On July 10th, 1943, Etty Hillesum, a young Dutch Jewish woman interned in Westerbork, sent yet another of her deeply thoughtful letters. In this particular letter, sent to a dear friend, she writes:

It is not fear of Poland that keeps me from going along with my parents, but fear of seeing them suffer. And that, too, is cowardice.

This is something people refuse to admit to themselves: at a given point you can no longer do, but can only be and accept. And although it is something I learned a long time ago, I also know that one can only accept for oneself and not for others.

I have never been able to “do” anything; I can only let things take their course and if need be, suffer. This is where my strength lies, and it is a great strength indeed. But for myself, not for others.

Hillesum, who was only 29 years old when she died in Auschwitz in November of that same year, determined that she would be the “thinking heart of the barracks.” In her journals and letters, which are now published for English readers in Etty: The Letters and Diary of Etty Hillesum, 1941 – 1943, we find a daunting yet luminous account of how to respond humanely to a culture of death. Hillesum invites her reader into the daily work and struggle of a life devoted to authentic hope, compassion for others, and a courageous engagement in nonviolence.

In November of 2000, I participated in a Bearing Witness retreat sponsored by the Zen Peacemaker Order in the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau. In a quiet and solitary moment, I knelt on the grounds of Auschwitz and asked Etty to be my teacher and guide, for I was on her ground now. Read the rest of this article »

I received an email this morning from Bi’lin’s Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements telling me about a 3 am attack on their village by approximately 100 Israeli soldiers and border police. Homes were raided and two residents were arrested, including one American activist. The invaders eventually retreated, however, when a group of Palestinian, Israeli, and international nonviolent activists, numbering close to 100, started following them around the village and blocking their attempts to enter more homes.

Unfortunately, such attacks are commonplace in Bi’lin. Over the past two weeks soldiers have broken into homes, where they have harassed small children and made nine arrests, including a 16 year old. This is done to discourage the popular nonviolent protests against the separation wall and expansion of illegal settlements. Internationals have aided in several “de-arrests” by stepping between soldiers and young persons about to be apprehended. But more help is needed. The Popular Committee is asking “Israeli and international activists to keep coming to the village in the following days, in order to resist further army invasions.”

While this desperate plea and news from half a world away reaches the inboxes of other activists and supporters like myself, most media outlets will be busy reporting on the death of a pop star. The New York Daily News is running a forty-page spread on the life and career of Michael Jackson, as if round-the-clock media coverage the past one and a half weeks has not been enough to sate anyone’s curiosity and interest.

Nevertheless, 1.6 million people registered to attend Michael Jackson’s funeral in Los Angeles today. Of those 1.6 million, only 17,500 were able to get the highly coveted ticket. I have a suggestion for those not able to attend the funeral: How about on Tuesday if we all call our Congress persons or the White House and ask that Israel desist from its attack upon the people of Bi’lin? That would amount to 1,582,500 calls on behalf of the people of Bi’lin and the nonviolent protest they have waged each Friday for the past three years. A day on which over a million people called on behalf of people who are waging a nonviolent struggle would be a day that could change the course of history for the better.

In Buddhist practice, it is only a matter of time before a student must come to terms with the “hungry ghosts” of his or her being. These ghosts—manifest in greed, jealousy, addictions and compulsions—are imagined as beings whose “mouth is the size of a needle, though their stomach is the size of a mountain.”  While their hunger is intense, they can never get enough food. In the compulsive media coverage over Michael Jackson—his exceptional talent notwithstanding—I often wonder what “hungry ghost” is devouring us? Further, as we are dragged to and fro in the frenzy of the coverage, what else is going on in the world that warrants our complete attention?

Gilad Atzmon, whose writing has been excerpted in the most recent edition of Adbusters, speaks to what demands our attention in his article, “The Terror Within.” Though he speaks to his Israeli countrymen and women, those of us in the United States—whose close to $3 billion annually in tax dollars and whose weapons were used, most recently, to kill close to 1,400 Gazans in just three weeks—may also wish to pay attention to what he says. Writing of the December 2008 – January 2009 attack upon the Gaza Strip, Atzmon states:

The IDF campaign in Gaza enjoyed the support of 94% of the Israeli people. They watched the carnage on their TV screens as one of the strongest armies in the world quashed women, elderly people and children. They saw blizzards of unconventional weapons burst over schools, hospitals and refugee camps. And yet they didn’t do much to stop their ruthless ”democratically elected” leaders. Instead, some of them grabbed a seat and settled on the hills overlooking the Gaza Strip to watch the army turn Gaza into a modern Hebraic Colosseum of blood. Even now when the campaign seems to be over and the scale of carnage in Gaza has been revealed, the majority of Israelis fail to show any signs of remorse … This level of group barbarism cries for an explanation. How is it that a society has managed to lose its grip of any sense of compassion and mercy?”

In early January of 2009, the US Congress resolved overwhelmingly to support Israel to defend itself from attacks coming from the Gaza Strip (House) and to defend itself from terrorism (Senate). Ira Chernus, in his article, “Israelis Get the Truth about the Gaza Attack,” speaks to why our Congress would do well to add “wisdom” to the “sense of compassion and mercy” Atzmon advocates:

The justification Israel offers is the increased firing of rockets from Gaza. But Israelis can read that Hamas is responding to Israeli provocation. “Six months ago Israel asked and received a cease-fire from Hamas. It unilaterally violated it. On November 4, an Israeli operation sparked a new round of dangerous, if controlled, violence, when it unnecessarily bombed a tunnel.

About the same time, Israel cut off transport of food, medical supplies, and electricity to Gaza. Food insecurity in Gaza currently runs at 56 percent and is deteriorating rapidly, 42 percent of the Strip’s population is unemployed and 76 percent is receiving humanitarian assistance (all UN figures). A million and a half human beings  live in the conditions of a giant jail.

The Congressional vote, in other words, lacks intellectual honesty and integrity. Further, like the Israeli population described by Aztmon, there seems to be no remorse for those who were killed even though we supported the effort with the Congressional vote, with our tax dollars and with our weapons. How is it that the rockets launched by Israel and the United States are any less “terroristic” than those launched by Hamas and other armed groups? Tom Cordaro, in his book, Be Not Afraid: An Alternative to the War on Terror, offers one explanation. When writing about the “terrorism of the strong”, i.e. nation-states, he notes (with specific reference to the United States):

Because those who engage in the terrorism of the strong often have at their disposal many social, economic, cultural, and political levers of institutional power, they can commit their acts of terrorism under the guise of legitimacy and legality. This might explain why the FBI’s definition of terrorism includes the caveat that terrorism is the “unlawful use of force or violence.” Or why the State Department’s definition restricts terrorism to “sub-national groups or clandestine agents,” conveniently eliminating the possibility of nation-states, like the United States, might be guilty of terrorism.

The Popular Committee of Bi’lin, as well as other Palestinian and Israeli peace activists, believe that the attack upon the Gaza Strip is a harbinger of what’s to come for those Palestinians living in the West Bank. This is one reason why, among others, that we must pay attention to what’s happening right now in Bi’lin and to support the nonviolent efforts of its people. On Tuesday, let’s be one of those 1.5 million people to make that call to our Congress people and the White House—or creatively organize—on behalf of the people of Bi’lin. It is certainly a meaningful way to honor all of those who have struggled and who continue to struggle to “count” as a human being and who strive to bring about justice and peace for all.

Capt. Drew Schoenmaker, who heads the Bravo Company of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, described the four thousand strong Marine attack in Afghanistan yesterday morning as an effort to “forge new ground … We are going to a place nobody has been before.” The Marine attack, labeled “Operation Strike of the Sword,” aims to remove (kill, maim or capture, I suppose) fighters from southern Afghanistan’s Helmand province before the August 20th presidential election. Strike of the Sword, fortified by the Air Force and 650 Afghan troops, is the largest Marine offensive strike since the Vietnam War.

I respectfully disagree with Capt. Schoenmaker. In choosing a military strike, we walk a well-worn and bloody path. We, as well as other nations and armed political movements, have been there before and the results have been disastrous. Susan Galleymore, in her book, Long Time Passing: Mothers Speak About War & Terror, well documents the horrifying effects of war making on Afghani women and children. She opens her chapter on Afghanistan, “You Were Never Hidden from My Eyes,” with a transcribed clip from a 2008 video conference between President Bush and, among others, U.S. military personnel in Kabul:

I must say, I’m a little envious. If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed. It must be exciting for you … in some ways romantic, you know, confronting danger. You’re really making history, and thanks.

Earlier this month, I joined a CODEPINK delegation to deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Joining the delegation was Hunter “Patch” Adams, M.D., who taught us the practice of clowning as a method of nonviolent transformation. One evening, as he spoke to the delegates about his work, he showed us a film he had made with a troupe of Italian clowns. He and the Italian clowns had traveled from Rome to Kabul in order to serve the sick, the starving and the wounded in hospitals there. In one of the film’s scenes, a doctor—using the most rudimentary of medical instruments—was picking off the charred remains of a four year-old girl’s burnt skin. She was a beautiful child, though most of her body had been badly burned in a war-related injury. As the doctor gently worked his gruesome task, she whimpered and wailed in distress. The mother, holding her in her arms, remained silent. Only the tears that were streaming down her face revealed her agony.

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This afternoon, before a torrent of rain cascaded down from the heavens, my hands were deep in dark soil and a gaggle of worms. I could have kept them there for hours but there was hard ground that needed to be tilled, plants that needed planting, a garden in the making. Still, I wanted to linger amidst the sound of bird call, the conversation with Ludmilla, a young student volunteer (and expert gardener!), the interplay of sun and cloud, which seemed to waltz together through the afternoon. And then there was the trash, so much of it: Chinese food containers buried in leaves, plastic bags hanging from tree limbs, candy wrappers fastened on the back fence and beer cans which had been flung over the fence.

The sight of the trash was jarring; it awakened me to how the earth is violated even in just the small act of dropping of litter. The practice of gardening, much like Zen meditation, is all absorbing and encourages a stillness within the mind. While I was raking a pile of dead leaves, questions started to emerge: Where does my body begin and end in relation to the earth’s body? Am I breathing in what the trees are breathing out and vice versa? Are we, in other words, breathing together? In light of such porosity, how can I treat the earth with such indifference?

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As I read through my emails yesterday morning, I came across one that had been sent by the Popular Committee of Bi’lin (West Bank). It’s subject line read: “Bi’lin Invaded by Israeli Soldiers.” The email, sent by Iyad Burnat, the head of the Popular Committee, describes a 2:30 am raid by close to 70 soldiers. Declaring Bi’lin a “closed military zone,” the soldiers broke into a number of homes. In the process, they seized and took away – for no stated reason — two sixteen-year-old boys, Mohsen Kateb and Hamoda Yaseen.

Burnat’s home was also broken into and his nine-year-old-son, Abdal, threatened with seizure. At that point, a number of Popular Committee members as well as those of the International Solidarity Movement stood repeatedly in the path of the soldiers. Though they were brusquely pushed aside, they did manage to prevent Abdal from being arrested. They also managed to prevent the arrest of Haitham al-Katib, an activist, who was video-taping the raid. Burant reports that similar types of raids haven taken place almost every night for the past two weeks and that, all told, seven Bi’lin community members have been arrested.

Throughout the morning, I have read and re-read this email. Perhaps it’s because I was just in Bi’lin two weeks ago and met Burant along with many other Popular Committee Members. Perhaps the memory of being bombarded by tear gas cannisters and rubber bullets during the Committee’s Friday afternoon protest march to the separation fence (the building of which has claimed 60% of the community’s farmland) has yet to dissipate. Or, perhaps it’s simply because human beings are suffering terribly and there seems to be no end to that suffering in the near future.

Burnat’s email closes with a note of gratitude, “Thank you for your continued support.” Perhaps this is the line, most of all, that keeps me returning to my computer. How can I continue to support those whom I have known for two years in this community? What does solidarity with the Popular Committee’s nonviolent movement look like from here in the US, thousands of miles away from Bi’lin? If I am not there to put my body in the way, as did the folks of the Popular Committee and the International Solidarity Movement, what else can I be doing?

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We Buddhists must find the courage to leave our temples and enter the temples of the human experience,
the temples that are filled with suffering.
If we listen to the Buddha, Christ, Gandhi, we can do nothing less.
The refugee camps, the prisons. the ghettos, and the battlefields then become our temples.
We have so much work to do.

Maha Ghosananda, “The Human Family”

The recent revelation of top Democratic support for President Richard Nixon’s decision to send U.S. and South Vietnamese troops into Cambodia, provide arms to the Cambodian government and continue its “secret bombing” raids had me re-reading Santidhammo Bhikkhu’s “Maha Ghosananda: The Buddha of the Battlefield” last night. I suppose I was looking for someone who found a nonviolent way through the madness of war and of its horrific violence.

The June 24th edition of the Washington Post reports that when Nixon telephoned Senator John Stennis (D-Mississippi), then chair of the Armed Services Committee, on April 24th, 1970 to let him know of his plans for Cambodia, Stennis responded: “I will be with you … I commend you for what you are doing.” Part of what Stennis “commended,” had already been well underway, as is noted in the the March 18th, 2009 edition of The Cambodian Daily: “Between March 18, 1969 and August 15, 1973, U.S. warplanes carpet-bombed, sometimes indiscriminately, ‘neutral’ Cambodia, killing civilians, pulverizing the countryside and pulling the nation deeper into conflict in neighboring Vietnam. Causality estimates range from as few as 5,000 to more than half a million.”

The Daily points out that the March 18th bombings were not the first to have pummeled the land and its people; they had been going on since 1965. The 1969 “Operation Menu,” with its “Breakfast, Lunch, Snack, Supper, Dinner and Dessert” campaigns, was simply an escalation of what had already begun in 1965. All told, the Daily reports, “the long-range B-52 bombers flew more than 230,000 sorties over Cambodia and dropped more than 2.75 million tons of ordnance on more than 113,000 Cambodian sites … and more than the total tonnage of bombs dropped by Allied Forces during World War II, counting the two atomic bombs used on Japan.”

Mann Phal, who was a young girl during the time of Operation Menu, puts human flesh on the payload statistics of the Cambodian Daily’s account: “My father said, ‘Child, run into the bunker, the plane is coming. Come to the bunker.’ Before she could reach it, the bunker took a direct hit. The explosion tore her family to pieces and hurled a chunk of her father’s leg on to a treetop. The bodies of her mother and siblings were eviscerated. That bomb also sent searing hot shrapnel into Phal’s head, legs and arms … Phal survived [her brother carried his unconscious sister to safety] but her arm was left dangling by bits of flesh and bone, and was later amputated. [Her] grandmother returned to the blast site … to collect the body parts [Phal's parents and four siblings were killed] strewn about and buried them together in a single grave. ”

The Daily ends its article with a final quote from Phal: “If you bring [the American pilot who dropped the bombs] here today, I would beat him. And I would cut off his arm to put it on my own body.” Read the rest of this article »

On February 4th, 1968, just about a month before he was assassinated, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “Drum Major Instinct” sermon from the pulpit of Ebeneezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. The “drum major instinct,” according to King, is the desire for “recognition, importance, and attention.”

Elise Aghazarian, a professor of sociology at Bethlehem University and Palestinian activist

It’s a shorthand way of speaking about the relentless, though perhaps unconscious, desire to “be number one.” While those in the social justice, peacemaking and civil rights movements might assume that King was only addressing the wealthy and the powerful, it would be a mistaken assumption. King, relying upon the psychological studies of Alfred Adler, contends that the desire to “lead the parade,” is a pervasive human tendency.

For King, the “great issue in life is to harness the drum major instinct.” Failure to do so lends itself to a range of debilitating practices, particularly for the nonviolent activist. The unharnessed drum major instinct, for example, fosters a snobbish exclusivity not a welcoming inclusiveness; destructive competition not affirming cooperation; gossip and not meaningful conversation, etc. When properly harnessed, however, the drum major instinct fuels true human greatness: “to be first in love, to be first in moral excellence and to be first in generosity.” Further, there is no “Ph.D.” required for this kind of creative genius; it is a field of study and application open to all. Meditating upon his death, though not knowing how soon that would come to pass, King asked that all of his achievements be forgotten; he simply wanted to be remembered as one who led a life “committed to peace, justice and righteousness.”

During a recent visit to Beit Sahour, a Palestinian town just east of Bethlehem, I met Elise Aghazarian, a young woman professor of sociology at Bethlehem University. In short order, it was quite evident that I was in the presence of someone who, though relatively unknown, embodied the greatness described by King in his sermon. Aghazarian, who is of Armenian and Palestinian descent, spoke to our CODEPINK delegates at a forum sponsored by the Alternative Information Center (AIC). The AIC is a Palestinian-Israeli grassroots organization engaged in the dissemination of information, critical analysis and political advocacy. After the forum, she joined us for lunch.

Aghazarian impressed me with her comportment, intelligence, warmth and passionate interest in her studies. Upon learning of the crushing circumstances forced upon her by the Israeli occupation, I was moved by her resilience and obvious love of life.

This resilience and love of life flowed through the brief talk that she gave at the AIC forum. I have, as much as is possible, reconstructed her talk for those not fortunate enough to have been there upon its hearing and in her presence. Read the rest of this article »

In a poem entitled, “And Now,” Adrienne Rich sets a task for herself: she will pay close attention to our political landscape, to its details and public voice, so that she might better discern just when it was that “the name of compassion was changed to the name of guilt, when to feel with a stranger was declared obsolete.” She points to an “owning up” to the suffering that is inflicted upon the vulnerable,  the poor and the oppressed, and asks: “who was in charge of definitions and who stood by receiving them.”

During my time with a CODEPINK delegation in Israel and the occupied West Bank, I, too, was challenged to learn how to “pay attention.” Though a rather jolting experience, I am grateful for it. Given the enormity of suffering in the world, this is hardly the time to be walking about in some kind of stupor. “Wake up!” is a phrase that often appeared in my notes written at the end of each day, particularly after the day our delegation joined Palestinians, Israelis and other internationals in a nonviolent demonstration in Bil’in.

Bil’in, a village of about 1800 Palestinians, is nestled within the foothills of the Judean mountains. Though it is just seven miles northwest from the city of Ramallah, the village relies primarily upon agricultural production to sustain its inhabitants. Within the first few moments of my sojourn into Bil’in, I marveled at the magnificence of the land. There is at once the play of light upon the silvery leaves of the olive trees, the contrast of its cream-colored rocks against an azure sky and the gentle beauty of its undulating hills. The panoramic view, visible from any street in the village, offered an antidote to the thoughts and feelings of fear that were beginning to crowd my mind and heart. The land was instructive in its capaciousness; it spoke to me of the necessity of a large heart and mind in the work of nonviolence.

Just after the arrival of our CODEPINK delegation, the muezzin’s sonorous call beckoned Bil’in’s Muslim inhabitants to prayer. From Abdullah Abu Rahmeh, the coordinator of activities of Bil’in’s Popular Committee Against the Wall and the Settlements, we learned that the Friday protest walks, which have been held every Friday since February 2005, begin after the noontime prayers are completed. His statement reminded me of something that Daniel Berrigan, S.J. has often shared with members of Kairos, an interfaith New York City-based peace community. According to Berrigan, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. described the churches of the American South as the places from which “we  [the Civil Rights Movement] go forth.” I imagined Dr. King and folks from the Civil Rights Movement with us in Bil’in; what a wonderful sharing of stories, songs and experiences there could have been.

Abu Rahmeh led us to the Popular Committee’s meeting house where he and Iyad Burnat, the head of the Popular Committee, gave an orientation and nonviolence training. From the outside walls of the house hung large and brightly colored banners which read, “President Obama, Have a Look!” Had President Obama “looked” on April 17th, he would have seen the violent death of 31-year-old Basem Ibrahim Abu Rahmeh. Abu Rahmeh, a beloved member of the village and steadfast participant in the Friday marches, was blasted in the chest by “the rocket,” a high velocity tear gas projectile. It was shot by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) directly at him and at close range, no more than forty meters away. Though he was not killed immediately, Abu Rahmeh’s chest was ripped open and his lungs were soon flooded with blood. He died in a private car en route to a hospital in Ramallah. Just prior to being shot, he had come to the assistance of a French female journalist who had been slightly injured in the face by rebounding shrapnel. He pleaded with the IDF to stop shooting but was only able to get a few words out before being felled: “We are in a nonviolent protest, there are kids and internationals …”

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You had to see it to believe it: Hunter “Patch” Adams, MD, fully decked out in his clown outfit, and a retired Israeli military general standing together in an enormous pair of red silk underwear. Patch calls it his “underwear security,” a play upon “undercover security.” It’s an ingenious device which encourages egotistical disarmament. You can’t climb into Patch’s underwear if you are overly-defended.

“Being part of the fun” wasn’t a thought that occurred to me when I signed up for the CodePink humanitarian delegation to the Gaza Strip. Since our particular delegation was to enter Gaza by way of Israel, I suspected our chances of getting in were slim. Indeed we were denied permission and entry on three separate occasions. I had recently seen the pictures of Gaza taken by two previous CodePink delegations who had entered through Egypt. These pictures showed the massive destruction of homes, schools, ambulances, hospitals and factories. They also showed horrific human injury and death, not to mention the rotting carcasses of livestock and animals. So, what came to mind when I thought of Gaza was “death, destruction, starvation, crisis, etc.”

It was Nasser Ibrahim, the Director of the Palestinian-Israeli Alternative Information Center in Beit Sahour (West Bank) who provided a way for me to see the necessity of the work of clowning, with its love of joy and of fun, in the context of a disaster. According to Ibrahim, political resistance is an “effort to hold on to your humanity. It is the work of being human.”

Ibrahim’s insight certainly came to life during our three attempted crossings into Gaza. During our first attempt, we were joined by “Kassamba,” an Israeli anarchist band whose name roughly translates into “sound rockets,” and a troupe of clowns. Kassamba, Patch and the Israeli clowns had all of us dancing, laughing and smiling in an area that was filled with miles of fences, guard towers, military vehicles and M-16’s. When our passports were returned to us and our entry denied, Patch took the passports and started a game of poker with them just underneath the checkpoint booth, a move that had the Israeli guards looking on in amazement and amusement. When Patch reached out his hand to one of the guards, the guard reached back and clasped Patch’s hand with a strong grip. In this case, the hand that clasped the other had to first release his hand from a gun. “Score, humanity!” at least for this moment.

Our second and third efforts to cross were enriched by balloons, kites and flowers as well as by a three-hundred person strong demonstration by Gazans just across the crossing from us. Our kites and balloons embodied our soaring spirits and the desire to connect with the people of Gaza. Our flowers were placed in the fence of the Erez crossing along with handwritten notes. Prior to placing our notes in the fence, we were able to speak with a few of the Gazans who had made it through the crossing and who were on their way to the hospital. Be they elderly women or small children held by their mothers, the pallor of sickness was quite evident, particularly in the sweltering heat of the day. Most were suffering from heart ailments and were in need of serious medical attention. In order to get out of Gaza, where medical supplies are in short shrift and hospitals are barely functioning, they had to wade through an onerous bureaucratic permit process only to wait—if they were among the fortunate few—for hours before being allowed out. The festive atmosphere we had created in this desolate and inhuman space brought forth smiles and hugs from our Gazan friends. “Score, humanity! Once again.”

Though the gates to Gaza were not opened for us, the gates around my heart were opened. Far from being dispirited, I know that the roots of my peacemaking practice are stronger and more deeply rooted than ever before. Once again the words of Nasser Ibrahim came to mind: “Never give up!” I will not give up; I have only just begun.

The opening announcement at our first CodePink and Coalition of Women for Peace meeting was stunning and sobering: a 35 year-old Palestinian father of two children, with another child on the way, was killed at a nonviolent demonstration in Ni’lin. He had been shot in the chest by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). We had been asked, as a means of introduction, to choose a word that best described how we were feeling at the start of our delegation’s efforts to reach Gaza and to build a playground there. The word I chose was “grieving,” the only word I could think of after hearing of this young man’s death.

On the plane ride to Israel, I had just begun reading Judith Butler’s most recent work, Frames of War. In this book, Butler asks why it is that some lives are grievable and others not; why some lives are to be saved while others are shed, if even noticed, particularly during times of war. In one of the book’s many memorable phrases, Butler claims that our efforts to build borders between one another would be better spent appreciating how “bound up we are in one another.” This phrase has become a touchstone for me as I make my way through the early days of the delegation. It doesn’t allow me to slip into the facile duality of “friend and enemy” but challenges me to live  truthfully, as one who, indeed, is deeply bound to other human beings.

As we made our way round the communal introductions, I was deeply inspired by the stories and presence of those who gathered that evening. Among us were two young women of the Shministim (conscientious objectors), one of whom had just been released from a military prison for refusing to serve in the IDF. Others were Israeli and Palestinian women who work together in the Coalition of Women for Peace. On their way were three delegates from CodePink’s Cairo delegation who had just finished building a marevelous “pink playground” for children in the Gaza Strip. Here were folks who well understood “being bound” to one another and who were determined to “pay up” in order to live that insight.

One of the delegates reminded us that 2009 was the last year in the decade that the United Nations declared was to be a decade devoted to the development of a culture of nonviolence for the sake of the world’s children. I thought, once again, of that young father and of the children who were now left behind. Oh, how we adults have failed our children and one another! The consensus of the community gathered that evening was that each of us was responsible for helping to create this culture of nonviolence. I thought of this vow while listening to a conversation between one of our delegates and a young man working the desk at our hostel. For this young man, any effort to help the Palestinian people was seen as a threat to the security of Israel, which meant ultimately, to his family. My sense is that the Palestinian father was also working for the security of his family. I wonder why this common concern for security so often ends in the death of another? If we are bound up in one another, then how would killing another add to anyone’s security? This is a question that I hope to dwell upon in the coming days.

As we make our way to Gaza, there will be plenty of ways to practice “being bound up in one another.” One of the creative ways of doing this will be the practice of clowning, as we will join the Israeli Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (ICIRCA) as well as our own delegation member, Patch Adams, in the effort to bring play and joy into the work of our peacemaking. Another way will be for me to confront the welling sense of fear that I am feeling in anticipation of our work in Bi’lin, a community that sits next to Ni’lin. I had joined a nonviolent demonstration in Bi’lin last summer only to be chased from the scene by the menacing fire of tear gas cannisters shot by the IDF, as it seemed to me, directly at us. I am feeling the desire to explore the energy of this fear, to see what’s there and to find ways of encouraging connection to others and not flight from others. There is an opportunity here that I have vowed not to miss; it’s the opportunity to build the beloved community that Dr. King so often spoke of, and to start that work right within my own heart.

Franz Jagerstatter: Letters and Writings from Prison

Edited by Erna Putz

Orbis Books, 2009

[Franz Jagerstatter, a Catholic, Austrian farmer and married father of three daughters, was beheaded on August 9, 1943 by the Third Reich at the Berlin-Brandenberg Prison. Imprisoned in March of 1943, Jagerstatter was convicted of "undermining military morale" by "inciting the refusal to perform the required service in the German army,"  and condemned to death in July of 1943 by the Reich's Military Tribunal. Jagerstatter was 36 years old when he died. In October of 2007, Blessed Franz Jagerstatter was beatified by the Catholic Church.]

In his introduction to Franz Jagerstatter: Letters and Writings from Prison, Jim Forest writes that Jagerstatter “would certainly do what he could to preserve his life for the sake of his family … [he firmly believed] self-preservation did not make it permissible to go and murder other people’s families.” Forest asks how it is that someone “so unimportant,” a relatively uneducated farmer, could see so clearly while those holding positions of leadership in the Catholic Church or in the Austrian government of the Nazi era were utterly blind. Perhaps it is not simply a matter of seeing clearly; the message of the nonviolent Jesus in the Gospels, after all, is strikingly clear. What sets Jagerstatter apart was not only his ability to see clearly but also to act upon this insight and to actually pay the ultimate price for his refusal to join the Nazis.

Accompanying Jagerstatter in his astonishing witness was his wife, Franziska, who recalled: “In the beginning, I really begged him not to put his life at stake, but then, when everyone was quarreling with him and scolding him, I didn’t do it anymore … If I had not stood by him, he would have had no one.”

Reading Jagerstatter’s Letters and Writings from Prison was the literary equivalent of walking into a burning building. Like the Catholic prelates and Austrian officials, I wanted to flee while my hide was still intact. At other points, however, tears would flow down my face as I found it harder and harder to turn away from the truth of Jagerstatter’s insight and actions. During these moments, I recalled a passage from Plato’s Republic: “We must be persuaded by the better argument.” At first glance, this statement may seem rather pedestrian, something a first year philosophy student would dutifully write down in a notebook, dredge up for the final exam and then forget.  Of course there is so much more in this statement than is revealed at first glance. Namely, that we are to come to insight by means of persuasion and not by violent force. More so, when we come upon such insight, we are to respond metanoically, which is to say, we are to change our lives and commit our entire being to this insight.

In a letter to his wife on August 8, 1943, the day before Jagerstatter was executed, he wrote, “Do you believe that all would go well for me if I were to tell a lie in order for me to prolong my life?” The lie that Jagerstatter refers to is an oath of loyalty to Hitler. Had he signed the oath – and it was placed upon a table on his jail cell each day until the day of his death – he would most likely not have been executed. In March of 1943, Franz contemplated giving his consent to serving as a military medic which, like his signature to the loyalty oath, may have preserved his life.  Though he seems to have changed his mind about this type of service in July of 1943, his wife is of the belief that the military, in their desire for total control, denied even this work to Franz. At issue was his refusal to pledge his total obedience to Hitler. His was a metanoic response to the “better argument.”

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