ReligionDispatches.org

Reconciliation assumes that hostilities have ended, that it is time to heal wounds and unite enemies. Such moments are sacred. But not every moment is like this. When something bad is going on, merely to accept it is craven. Attempting to justify it is worse. But refusing to understand it is monumentally stupid. I am writing at the moment of the Gaza bombings. My heart is cradling its grief, remembering its visit to that desolate place (on an Fellowship of Reconciliation delegation) in 1998. At that time, the Jews in our party dared not remark above a whisper what the passage inward reminded them of: some thoughts are forbidden. These days I recall 19th century Indian reservations, the Trail of Tears. It seemed then that things could scarcely get worse. But they have, they have. Hope depends on the notion that there is a bottom you can touch, a point at which the cycle must begin to reverse. But Israel/Palestine seems sometimes an infinite descent into Hell.