Things come together.

I will soon crawl through tunnels where young boys were killed fighting for a democracy they hardly understood...

I swim in the waters that my country graced with destruction in hope of salvation...

I read Shane Claiborne's plea for creative and humble nonviolence in a world where violence has become the most powerful currency...

I walk among the ruins of My Lai, a product of rage from a war of colonization disguised as democracy...

I sing the Beatles' words that cry out against the death of Vietnamese Prudence and the complacency of allowing strawberry fields to become the norm...

I see Ho Chi Minh's loving face and the sickle's reassuring strength in every town, Communism that we so fear but gives so much comfort...

I ride from foreign land to foreign land to foreign land to foreign land in a vehicle dependent on democracy's next guise...

And all I can say is, xin loi.

I am so sorry.