My Holy Discontent

Photo credit: Nick Brandt

Today is the first day of Great Lent in the Orthodox Church. I was planning to write about my experiences with Great Lent and how Orthodox Christians view, meditate on, and eventually celebrate the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus.

But an issue has been making my heart sore, and today it came full swing. I often try to care about things, but often my real motive in that is to be significant and tell myself that I'm doing significant things. I sit here in Japan, but I have painful tears running down my face for what's happening to wildlife in East Africa. Surprisingly, poaching is at an all-time high, and at least one African elephant is being killed per day. Hunting elephants and rhinoceroses is illegal by international law, yet these invaluable animals are being killed for the immense rewards of their tusks and horns. They are being sent to East and Southeast Asia, to the part of the world I live in myself, for the sake of medicinal myth and pursuit of good health and fortune. We could feasibly lose the African Forest Elephant altogether - poof, gone - for the sake of a false belief.

Photo credit: Nick Brandt

I can't help but fall silent. And somewhat frozen.

In 2008, I was introduced to the work of photographer Nick Brandt. I fell in love with his style and his photographs captivated me repeatedly. The photos at the top of this post are the ones I originally saw that year. To revisit them and to learn that the vast majority of these elephants have been killed (bottom and top left in 2009, top right in 2010) is more than heart-breaking.

What do you do? Just what is the thing that you should do when you feel so much for something? What do you do when things are so dire? And for the love, what are we doing?

Please peruse the organization that Nick Brandt has founded in response to what he's seen. The Big Life Foundation has employed about 280 rangers to defend over 2 million acres of land within Amboseli and Tsavo National Parks. Trust me, I've been to both of these places, and losing elephants there would, of course, change the nature of the whole ecosystem. But I think, and maybe even more importantly, we'd be losing a creature so valuable and beautiful to our world.

Come on safari with me someday. I'll show you elephants.

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