A Prayer for the Middle East
One night when I was working as chaplain in a major metropolitan hospital, I was called to a room where an incredibly difficult event was occuring. I won’t say what the event was, but as I walked through the doorway, I heard what I can only describe as an inaudible scream. It was as if someone’s agonizing grief and suffering were so great that it rose to levels above the decibels of human hearing. I have since talked with other people who have been called to the scene of traumatic events and who have heard the same deafeningly silent cry.
It seems that at the epicenter of the war in Gaza, one long inaudible scream is being generated from every traumatized child, every spouse searching desperately for their loved one, every friend or neighbor never to be seen again—both Palestinian and Israeli. The losses reverberate around the world with a grief so overwhelming that it leaves even the hearts and souls of strangers inconsolable. And there seems to be no balm in sight.
Several months ago, an email was distributed to our interfaith clergy group by someone who was angry that Jewish students were afraid to walk on campus at UCSB, and “no one speaks out.” I understood his pain, but I was wrestling with the fact that words can unintentionally wound, making a hard situation even harder. A clergy friend of mine did speak about the war in a sermon, so angering one of his parishioners that he started receiving death threats and now has police protection. As I write this, student protesters are demanding divestment, classes are going online, college administrators are facing unthinkable pressures—by Congress on one side and their own boards on the other. Good people are trying to take actions to relieve the suffering, yet it seems to only be intensifying the anger. All the while the violence seems to have no end in sight.
As the intensity rises I can’t help but wonder what it will take for this fire to stop raging—both in Gaza and here in the U.S.—and what will be left at the end. What remnants of trust, if any, will remain? What relationships will endure this inferno? What seeds of peace lie deep enough to take root once again?
Passover started this Monday. Rabbi Susan Goldberg wrote “It’s so direct in the Seder. When we talk about freedom and captivity, how do you not think about the hostages?” She added, “Then we say, ‘Let all who are hungry come and eat,’ and how do we not think about the people in Gaza who are starving?” Our faith rituals call us to return, again and again, to the questions we find so difficult to face. We too are called to pray—not just for those whom we find sympathetic, but for those who arouse our anger. And when we cannot find words sufficient to the situation, we pray in silence, trusting God hears what is in our hearts.
Therefore, bound up by my own sense of powerlessness and ignorance, I pray. I pray for the lives lost. I pray for the suffering. I pray that every person finds shelter and solace. I pray that every shattered heart finds its balm. I pray that all who are blind may have their eyes opened and know how and when to act and speak. Most of all, I pray that all the inaudible cries will be heard.
Pastor Jen
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