The Possibilities

When I visited the Duomo di Milano (the second largest cathedral in the world) on March 24, 2019, I stood in awe of the magnificent interior, and then scrambled around the rooftop with hundreds of other tourists.

I never imagined the possibility that Piazza del Duomo in Milan would be empty a year later, or that I would be listening to the Italian opera singer Andrea Bocelli perform inside that empty cathedral.  Today I sat alone but joined more than 2.5 million people from around the world for his performance. Alone but together, I couldn’t have imagined that possibility either. A link to his performance is here. Bocelli did not accept a fee for his performance but his foundation has established a GoFundMe campaign to raise funds to purchase protective equipment for doctors and nurses here.

When I arrived in Rochester, Minnesota about 3 weeks ago to visit the orthopedic surgeon at the Mayo Clinic about a hip replacement, I was pleased when he said “yes” and not surprised when he said “but we don’t know when we can do it” because the Coronavirus put an end to all elective procedures. I’m a patient person and can certainly wait, but I couldn’t have imagined that I would be sheltering inside for weeks with my brother and his family. (He probably couldn’t imagine it either since we haven’t lived in the same house together since he was 4 years old. He’s much younger than me.) 

My Baltimore friend shared a short 13 minute audio clip of a discussion about the significance of language, and especially the metaphors, that we use to describe things like the Coronavirus. President Trump and many in the U.S. talk about our “war on this virus” and we want to name and defeat this enemy.  Other leaders are using very different metaphors, and a famous epidemiologist uses education metaphors.  Here’s a link to that audio clip. Check it out and see what you think. I couldn’t have imagined the possibility that we might actually build bridges and conceptualize in concrete terms that “We Are One” just by changing our language.  Truly a new paradigm for relating with the “other.”

And my New Mexico friend shared the joy of Easter with me today.  His Argentine cactus bloomed on Good Friday.  I never imagined that a cactus could produce such a beautiful flower.  I can see it.  I believe it. (Photo credit: David Day)

What other possibilities can’t we imagine in this world, and in our lives?

Restoring the Earth and eliminating the catastrophic damage of climate change?

Repairing the social contract between all humans who deserve shelter, food, healthcare, education, love and dignity?

Ending the Israeli occupation of Palestine and finding harmony and peace for all people in the Holy Land?

In my old age, with half a century or more of hearing the story of the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday, I never really believed in that possibility. It didn’t make sense and it didn’t seem particularly important to me.  Today, I have a new appreciation for the possibilities that might be just on the horizon.  (Thank you Grandma for sharing the Easter story every year.)

 

 

 

Easter & Passover Travel

 

Store window in the Venice Ghetto

Movement is on my mind.  Or the lack thereof.

A middle-aged American woman, married to a Palestinian from Bethlehem, was stopped at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport last week, interrogated for hours, and then put on a plane back to the United States. (The news is here.) The Israeli authorities denied her permission to enter Israel to reunite with her family in Bethlehem where she has lived and raised a family for over 30 years. Why this treatment?  She was told “because she married a Palestinian.”

A young Palestinian-American woman, originally from Gaza but now living in the United States with her husband and baby, was stopped at Istanbul’s new airport from boarding her connecting flight to Cairo where she planned to travel by bus to the Rafah crossing into Gaza. She and her young son were looking forward to spending Ramadan with her family but the airline authorities told her the Rafah border was closed, and she would not be allowed into Egypt to wait for the border to open.

Notre Dame Cathedral

The news reports that Israel has imposed a week-long closure of the West Bank and Gaza ahead of Passover, and is preventing hundreds of Palestinian Christians from Gaza from traveling to Jerusalem or Bethlehem to partake in their Easter celebrations.

The irony certainly does not escape me.

Jews worldwide celebrate Passover to mark their exodus from slavery in Egypt. Their freedom of movement is called Passover because, as explained by the Chabad Jews:

They were also instructed to take the blood of the lamb and smear it on their doorposts, a sign to G‑d that this was an Israelite home, to be passed over, while death was visited upon the firstborns in all other homes. This is what gave the Passover sacrifice (and holiday) its name.

Their exodus so long ago saved them from suffering and bondage, but what lessons were learned? What are Jews celebrating in the Twenty-First century as the State of Israel keeps millions of Palestinians oppressed and under occupation, preventing them from moving freely?

For those who are awake, I suspect their discomfort is growing.

As Cohen writes in Patheos:

But for a growing number of Jews around the world our relationship to the Palestinian people has become the greatest challenge to our Jewish identity and values. How can we celebrate our ‘feast of freedom’ and tell the story of our Exodus from the ‘narrow place’ of ‘Mitzryim’ while we deny, or stay silent, about the oppression of Palestine? It’s a profound challenge to our faith and the understanding of our own history.

Attempting to uphold a Jewish ideal of justice and freedom is not easy when you’ve just read that Israel has detained, kidnapped or jailed 1,000,000 Palestinians since 1948.

For those Jews who are not awake or prefer not to see, I think their journey must also be difficult because it takes a good bit of energy and struggle within to ignore the suffering of others.

I remember the wise words of a young Palestinian exchange student from Gaza who I met in Albuquerque, New Mexico over a Passover Seder many years ago. Reading from the Haggadah, a Jewish woman said “I don’t believe Jews are the Chosen People,” obviously to ease the discomfort she thought this young Palestinian Muslim might be experiencing. His response was genuine and thoughtful: “I believe Jews are the Chosen People. I believe God chose the Jews to be the people to show mankind how to treat one’s neighbors.”  (I wrote about Sami from Gaza here.)

If Sami is correct, then clearly the Chosen People have a steep learning curve. Israel’s occupation and subjugation of millions of Palestinians for the past 70+ years is merely a tick in humanity’s clock but it’s unbearable for those waiting for their moment of liberation, for their exodus.

Cohen concludes by saying:

“Tonight, we’ll conclude our family meal with this passage written by Aurora Levins Morales, a poet and activist. I discovered her writing in the 2018 Jewish Voice for Peace Haggadah.

“This time we cannot cross until we carry each other. All of us refugees, all of us prophets. No more taking turns on history’s wheel, trying to collect old debts no one can pay. The sea will not open that way. This time that country is what we promise each other, our rage pressed cheek to cheek until tears flood the space between, until there are no enemies left, because this time no one will be left to drown and all of us must be chosen. This time it’s all of us or none.”

May minds and hearts be moved this Passover and Easter, so that next year everyone has freedom of movement, a life of dignity with compassion, and we treat our neighbors as we wish they would treat us.

 

 

Easter and hope

Easter is a very special holy day for Christians.

As a little girl, I loved Easter very much because my sister and I would wear new dresses, new shoes, and new hats (bonnets) for church.  We decorated eggs and then the Easter bunny hid them so we could search for them on Easter morning.

Easter eggs

The very best were the chocolate Easter bunnies.

Chocolate Easter bunnies

As an adult, Easter means “hope” for me.   That four-letter word is what I’m hanging my hat on for the future — for my granddaughter, for my family, for my friends, and for Palestine and Israel.

Merriam-Webster defines hope: to cherish a desire with anticipation; to desire with expectation of obtainment; to expect with confidence.

In a world stressed with the challenges of climate change and horrific projects like the Keystone XL Pipeline, hope can seem far-fetched.

In a world plagued with intractable conflicts, such as Israel’s occupation of Palestine, hope can seem downright foolish.

But I can’t imagine life without hope.  That is the human spirit, that makes us different from plants and animals.  We have the power of imagination and creativity to believe in something better and to hope.

Christianity, Judaism and Islam all share that common denominator of hope. Now, if they could just share it together!