Dearly Beloved,
How is your heart? Your soul? You body? Your spirit?
I invite you, with all that is happening in our world, to join me in taking time to pause, to breathe, to check in with yourself. Tears may flow. You may need to move your body. Or drink water. Or text someone you love. You may need a nap. Or simply a moment to offer yourself (or someone else) a word of love, and gratitude and grace.
There is a lot going on in our world.
High on many of our minds is the violence happening in Israel and Palestine. I invite you to avoid assigning blame and instead join our siblings in grief, in lament and in holding onto glimmers of hope and prayers for peace. The truth is that the violence targeting our Jewish siblings these last few days is the worst since the Holocaust. What horror!
And it is also true that Israel has been holding Palestine, especially the Gaza Strip, as an apartheid state. I know the violence that such a society inflicts on the bodies, minds, economies, communities and psyches of those at the bottom in such situations.
In many ways, it doesn't matter who "started" this particular iteration of this conflict.
What matters is that our siblings, Jewish and Muslim (and Christian), Israeli and Palestinian are in deep pain. What matters is that violence only breeds more violence. What matters is that there are, in the midst of all that is happening, the helpers seeking to provide aid, safety, hope. What matters is that God is weeping with us. I imagine the divine rending His/Her/Their clothes. I imagine an unending flash flood of tears. What I know is that the heart of God is breaking. And whenever our siblings suffer, whether it's in Israel or Palestine, Sudan or Yemen or Zimbabwe or right here in our own back yards or in our own homes, God grieves.
So I invite you to be gentle. To be kind. And open. And loving. To yourself and to those around you.
We all need it!
With love and hope and tenderness,
Thandiwe
