Two months ago I posted a blog called, “A Propitious Moment.” (You can see it on this page.) In that article I named six things I really want for our world, things I believe in enough to take a stand and sacrifice for. At the end I asked readers to comment, stating their own wishes. Several people shared values truly worth pondering. When I moved some of my blogs over to the new website these comments were lost, even to me, and I apologize for that.
Today I received an email from a Palestinian woman, a Muslim, who lives in the U.S. She told me that she had been thinking about my question all of this time and was ready to give an answer. I want you to know what she said:
“1. I want the West to acknowledge our plight, portray the Arabs fairly in the media and for people to be better educated about it.
“2. I want the Arabs, as a people together, to take accountability for our behavior, our decisions, our education, and establish a peaceful way to resolve our issues, to look at our differences and do what is best for the majority, regardless of religion, color or creed.”
Two fair and reasonable wishes, aren’t they? But even before recording them, the writer said, “I don’t think either one will happen.” She wrote with longing and discouragement.
“I am so tired of thinking hurt and angry; it is like the world I knew is drowning. I count my blessings everyday that I live in a safe home, yet everyday my inner home that I carry with me is collapsing. I do not know if anyone still sees any hope.”
Hearing the pain in these words, I must acknowledge that the two things she wants are highly unlikely. In fact, I have just made a serious understatement. Those two things she wants are barely imaginable. They are dreams without legs, unattainable. Honestly, I know that I will never see them.
Americans without bias, media that doesn’t color the news, politicians who tell the whole truth? Give me a break.
The Sunnis and the Shiites and the Christians and Druze, the Syrians and Kurds and Iraqis and Egyptians and Lebanese, all sitting down over a cup coffee to figure out what is best for the Middle East and plotting to implement it peacefully? Don’t make me laugh.
So why am I glad that she tried to state her longing? I am thinking about that.
Pure reason tells us that the alternative to wishing and stating our wishes is despair, and despair is a self-fulfilling prophecy. When we are truly without hope, we will stop saying what we want. Then violence will be king, cruelty and oppression will be totally free to control the world, and we will ourselves be partially to blame.
But reasonable people need reasons to hope, and in the present world conflict solid reasons are scarce. On what shall we base any hope for peace with justice? On a world of laws? On negotiations? On armies and guns and bombs? Of course not. On the decency and goodness of the human race? Maybe, a little.
This week I received my April Sojurners magazine from which I learned that last July a Muslim woman schoolteacher named Soaad Nofal marched daily to ISIS headquarters in Raqaa, Syria, carrying a cardboard sign challenging their kidnapping of nonviolent activists. She was joined by hundreds of other protesters, with their own little handmade signs, and in time a few of the kidnapped were released. We surely agree with Sojourners that their release was a small victory, but a victory nevertheless, and a demonstration of non-violent power.
The people who won this victory are but a tiny percentage of those who are opposed to the brutal tactics of ISIS as well as numerous other injustices in the Middle East. And that is why we can take hope from those courageous people. So many others share their desire.
Not only that, but what they did fits the example of Jesus, who told his disciples to put away their swords but expected them to speak up and demonstrate their loyalty. As a Christian I believe that Jesus spoke for God as he claimed, and in that is all the hope I have. If there is one God who made and loves us all, then there is a benevolent spirit behind and under and over this world, a merciful God who also wants the peace and righteousness we long for. Only if there is no such benevolent spirit, must we be hopeless.
Therefore, I must tell this hurting woman who wrote to me that we can hope. If God wishes for anything, it is imaginable, a dream worth dreaming.
And who can give the dream legs? Those who have faith in it. Those who believe and hope and love one another. Nobody else can do it. And when I said that I would not see these good things come about? I said it because I am 85 years old. My hope is for my children and grandchildren. If we stop hoping we will fail them.
The email that has prompted me to say all this ended with these words: “I love reading your writings. I love knowing that you and your family understand. It is hard to cry alone.”
Even these words contain a seed of hope. The Christian scriptures tell us to weep with those who weep, and we can do this much. You and I, dear Jumana, a Muslim and a Christian, an American Californian born in the south and a displaced Palestinian who carries home in her heart, we can both do that. And there are so many others. Hope begins here. We want the same thing. We do not weep alone.
Sometimes when I read the news, Jumana, I know that God is weeping. You and I and God, that just feels like a majority to me.