A voice of reason, a voice of compassion

Syria welcomed me with open arms.

That was back in 1980, when I was pregnant with our first child and Poor John was there with Australia’s diplomatic corps. It was a wonderful posting and we were always well treated.

During a meat strike, the butcher looked at my ever-expanding waistline and gave me the choicest cuts (granted I did mention that I was pregnant and not just getting fat).

I have lots of wonderful stories about our time there 35 years ago and on our return in 2009, but right now the stories from Syria are not good. Hundreds of thousands of people are displaced or dead. The rest of the world is trying to figure out how to help.

Europe and countries surrounding Syria are working hard to deal with the influx. And some of the world is making it difficult for everyone.

Over the last few days, I’ve been trying to figure out what to say about this uncaring and inhumane behaviour, And then my cousin, Colleen, said it so beautifully and eloquently.

I asked her if I could share it here and she said yes. I’d be delighted if her message is shared far and wide because it’s filled with truth, reason and compassion. Thanks Colleen, for putting my thoughts into words.

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‘Facebook wants to know, ‘What’s on your mind?’ Well, here it is:
I’ve been thinking about the question of whether or not to take in Syrian refugees if there is a risk of taking in one who would do us harm.

‘When the ground is shifting underneath us it’s hard to tell where safe ground is. My arms are open to anyone standing at the edge of a chasm, as I count on there being open arms to take me in when the ground opens up under me.

‘Is there a risk taking foreign strangers into our home? Yes. And we have plenty of home-grown strangers who are more than willing to do us harm, too. We take a risk just getting up out of bed every morning; it’s a dangerous world.

‘All I have control over is my small patch. I’m trying to create a safe haven here on that patch for friends, family, neighbors, strangers and anyone in need of what is offered, with the memory of the times I’ve been the one needing love, care, resources and support, and found it in abundance.

‘What I offer is payback for all the gifts I’ve been given and the knowledge that I have more than I need. I’m not naive—it’s a conscious decision to expect the good that people have inside them, and not the evil that each of us also have inside us.

‘People seem to rise to expectations—if you expect them to behave badly, they won’t disappoint you. If you expect them to be honorable and kind, they more often will.

‘Other waves of immigrants have been coming to this country just in my lifetime that also filled us with fear: Hungary, Cuba, China, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Lebanon, Ethiopia, Soviets, Uganda, Nicaragua, Iran, Afghanistan, Haiti, Poland, Kuwait, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Liberia, and Somalia.

‘Some of these countries have been represented on more than one specific time over the past 59 years I’ve been alive—since countries living on the edge need only a slight push from a natural disaster or famine or insurgency to tip them over the edge into a free-fall.

‘We’ve taken all of them in and there will be more coming along.

‘I’m so grateful that we have only once been in the position of needing sympathy and support from the rest of the world, and it came immediately and in all forms—after 9/11 there was a world-wide outpouring of both.

‘Just one such example is being celebrated in a new musical showing in Seattle currently—Come From Away, about the instant, sincere and gracious hospitality shown to the 6700 passengers on the flights that were grounded in Newfoundland and Labrador on 9/11.

‘This planet is our home. We all live here and it steadfastly and patiently ignores the lines we’ve drawn across it denoting which soil, sky and water is ‘ours’.

‘Parts of the world where some of us live provide a more precarious existence than we have scratched out for ourselves in North America. So far.

‘The planet’s shifting ground, seas and atmosphere have been sending signals that this benevolence could change at any moment. The bounty we’ve enjoyed may end sooner or later, and I would rather have a friendly, open-arms relationship with the rest of the world, with a history of helping others in times of trouble than to be safely locked behind a very high wall built to keep others out, slowly and safely starving to death because we’ve no one to turn to.’

Home is that place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. – Robert Frost