What’s the Price?

60: (March 2026)

A lot of people are talking about gas prices these days. The war we waged on Iran has been hitting people personally at the gas pump and when a heating bill arrives. The fact that we’re killing people with our bombs and that we’ve waged a war that is having grave ramifications for the whole world are consequences that are harder to grapple with, because they are more removed from our own day-to-day reality.

I hope we have not all become so numb to the constant barrage of violence and chaos in our country and elsewhere that we lose sight of the humanity at stake in the war. One hundred sixty-eight little schoolgirls and more than 1,000 Iranian civilians, as well as many in other countries, have already died in the war. Real human lives are worth far more mental and emotional space than the price of gas, yet so much news coverage is primarily devoted to the economic costs of war.

As a democracy, our country is ‘the people,’ so what is my part in all of this? Tuning out can be such a temptation, at least to me; when helplessness and hopelessness seep in, I feel a big urge to escape into a movie or a good fiction book. But the urge to do something is still stronger. I don’t want to just let things happen without even bearing witness to them in some way.

I don’t approve of many of the courses of action our country is taking toward the world at large and toward its own citizens. So I’ll join the nationwide No Kings Protest on March 28th. I don’t know what else to do right now, so at least I can stand shoulder to shoulder with millions of people across this nation who want to give voice for justice, for democracy.

Until we figure out something better to do, I’ll show up. It may be a small thing, but it’s something, and together, maybe it can make a difference. And at least we will show the world that we care.

40: (March 2006)

For over a decade, I have looked at faces in photos on my computer screen. Faces of children, mothers, and fathers. Faces of hope, happiness, and sorrow. Faces belonging to people living far away in a little city in Peru. They belong to a place where jobs are scarce, and food and medical supplies are extremely limited. My friend, a Catholic priest, lives with them. He gives them food for souls and bodies. He gives them his life. He is happy there—in fact, he appears to be exuberant—and plans to be buried among them someday.

A few weeks ago, my children and I met the faces on my computer screen in person. We spent a week in Piura, Peru, volunteering at my friend’s parish. It was one of the best weeks of my life. My friend’s calling is to work with the poor, and there is no shortage of poverty there. It is an external poverty; food, clothing, and housing are in short supply. But for all that external poverty, there was a great deal of internal joy that I witnessed. No, it does not make the pain of an aching body go away, and it does not diminish hunger. But there was an unmistakable richness there, apparent in the ready smiles and outstretched arms, in the palpable spirit that was present. Perhaps when one has so little in the outside world—the physical world—then the inside world, the world of the spirit, is not so burdened and has more opportunity to thrive.

Piura is a hot, desert city in the north of Peru. The land is flat and squatters’ homes stretch out for miles and miles, most built of straw-like thatching, or woven bamboo, sometimes covered with mud to serve as insulation. The roofs are sheets of corrugated metal, the floors are dirt, there is no plumbing, and most homes have no electricity. Kitchens consist of small fires to cook on, with chicks, ducks, turkeys, and the occasional sheep sharing the living space.

I had been to third-world countries before, but had only seen glimpses of such poverty through the windows of a quickly moving car. This time, my children and I entered dozens of homes, bringing food packages that had been put together at the church. We were warmly welcomed into every home. I speak virtually no Spanish, but the eyes—the eyes that I had looked at on my computer screen—could now be looked into. Nonverbal communication has its own language; words can be limiting when there is much to express.

I am home now. My house seems too large, my rooms too full of extraneous stuff. It is hard to imagine complaining about anything ever again, yet I know that as the trip fades in time and memory, I will slip back into old ways. But the faces that first touched me on my computer screen have been felt with my own skin, in countless embraces. Our eyes have met. I have held their children in my arms, visited in their homes, and sat with them in church. I can never be the same. I do not know exactly how my life will alter as a result of this crossing of life pathways, but I know it will.

60-40:

My life was possibly altered most drastically by that Peru trip by virtue of the fact that my daughters were greatly affected by it. I believe the trip planted the seeds that grew into their worldview—that they are citizens of the world, and that there is much to see and do beyond the borders of our country. As a result, they have both lived and worked abroad throughout their post-college lives. They are both strong women with good consciences and creative lives that reach out to make the world brighter.

I know the strands of that trip have been braided into my life in many other ways, perhaps most importantly in searing me with the conviction that we need to care for each other—even if we never have the opportunity to see those we care for face to face. We are all one.