Content warning: Heavy stuff; Preaching; and Love.

 

 

 

All this strife in the Middle East has got me down.  It's had me down since Oct 7, but it's been on my mind since I was young and recall Jimmy Carter, Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat signing a peace accord together in the late seventies.

 

Today, my brief TL;DR: statement is: The world needs peace.  The cycles of violence need to be extinguished, not the lives of the people, and the hopes of the people for real peace.  The people in this world - each of us - need to have peace in our hearts.  On the personal level, not a shallow peace of "breathe in, breathe out, move on" - but a deep and abiding peace, one that can sustain us through all of the hits and triggers that send us into states of fear, or reactivity.  On the international level, not a peace held at gunpoint, or a peace that is only the absence of current conflict.  Peace on another level between nations (if they must continue to exist) built on a cycle of trust that is granted, earned, granted, affirmed, until questions and doubts of one another are quashed by a truer knowing and a true caring and seeing our common plight instead of separateness and otherness.

 

My prayer is for us ALL to hold one another with love and grace, to know we are held in a love larger than ourselves and those in our immediate vicinity.  My prayer is for us to be holding our neighbor, loving our neighbors as ourselves, and first knowing how to love ourselves.  One aspect of that self-love is to let go of the hatred and anger toward "the other" even if they are "behaving very badly", because the first victim of hate and anger is the one who holds it.  I do not want that festering damage to remain within any of the people who I love (which includes you, if you are reading this).

 

That said, some people are doing violence and voicing support for violent things - around the world, but on my mind in particular is the conflict on a continent "distant" from my own.  Violence these days tends to distance the perpetrator from its impact on those violated by words or weaponry (a tweet can impact a person across the globe in seconds, a gun or a bomb or a drone can do their damage many miles away from the trigger pulled).  The causes and sources of those violent actions and words could be argued to the ends of the Earth, which I hope we do not do, because the effects and outgrowths of those violent words and actions are real and harmful to every human heart, and for peace to arise, the violence needs to be recognized for what it is, and quelled through effective means.

 

THAT said, Hamas has always been about the destruction of the state and people of Israel.  Hamas are clear about this in their messaging.  The massacre-marauding, killing, raping, and kidnapping of innocent civilians (most of them Jewish) they did on October 7th is something that they apparently revel in - posting live recordings of their atrocities to maximize their terror.  People who care about the Palestinian people in Gaza or in West Bank also should have an interest in rooting out Hamas.   Hamas does not care about the people of Gaza, does not extend rights to women, abhors LGBTQ folks, and generally seems only interested in keeping power even if that means the people that they "govern over" suffer.

 

The state of Israel and the IDF also commit violence, and have killed and harmed many innocent people in Gaza and West Bank in their quest to fight Hamas.   Much like the US "defense" budget goes to military ordnances used outside of national borders, those of us who want peace recognize the euphemistic rhetoric of "defense" vs. military "offense".  I am not naive enough to think, however, that a ceasefire is on their agenda - and from a logistical sense, I don't see how they can stop because Hamas would keep coming with their terrorism. Beyond reading "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu, I'm obviously not a military expert or a soldier, so I hope that those who are versed in the ways of war will do their part to negotiate and draw things down to the peace that all of humanity needs, so we can address the other very large issues collectively.

Regarding the ongoing situation in the Eastern Mediterranean, the cycles of violence and divisive rhetoric (along with our fractured newsfeeds) reinforce dehumanizing of the "other," and we have to strengthen our hearts in order to realize that the violence of bombs, guns, and words have impact on real people - whether on those who identify as Jews frightened to the core by worries about a" Kristallnacht 2.0" as mobs march in the streets of France and the UK, and are openly anti-semitic for protests and on college campuses around the US.  The recent popular calls by pro-Palestine supporters of "From the River to the Sea" means to many Jews the decimation of the nation and people of Israel, and eradication of Jews!  Violence against every Jewish heart, and against every one who loves one or more people who identify as Jewish.  And news reports of Israel bombings in Gaza, and more people dead and hurting there in "open air prisons" blamed on Israel but also perpetuated by the actions of Hamas and (in)actions of other nations - this is violence against the hearts and bodies of those people who identify as "Palestinian", along with every one who love and cares about one or more of them.   I know this includes many Muslims, but also many Christians, Jews, and everybody else who want an end to violence beset upon innocents. I'm also not naive enough to think that any tax-paying adult in a militarized nation could be truly stain-free and innocent, but I will again assert that nobody deserves violence, and this requires that we dismantle cycles of violence.

 

Decades ago, when I bought my used JCM800 guitar amp, among many other things I taped to the side of the cabinet, (for reasons I've never understood until maybe now) I affixed a harrowing picture from the NYT of an old man smiling among four younger men also smiling.  The caption below it said, "Sheik Ahmed Yassin prepared to break the Ramadan fast with a group of relatives and aides.  Asked if Hamas would strike again soon, he replied, 'As you have seen and will see, for every action there is a reaction.'" What horrified me most about it is that the founder of Hamas could be smiling as he stated words embracing a cycle of REACTIVE violence.  It further horrifies me that he was assassinated (and martyred?) by Israeli forces in 2004, and that the cyclic system has maintained itself for 20+ years and has now escalated to a fever pitch.  Israel bombs Gaza to try to take down Hamas or other terrorist organizations  (and civilians are often killed).  Hamas and other terrorist groups resort to whatever terrorism they can manage because they do not have a standing army or airplanes to fight against oppressions in a standard war (and civilians are often killed).  I do not see either of these violent methods ever establishing peace, except through eventual utter annihilation of everyone (with the Earth left to recover with plants and animals for some eons).  Instead, the cycle continues, with each side vilifying the other (rightly, but unhelpfully), and really evil is being perpetrated by people who believe they are on the holier side of a holy war that ultimately just produces suffering. Or by people who believe they can establish a "Pax Romana" or "Pax Americana" or somehow create peace by clamping down hard on everything, or by decimating a people.  Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King spoke on this.  I've also written how this is a very tenuous type of peace, and not true peace.

The military-industrial complex is fine with forever-war and entrenched holy wars, because they're a great cash-cow.  Active wars help them run through their product, and nevermind that the byproduct is deaths of innocents and a noisome blaring anxiety alert for everybody who'd like to have true peace and security, and wishes for a more life-affirming use of our collective time, energy, and resources.

 

I do not identify as Israeli, Palestinian, Jew, or Muslim.  I identify as a fellow sentient being living here and now on this spherical garden, wishing fervently (when I have energy) for peace and security and stability for every one of the people I love. I know that life is fleeting, and we each have limited time on this planet.  We barely own our own bodies, and only tenuously hold onto any land we "possess" (whether by a title or deed of ownership in a file cabinet at the county courthouse, or by a show of military/economic/political effort in such lands as those currently known as "America" or "Israel" or "Occupied Tibet" or "The Falkland Islands" or "Tuvalu").

 

I want people to love their neighbors, AND to love the "stranger" yet to be known as a neighbor, and for nations (if they must exist as they do) to honor the will of people who want only to live and to love. I want ALL Jews, ALL Muslims, ALL Christians, ALL Buddhists, ALL "nones", and people of all races, sexes, genders, affinities, and identities to be SAFE and free from hatred - without impacting the safety and sense-of-belovedness for our neighbors.  To be known for what is good about you and your kin, and good about us and our kin.  To be able to make secure homes for yourselves, contribute meaningful work as you choose, to be able to make and eat breads of all types, to make or listen to moving music, to be able to turn to those near and far with kindness and grace, and without this ongoing sense of doom or trepidation we all have been carrying. 

 

To the descendants of Abraham, I know you, somewhat.  I've learned enough to understand you at your basest behaviors, and also to hear about your highest ideals, and I believe that Jews, Christians, and Muslims can and need to get along.  Now.   Amid the sacred texts, there are historical records showing each of these traditions have played parts in wars and conquests - for centuries, and for millenia. Now is a time for each tradition - and for every splinter of each tradition, and every adherent of those traditions - to eliminate the presence of the Adversary (here I mean something similar to "Satan" in the terms of some traditions - the one who deceives and loves to pit us AGAINST EACH OTHER and to walk away from his prideful tools of arrogation, of othering, of seeing ourselves as separate and not connected, and of scarcity-thinking.  Most of us understand that we will leave these bodies we currently inhabit, and also the lands we currently control or try to control.  Humanity may even be shucked off of this planet if we cannot determine ways to live in harmony with the Earth and each other.

 

How much more important is it in your tradition (and within yourselves) to desire and work for the wellbeing of yourself and your neighbors than to hold fast to feelings of fear, and greed that arises from it, or to feelings of anger, and the internal harm that arises from it, or the feelings of hatred, and the distance and othering that arises from it.  I assert that it is 7^7 times more important to desire right relations with our neighbors than to poison oneself with harmful feels and thoughts. 

 

The Sanskrit term "Namaste" means "I bow to you," or "I see the spark of life/divinity in you."  We could use those kind of positive sentiment perspectives toward one another right now.

 

I don't know how we can get everyone there, but I will say that induction is a real process that contributes to emergence/concrescence, so this work starts or continues with me/us, and I hope that for your next High Holidays, for your next Ramadan, for your next Christmas and Easter, this and further journeys around the Sun, we as people will prioritize well-being between individuals and between nations (if we must have such partitioned identities going forward).  I will close with one of my favorite sacred texts, found on a Yogi-Tea tea tag, but (perhaps) originating in the book of Isaiah 26:3 - "Trust creates peace."  Knowing that others in our life have our best interests in their hearts and minds is a good source of peace.

 

Now is a time to let our good will be known, that we may follow the paths to trust and know one another authentically.  

We wish you the following: Salaam alaikum. Shalom aleichem.  A deep and abiding peace that passes all understanding. "May peace be with you" in any language that can be heard, read, or felt.