"My groans are many and my heart is faint..."

by Dallas B. Thompson - North Carolina Campus Compact AmeriCorps*VISTA at Mars Hill College

It is easy to become so familiar with tragedy, that you become almost blase. Even as you reach for compassion, and try to remain close to events, it's a struggle (at least for me). If we are lucky, the hard moments come to us, and we have to face the reality of suffering. If we are lucky, then we have the opportunity to bear witness. If we are lucky.

The morning was a chance to worship here at the church, followed up by cake and cookies and fellowship time, and followed up still by Potbelly Sandwiches for lunch. Several of us experienced our first metro trip, and we made our way to the Holocaust Memorial Museum.

When I was a kid, in school, I read a fair number of holocaust books. When I was in college, I studied it in my history classes. I felt compassion and sadness. But the numbers too quickly become overwhelming. It's hard to comprehend. And maybe the reality is that we don't really want to.

Today, I walked through the Holocaust Memorial and cried. I cried at the baby shoe in the heap of shoes of victims. I cried at the note where a man pleaded with his friend to save him. I cried as I stood in the train car that had carried hundreds of thousands of Jewish brothers and sisters to their deaths. I cried as I read about the resistance, and the children, and the ghettos... I cried at horror upon horror.

I felt overwhelmed. First sadness, and then rage. I kept wondering, screaming in my head: "WHY? WHY, WHY, WHY, WHY?" Why was I, 70 years later, studying pictures drawn by children in the Jewish ghettos, who died far before their prime? Why had no one saved them? Out of the 15 or so drawings, why did only one bear the footnote, "Survived"?

The desolate grief I felt was surprising to me. I had felt prepared for this event. I had felt educated. I had felt immune to the crushing horrors. That was foolish. It was a fool's desire.

There was an Elie Wiesel quote prominently displayed: "What does it mean when we say NEVER AGAIN?"

For me, it means refusing to be immune. It means opening myself up to the pain and the grief and the loss and the reality that so many lives were crushed, that so many people were silent, that so many fell into the "sin of omission", as Reverend Kasey Jones spoke of today.

It means stepping up to the plate. Having the difficult conversations. Suffering the pain of the reality. Recognizing the hope that springs eternal in the future.

Looking at my students and realizing that we, in this moment, have the opportunity to make change. To create waves. To be loud. To bear witness. To say, "Never Again."