Happy 2016?

My hopes for this new year, like the last, are focused on the plight of Syrian refugees. It’s not possible to convey in writing the levels of suffering I have witnessed when spending time with Syrian refugees in Lebanon as a professor, yogini, mentor, volunteer, and advocate. Every time I talk about my young Syrian refugees friends in Beirut, I cry tears that are too heavy to be funneled into words…

Missing limbs. Untreated wounds. Catatonic toddlers. Arrested education. Punishing poverty. Child labor. A generation lost. Twelve people to a room. Weeping widows. Every meal: a potato. Begging for a blanket just to stay alive. An inferno of despair — with no end in sight. Will 2016 be a better year? I hope so — because how much more suffering can the Syrians be expected to bear? How much more time does the world community need to wake up and say enough?