Tuol Sleng

yesterday Erycha took me to Tuol Sleng, an old highschool that the Khmer Rouge turned into a prison and torture chamber in 1975. That's the first part that's hard to believe - 1975. There are rooms full of these pictures - the Khmer Rouge documented all the people they killed. There were so many photos. They have left the school much how it was, with rooms used for torture, cells, gallows - such a horrible thing. In some way it felt like a sacred place. These people, individuals, need to be mourned, respected.
One thing I wondered was - Where was God while all this was going on? I could feel Him there as I walked around but to imagine all those rooms filled with pain, hatred, agony.
I think he was still there, with them. Hurting, crying and in pain along with them.
David talks a lot about God's presence in the midst of evil and injustice, the psalms are filled with it. "I know that the Lord secures justice for the poor and upholds the cause of the needy."
And i thought of the verse, "The whole earth is full of his Glory"
And furthermore, I read today in Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis that another way to translate that verse is "the whole earth is full of his weight and significance" Weight and significance. Not always pleasant but the assurance that there is meaning and hope and that nothing is unnoticed.
And I'll end the musings with a bit more from Rob - "It isn't just those beautiful moments in the midst of the everyday and mundane; it is also in the tragic adn the gut-wrenching moments when we cannot escape the simple fact that there is way more going on around us than we realize."