we will see good overcome.

this is a difficult to write and i've been composing and recomposing it all day, trying to get the right words to squeek out. my feelings are still fresh and tears are still available. but i'm in need of a good processing.
today sarah and i went for our every-other-daily run...but today, of all days, we were walking instead.
approaching the last leg of our route through the early morning city suddenly we saw him.
a little boy of maybe 10 or 12. emaciated, wounded, starving, covered in his own shit and thus attracting flies. balancing on his toothpick legs, he clung to the small swatch of fabic around his waist to serve as pants. looking horrified and completely lost. this starving terrified boy stood frozen in the middle of the sidewalk.
frozen in the middle of our path.
with his mother and father dead it appeared that he had been cast out to fend for himself or die. the latter had chosen his fate...
but slowly and carefully we took him to our house to get a taxi to mother teresa's home. and it was amazing to see our neighbors gathered around to help, and yes to stare, but they were kind, they were concerned. and it was redeeming to see this sincerity in a city where i often see only a survival mode and often i strain to see any sign of genuine concern...

even now images of this small boy, this frail skeleton of life fills my mind. the injustice that surrounds me, is full of faces and lives. and still it becomes more real to me. even when i do not choose it...
when we brought him in to the mother teresa home, with one look the sister thanked us telling us in two more days this boy would have surely died.
i don't have compartments for these types of experiences.
i was just going for my morning run. thinking about the marathon we're running . thinking about our weekend. about sari bari. about a million things. and then...
little boys who are about to die stand across our paths. and we're faced with a choice to step out to reach and touch and carry bodies to help...or to run past. we could have missed him. he could have died.
but tonight, he's not on the street. he's clean and fed and sleeping in a bed with folks who will care for him and love him.
simply from the volumes his weak little body told, i cannot imagine the horrors this little one has experienced to arrive him here.

and still, sarah reminded me just the other day...do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
this is what i cling to tonight. in the midst of tears i cannot shut off for a suffering world, a suffering country and city and young boy...we will see good overcome.
we did today.