The Mountain

After spending the last three days working in refugee camps and warehouses on the island of Lesbos, this afternoon we take the drive to the north shore of the island.  We have heard of a life jacket graveyard there and we all want to see it.

We drive through mountains covered in olive trees, and then pine trees as we get higher.  There is a burial ground of children, nestled under an olive grove near one of the refugee camps, we are told later.  Children who have not survived the crossing.  Tiny bodies, fleeing terror and certain death, only to be washed up on the shore and quietly buried under the peace tree.  But we don't know this as we drive.

We circle higher through the mountains and finally descend into the village of Eftalou.  We drive along the shoreline looking, but all we can see is the soft, blue Aegean.  And Turkey--just across the water.  If I cup my hands and shout, surely they might hear me, we are so close.  After asking for directions, we make our way up a rocky, dusty road on a mountain.  Sheep and horses dot the hills here and there.  We park the van and hike the last way on foot, still unsure if we are going the right way.  But as we go we begin to see it--pops of bright orange on the hill, amidst the scrub brush.  I stop a minute to take a photo--to take it in.  I don't yet know what I'm in for.

I walk on a little further, cresting the hill and my breath stops in my throat.  A mountain of orange rises in front of me.  Hot tears well up and pour down my face--I have to take a few minutes, weeping in my place for the magnitude of what is here.

The Mountain of Misery.

Discarded life jackets heap up and spill over.  Each one of these has a story, our team leader, Jen, says later.  My heart is broken open.  We walk around, circling the heaping mass of what was left behind.  There are black rubber sheets that I recognize as rafts mixed into the piles.  Child-sized life jackets--floaties, really.  Not fit for sea travel.  Not fit for saving anyone.  I cry silent tears and God quietly speaks to me, reminding me, "Take heart, for I have overcome the world."  It is too hard to believe that here.  I will try--I have to try.

This Mountain of Misery serves as a memorial, but for me it is of more than just refugees.  It is the height and breadth of our brokenness in this world.  How can we be these people?  How can we live here on an earth where this is okay?  How can we exist in a place where children are living in shipping containers, families in tin boxes, men and women and children on the hard ground?  Why do we read about slaughters and terror and rape and scroll on without so much as a second thought?  Just like today on that mountain, as we walk closer to the things that are wrong in the world, it is easy to just see the first little bit.  To feel afraid of what is over the crest of the hill and to turn back.  Scroll on.  Change the channel.  I've seen enough.  Pressing on--closer, deeper--that's the hard work.  Stepping into the mess when you have no answers, when you only have a little to give and it's never enough, pressing through your inability, insecurity, discomfort, and sadness.  That's the real work.  And it is hard and terrifying and I don't want to do it, but I can't not do it.  It's the only way.

The graveyard sits at the top of a mountain overlooking the sea.  It is both beautiful and horrible.  Awful and triumphant.  Many of us believe in a God who has shown us this same beautiful, terrible way.  I pray that I can have the courage to follow that way.

Remember your mercies, O Lord.  Help us to remember them, too.