This piece expresses how I feel. May the day soon come when Israeli says to Palestinian Shalom Aleichem (peace to you) and the Palestinian responds As-salaamu Alaikum (upon you peace) and both mean it from the bottom of their hearts. Because on that day the horror that is the region will be over.
My prayer:
May the Light of God's Silence break in every heart.
Let there be peace and love among all beings in the universe.
Israelis and Palestinians can’t go on like this. Weep for us.
...
At night, the furies, Jewish and Arab, fill streets in Israeli towns and attack people. Hamas, finding a chance to be noticed, throws rockets, not caring who they hit. Israel’s military aims carefully at Gaza. Either way, people are shredded.
I remember the first time I saw a pool of blood after a terrorist bombing in my neighborhood, and the first time I saw torn pieces of what had been a person on a downtown storefront. Bombs did not liberate anyone. If you have looked on these things, and you now hear of the rockets hitting Israel and buildings bombed in Gaza, then it is impossible to bear hearing people far away talk with certainty about which missiles are evil and which are necessary.
Weep, damn it, weep for us. Weep for this place in the season of wildflowers when it should be beautiful, weep for the dead and the living, weep for God who can’t get us to stop, weep for humanity.
Somehow this will stop. May it happen now, as you read this. We will see each other’s faces, each other’s pain. We will realize this cannot go on. We will find each other. It is what can come after anger and grief, what must come. I have to believe.
These words are what I have left after all the explanations and counterfeit certainties. I have tears for two peoples, tangled together, and hope that we’ll finally see that this can’t go on. We can’t let it.
My prayer:
May the Light of God's Silence break in every heart.
Let there be peace and love among all beings in the universe.
Israelis and Palestinians can’t go on like this. Weep for us.
...
At night, the furies, Jewish and Arab, fill streets in Israeli towns and attack people. Hamas, finding a chance to be noticed, throws rockets, not caring who they hit. Israel’s military aims carefully at Gaza. Either way, people are shredded.
I remember the first time I saw a pool of blood after a terrorist bombing in my neighborhood, and the first time I saw torn pieces of what had been a person on a downtown storefront. Bombs did not liberate anyone. If you have looked on these things, and you now hear of the rockets hitting Israel and buildings bombed in Gaza, then it is impossible to bear hearing people far away talk with certainty about which missiles are evil and which are necessary.
Weep, damn it, weep for us. Weep for this place in the season of wildflowers when it should be beautiful, weep for the dead and the living, weep for God who can’t get us to stop, weep for humanity.
Somehow this will stop. May it happen now, as you read this. We will see each other’s faces, each other’s pain. We will realize this cannot go on. We will find each other. It is what can come after anger and grief, what must come. I have to believe.
These words are what I have left after all the explanations and counterfeit certainties. I have tears for two peoples, tangled together, and hope that we’ll finally see that this can’t go on. We can’t let it.