Whose side are you on?

My heart is so heavy today.

Breaking.

Maybe already broken.  

The more I fall in love with these kids, the more their truths come out.  It is so difficult to see the choices that they have made.  Make.  Not because they don’t know what is right, but because this world has removed them to the margins, so they stopped trying to fit in, to be a part.

They are so full of hurt.  Deep wounds, that words can’t even begin to heal.  Scars that may never go away.  Their world is so upside down.  A little bubble.  And the more I am included, the more I weep and mourn.  For their hearts.  For their souls.

They have been so wounded, they think nothing matters and live so recklessesly.  But one day, they will grow up and regret their choices.  They will feel the full weight of everything that passed, and there will be no take-backs or do-overs.  And unless they find a way to cope, they will drown in the sorrow that they created for themselves.

I think that is why these cycles, continue, over and over.  Generation after generation.

But who is to blame?  Our choices are ours.  And ours alone.  But is it really so simple?

Over the last 5 years, I have watched things change.  Boys become harder.  Tougher.  And I don’t think it is their fault.  It was a matter of survival.  They have watched too many friends die.  And unless they wanted the same fate, they had to become different.

Boys used to collect scrap.  They worked.  Hard.  More than any one I knew.  But then people started burning boys alive when they found them looking for scrap.  Are the boys supposed to starve?  Are they supposed to go back to families that don’t love them and beat them mercilessly?

Of course not.  

So they adapted.  They stopped caring.  How many people can you lose before you choose to turn everything off?  And because they learned so quickly how dispensable their life was, everything lost value.  They learned those that get them hooked on drugs walk freely, while they get arrested for taking them.  They see how those that beat them and kill them parade around, but they are burned alive for taking a saucepan or a phone.  They experienced being used so others could make money or for entertainment, so they quickly learned how to use others.

How can they be expected to make the right choice?  The choice that I would make?

Today I was faced with a hard truth.  One that can challenge your love for someone.  And I had to wonder if I could still love him the same.  

Is it possible to know the worst about someone, and love them anyway?

I thought, and I know it is.  It is absolutely is.  I didn’t feel anger or outrage, I just felt overwhelming sorrow.  My heart weeps.  For him.  For all of them.  For all of the ways this world has broken them.

Because it has.  And we need to take responsibility for it. 

Even if you aren’t actively beating him, or devaluing him, are you doing anything to make his life better?  

Or any of the millions around the world that are suffering in complete and utter despair?

Your silence is killing them also.  It is showing them that they don’t deserve a voice.  They don’t deserve love.  Or to be safe.  Or to have their basic needs met.   They have seen the rest of the world with plenty.  Meanwhile, they either have to eat from trash piles or risk their life to get a meal.  

“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation.  We must always take sides.  Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.  Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”  Elie Wiesel

Whose side will you be on?