Press Photo
It is a heartbreaking image, one that you can’t ‘unsee’ once you have seen it. It is a small boy, face down on the edge of the surf, arm tucked neatly at his side, tennis shoes limp on the sand behind him — lifeless on the beach. Now we know his name and what happened to his family. The 3-year-old found dead Wednesday along the shores of a Turkish resort town was named Aylan Kurdi. His family was trying to reach the Greek island of Kos when their boat capsized. His brother and mother also died. Only the boys’ father, Abdullah, survived.
His family are Kurdish Syrians from Kobani, a town near the Turkish border fought over by the Islamic State and Kurdish forces. They were desperately trying to emigrate to Canada. They decided not to give up after their attempts were unsuccessful. Like so many people fleeing conflict and economic destitution for the relative safety of Europe this year, it cost them their lives. In a report published Thursday, the United Nations’ Human Rights Council estimated over 2,000 Syrians have drowned since 2011 trying to reach Europe. And though those other 2,000 will be nameless for most of us, Aylan Kurdi has put a face upon this humanitarian crisis. What will we do about this massive wave of immigration that threatens to inundate much of Europe?
I would like to hope that this image will turn some kind of tide. That, somehow, seeing this human tragedy – written so absolutely small in that limp body of a three year old child – will galvanize our hearts to say: “No more. Never again.” That it will move our hearts to say with Isaiah to every other immigrant on the shores of Turkey – “Be Strong, Fear Not. Here is your God, who comes with vindication; with divine recompense, he comes to save you.”
How hard it is to say that, much less HOPE that in our days. And this image (show pic) is not the only ‘tough image out there. There are images from the latest of the Planned Parenthood Videos showing the callous treatment of aborted children’s remains – speaking of them as ‘commodities to be bought and sold and traded.” We read about an 11 year old boy shooting to death a 16 year intruder with his parents’ gun. When hear the relentless chants of “Black lives Matter” followed by “Police lives matter” or “Gay lives matter” or “Fill in the blank lives matter”, when the truth is that “ALL lives matter”! It is easy to get fatigued. It is easy to say: Where do I start?
Maybe we start with one simple image. Aylan Kurdi. And we print it and put it on our bathroom mirror, so that everytime we shave and wash and brush our teeth, we let it connect us to that desire for justice that God has implanted so deeply within us, that it comes out sometimes as outrage, and anger and sorrow/heartbreak.
And, if we are courageous enough, we can let this image train our hearts to learn that every bit of suffering in our world has a human face and a human story. When we know that, not just in our heads, but, as this picture evokes within us, in our hearts – then we must cry out for the oppressed, weep for the loss of innocent life and act to create a world of justice. But here is the kicker.
We must never forget to pray in hope.
God has not forgotten and God will not forget. Our hope for justice is an inkling of God’s will, “who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free; the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.” as we heard in the responsorial psalm.
When we let God’s will and desire for us take root, then like the apostle James, we begin by not making distinctions among the poor and the rich at church, treating the “poor person in shabby clothes” with disdain and “the one wearing the fine clothes” with honor. Like Jesus, we know that sometimes, all we can do is to tenderly take ONE suffering person aside and touch their ears and heart that they might know God’s healing love through us.
I made some copies of this picture (yet because it is disturbing, I understand that perhaps some of you with small children might not want to take one home). Take it home and put it where you will see it. And each time, remember Aylan Kurdi and his family in your prayers. And let that image – as tragic and sad and hard to look at as it might be – move all of us to be God’s vindication and justice in our world.