He brought great love to the work he did with refugees but the work also broke his heart. One could only take so much human misery at a stretch but this trip had laid an extra burden upon him. He had never liked the heat - but at this time of year, in this place, the climate was stultifying.

As soon as each warm night was past, the heat began in earnest. Dawn was like a blast furnace opening one eye. Along with the slightest bit of light came a quickly mounting temperature. By the time the sun and the people in the village had both eyes fully open, the burden was intolerable.

It felt hotter here than anywhere he had ever been. It was not just the sun. The hot brightness pressing down from above combined with the steamy heat that rose from the soggy ground. The village turned into a sauna with a broken thermostat and steamed the inhabitants like so many listless dumplings.

Each afternoon the monsoon would march across the sky like some crazed water clock that neither rang nor rained but at the appointed hour simply dumped surprising volumes of water - all at once. It was like standing under a bulging awning that was full of several days' of sun broiled rain and having a seam split suddenly, right above your head. One moment you're hot and dry, the next you're completely soaked - but still hot.

The amalgamation of the actions of the sun, the sky and the ground created an effect that was like being wrapped in a hot wet wool blanket and then smacked over the head with a rolled up towel that had been soaked in scalding water.

His hat felt like a rice steamer into which he had inserted his head. Taking the hat off was no better. Now it was like pressing his scalp against a griddle - less steam, but still no escape from the boiling noonday heat. The only hope was shade, and, with luck, something with ice in it.

Many of the tin roofed wooden houses in the surrounding area had been leveled by the disaster. But the hotel was a relic of an earlier age and built of sterner stuff. He pushed open the door and the air inside pushed out to embrace him. It was deliciously cool. In school the physics of electricity had always been a mystery to him. Now it seemed near miraculous.

The bar was just to the left - past the gigantic palms that surrounded the sandstone columns in the lobby. The faces of angels and demons peered down from the column capitals while indigenous flora and fauna stood frozen in place at the top of the wall on the frieze that ran 'round the room.

He looked down just in time to avoid tripping over someone's bags near the lobby desk. The disconnect between the devastation outside and the worn but gentile luxury inside was jarring. He felt off balance. It was as though he had stepped through a portal that had transported him at least to another part of the globe, if not to another century. He slowed down as if waiting for the rest of himself to catch up and re-solidify. Then sandstone columns gave way to polished woodwork and brass. He pushed opened the etched glass double doors, walked up to the bar, and sat very still. "Water to start, please. Lots of ice," he said in a parched voice that cracked.

He had been sitting there long enough to move from water to something stronger- but still over ice- when he noticed her sitting in the corner booth. She smiled, and he rediscovered his voice. Two hours later they sat, still facing each other, bending in, elbows on the table of the booth, still talking. She had come to work on the relief effort too, but with a different agency. They knew a few people in common - that was pretty standard in the field. But was what different was the effect she had on him, and that he seemed to be having on her.

His rotation was just beginning, but her rotation was up. The suitcases he had seen at the lobby desk were hers. "The car to take me to my flight leaves in five minutes," she said, looking down at her hand that rested on the table. He looked at her hand too. He wondered if he should reach across the table, but it was too late. "I have to go," she said. She pushed back her chair, and stood.

He stood too, determined to do something, but not sure what. The last two hours were clearly a beginning. Although devastation and misery were just outside the door he felt an overwhelming sense of hope and possibility in her presence. He couldn't let it just end. He extended his pen to her with one hand, and held his other hand out, palm up. "Wait," he said, "write your name and your number here. In a month I'll be stateside. I'll call. But write your name and number so that I can know we'll meet again." She wrote, added a little design, then handed him his pen, smiled, and turned her own palm upward. "Write your name and number upon my palm," she said, "and we will both remember there is more we need to say."

In the year that Babylon fell, the Israelites who were in exile there became free again. But sudden freedom can be a debilitating surprise like that of moving out of oppressive heat into an air-conditioned room - it may feel good but it is still a bewildering disconnect that makes one sit quietly before attempting anything else.

"This is God's mercy?" some must have muttered as Babylon fell. "The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me," others said. Even though the might of the Babylonians was dissipating around them the outward symbols of that kingdom's power and control still stood like silent watchmen. Maybe the conquering Persian would be better? Maybe sitting still was best? After all, the Jerusalem they had known was only a memory. If they moved back, what would they find- maybe just the exhausting work of raising up a new city out of the rubble of the old, or would they simply enter a new and different nightmare when they passed through the city gates?

Isaiah needed to galvanize their attention. God needed to give them a word that would inspire and sustain them until God's promises bore fruit.

In the Middle East it has been a custom since ancient times to adorn parts of the body with markings at times of celebration. Symbols and botanical forms are painted on a person's feet or hands with henna that is squeezed out of a paper cone. As the colorant in the henna reacts with the keratin in the skin of a person's hands or feet, reddish brown markings form that can last for several months.

One of the times appointed for applying these celebratory designs is the seventh month of a woman's pregnancy. Just into the third trimester the presence of a baby is unmistakable but the day of its birth is still a good bit in the future. The persistent henna markings on the skin of the mother would probably still be present on the day that her newborn child first nurses - when living skin becomes as intimately close as the henna markings that had heralded the child's arrival months before it came.

This is the image that rises up when God says, "See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands," and then speaks of mothers and children and the close and intimate love that holds them together.

Whether it is the steamy tropics in the time of disaster, or the fall of Babylon, or in the midst of troubles present to us, God has better things in mind for us than we can imagine or pray for. And there are signs of assurance all around us if we look.

We can waste our energy worrying about the horrible things that might happen, or we can focus on what actually needs to be done in the day. All we can do is what we can do. The rest is up to God. But this is the same God who clothes the grass of the field in splendor. This is the God who delights in painting the sky twice a day with colors and patterns that are never quite the same way twice. And even in the darkness there are stars.

Stretching across the horizon from the earth beneath our feet to the sky at the tips of our up stretched hands are the patterns of celebration with which God has adorned creation. All of creation is ripe with love and possibility like a women in the seventh month, like a man with a pen in an old hotel, like you and me as we wait for God to deliver on the promises God has made.

"See I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands," says the Lord, "Reach out your hand and I will write my name upon your heart."

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit- who were, and are, and ever shall be - each hand blessing the other and all enfolding us like a mother embracing her child. AMEN.