A drop in the ocean

When I heard today that the Pope took 12 Syrian refugees home from the Island of Lesbos

He invoked the words of Mother Theresa

We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.

I said,

Forget the apostles, tomorrow I'm taking 13!

I don't know what the Pope intends

But I will break the bread with these refugees and one day hope

These victims of war can forget man's brutality in favour of

Spreading the gospel of Art and Love

Then I got a call on the phone, it was the Pope who told me that

Balancing the world's interests has always been an act reserved for the Astute Acrobat

Only a few can see advantages upside down

Taking home 12 or 13 didn't matter

And I could swear he said this with a frown

"My eyes are lucid" said the Pope to my outreaching ears

"And to stretch out and shake hands of adults and children

That others seem to vilify takes little effort and few tears"

When he hung up I thought it but a daydream

Only the news flashed again reminding me of those intense faces, full of hope and anxiety

Yet I was feeling anxious as well

I knew this was not the first or last refugee crisis

In the l680s Louis XIV kicked some 200,000 Huguenots out of France 

 Just because they were Protestant

And even in earlier times if you belonged to a clan and

You were different

A male unable to hunt

A female unable to weave

Consequences were rude

Was it possible that modern society's humanitarian drains of empathy were clogged?

Was it possible that our uplifting spirit was fading into a smog?

Was it possible that our ocean couldn't care for "that missing drop"?