Healing and More

Preparing for this Compassionate Listening Delegation to Israel/Palestine has been amazing, to say the least.  I have been so moved by the outpouring of support, well wishes, and financial contributions!  It is due to so much encouragement by so many, that I am setting off in high spirits and with a lot of anticipation.  It’s not clear exactly what I am anticipating- life mostly, full rich life with all its contradictions and dilemmas. There is also the wonderful possibility of open hearts and big spirits making room for hopefulness in the face of despair.  I am really grateful to be going.

On the eve of our election at home, with the possibility of a new direction, I can only hope that I can witness signs of a new direction in the Middle East.  It has been most illuminating to get some background on the situation with the recommended reading.  I pass along my praise for two books especially: “The Lemon Tree” by Sandy Tolan and “Healing Israel/Palestine” by Rabbi Michael Lerner.  Please read them if you can. They are both extremely well written and easy to read, but the truths revealed are not so easy to integrate.

It is difficult to look at our past actions, both personal and cultural, with dispassion. It is a challenge to dispel myths and beliefs that justify actions. To see where we have been silent or to wonder if we would have been, in more difficult times, is disquieting.  And to hold a place of compassion for “the other”, that is so hard.  Yet these things are necessary for us to move forward, as a global community, to a place where peace and justice prevail.

Michael Lerner says,” Political arrangements cannot be trusted until there is a serious commitment on both sides to compassionate listening to each other. It is only when both sides can tell the other side’s story with compassion and conviction, and both sides recognize that in some important respects both sides are wrong and both sides are right, that we can hope to move to a real reconciliation of the heart.  All the fancy agreements all the political maneuvering is secondary to developing an open-heartedness and the generosity in both peoples to the legitimate need of the other.”

He says,” It is my firm belief that lasting peace and reconciliation are not only possible, but likely to be achieved in the next twenty years, and possibly sooner. The hunger for a world of caring and kindness is a more powerful force than the desire to hold onto anger and nurse old pains.  True, it will take the courage to forget- to not focus attention on all the wounds, all the disgraceful actions of the other….. It will take the discipline and hard work of a generation of healers (medical, psychological, and spiritual) and it will take a sustained challenge to the ethos of cynicism that pervades the media, intellectual life, and all too many religious institutions. But it will happen, and when it does, a new generation will look back on this period and say, “What could those people have been thinking?”

It is uncomfortable to review the thinking that has brought us to the place where we are now.  But it is very exciting and hopeful to imagine a new way of thinking and being. I know Compassionate Listening and opening the heart are keys. And I know I will have a chance to practice, learn, and grow on this coming journey.

Thanks for your support.  I am taking you with me.

Love,
Maria