One World

 

St. Michael's, Kyiv, Ukraine

Photo credit: https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/kyiv/9558/overview

I lived in Kyiv, Ukraine from September 1998 to August 1999 on the "wrong" side of the Dnieper River in a Stalinist style flat on the fifth floor. My teammates and I walked to the Metro transporting us into downtown Kyiv where we taught English as a Second Language and found our way as aliens, foreigners, expats. 

After the new wore off, the daily realization of living somewhere completely outside of the USA's culture left blisters aching for some balm to soothe them. Kyiv was gritty, raw. The babushki sold cigarettes in the caverns of the Metro system, the recycled air smelled of garlic and sinus infection in the winter (which was long), and black footwear showed less of the gray dirt coating everything. 

I remember telling my sister around Christmas time how the USA seemed dream-like in its quality: No one stood in line for bread! Any and every kind of fresh vegetable and fruit lay clean and overflowing in any grocery store. A car made everything a convenience and brought the independence and freedom of an entirely higher class. (Mind you, this describes my experience in the South - a privileged experience not all those who live in the US have.)

Ukraine was reality, though. I had awoken from my dream and life had a bite, a scrappiness to it. You did what you had to do to survive, like eating Salo (pig fat) for calories because no other food was available or affordable. 

I sit in the sunroom in our home tonight and consider the contrast. I write these pondering and wanderings each night in Lent, but I have the luxury of reflection, of food security, of work, and of a calm domestic life. Many do not. 

So tonight, I offer prayers 

for those nations torn and traumatized by war, 

for aliens and foreigners in the US and abroad trying to find their way,

for the food insecure,

for the abused and the abusers,

for those who struggle to find rest 

                                        and money to pay the bills,

for the lonely, the suffering, the outcast.

Spirit, pray the prayers we know not how to pray

            and be with all of us

to heal us and to make us

agents of Your Love.