January 9, 2009

You are Loved

The anger comes in waves. A slow powerful swell that leaves me raw and feeling useless. Then quick jabs. An uppercut. I am numb. The seeds of rage grow into sprouts of hate. It at this moment of the beating that I breathe. Stop.

I scroll through all the images. I read all the words. Starving children sit besides the corpses of their parents. I see Kaia standing there. My eyes flash open. It is too unbearable to imagine. I see her awash in a fear that is beyond the ability of any one person to endure, let alone a child. A lone child. Who will she become without the love of her parents? Watching them bleed away to nothing. Their murders ignored or branded as self-defense.

How did we get here? I push back the hatred. It is in my heart, just like yours that hatred grows. And it is here that we must fight it. Push it back with all our force. I will carry this anger only so far. My back aches with the weight of the world again. My heart goes to the oppressed everywhere they suffer the injustice of hate. But anger does no one any good.

Please do not take my words to mean that we should ignore the anger we feel when we see injustice. Just the opposite, we must acknowledge the anger, carry it a while and feel its weight, find its source. Let it soak into every fiber of our being, but from that soil we must transform it to love.

Love for our enemies, love for the monsters that kill children in their schools. Love for armies who ban medical help for the people they butcher. We must learn to love those that commit evil, because our hatred only fuels their crimes.

Terrified young men assault each other with missiles and bullets, because they were not able to defeat the hatred in their hearts. Broken men, brainwashed with the fantasies of older men follow orders because the fear in their hearts is too much to bear.

How else do you explain neighbors who kill each other’s children over such meaningless things as borders and gods? Lost in ancient stories, these men have forgotten how to create love and spread it to those who beg for it.

All I can do these dark nights is sit with my anger and prick myself wake from the numbness. There is light to shed in my heart still. I hope this light translates from these words and touches someone who may be reading. If not, if I am alone, I know that this light will not simply disappear into the universe. Perhaps somehow my thoughts will find there way to that little girl standing next to her dead mother. And they will simple say, “you are not alone. I am here in your heart. I love you. Let everything else go. You are loved.

8 comments:

  1. Anonymous4:09 AM

    A beautiful post.

    I always try to remain detached about politics, to steep my thinking in objectivity and reason out the best way to move forward, but by this massacre I am overwhelmed. I cannot find a way to make things better. I can't even begin to understand the horror. I either want to cry, or scream, or just be incredibly still and hope it will all pass.

    What good can I do, here in my safe American home? What peace can there be between people who have been fighting for so long, and so bitterly?

    I have no answers. I just know this must stop. Somehow.

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  2. jabiz, i didn't think there could possibly be a soul out there who could sit down a write something that would ease the anger, pain, frustration, disgust and near-hatred that I feel in the light of the unlawful, murderous attacks taking place in Gaza. but your humane perspective has helped me today and i sincerely thank you for that.
    and it is this sentiment that i will take with me tomorrow evening when i take my children to the A.I. peaceful demonstration in Dublin and we light candles together in memory of the many hundreds of the innocent lives lost.

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  3. Anonymous4:48 AM

    Jabiz,

    Well said.

    Refreshing to hear after reading about so much terror, bloodshed, and theft of innocence. Is peace on earth just a castle in the air?

    I don't know.

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  4. aside from the fact that i believe that this recent debacle is simply fueled from greed- i agree with you. the senselessness of greed and hunger for power is what makes me angry. because that is mostly what fuels these kinds of tragedies. young people follow their elders into the abyss based on the elders' visions and those most often involve the greed for wealth and power. the fact that so many people on this planet have this shortsighted vision for themselves and the rest of humanity- indeed, that they have so little regard for life (sentient and non sentient) just boggles my mind.

    that is where my anger comes from and generally, it turns to sadness bordered on despair. and then i have to recenter myself because you are right- negativity feeds negativity. a black hole sucks everything around it into itself. i won't be that black hole. or at the very least, i try hard not to.

    it is a fine line between realism and despair sometimes.

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  5. thank you! how beautiful!

    and then i often think - i've never experienced war before. granted, i grew up with my parents' stories about the atrocities of the nazis and WWII, but i've never experienced it personally. who am i to say, from my canadian safety here, that speaking of peace is beautiful? am i being sentimental?

    then i can turn to thich nhat hanh, who HAS experienced war. there's a talk by him about anger in this post http://www.moritherapy.org/article/heroes-of-healing-thich-nhat-hanh/. he's also written a book about it.

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  6. piercing words..though i disagree at certain points..

    in my opinion anger is a momentary impulse and ordinary mind always like momentary impulses that's why whatever the disorders happening in the world is because of this impulses (anger, sex etc)..in your writing you say, one mustn't control anger at certain situations...yes, one must be reactive at certain situations but certainly not in terrible impulse...one pound of hatred will be brought at the cost of a ounce of anger. do u think hatred is a solution???

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  7. @Shubhajit

    I said:

    Love for our enemies, love for the monsters that kill children in their schools. Love for armies who ban medical help for the people they butcher. We must learn to love those that commit evil, because our hatred only fuels their crimes.

    How can you think think I am advocating hatred?

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  8. ok i'm terribly sorry if i misinterpreted you. as a matter of fact I fully understand your reply and agree with that. though i have my own reservations.

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