"Bless those who persecute you.." Romans 12:14
Tonight as I was sitting down at church a high school girl who looked somewhat foreign came and sat by me. She introduced herself and quickly began sharing her story. She told me that her family had just recently moved to America from Egypt to escape persecution. Apparently in the last few years the persecution of Christians has drastically increased. "You know" she said " You Americans can change your religion every day, but in Egypt we die for our religion. If my family had stay in Egypt any longer my family and I would be dead. We have had friends who have been killed and one of my friends was kidnapped for two months- she was constantly raped- just because she was a Christian. You Americans are so lucky. Did you know that 80% of Egyptians are starving to death living in poverty ,( obvious seeing people starve to death on the streets was not uncommon for this girl) only 5% are middle class, and the last 15% own everything." "What?" I thought that Muslims were commanded to take care of the poor?" "Oh", she replied- only one day of the year" What a sick religion I thought to myself. "Isn't it beautiful" I told her "That christian put such a great emphasis on taking care of the needy?" He even went as far as to say that "true religion is this: that you take care of the orphans and widows." "yes" she replied and smiled as she slightly turned her head. "You know" she said " My family ...we would have died for Christ if we had to...we would have never denied Him."
What a beautiful and strong girl. How many families like this die everyday but we will never know their stories because their bodies will be burned and their ashes left sifted into the sand, but whose souls knew the richness of Christ- whose hearts were filled with joy,overwhelmed with such compassion that they even showed love to those torturing their children. What a testament to Americans- whose bodies will be nicely scented and stuffed like thanksgiving turkeys- bodies that are rotten from the worldly pleasures- whose souls are absolutely empty.

The Hollow Men
I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw.
Alas!Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us — if at all — not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer –
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate roseOf death’s twilight kingdom
The hope onlyOf empty men.
V
Here we go round the prickly pearPrickly pear prickly pearHere we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
and the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
T.S. Eliot