In the three weeks that I have been in Berlin, Germany, I have been so fortunate to meet and build a community with a group of older women who have taken me under their wings and showed me the lay of the land. Last weekend, we decided to take a trip to Munich (one of those unplanned and fantastic trips that peppered my time with this group). On our second day in Munich, we travelled 30 minutes north of the city to the Dachau Concentration Camp. Dachau was the first regular concentration camp established by the National Socialist (Nazi) Government and served as the model camp for all of the other camps. This camp was officially described as a work camp for political prisoners- Arbeit Macht Frei (work sets you free) - though when this camp was liberated a much more horrific and gruesome picture was seen. It is at this camp that 200,000 prisoners were beaten, starved and worked to death. It is believed that 25 ,613 prisoners died in the camp and almost another 10,000 in its subcamps.

As we toured the camp, I got the honor of listening to the personal stories of the women I was with- stories of loved ones who were sent to concentration camps, stories of living under the Nazi regime, stories of fear and lies and hatred. As we neared the end of our time at Dachau we walked up to the memorial at one end of the camp. It is there that in five languages "Never Again" is written in huge, iron letters. When we saw this, one of the women said "We said "Never Again" after the Holocaust, we said "Never Again" after Bosnia, after Rwanda, after Kosovo. When is "Never Again" actually going to mean never again?

Never again. It has been 2 years, 11 months and 19 days since the United States labeled the crisis in Darfur genocide. Yet even with this label, in the almost three years that have past, little attention has been given and little action has been done to stop this genocide. It is only now that many celebrities have raised their concern and shown support of non-profits that this genocide has been brought into the public eye.

But we don't need celebrities to tell up what is right and wrong. We know that genocide is wrong. We know that hating and torturing and killing another person based on their race or their ethnicity or their culture or their gender is wrong. We have seen it too many times; we have leaned about it in school and we have watched it in the movies. And though it seems like a huge and insurmountable task, each individual person can do something to end this genocide. Educate yourself. Educate others. Talk, talk, talk! Talk to your friends and family, talk to your congregation, talk to your elected officials, talk to anyone who will listen. Start or join an awareness group in your area or at your college. And pray. Never forget to pray. Do something because the longer we wait, the more people will suffer and die. Do something so we can say with certainty and force "Never Again!"

Some resources:
STAND: Students Taking Action Now: Darfur: www.standnow.org
Save Darfur- www.savedarfur.org
Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA)- http://www.pcusa.org/pda/response/africa/sudan-index.htm

It’s just aft midnight, and I’ve just come in from a long late-night chat with a friend under the stars and over bubble tea. While the two of us have gotten to be close through Protestant activities at Macalester, we have each been navigating very different—and yet in some ways, very similar—questions of faith lately. One thing we’ve both learned from our time on campus is that there is power in being able to name our thoughts, that by saying aloud our anxieties and our hope we might be able to push forward beyond the obstacles and the limits of our imaginations. So I think the conclusion we parted with tonight will be fulfilled soon: we’ll talk again, and we’ll keep talking.

One of the things I like best about summer is being able to lie under a warm night sky and to look up into the constellations. The goose bumps I get aren’t from being chilled by the temperature; they come from being awed by the vastness. Which is so cliché, of course. But at the very beginning of the summer, I finally finished reading Virginia Woolf’s Jacob’s Room, which had been sitting on my night stand for months. One line struck me, a college student trying to get back down to earth after a semester abroad: “They say the sky is the same every where. Travelers, the shipwrecked, exiles, and the dying take comfort from the thought, and no doubt if you are of the mystical tendency consolation, and even explanation, have showered down from the unbroken surface.”

While the vastness of the sky can be overwhelming, I also love the immensity and the depth that hangs over the wandering and the restless like the kind of gigantic black umbrella a proper English gentleman might tuck into the crook of his elbow in case of a storm. It’s hard not to believe we are all interconnected and interdependent when we look up and see the same sky that shelters both our closest friends and people we will never meet.

One of things that I brought back from my recent travels is a 2x4 note card with a beachscape and an inspirational quote on it. The scape, as you can probably guess, is really mostly sky, and the quote in English goes something like this: “If you go to the ends of the earth, you will find traces of God; if you go to the deepest part of yourself, you will find God.”
I like looking up and knowing that the land on which I plant my feet is not the only place from which I can see the Big Dipper and the North Star. I like knowing, too, that God is nearby, whether I look for God in the penumbras and supernovas, or simply in the deepest questions shared between friends.