Listen;
I have been struggling to think of what to say--how to explain the turn the end of my YAV year took, how to convey what I hope to do next, and how to express my grief as to what is happening in Palestine, in Gaza. All of these have been on my thoughts the past couple of months, so much so that some days I have felt as if I can barely function or am barely human.
I find myself returning to old, comforting patterns: childhood foods, familiar stories, close friendships, and slow afternoons on my bed with a purring cat pressed to my hip. I’ve been trying to forget, trying to process, trying to find sense or hope or sometimes even joy. And my personal struggles pale much in comparison to the massacre we are all watching play out on a global stage. Still, they ache, acute and sharp, and perhaps hurt much more than the generalized keening horror of witnessing a genocide. It feels like a betrayal. Maybe it is. But it is also human: to place ourselves first, to grieve our own hurts before grieving others’. This does not make me a bad person. It does not make you a bad person. We are just people, trying to do our best in a world that can appear and be so evil.
Either way, this is not an excuse. This is me processing in the moment and sharing it, in case anyone else finds it helpful or has felt what I am feeling. Maybe it’s my justification to the world (unnecessary and very self-centered to think this, I know) of what feels like my own failure. Regardless, I want to keep myself in context: I am safe, I have access to food, water, and shelter, I do not fear dying from bombs crashing through my roof, I do not worry for the lives of my family or my friends, my people are not currently being wiped from existence. In this and many other things, I am privileged. In this, the Palestinian people of Gaza cannot relate.
If you do not agree with me, I have nothing to say to convince you except to beg you to bear witness. Here are the organizations and people from which I have been witnessing (1):
On Instagram:
@wizard_bisan1
@aljazeeraenglish
@eye.on.palestine
@issa.nemer
@muslimgirl
Al Jazeera is a great reputable news source for international news without American media bias: https://www.aljazeera.com/
Please listen to them, even when it is hard, especially when it is hard. This is how we share grief, how we share dignity. And if you feel a burning in your chest to act--call (or email or fax) your representatives and demand a ceasefire. If you don’t know what to say, I have copied here Civil Rights Leader Valarie Kaur’s script for you (2):
I call for ceasefire because:
I can demand the return of the hostages and call for ceasefire in the same breath.
The moral injury of witnessing mass violence and doing nothing exceeds the risk of speaking out.
A campaign of “mighty vengeance” will not destroy Hamas; it will create a new generation to join it.
The starting point for any solution is shared grieving. One cannot grieve and prepare to kill at the same time.
I mourn the 1200 people killed by Hamas on Oct 7th and demand the return of the 240+ hostages, 30 of them children.
I mourn the 20,000 people killed in Gaza by the government of Israel since Oct 7th, nearly half of them children.
We have never seen children murdered on this scale, this efficiently, in this short a time, in our lifetime.
Most of the population in Gaza is displaced and in dire need of humanitarian aid.
A ceasefire is the first necessary step in the long journey of repair.
We cannot stop the antisemitism, anti-Muslim, and anti-Palestinian violence on our soil without ceasefire.
In a time of violent extremists, we must be extreme in our love. Calling for a ceasefire is an act of love.
Revolutionary Love is the call of our times.
At this point, you may be wondering what this post is going to be. I’m wondering with you. I think it’s an update, a look forward, and a confession. It might be unintelligible. Well, if it is, then that’s okay.
There was a book my highschool English teacher made my class read over the summer, which I hated. It was called Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (3). Even though I loathed fighting through the passages cloistered away in my grandparents’ lake house that summer, it became one of my favorites when, back in school, we finally broke down the difficult language and confusing story. Now, nearly a decade later, I can still remember one of Vonnegut’s most famous quotes:
“It is so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like ‘Poo-tee-weet?’”
There is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. So perhaps there is nothing intelligent to be said in this post. Yet still, the incredible thing about Slaughterhouse-Five is that the first word of the novel is “Listen:” and the last word is “‘Poo-tee-weet?’.” All the nonsense language and unintelligible plot that goes on in the middle of those two words sum up the entirety of the novel’s meaning. Massacre is unintelligible. Around and between and during and behind it there is life.
So here is what has been going on in my life. My YAV year ended at the end of July 2023. I went home to spend some time with family and friends for two weeks, to rest and rejuvenate myself so that I could return to Albuquerque and continue doing the refugee resettlement work I had grown to love during my volunteer year. Unfortunately, it was during my time at home that my former work placement told me they wouldn’t be hiring me for the role that I applied to. I was devastated. Employment at the organization had been a goal I explicitly wanted and worked towards for months, and I was absolutely blindsided by the decision. I attempted to see if there would be any way to apply for another position, however, there weren’t going to be any additional postings for a few months at best.
My parents and I discussed the possibility of me just not returning to Albuquerque, as I had no job and no career prospects to return to. But I had signed a lease, and I was looking forward to getting a cat, and I had a boyfriend who was becoming very dear to me, and by god, I had committed to being there. A little setback couldn’t stop me. So, when the time came, I got on the plane back to Albuquerque, no where closer to knowing what would come next.
Suddenly, I was adrift with no job in a city I only had strenuous ties to, and I had decided to make a go of it on my own outside of the circle of my parents, outside of the small town I grew up in, outside of the program and work that had brought me to NM in the first place. I threw myself into the job search, weary and heartworn from what felt like a betrayal of my worldview. It seems so silly to me now, but at the time, I was coming to face the fallacy of righteous productivity.
Up to this point, my life was built of some challenge and much success. My work ethic had propelled me through my academic career--in school, my persistence and determination were rewarded with competitive scholarships and phenomenal grades (I graduated summa cum laude)--why wouldn’t the civilian world be the same? I had learned the formula, and I was damn good at it.
Hard work = success.
Therefore, as the reality of my situation began to sink in, I had to struggle with the repercussions of my reductive framework.
No success = I didn’t work hard enough = I am a worthless waste of space.
Logically, I know this is not true, and never once did I actually articulate this thought-line in my mind, but I felt it all the same. Now, with this headspace, any additional ‘failure’ hit twice as hard. So when I applied for a waitressing job at Red Lobster and they didn’t even call me back after my interview, I spiraled. What does it say about me as a person if I can’t even get hired at Red Lobster?
And from there, my dread and desperation just began to pile and pile and pile. I had bills to pay and expenses I had accrued (a cat, plane tickets to Charlotte for a wedding, etc.) when I had assumed I would have a steady, full-time job and equivalent paycheck. Oh, I was just so stupid to adopt a cat when I was unsure of my job status. It was incredibly short-sighted and dumb of me to purchase those plane tickets, can I even afford to go now? For someone whose pride is centered on my intelligence, nothing makes me feel worse than feeling stupid. Then, because I’m me, I feel stupid for feeling stupid, starting a whole other snowball of disaster on my mental landscape (4). So internally for months, I was the dog on fire meme while trying to project an air of calm control.
Finally, after several weeks of searching, I landed a job as a counter server at a bougie food hall near Albuquerque’s Old Town. Cool, I was making some money, chatting with customers, feeling more financially secure and also vastly unmoored by my lack of purpose. I crave meaningful work, as I believe most people do. However, for me, serving up overpriced cazuelas of paella to people with designer outfits and turquoise laden jewelry didn’t really feel meaningful (5). But it was something that got me out of the house, that made me move around and interact with the world, and that paid the bills, so I did it. I would show up for my shifts and then go home to where I would drift. What am I doing with my life? What was all that work--my highschool race for grades and scholarships, my internal struggles over changing my major, my years of club leadership and picking up any job I could get--really for? Who am I outside of all that I have done, all that I do?
At the center of it all, I was struggling with a question of identity: Who am I if I am not defined by my productivity? (6)
I think this is a question a lot of people can relate to--who am I if not a mother, an academic, a husband, a police officer, a sibling, a Christian, a friend… etc. Who am I if I question or waver or don’t know or am uncertain?
Then, we follow up the inevitable: Well, if I am not _____, then I must be bad/unworthy of kindness/unworthy of love.
The thing I appreciate about the Christian faith, at least the way I interpret it to be, is that a god of creation, a god of love and grace, inherently negates our unworthiness of goodness, kindness, and love. In a world that is chaotic, terrible, and destructive, it is revolutionary to rest in the knowledge that you are cherished, beloved, and sacred simply for being you (7). When we accept this--because that is the hardest piece of this journey, acceptance--we have the incredible ability to spread this compassion to others.
This reflection/post of mine began in the season of advent (8). It was just as important to me then as it is now to remember that Jesus was Jewish and Palestinian.
I have had people in my life worry about what I am saying publicly and online. They’ve expressed concerns over job opportunities and my seeming politicalness as I’ve started to share and talk about what’s happening again in Gaza. I appreciate that they are doing this out of concern for me, but I would say to them that the nameless and faceless people they see under bombs on the news are not nameless and faceless to me. I would say that I have been to the West Bank, in Palestine, and that I have broken bread with Palestinians and called them friends. And I would say that I have been a terrible friend for not speaking up or speaking out more in their support. So to Iyad, Daoud, Issa, Mohammed, Miral, RaMez, Angela, and the countless other people who cared for me in Palestine, I am sorry for my failings and the failings of our politicians (9). Please know that you and your loved ones have each been forefront in my mind since Oct. 7th as the world watched in multi-layered horror.
Because it must be said, the attacks Hamas committed against the citizens and settlers of Israel were atrocious and horrible. The bombing of Palestinian hospitals, homes, and civilians is atrocious and horrible. Any loss of life, any hate crime, any excuse for violence anywhere is atrocious and horrible.
However, our grief and horror over these acts is not mutually exclusive. It is our duty to not let anyone regulate how and when we grieve. So grieve for the hostages, and grieve for the maimed. Grieve for the soldiers who follow orders to commit violence (10), and grieve for the people on their knees at the other end of the gun. I do. It is in our grief that we can see each other’s humanity, so I grieve for everyone caught in the cyclical tread of hate. For if I don’t, I will also be ground down into dirt under its machinery.
As Pierce Brown writes several times in his famous Red Rising series, “What an inevitable waste it seems. Death begets death begets death.” The only way to stop the cycle is to no longer participate in it.
This is a position, also, of extreme privilege. I am not Jewish nor Muslim. I do not have family on either side of the walls in Gaza, in Israel. And yet, the descendants of the first followers of my religion live there. And yet, the Muslim man from Jerusalem who got me into an olive tree garden in Gethsemane for communion lives there. And yet, I have decided to follow the faith of a man who professed love for the poor, compassion for the weak, justice for the persecuted. And yet, I have walked the hills among which that man spoke those words. And yet, I have watched the sun rise over that sea. And yet…my country pays for the bombs landing among his people, allows for the murder of their truth-speakers, and supports their exile from a land they have just as much claim to.
Why do I care? Because I have the privilege to leave a job I didn’t like, to move over 1,000 miles across state borders, to come home to the land my ancestors have lived on for 300 years or more, to sit at the kitchen table in a house my great-grandfather built and watch his son’s cat roll around the floor chasing sunlight, all without the fear that one afternoon the woods and house and my grandfather and his cat will suddenly, in a flash of light, be ash. Because I dream of a world in which everyone could have such peace, such security in life.
If you dream this too, if you ache when seeing images from Gaza, listen to it, let the hurt and hope guide you. If you don’t feel something, try to imagine the faces of your own children, your own neighbors in that scene and hold onto that horror. If you still can’t see it, then I’m sorry. You are not a bad person. You are beloved. I would encourage you to take some more time to accept that so that one day you can extend the same to others. It’s not your fault, but it is your responsibility to face it. My heart goes with you in this.
So, in ending. Release the hostages. Stop the bombs. Read and listen and care. Resources below (13)(14).
You are beloved. I am beloved. I will do my life’s work of trying to extend that to others, and I would love for you to join me.
Praying,
Allison
P.S. Poo-tee-weet?
Footnotes:
Remember all media contains bias, but these accounts are actually on the ground in Gaza or connected with those who are. I like to watch Al Jazeera’s pages and website as well as they report on world events American news sometimes doesn’t even address or acknowledge. Multiple sources are always going to provide a better image between them than just one source.
This script is from @valariekaur on Instagram. Here are two more links to her blog posts about what is going on in Gaza: https://valariekaur.com/2023/10/how-to-support-palestinian-and-israeli-families/
Whenever I think of Kurt Vonnegut, I always remember a classmate of mine from Queens who told me once that his father was friends with Vonnegut. I had another classmate who was supposedly the relation of the famous writer Ursula K. LeGuin. Situations like this remind me how truly small the world is and how interconnected we all are. I wonder - how many branches away are you from Gaza?
If this feels like your reality, please, please reach out to someone and consider a conversation with a mental health professional. To feel this is normal. To feel this all the time for several months could be an indicator of a more serious issue. My rule (that I try) to follow is if you would worry about hearing it from a friend, care for yourself as you would want to care for them.
One of my colleagues from my time at this food hall told me about how he finds great purpose in the hospitality industry. I greatly admire him for that and wish him the best. It takes a talented and dedicated person to enjoy working in such an often thankless industry. Also, tip your servers and food industry people, and please tip them well. If I can’t afford to tip 20%, then I don’t eat out. Bad service might just mean someone was having a bad day, not that they shouldn’t be able to pay their rent.
Last Christmas, my mother got me the wonderful gift of Theology of Play by the German theologian Jürgen Moltmann. I believe some of his words apply here, so enjoy this excerpt from one of my grad school applications:
The majority of the book, taken up by Moltmann’s essay, “The First Liberated Men in Creation” discusses the division inherent between the productive, capitalistic society we live in and the world of wonder and play that God exhibits in creation. He claims, “man’s social value” is measured “solely by what he is able to produce” (50), which in the absence of possession entails that “he is nothing, does not exist and is not known” (51). In contrast, a man who has faith in Jesus and accepts that he is liberated from the necessity of production “finds his humanity in the awareness that he has already been accepted and loved as he is” (57). The discussion on where we find and place our values and how those values impact our actions and view of ourselves within the wider scope of the world is a fascinating concept with several possible multi-disciplinary avenues of pursuit. This relates, as most of my interests do, to the power of stories in defining identity and the effect religion/faith has as such a story.
AKA this idea ain’t new.
When I tell people I want to be a chaplain, they almost always say, "Oh wow, so you must be like super religious." To which I will respond, "Ehhh maybe? I mean its kind of complicated. I'm not the 'You're going to hell, everybody needs to be Christian' religious." This usually brings up more questions than answers, so if you've ever wondered why I want to be a chaplain, this is it. I believe that everyone is beloved simply because they are, and I want to help people discover that. It is by sharing in our belovedness that we all grow closer to God. That is truly all there is to it for me.
Lmao, writing a blog post is like a month to two month long process for me. Sorry, this inclusion made more sense in December, but oh well.
I referenced my old blog post that I made in August 2022 after I had just been to Palestine, and it made me reflect on how weird it was to be saying basically the same thing two years later.
In Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, Peace is Every Step, he includes a story titled, “Call Me by My True Names,” in which he talks about a village girl who was raped by sea pirates and then drowned herself. He writes, “When you first learn of something like that, you get angry at the pirate. You naturally take the side of the girl” (122). However, he comes to realize, “If you or I were born today in those fishing villages, we may become sea pirates in twenty-five years. If you take a gun and shoot the pirate, you shoot all of us, because all of us are to some extent responsible for this state of affairs” (122). In response, he wrote a poem called “Please Call Me by My True Names,” in which he envisions himself in both the pirate and the little girl:
I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate,
and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.
…
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion (124).
Full poem can be found here as well as recordings of Thich Nhat Hanh both reading and singing it: https://plumvillage.org/articles/please-call-me-by-my-true-names-song-poem
The Red Rising Saga by Pierce Brown is my most recent book obsession, and it’s incredible. I would describe it as a more plot-driven Dune. If you want to know my thoughts more in detail, feel free to follow me on Goodreads, where I post my book reviews after finishing them. You can find me through my email: ajblackwell2014@gmail.com.
Referencing from the Bible, Matthew 5.1-12 and Matthew 25.31-46.
These are the resources I linked on my previous post about the Holy Land:
Israel/Palestine by Alan Dowty gives a good history of the area and situation.
Our Harsh Logic by Breaking the Silence has stories from former Israeli soldiers.
The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan is about an interreligious interaction and peace movement.
I also recently went to an event at Covenant Presbyterian Church (USA) in Charlotte, NC at which Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb came and spoke about the current situation in Gaza. I picked up two of his books which look more through the Christian lens at the conflict:
Decolonizing Palestine: The Land, The People, The Bible
Faith in the Face of Empire: The Bible Through Palestinian Eyes
I have not yet read these but am looking forward to getting into them in the next few weeks. Thank you to Covenant for hosting this event.
Finally, as someone who is Presbyterian, I have included below the Acting Stated Clerk’s response to the violence in Gaza: https://www.pcusa.org/news/2023/10/13/acting-stated-clrk-condemns-violence-israel-palest/