How Can I Be in Nairobi?

I’m praying for lost souls this morning. 

After a peaceful weekend in nature, I come back to “civil”ization. The News is brimming with death statistics and I ask myself to be, instead, with the souls.

The Navy Yard. The United States. 13.

Nairobi, Kenya. Africa. 68.

The numbers hurt. But they don’t mean anything. The value of one life lost is just as tragic as the value of many. 

S/he was a son or daughter, a brother or sister, a friend.

I have never walked in Kenya, but my mind and heart travel there often. My sister was there last month. Our friend lives in Nairobi. The same friend who captured much of the footage of the Westgate incident with her husband.

This month, I met 3 students from Kenya. One of those students has shared with me many stories of his life.

He did not grow up in Nairobi, but Westgate happened often where he did grow up- we just don’t really hear about it. The News sometimes chooses what we get to hear, especially if we don’t go out looking for more- if we don't talk to real-life people. Sometimes, you don’t even have to go out looking- you just have to stop and listen.

Nature taught me that this weekend. At first, it’s a cloud forest... But when you step inside and you become the rainforest, the rainforest enters you. Suddenly, it’s not a “cloud forest”, it is vibrant greens, bright purple leaves, turquoise blue waters, howling animals, and vibrations of love- all that you did not know existed before. But then you feel it. And you know it is the only truth. This is what is not captured in a statistic of the number of species that exists in a rainforest. It makes me wonder about the same truth that is not captured in the statistics of Westgate.

My friend’s story of growing up in an indigenous community, following a blessed herd of animals and defending himself against warring tribes- that is not captured in the statistics.

I’m praying for lost souls this morning. Not just the ones we lost in the Navy Yard and in Westgate. I am praying for all those who have lost their lives and their story is not heard. I am praying for those young boys in El Salvador, who sometimes don’t have a choice when a man in the form of symbolic letters knocks on their door. I am praying for the children in Ciudad Colon, who have become distracted from their beautiful meaning of existence and taken their own lives. I am praying for my friend’s community in Northern Kenya, who also knows tragedy, warfare, and discrimination.

I am praying for the lost souls who did this. 

I am praying for all of us. 

We are all part of the Navy Yard and Westgate.

We have all lost a loved one. We have all acted out of hate. We have all repented for forgiveness.

As we read the News, let us keep in mind the souls, rather than the statistics. Let us take a moment to be with them.

And as we move forward in our day, let us carry with us compassion.

Ignorance, ego, anger, attachment and fear- they exist within all of us. These are the things that are responsible for the tragedies of the world. These are the things that have stolen our souls.

Let us remember that. In that sense, we know that “Navy Yard” and “Westgate” are labels for incidents that happened in specific locations, but the matter is a world matter. We are all souls seeking love. We all have the capacity for ignorance and anger- the very distractions of the mind that caused these tragedies.

As we move forward, let us ask ourselves what we can do today to cultivate compassion, friendliness and goodwill, so that our mind does not feed into the temptations of the distractions.

I’m praying for those lost souls this morning. I am taking some time to be with them.

More importantly, I am praying for myself. I am turning within and asking myself to find the strength to be who I need to be everyday to cultivate peace and love and not war- in all the forms that it emerges. 

I am not anxiety. I am not jealously. I am not competition.

I am love.

I cannot go to Westgate today. My soul is crying to hug those children. But I know that is not my place today.

What I can do today is be love for those around me. That’s all we can really do at the end of the day, after all, isn’t it?