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Those Tiny Shoes

Those Tiny Shoes

Last updated on: September 4, 2015 at 7:36 am by Erin Wathen

Those Tiny Shoes 2015-09-04T07:36:28-07:00 Erin Wathen

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Those tiny shoes.

I am heavy-hearted and haunted today, as are many of us, by the images of a small lifeless body washed up on the shore of a Turkish beach. Children on beaches should be running and splashing and making sand castles. But Alyan Kurdi and his brother Galip drowned in the Aegean sea yesterday; along with their mother and 9 other Syrian refugees.

These add to the more than 2500 lives lost in similar passage, this summer alone.

My newsfeed today, meanwhile, is filled with news of Kim Davis, the County Clerk who is going to serve jail time for her refusal to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. There are the same jokes about her hair; and in the next frame, jokes about Donald Trump’s hair. The same political rhetoric. The same memes. But I cannot stop thinking about those tiny shoes.

On all my usual outlets, I also see ads for Pottery Barn and all the perfect things to fill our perfect houses. There are pictures of children having their after school snacks, and posts about going to soccer/dance/band for the evening. There are ideas for how to make our children’s lunch box meals more entertaining. There are fall wreaths and cookie recipes and, absurdly–pop up hotel ads featuring pictures of children playing on the beach. And I cannot stop thinking about those tiny shoes.

I cannot make all these things add up. I cannot get them to align in the same frame of reality. The things we fight about, while children are dying. The things we fret about while families make a desperate journey to escape war and hunger.

I’m not trying to shame anybody. I make jokes about Kim Davis’ hair too. And Donald Trump’s hair, for that matter. Because it isn’t just about their hair, or even THEM, of course. It is the maddening, obtuse lack of social awareness that they represent. But today, I’m finding everything about all of it distinctly un-funny. It’s because of those tiny shoes.

I’m also not trying to make anybody feel guilty for taking their kids to soccer, or for shopping at PotteryBarn. Come Saturday morning, I’ll pack my own kid off to ballet. Tomorrow morning, I’ll pack snacks for school. And do you know why those hotel ads pop-up at me? Because I like to plan vacations. To the beach, to the mountains–to places I’ve been and loved, and to all the places I’ve never seen. I plan hypothetical trips– trips I may never go on. I even plan trips for my friends. My computer, in all its omniscience, knows how much of my free time I spend on TripAdvisor, and so is constantly reminding me, “HEY! Over here! There’s a cheaper rate/a better deal/a room with a view!”

The luxury of it all feels absurd. The freedom to move about the world at will, while so many just hope to land on safe ground some day; the access to sports and art and music when so many don’t even know to dream of those things; the excess and abundance of tiny boxes of raisins that fit neatly in to backpacks, and may or may not get eaten, or thrown away half-full.

I am having a hard time aligning these realities today. Shame and guilt serve no one. But letting your heart be broken by a pair of tiny shoes…that can go a long way.

If you are also having a hard time aligning your realities today, here are some things you can do:

Pray for peace. Light a candle, read a Psalm, sit in silence, rage at the sky… Do what you do. I’m not sure what prayer does exactly, but I believe it does something.

Meanwhile, don’t just pray for peace, demand humanitarian action. Write to or call your state politicians and ask them where they stand on immigration law, refugee rights and America’s role in Middle East conflict. I’m not telling you what responses you should be looking for…but let people in power know that the world is paying attention. And then,

Pay attention. If you want to know more about the situation in Syria, read up.

You can also Give. Week of Compassion is one of many organizations that provides aid for refugees in the form of clean water, shelter, household items, medical supplies and other necessities. A gift to them is a gift to a family in crisis, and you can designate where in the world you’d like to direct your funds.

We are fairly inundated by images, every single day. On social media, on billboards, on the television, on our constantly flashing phones… Those images can make us laugh, or they can fill us with rage; they can make us want things we don’t need, or they can make us grateful for what we have.

Normally, I filter the images I see. I try to control what ads come at me. In news viewing, I avoid the sensational, the grotesque, the gratuitously violent. So I normally would not dwell on an image of a dead child. Death should come with dignity and privacy; and I believe that we, all of us, should guard our spirits from the dehumanizing, desensitizing nature of media.

But those tiny shoes… they need to be seen. They deserve to be mourned–those little feet that are being buried, instead of playing in the sand.

Our humanness calls us to face the larger-scale tragedy that is held in those tiny shoes. And our faith calls us to respond. Here are more groups doing good work in that part of the world. I’m grateful for the hope they offer today.

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