Nothing I’ve seen or read about the conflict that we imagine started October 7th has brought home the human truth about it as clearly as this video has. Maybe that’s because we’re (I’m) usually speaking grandly about ideas and often from a too lofty position, a “high horse.” The video is a conversation with a mother who lost her only son on October 7th. Words fall short because the human truth of what happened is not primarily a matter of words. It’s more than that and can only be understood in a deeper and felt way, an embodied way. The turnaround to the story is that the mother (and here the words fall short again) has refused any desire for vengeance and done it out of love for her son.
Even watching 10 or 15 minutes of the 44 minute video will give the human truth in a way that a lot of words cannot. (And this post will be shorter than others too.) One way to understand the message is that the story of the conflict isn’t set in Israel or Gaza but in each of our hearts, our consciousnesses if you will.
The truth here is the system pattern for all the wars and polarized conflicts that enflame our world. This includes but isn’t limited to the destruction wrought by the gender wars, the destruction to families and the children, mothers and fathers who make them up.
The T-shirt above was one I had made up for a Remembrance Day ceremony at the War Memorial in Ottawa years ago. We were a small group but we were joined unexpectedly by a Muslim woman in full burkah. Just her young eyes could be seen but they showed where she stood and that she was not afraid to see and be seen. Today I’d modify the message to say that “To Understand is to End All War.”
Andrew
To not be able to understand all the missed opportunities to have created a better outcome to this story (Gaza), is to allow a further development of the outcomes seen. To arrive at some point in the current dilemmas, and speak on behalf of what one sees and hears, will not alleviate the situation. Why do we so often rally against the horrible scenes before our eyes and claim the good fight against it, when we so casually forget the fact we failed everyone in this scene so long ago. Unless we address the roots of this, there is not enough love to fix it.
Thank you, Andrew.
Love, is our way forward as it comes with understanding, wisdom and common sense.
John