Canyon

On my trip back to Colorado I decided to finally pick up the book I have been meaning to read since I bought it almost a year ago - Not For Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade and How We Can Fight It.  I bought this book while I was working in the heat of this world, working with girls rescued out of sex slavery.  But even as I am now living in America, this injustice beats in my heart.

Before I started I asked Jesus this simple request - Let this book impact me as if I were hearing about this outrage for the first time.  Let this not be old news to me!  And as I began to read, I got caught up in the outrage of this sick reality.  My heart broke once again for the little girls locked in brothels all over the world, for the women who despair for lack of any other options, for the men who are enslaved by the spirit of lust, and for this lost and broken world.

I would read a little portion of my book and then stare out from my window seat, lost in deep reveries.  It was during one of those moments that my meditation on slavery crossed paths with the scenic view beneath me.  The plane was flying over the huge, barren desert of Nevada.  It was dry.  It was lifeless.  It was stark.  The canyons that etched deep paths through the desert spoke loudly to me.  And I quickly jotted down these words. 

Injustice has become a canyon in my heart.  
Story after story, like a steady stream, 
injustice carves it's way through the recesses of my soul 
until the profundity of the crevices 
become too deep to ever smooth over.

How can I ever ignore the wailing of the wind
that blows through these canyons?
How could these colossal canyon walls 
ever become invisible to my eyes?
They mark me.
They ravage my conscience.
They wreak my existence.

There is no place to safely tuck this reality away;
out of sight, out of mind;
pretending to live in some unpolluted environment.
There is no way that I could ever eliminate
the searing pain of these scars.
But, you know, even if there was a way,
how could I ever choose such a thing?

This pain becomes passion.
The passion becomes fire.
The canyons are fuel.
I know one day this roaring force
will become unstoppable.

There will soon be a river of JUSTICE
that flows through the desert,
bringing life and restoration to the barren land.
I can see the dawn of such a day rising in my heart;
hope calls me onward.
But until that day arrives,
I choose to walk the lonely and painful canyon road.