It’s amazing to me how a song written at one time with one particular focus can revisit my life at another time and another focus and have an even more profound effect. At the time of the original writing of the song I’m sharing with this article, the motivating factor was the world involved in yet another war in the Gulf. Those that weren’t in actual combat “over there” were fighting about whether the war was justified.
Around the world there was (and still is) much contention and heated debate about the righteous use of power. The wars and rumors of more wars were (and still are) enough to make any rational person sick at heart and sad for the state of the world.
But wars aren’t just being fought “out there.” It isn’t just families who have tragically lost loved ones to falling skyscrapers or guided missiles that are in mourning. In every neighborhood in every community in the world, somebody’s carrying some grief, some fear, some sadness, some unspeakable injustice, some unbearable horror — and all are in need of a Safe Harbor of the Heart.
I’d watched along with everyone else in the world the newscasts from so many different countries and ached for those lost souls searching for a home and a place to rebuild their lives.
I remember during one of the televised refugee crisis I told my wife I felt the need to do something. Should we send money? Clothing? Food? What?
Come to find out my wife had already participated with compassionate women from around the world in united humanitarian efforts to ease the suffering. But I didn’t feel like I could knit bandages or sew quilts. What could I do?
“You really want to help the refugees?” she asked sincerely, and without a hint of judgment.
“Yes, I really do.” She took me by the hand and led me to the window and pointed to a house in the neighborhood.
“If you want to help some refugees,” she said, “start with them.”
There, in a little brick house not even a thousand yards from mine was a torn and broken family, a tragic teen suicide, siblings at risk and enough heartache to fill a continent.
There are refugees among us,
That are not from foreign shores
And the battles they are waging
Are from very private wars
And there are no correspondents
Documenting all their grief
But these refugees among us all are yearning for relief.
Five houses up the street there’s a different story being told. The darkness and anxiety has been growing for years. Had our neighbor had a physical illness as severe as her mental one, she’d have died years ago, but hour by hour she keeps looking for a reason to hang on one more day.
Next door, a mother worries not because her child battles too many feelings, but too few. How does she reach beyond the vacant, distant looks and make a meaningful emotional connection with the one she brought into the world?
There are refugees among us,
They don’t carry flags or signs
They are standing right beside us
In the market checkout lines
And the wars that they’ve been fighting
Will not be televised
But the story of their need for love
Is written in their eyes
This is a call to arms to reach out and to hold
The evacuees from the dark
This is a call to arms to lead anguished souls
To safe harbors of the heart
And then there are those who carry burdens so secret, so private, so unthinkable that their only way of coping is by pretending what happened never did.
Can you see through their disguises
Can you hear what words won’t tell
Some are losing faith in heaven
‘Cause their life’s a living hell
Is there anyone to help those
Who have no where else to flee
For the only arms protecting them
Belong to you and me
This is a call to arms to reach out and to hold
The evacuees from the dark
This is a call to arms to lead anguished souls
To safe harbors of the heart
Can you feel the pleas of the refugees
For safe harbors of the heart
I have seen all around me people who have built those safe harbors — not with bricks and mortar, but with compassion and concern. I’ve seen people extending themselves without butting in. Comforting without preaching. Healing with hugs and empowering with pot roast.
And for as much unseen pain and suffering as there is going on all around us, there is an equal, if not greater amount of love and service that never finds a spot on the nightly news. But if you listen you can hear it.
I know I sure can, and it inspires me. It’s the most glorious song I’ve ever heard and it’s manifest outside our doctrinal debates and intense discussions of dogma. It’s heard in acts of love and understanding and compassion, flowing like a river from the human spirit into safe harbors of the heart everywhere.
Listen to “Safe Harbor of the Heart” here:
