Lord’s Saints, and my own feeble ones, I will not choke. I needed a shirt, so to spite my unnecessary melancholy I bought a pink one. I remember denying that I would ever wear a pink shirt, but now seems like a good time to change. And I will blend in well with the bright-shirted men here.