I went back to Capitol Hill this morning to say hi to my former co-workers at the United Methodist General Board of Church and society. I noticed as I walked out the door of my house that I was wearing two items bought at H&M, whose CEO gives large amounts of money to Israel. There was construction happening at the Silver Spring metro station and I saw a giant Caterpillar digger, another reminder of unethical investment (Caterpillar is a key target for BDS as they provide the demolition equipment especially made for Israel. Their bulldozers are used to demolish Palestinian homes.) and I walked on. As I arrived at the Methodist Building I could see the Capitol on my right, senate and congressional buildings all around and I couldn't help but be ever so slightly tempted to just walk in and knock on every door to politely yet firmly ask that we STOP FUNDING THE FRIGGIN OCCUPATION! But, of course, I didn't. (Mostly because I think getting a delegation from VA to visit our senator's office together while being prepared and clearly representing a significant amount of voters is much more effective.) I think maybe I still should have though, I mean, why not?
I left Israel/Palestine on July 12th from Tel Aviv. I got to spend my last night with the USAID Peace Coordinator, which was fascinating in many regards. I also got to the airport 2 hours later than I should have and had the unique experience of being helped through by the security women who nonethless did a very thorough job of rifling through my things. (I think it helped that I had a pin with the Israel and American flags on my bag and that I gave myself an Israeli hairdo and put on lots of flashy jewelry. These are always helpful things.) I spent 4 lovely days in Paris seeing my family and enjoying my last nutella crepe and Shtrumph gummies for a while. And now I'm back in the US.
This is where the work needs to be done, at least for me. This is where suddenly the right thing is all the more pressing but also all the more distant from view. It is SO obvious when in Israel/Palestine that the church should stop funding occupation, that the government should stop schizophrenically funding the Israeli military and occupation as a whole and also funding peace programs and humanitarian aid (Here's an idea: stop funding the occupation and you can stop funding the negative externalities of the occupation!) But here, everything needs to be proved. Everything needs to be explained. Suddenly the enemy is nothing so obvious as a gun in your face or an 18 year old soldier shooting tear gas at people on their own land, the enemy is ignorance, apathy, bad theology, and fear of controversy. Suddenly it's not just enough to show up, to blog, to be in solidarity; to be faithful is to organize, to speak out, to push for movement, to move.
I'm really excited to be going back to Eastern Mennonite University, to be back in the United States with so many people I love. I'm excited that as a citizen I have power to effect change. I'm excited to do more cooking, to get back into biking and gardening and hymn singing. But I'm also incredibly daunted and nervous. Because in my heart I carry the knowledge that as I enjoy all of these things, my Palestinian friends are still being oppressed. They still don't have freedom. International law and more importantly the law of Love that Christ taught is being daily violated. Many will say "Well yes but that's true all over the world all the time" which is true, but the major difference here is that WE'RE PAYING FOR IT, we're supporting it. Our government, our corporations, our churches, our schools, our silence are all allowing this to continue, no, are making it continue.
So I'm daunted and I'm scared. I'm scared of my own weakness and inability to compel movement, to communicate effectively. I'm scared that no matter how clearly or well I state the case or tell the story, people still won't care, because they don't have to. I'm scared the Mennonite church will shuffle its feet and not take a clear stance on BDS. But I guess I'm also hopeful. I'm hopeful because I am far from the only person, American or Mennonite to have been touched by this issue. I'm joining a struggle already in process. I'm hopeful because Jesus is on the side of the oppressed. I'm hopeful because I can't be anything but, because fear is not a good impetus for motion, but hope is.
After a long two months of travel I hope that's where you'll join me: in hopeful motion. Not everyone is called to lead the struggle for justice in Israel/Palestine. But if you are an American and if you belong to a church or a university you are involved already. My friend in Bethlehem recently tagged the wall with giant letters which read "Question your leaders!" Sprayed on an Apartheid Wall paid for by the US and built by the same company building the US/Mexico wall, it's a strong statement and a good reminder. So question your leaders, question your investments and let your heart be touched by the stories of those effected by our actions and inactions.
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Monday, July 19, 2010
Saturday, July 10, 2010
How Can We be Silent? 3 Villages, 1 Occupation
Shabat shalom. Today was neither a day of rest nor of peace for me. There's so so much I want to write about, but I think perhaps what's best is to give you a small snapshot of three different villages I've visited in the last 2 days.:
Al-Waleja
A Palestinian village near Jerusalem, Al-Waleja is slowly giving up hope. We went to their "protest" on Friday which was really just a few people with flags, Palestinian media, me, two other international activists and an Israeli. In 1967 when Israel expanded the borders of the Jerusalem municipality half of Al-Waleja was considered part of Jerusalem and half was in the West Bank. Nobody informed the residents and so those who could have applied for Jerusalem IDs did not do so. In the late 90's, however, many villagers found out as the Occupying Forces (as some call the "Isreali Defense Force", quite a misnomer) told them they were illegal inhabitants of Jerusalem. Their houses hadn't moved, they hadn't changed, simply a border was decided without their input and they were now illegal residents in their own homes. The protest in Al-Waleja is against the construction of the wall which is again taking land from the village. 70% of their agricultural land, in fact. Though the Green Line is in the valley, the already-begun wall construction is taking place way up the hill into Al-Waleja thereby annexing land which is already earmarked to become a settlement. In fact the settlers intending to move there have also lodged a complaint against the construction of the wall....because it's not giving them ENOUGH land. So I guess no one is happy. Least happy of all is perhaps our host for the afternoon, AbuSaber. Last week 88 of his 100 olive trees were uprooted to clear a path for the illegal wall. Of those, a few were kindly replanted on an upper level. Except of course that they were put in a dry location and moved when their roots could not handle it so all of the few replanted trees are now dead. AbuSaber offered us plums and olives and tea, but told us, smiling, "It is not a beautiful life". When asked if he would take Jerusalem ID if it was offered (which it won't be) he said " I just want to be here. I love my land. Jerusalem...Palestine...I just want to be on my land. But I love Palestine."
Beit Ommar
We were marching into Abu Islam's olive grove. The intetion was to commemorate the 6th anniversary of the International Court of Justice's ruling of the "Seperation Fence" as illegal by having a mock trial near the offending structure through which one could see the rest of the olive grove, now annexed to Galad Asa, a settlement. Before we got very far six or so Israeli soldiers stopped us and said "This is a closed military zone, go back now. You can come back to cultivate your fields tomorrow but you can't be here today" So we tried to start the trial then and there, there was some shoving and "go back!" that continued. Meanwhile some of the Israeli activists tried to engage in conversation, as did Moussa, a main Palestinian organizer. "You can't be here" the soldier told him, "Why, this is my land!" said Moussa, "You can come back tomorrow" said the soldier "It's my land on the other side of this fence too. Look-- there are settlers on that side walking around freely, why can't I walk freely on my land?" The soldier had no reply and so walked away. After about 20 minutes or so we were still in various stages of conversation, speeches, shuffling about, staging a temporary sit-in, when all of a sudden I looked down at my feet where something had just landed. It looked kind of like a tear gas cannister so my very first thought was, of course, "Oh, SHIT!" right after which I heard a huge boom and then nothing else, saw a flash of light and felt little bits of dirt and pressure pushed through my body centering at my ankle. A flash-bomb. Awesome. "Go back!" the soldier next to me said "What the..." I said, right as a tear gas cannister exploded behind me, where we were supposed to be "Go back"ing to. "Why are you shooting bombs and tear gas where you want us to go?" I asked logically if not altogether dispassionately to the same soldier "Go back!" he insisted. So we did. We all started to run, trying to keep an eye out for the flash bombs that were going off at an alarming rate and the tear gas flying overhead. One journalist was hit at close range with a tear gas canister and had to have the ambulance take him, a kid also got hit at the back of the head and was bleeding. Other than that no casualties were had. Probably the most terrifying moment for me was not when bombs were being thrown, but the eerie moment when I saw a settler dressed all in white and carrying an AK47 walking along his side of the fence, looking at us. Because you don't know what settlers will do. They're already in violation of international law and sometimes Isreali law and so really, they're above the law. Plus they have huge guns and everyon is terrified of them. The good news from Beit Ommar is that the israeli activist i met two years ago when her fiance was in jail is still in Beit Ommar except her husband, Moussa, has been released and they now have an adorable baby girl together and are still organizing the resistance!
I was supposed to go straight to Hebron from Beit Ommar but ended up joining a group of 8 other activists/students/internationals who knew someone in the neighborhood so we had tea at Abu Islam's house. He told us about his 6 dunnums of land he had not been allowed to go work for six years, how all his trees are dried up and dead now. He told us abot his son who is serving 2 years in jail for throwing a rock during a demonstration, and he offered us more tea, smiled and showed us his granddaughter, and objected everytime we started to leave.
Hebron
I went to the "Open ShuHada Street" protest a second time in Hebron. I'll skip over the actual demonstration which was slighly more disturbing and difficult than last time (mostly due to some kicking and general violence by the soldiers at one point, and the settlers throwing not just water but bleach down on the demostratotrs) and talk about the settler tour afterwards. Ironically that which we had been demonstrating for was acomplished soon after we ended-- the soldiers opened up the barrier to ShuHada street...to let in a long stream of settlers, all dressed in white, and flanked by a veritable army. The point of these tours, ostensibly, is to tour "historic" sites and see where Jews used to live in Hebron before 1929 (it is true that Jews and Arabs cohabitated quite nicely in Hebron prior to that, however the settlers who are trying to "reclaim" this land are totally unrelated to the Jews who once lived alongside their Palestinian neighbors in peace) but effectively is just another way of becoming familiar with territory one is lookinig to take over. At this point it's around 6:30, 7pm, I've been up and going since 8am, I've been bombed, tear gassed, yelled at, chased, ignored, horrified, and I, along with my fellow travelers, just want to get home. But there's no way through this blockade. Some people try to talk to the soldiers, I'm done with that mostly for the day. Instead, I opt to sing a meddley of "War, huh, what is it good for?" (with the occasional "settlements, huh, what are they good for? Land expropriation...") with "How can we be silent" and "When I get older, they'll call me freedom, just like a wavin' flag" with a little "We shall overcome" just to bring it all together. There was also a great moment of remixing a Celine Dion song to question the Apartheid state. Finally we got through, but stopped, horrified, as we caught some of the tail end of the settler guide's speech. "Look at them in the eye", he said, referring to the Palestinians "and you will see they are not human." And there, in a nutshell, is the problem.
There are so many small anectdotes, quotes, facts and figures that are piling up within me, that I can't get down here, that are available to anybody that will just ask questions and see what's going on. I've asked the Israeli leftist I've met, all of whom impress me in so many ways, "So, how did you get into this?" and invariably their answer is something the line of "I just started to question...so I started to read...I started to think..." These are three very incomplete narratives. This is barely two days of my life. There's more, trust me. Something an Isaeli activist said during the demonstration really made me think: "Look at these soldiers" he said "in a few years they will be out of the army and they will whine and cry and tell all the world about the horrible things they did, they will join Breaking the Silence...but then it will be too late" It reminded me of the conversation I had with the soldier in Hebron earlier this month. He said he knew being in Hebron was wrong, but he couldn't do anything about it while he was a soldier, so he might join Breaking the Silence later. I think Breaking the Silence is a great organization, but the point that struck me was the idea of courage in timing.
How do we do that? As Americans, we are being called on by the Christian community, Palestinian civil society, Israeli peace groups and voices within our own societies, churches and schools to supporte boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) of the occupation, specifically relating to settlements. And what are we doing about it? Are we waiting until others make the step first? Are we so scared of creating division, of taking a "political stand", of puting our own careers, or our institutions reputation on the line that we fail to do that which is right?
I came home to Jerusalem, to Mt. Zion, and I took a much needed shower. Now I am clean and safe and could very well never think about the occupation ever again in my life. There's something tempting about that. But AbuSaber, AbuIslam, Moussa, the kids in Beit Ommar and in Hebron, they would still have to live it every day. My government would still be paying for the bombs thrown at people like me, the bullets shot at Palestinians, the expansion of settlements. So, "How can we be silent?"
Anyway, I couldn't do it, I would miss their smiles and their tea too much.
Al-Waleja
A Palestinian village near Jerusalem, Al-Waleja is slowly giving up hope. We went to their "protest" on Friday which was really just a few people with flags, Palestinian media, me, two other international activists and an Israeli. In 1967 when Israel expanded the borders of the Jerusalem municipality half of Al-Waleja was considered part of Jerusalem and half was in the West Bank. Nobody informed the residents and so those who could have applied for Jerusalem IDs did not do so. In the late 90's, however, many villagers found out as the Occupying Forces (as some call the "Isreali Defense Force", quite a misnomer) told them they were illegal inhabitants of Jerusalem. Their houses hadn't moved, they hadn't changed, simply a border was decided without their input and they were now illegal residents in their own homes. The protest in Al-Waleja is against the construction of the wall which is again taking land from the village. 70% of their agricultural land, in fact. Though the Green Line is in the valley, the already-begun wall construction is taking place way up the hill into Al-Waleja thereby annexing land which is already earmarked to become a settlement. In fact the settlers intending to move there have also lodged a complaint against the construction of the wall....because it's not giving them ENOUGH land. So I guess no one is happy. Least happy of all is perhaps our host for the afternoon, AbuSaber. Last week 88 of his 100 olive trees were uprooted to clear a path for the illegal wall. Of those, a few were kindly replanted on an upper level. Except of course that they were put in a dry location and moved when their roots could not handle it so all of the few replanted trees are now dead. AbuSaber offered us plums and olives and tea, but told us, smiling, "It is not a beautiful life". When asked if he would take Jerusalem ID if it was offered (which it won't be) he said " I just want to be here. I love my land. Jerusalem...Palestine...I just want to be on my land. But I love Palestine."
Beit Ommar
We were marching into Abu Islam's olive grove. The intetion was to commemorate the 6th anniversary of the International Court of Justice's ruling of the "Seperation Fence" as illegal by having a mock trial near the offending structure through which one could see the rest of the olive grove, now annexed to Galad Asa, a settlement. Before we got very far six or so Israeli soldiers stopped us and said "This is a closed military zone, go back now. You can come back to cultivate your fields tomorrow but you can't be here today" So we tried to start the trial then and there, there was some shoving and "go back!" that continued. Meanwhile some of the Israeli activists tried to engage in conversation, as did Moussa, a main Palestinian organizer. "You can't be here" the soldier told him, "Why, this is my land!" said Moussa, "You can come back tomorrow" said the soldier "It's my land on the other side of this fence too. Look-- there are settlers on that side walking around freely, why can't I walk freely on my land?" The soldier had no reply and so walked away. After about 20 minutes or so we were still in various stages of conversation, speeches, shuffling about, staging a temporary sit-in, when all of a sudden I looked down at my feet where something had just landed. It looked kind of like a tear gas cannister so my very first thought was, of course, "Oh, SHIT!" right after which I heard a huge boom and then nothing else, saw a flash of light and felt little bits of dirt and pressure pushed through my body centering at my ankle. A flash-bomb. Awesome. "Go back!" the soldier next to me said "What the..." I said, right as a tear gas cannister exploded behind me, where we were supposed to be "Go back"ing to. "Why are you shooting bombs and tear gas where you want us to go?" I asked logically if not altogether dispassionately to the same soldier "Go back!" he insisted. So we did. We all started to run, trying to keep an eye out for the flash bombs that were going off at an alarming rate and the tear gas flying overhead. One journalist was hit at close range with a tear gas canister and had to have the ambulance take him, a kid also got hit at the back of the head and was bleeding. Other than that no casualties were had. Probably the most terrifying moment for me was not when bombs were being thrown, but the eerie moment when I saw a settler dressed all in white and carrying an AK47 walking along his side of the fence, looking at us. Because you don't know what settlers will do. They're already in violation of international law and sometimes Isreali law and so really, they're above the law. Plus they have huge guns and everyon is terrified of them. The good news from Beit Ommar is that the israeli activist i met two years ago when her fiance was in jail is still in Beit Ommar except her husband, Moussa, has been released and they now have an adorable baby girl together and are still organizing the resistance!
I was supposed to go straight to Hebron from Beit Ommar but ended up joining a group of 8 other activists/students/internationals who knew someone in the neighborhood so we had tea at Abu Islam's house. He told us about his 6 dunnums of land he had not been allowed to go work for six years, how all his trees are dried up and dead now. He told us abot his son who is serving 2 years in jail for throwing a rock during a demonstration, and he offered us more tea, smiled and showed us his granddaughter, and objected everytime we started to leave.
Hebron
I went to the "Open ShuHada Street" protest a second time in Hebron. I'll skip over the actual demonstration which was slighly more disturbing and difficult than last time (mostly due to some kicking and general violence by the soldiers at one point, and the settlers throwing not just water but bleach down on the demostratotrs) and talk about the settler tour afterwards. Ironically that which we had been demonstrating for was acomplished soon after we ended-- the soldiers opened up the barrier to ShuHada street...to let in a long stream of settlers, all dressed in white, and flanked by a veritable army. The point of these tours, ostensibly, is to tour "historic" sites and see where Jews used to live in Hebron before 1929 (it is true that Jews and Arabs cohabitated quite nicely in Hebron prior to that, however the settlers who are trying to "reclaim" this land are totally unrelated to the Jews who once lived alongside their Palestinian neighbors in peace) but effectively is just another way of becoming familiar with territory one is lookinig to take over. At this point it's around 6:30, 7pm, I've been up and going since 8am, I've been bombed, tear gassed, yelled at, chased, ignored, horrified, and I, along with my fellow travelers, just want to get home. But there's no way through this blockade. Some people try to talk to the soldiers, I'm done with that mostly for the day. Instead, I opt to sing a meddley of "War, huh, what is it good for?" (with the occasional "settlements, huh, what are they good for? Land expropriation...") with "How can we be silent" and "When I get older, they'll call me freedom, just like a wavin' flag" with a little "We shall overcome" just to bring it all together. There was also a great moment of remixing a Celine Dion song to question the Apartheid state. Finally we got through, but stopped, horrified, as we caught some of the tail end of the settler guide's speech. "Look at them in the eye", he said, referring to the Palestinians "and you will see they are not human." And there, in a nutshell, is the problem.
There are so many small anectdotes, quotes, facts and figures that are piling up within me, that I can't get down here, that are available to anybody that will just ask questions and see what's going on. I've asked the Israeli leftist I've met, all of whom impress me in so many ways, "So, how did you get into this?" and invariably their answer is something the line of "I just started to question...so I started to read...I started to think..." These are three very incomplete narratives. This is barely two days of my life. There's more, trust me. Something an Isaeli activist said during the demonstration really made me think: "Look at these soldiers" he said "in a few years they will be out of the army and they will whine and cry and tell all the world about the horrible things they did, they will join Breaking the Silence...but then it will be too late" It reminded me of the conversation I had with the soldier in Hebron earlier this month. He said he knew being in Hebron was wrong, but he couldn't do anything about it while he was a soldier, so he might join Breaking the Silence later. I think Breaking the Silence is a great organization, but the point that struck me was the idea of courage in timing.
How do we do that? As Americans, we are being called on by the Christian community, Palestinian civil society, Israeli peace groups and voices within our own societies, churches and schools to supporte boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) of the occupation, specifically relating to settlements. And what are we doing about it? Are we waiting until others make the step first? Are we so scared of creating division, of taking a "political stand", of puting our own careers, or our institutions reputation on the line that we fail to do that which is right?
I came home to Jerusalem, to Mt. Zion, and I took a much needed shower. Now I am clean and safe and could very well never think about the occupation ever again in my life. There's something tempting about that. But AbuSaber, AbuIslam, Moussa, the kids in Beit Ommar and in Hebron, they would still have to live it every day. My government would still be paying for the bombs thrown at people like me, the bullets shot at Palestinians, the expansion of settlements. So, "How can we be silent?"
Anyway, I couldn't do it, I would miss their smiles and their tea too much.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Homo Empathicus- Polar Bears, Isaiah and Israel/Palestine
I would like to bring together today a scientific study my father sent me an animated youtubed video of, a strange dream I had last night, Planet Earth, Jesus’ call to His followers, and the Israeli-Palestinian issue. This may get weird.
Last night my friends and I watched the “Ice Worlds” episode of Planet Earth (an AMAZING BBC series on, you guessed it, the Earth) where, among other beautiful and horrifying things, we witnessed the death of a polar bear for lack of ice to stand on, and the ill-fated attack of a walrus by another polar which led to its death. There were two issues at play here: climate change caused by human over-consumption, and the competitive/violent nature of nature in this world. Both of these things distressed me profoundly. I went to bed and dreamt (among other strange things) that my family and I went to a restaurant where small, terrified, furry animals sat on shelves and hunting dogs snarled and kept watch all around. We were to choose the animal we wanted to eat and sit down to be served. It was horrifying. In all of this I’m wondering how it is we (humans/creatures) justify harming and killing other sentient beings when it isn’t actually necessary for survival. I’m also thinking that the vision of the lion lying down with the lamb, in light of the awesome but heartbreaking hunting scenes I’ve seen, is sounding a lot less cliché and a lot more desirable. And I’m thinking about empathy, and as usual about justice and Jesus and how all of these things play out.
Originally I wanted to write a whole post on Isaiah chapter 30 because it is just so friggin’ ballin’. (Aka it speaks, to me at least, almost uncannily, some might say prophetically, about the USA/Israel today and how God probably feels. I may yet write about it) Now, though, I just want to focus in on a few verses:
“Because you have rejected this message, relied on oppression and depended on deceit…[bad things will happen]… This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel says: ‘In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength…the Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed be all who wait for him!’”
When I’m looking around this country, Israel, and I’m thinking of the US, but really about the whole of the Western world and increasingly everywhere else as well, I see pretty clearly that “strength” is defined differently than in these verses. Strength lies in our weapons, our pride, our productivity…whatever. Strength most certainly does not lay in quietness and trust, for sure not trust in God (perhaps in nuclear weapons or fatalism). This is where the youtube video comes in.(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7AWnfFRc7g&feature=player_embedded)
Essentially what Jeremy Rifkin is saying in “The Empathic Society” is that we are “soft wired” as humans for empathy with others. At first we only had the means to have empathy with family members, then religious affiliations, and then we developed a feeling of kinship with citizens of our nation-states. His thesis, which to me sounds a lot like the thesis of Human Rights and also Jesus Christ, is that we now need “to extend our identities to think of the human race as our fellow sojourners” and that empathy should flow over to our fellow creatures “as part of our evolutionary family” (or just because God created them good and we named them and why cause pain?) and the biosphere as our communal home. And so we become Homo Empathicus. We learn to live in the reality of the Kingdom of God.
I was in the park today and I saw an orthodox couple playing with their two kids. They were clearly American and the likelihood of their living in a settlement seemed pretty high (so much of Jerusalem is legally a settlement anyway). I was there with my Palestinian friend and as we looked on we couldn’t help but smile. They were extremely cute. I very much doubt they wished my friend any harm. And I mean the polar bear no harm when I take an extra 20 minutes in the shower. It’s not even close to a perfect analogy but my point is that most people who are causing harm to others in oftentimes life or death kind of ways are either clueless or simply don’t make the connection between their actions and the consequences. That’s why I think Rifkin concludes that if we let our institutions (educational, parenting, business practices, system of government) repress our innate empathetic nature our “secondary drives” towards narcissism, violence, materialism and aggression take over. I think increasingly we need to think more deeply about institutional fidelity to Christ’s call, and policies of love and empathy. Love needs to be not just the core of our personal drive and interactions but the core of any club, group, business, school or law we create. Just as there’s a disconnect when I order a steak at a restaurant between my meal and someone killing a cow somewhere, there’s a disconnect between an Israeli couple moving into their new home in a settlement and a Palestinian farmer having their land stolen somewhere. And yet the two are sometimes, oftentimes, just as closely related. These connections are actually everywhere. It matters how much and what we buy. It matters what we say and don’t say, how we do or don’t vote. Ask anyone who has seen some of these “disconnections” become connected.
As Christians who are taking advantage of such wonders as electricity, the internet, mass-produced everything, democracy, and education we need to admit we are undeniably and mostly irrevocably complicit in all kinds of things. We can’t all be advocates for all of them. Many of us aren’t called to be advocates for any of them. But we do all need to listen to the prophets around us. And then we need to act.
I was at the weekly protest in Sheikh Jarra again today and I got handed a business card that says “Don’t say you didn’t know” with a link (http://kibush.co.il/about.asp?lang=1) to an Israeli news source about the occupation. This is one of many issues we actually do have information about; we just need to be attentive and responsive.
Let’s end with some more Isaiah:
“Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’” –Isaiah 30:20-22
Last night my friends and I watched the “Ice Worlds” episode of Planet Earth (an AMAZING BBC series on, you guessed it, the Earth) where, among other beautiful and horrifying things, we witnessed the death of a polar bear for lack of ice to stand on, and the ill-fated attack of a walrus by another polar which led to its death. There were two issues at play here: climate change caused by human over-consumption, and the competitive/violent nature of nature in this world. Both of these things distressed me profoundly. I went to bed and dreamt (among other strange things) that my family and I went to a restaurant where small, terrified, furry animals sat on shelves and hunting dogs snarled and kept watch all around. We were to choose the animal we wanted to eat and sit down to be served. It was horrifying. In all of this I’m wondering how it is we (humans/creatures) justify harming and killing other sentient beings when it isn’t actually necessary for survival. I’m also thinking that the vision of the lion lying down with the lamb, in light of the awesome but heartbreaking hunting scenes I’ve seen, is sounding a lot less cliché and a lot more desirable. And I’m thinking about empathy, and as usual about justice and Jesus and how all of these things play out.
Originally I wanted to write a whole post on Isaiah chapter 30 because it is just so friggin’ ballin’. (Aka it speaks, to me at least, almost uncannily, some might say prophetically, about the USA/Israel today and how God probably feels. I may yet write about it) Now, though, I just want to focus in on a few verses:
“Because you have rejected this message, relied on oppression and depended on deceit…[bad things will happen]… This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel says: ‘In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength…the Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed be all who wait for him!’”
When I’m looking around this country, Israel, and I’m thinking of the US, but really about the whole of the Western world and increasingly everywhere else as well, I see pretty clearly that “strength” is defined differently than in these verses. Strength lies in our weapons, our pride, our productivity…whatever. Strength most certainly does not lay in quietness and trust, for sure not trust in God (perhaps in nuclear weapons or fatalism). This is where the youtube video comes in.(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7AWnfFRc7g&feature=player_embedded)
Essentially what Jeremy Rifkin is saying in “The Empathic Society” is that we are “soft wired” as humans for empathy with others. At first we only had the means to have empathy with family members, then religious affiliations, and then we developed a feeling of kinship with citizens of our nation-states. His thesis, which to me sounds a lot like the thesis of Human Rights and also Jesus Christ, is that we now need “to extend our identities to think of the human race as our fellow sojourners” and that empathy should flow over to our fellow creatures “as part of our evolutionary family” (or just because God created them good and we named them and why cause pain?) and the biosphere as our communal home. And so we become Homo Empathicus. We learn to live in the reality of the Kingdom of God.
I was in the park today and I saw an orthodox couple playing with their two kids. They were clearly American and the likelihood of their living in a settlement seemed pretty high (so much of Jerusalem is legally a settlement anyway). I was there with my Palestinian friend and as we looked on we couldn’t help but smile. They were extremely cute. I very much doubt they wished my friend any harm. And I mean the polar bear no harm when I take an extra 20 minutes in the shower. It’s not even close to a perfect analogy but my point is that most people who are causing harm to others in oftentimes life or death kind of ways are either clueless or simply don’t make the connection between their actions and the consequences. That’s why I think Rifkin concludes that if we let our institutions (educational, parenting, business practices, system of government) repress our innate empathetic nature our “secondary drives” towards narcissism, violence, materialism and aggression take over. I think increasingly we need to think more deeply about institutional fidelity to Christ’s call, and policies of love and empathy. Love needs to be not just the core of our personal drive and interactions but the core of any club, group, business, school or law we create. Just as there’s a disconnect when I order a steak at a restaurant between my meal and someone killing a cow somewhere, there’s a disconnect between an Israeli couple moving into their new home in a settlement and a Palestinian farmer having their land stolen somewhere. And yet the two are sometimes, oftentimes, just as closely related. These connections are actually everywhere. It matters how much and what we buy. It matters what we say and don’t say, how we do or don’t vote. Ask anyone who has seen some of these “disconnections” become connected.
As Christians who are taking advantage of such wonders as electricity, the internet, mass-produced everything, democracy, and education we need to admit we are undeniably and mostly irrevocably complicit in all kinds of things. We can’t all be advocates for all of them. Many of us aren’t called to be advocates for any of them. But we do all need to listen to the prophets around us. And then we need to act.
I was at the weekly protest in Sheikh Jarra again today and I got handed a business card that says “Don’t say you didn’t know” with a link (http://kibush.co.il/about.asp?lang=1) to an Israeli news source about the occupation. This is one of many issues we actually do have information about; we just need to be attentive and responsive.
Let’s end with some more Isaiah:
“Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’” –Isaiah 30:20-22
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