I returned to Haiti for my third trip earlier this month. It was nice to feel useful there. We stayed at the same orphanage in Jacmel, and helped to build a dirt road behind the orphanage on their expanded property. It's purpose was to make a path for a truck so that a well could be installed. Eventually, this property will serve as additional room for orphans. We also passed cement to Haitian workers who were building the wall around this property. At the beginning of the week, we were asked to move rocks closer to the area where the workers were building the wall so they would have stones to install as part of the wall. A highlight for me was that I was asked to visit a church in Port-au-Prince because the church who sent us is interested in becoming partners with it. They needed to know if it was a legitimate church, so they asked me and a teammate to talk to the pastor and see the church. It was beautiful, and the pastor and associate pastor talked about their experiences during the 2010 earthquake, which made the disaster more personal.
I read part of a poem recently by one of my favorite poets. It reads: I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage The linnet born within the cage That never knew the summer woods. I envy not the beast that takes His license in the field of time Unfetter'd by the sense of crime To whom a conscience never wakes. Nor what may call itself as bles't The heart that never plighted troth But stagnates in the weeds of sloth Nor any want-begotten rest. I hold it true, whate'er befall I feel it, when I sorrow most 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. At base, Tennyson contrasted a life of risk, and consequent pain, with one of security. He sides conclusively with the life of risk, and says he fails to envy those who have faced no hardship. I agree with him; and, for good or ill, his words are just as relevant today as they were in the nineteenth century. Like then, there are those today who choose to live their lives with as little risk as...
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