God's Spies

"We will take upon us the mystery of things as if we are God's spies. " - Shakespeare, King Lear

There are millions of stars that shine each night in the Mae Ra Moe Refugee Camp. It's the country in a land of no electricity , but candle flames and cooking fires. And it is the dry season. For all the stars above that shine, the call of wonder and conversion is to see how God sees things - looking at all the particular, unrepeatable stars that eat bread, carry backpacks to school, and miss their parents. The multitudes that eat loaves and fish. There are many millions of stars in the galaxy called the world of being human. All belong. All have purpose. All shine and are made to orbit around the greater, to celebrate the warmth of other of their fellow heavenly bodies, to know the limits of gravities.

People in the camp, mostly the young people, daily stop by the guest house where I live. They come out of curiosity, out of boredom on a weekend, out of wanting to improve their English, out of friendship. In short, they come For Good. I have to learn my own conversion. To put aside my own ugly pettiness, my own sense of wanting 'private time', a nap, and just be with each around a blue, thin, metal table, from which a guest serves me the gift of their simple presence.