The boy in the striped pyjamas

I watched "the boy in the striped pyjamas" tonight with my family. It is set during World War II in Germany. The movie is told from the perspective of a little 8 year old boy, who is a son of some high up German Nazi soldier.  You see this little boy Bruno leave his friends and move to the country because his dad is in charge of one of the concentration camps (although Bruno doesn't realize this). Bruno sneaks out of his house one day to explore. He finds the "farm," which is the concentration camp. He meets a little guy his age and they develop a friendship through the electric fence. Anyway, the whole time I am watching it I keep wondering if I would have seen it as an injustice if I lived back then. Would i have reasoned that the Jews were just evil and things would be better without them? I don't think i would, how could i think that way if i have value humankind in any way? But then, I got to thinking about the Genocide in Rwanda, the terrible things in Zimbabwe, the treatment of people with AIDS in Ethiopia, the apartheid in South Africa and i see that these are all symptoms of the same things that happened  in the concentration camps. 

how can we be so quick to devalue human life? this isn't just a problem from back in the day, it is a problem in the present. But am i recognizing it? Sex trafficking happens in the United States, pimps bring internationals in, but they also traffic local American girls. We have such a demand in our sex culture, in our sex world, that little girls, teenagers, are being sold for sex. This is a devalueing of human life right before my eyes, but I feel helpless in what i can do. I know it goes on, but i have no idea how and where it goes on. i hear it happens in our neighborhoods, but i don't ever see it. In some ways i can sympathisize with the Germans who heard rumors of the atrocities that happened in concetration camps, but did nothing to protect their fellow neighbors, because they probably felt helpless and clueless as to what they need to do to fight the injustice. That is where i find myself tonight. i recognize this problem, i recognize this injustice, but  I feel powerless to do anything. i want to rescue those girls, i want to find them and bring them to a safe place, but i don't know how to find them. 

i want Oprah, MTV, dr. phil. . . any tv show that has a platform to get behind this. i want them to rise up in arms that this is happening 1) worldwide 2) in our own neighborhoods! I want public service adds to broadcast it. I want messages of hope and justice to reach these girls in oppression so they realize they have people who are trustworthy fighting for them. i want those girls to know there are people trying to find them and rescue them. . . but i don't know how. I don't know how to rescue them. I don't know how to get people fighting for them.

so now i know. now i am aware. but what good does awareness do if i cannot follow with action?

Everyone has a voice. I have often thought I want to be the voice for the voiceless. I want to be the voice for those who cannot speak for themselves, but recently my mindset has a shifted a little.I cannot be someone else's voice because they are not without a voice-- everyone has a voice. i feel as if I have to say this 20 times over to realize the depth of what I am actually saying. We think of the oppressed, the abused, the orphans, the widows as vulnerable (which is true) but in their vulnerability (or because of their vulnerability) we think we need to be their voice for they do not have a voice. But maybe we just haven't heard their voices. Maybe my ambition should not be to be their voice but to stop and listen to their voices. And maybe when i stop and listen to their voices I will see how my life falls alongside theirs and together maybe we can make more people stop and listen to our voices. Maybe then we can realize our lives are not separate but connected so when one voice is not being heard and we not listening, we are disconnecting ourselves from life. maybe. 

these are all incomplete thoughts right now.

This week Dr. Barrows came and spoke to my University about international and domestic sex trafficking. I was startled by the reality that this is happening next door to me and I have been completely blind to it. Dr. Barrows shared a few girls' stories. He shared statistics. But he gave a face to the daunting statistics and sat there stunned. Actually, I wept. All of this has been going on around me but I had no idea. It has been happening in the darkness.

The Bible has a lot to say about darkness and light--a lot of powerful metaphors. Light shines into darkness and reveals the things that are hidden in darkness. But more than revealing it, light transforms darkness. Think of a sunrise. . . the sky completely transforms growing and deepening in depth and hue while you sit still and watch. Light transforms. We as Christians are said to be the light of the world shining in a crooked generation. Christ is the true light. So if I am in Christ, than I am living within his transforming power. If i am that light, than my life can not only reveal the things of darkness, but  can also change that darkness into light. How is this connected to my thoughts on sex trafficking? It is happening in the dark, i was unaware, we are all unaware, but what if it was brought into the light? What if we started becoming aware? What if we knew what was going on? What if we knew the voices that have been crying out in the darkness but that we haven't heard? What if we shed light on this? Surely, if these acts came out into the light things would change. . .  because i believe light can transform the dark into light itself. I believe there is hope, but I think first we have to start shedding light.

What does that look like, I am not sure. I have ideas. . . maybe I should write to Oprah, maybe she should do a show on this. Maybe I should get MTV to start speaking out on this. . .  but what about me. . . well I want to learn more. I want to study. I want to research. And I am going to write about it. I want to write as I actively pursue revealing this unknown things happening in the darkness.