With sighs too deep for words

What are we to do in the face of the suffering we see in Gaza? And not only in Gaza, but in the whole of the Middle East. We are there, virtually, at around 7pm every evening. Are we to ‘switch off’ at the end of the news and try to return to our normal lives, even if they are not always all that normal? How are we to think of other things? Is it even possible, at the stage which these various conflicts have reached, to do so? So much has been written. So much has been said, but there is little in the way of sane prognosis for the future, or of how to alleviate suffering in the present. We are left feeling angry, confused and profoundly disturbed by it all. So what can Christians, Muslims and Jews living away from these conflict zones, but watching the events unfold before their eyes day after day on the news, do that would make the slightest difference?

As a Christian, I am convinced, along with St. Paul writing in his letter to the Romans, that neither hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. (Rom.8) This does not make me feel especially safe, because engaging with this particular text attentively requires that we also engage with violence. Furthermore, we have to do this from our most vulnerable place, the inner space where we know ourselves most truthfully. This truthful space is that part of our selfhood which  few others know. Only God himself knows us as we really are and loves us as we are. There exists a similar conceptual space for nations and peoples, in which all are both accountable before God and fully ‘justified’ – their cause understood and dealt with justly by him because of his deep love for them. History has shown that in this place of truth he remakes nations.

Here then is a place for Christians, Muslims and Jews who want to see an end to the suffering in the Middle East to begin the work of remaking. All people of genuinely good faith can do this by engaging directly with God and with his redemptive purpose for the whole world, and for every person caught up in violent conflict at this moment. Together, as Christians alongside other people of faith, we need to allow ourselves to feel the pain on all sides by owning it as our own before God.

This is not just a vaguely spiritual exercise. It involves honest thinking, leading to the asking of difficult questions of ourselves as well as of those we either disagree with, fear, or simply hate. So one way to begin, with regard to the conflict in Gaza, might be to consider what Hamas, itself an agent of fear, represents in the minds of ordinary Palestinians, both in Gaza and in other parts of Palestine/Israel, and what it represents to Palestinians living in other parts of the world. Do they believe that Hamas is to be trusted with the well being of a people in the longer term? Has it proved itself, in this respect, so far? To what extent, might it be directly responsible for the carnage which is taking place in that country now? How much does it really value the lives of the people it has been elected to protect and serve? Do its members think of Israelis as in some way less human than they are? Is it conceivable that Hamas might one day think of Israelis as something other than ‘occupiers’, to quote its leader in exile, Khaled Mishal?

Similarly, how does the ordinary Israeli, who genuinely wants peace and justice for all, view the wholesale appropriation of Palestinian lands and the bulldozing of their homes? Are they prepared to accept that they are indeed, to a great extent, ‘occupiers’? If so, might they be willing to dialogue with Hamas, beginning with this crucial point? How do these Israelis come to terms with the hugely disproportionate numbers of Palestinians being killed or wounded (the majority being women and children) compared to the relatively few Israelis (mainly military) in the current conflict? Would these Israelis personally be prepared to go into Gaza to help rebuild what has been devastated? If a climate of trust could be generated, in the way I am about to suggest, could they conceive of a time when the brutal wall which divides families and has wrecked lives, be dismantled with their help? Could they see themselves, as people whose faith centres on a righteous, just, merciful and holy God, rebuilding what has been shattered by decades of conflict? Would they even like to think this possible?

These are questions which need to be addressed from within a place of truth and of deep silence before God. It is a silence shaped by sighing and longing, always in the presence of God. Before there is any more talk of truces and ceasefires, we and all who long for an end to this incessant killing need to keep silence together for an hour before God, the hour to be followed by two hours the following day, three on the third, and so on, until continuing with the slaughter and the hatred is revealed in all its ghastly futility and stops. This would be a time for everyone in that region and elsewhere in the world, to simply stand in the presence of God. Secularists should respect it and try to use it to the highest possible good for all in whatever way they can, but they too should remain silent.

This is just one way of re-directing sighs, so that they acquire a purpose. That purpose will ultimately consist of God’s word speaking wisdom into the silence through the voices of women and men who want the kind of peace which, as we say in the blessing given at the end of the Eucharist, ‘passes all understanding’ but which might just get people together who can speak wisdom into the turmoil which is overtaking the Middle East.  

Out of the Whirlwind - Spiritual Warfare and the Middle East

Touching base once again with the news after a short break, I am painfully aware of how life goes on, or does not go on, depending on which country you happen to be living in. If you are one of the 33 million people who have been dispossessed or made homeless by conflict, life might just go on for the next 24 hours if you are one of the lucky ones.

As I have said on previous occasions, reality is hard for most of us to bear. For one thing, if you are not personally caught up in the tragedy of violence, you are cast into the disempowering role of bystander. Being a bystander brings on feelings of guilt and a general sense of helplessness, the two being corresponding aspects of despair.

The violence and turmoil which we read and hear about in the news is at its worst in the cradle of civilization, where we have our shared beginnings. What happens in the Middle East affects all of us because the Middle East has shaped our collective DNA, historically, culturally and spiritually. Perhaps this is why we are so inarticulate in the face of it all. It triggers feelings of dread and helplessness which are hard to describe. Perhaps they have something to do with our rootedness in the soil of those lands, the soil of our collective human history.

In his poem ‘The Second Coming,’ W.B. Yeats describes war as a ‘falling apart’ of our collective sense of self. He is talking about the disintegration of meaning, as it pertains to the meaning and purpose of human existence. Sectarian violence, and the chaos which it wreaks on the lives of countless individuals, undoes centuries of what we think of as civilization. At the heart of this undoing lies evil. Yeats, who was writing at the time of the first world war spoke of a ‘blood-dimmed tide’ being ‘loosed’ on the world. Today, we have the same blood-dimmed tide overwhelming Syria and Iraq in the form of murderous sectarian hatreds which are rooted in the darkest evil.

In the face of such evil, how are we to speak of a merciful God, or convey the message of hope given to us in the gospels? I think part of the answer lies in a deep conviction of our being loved by God. This is the conviction of faith which takes us beyond belief into the true meaning of all good religion, reconciliation. Yesterday, I read of a Palestinian academic who took some of his students to Auschwitz, so that they could get a better understanding of how and why the state of Israel came into being. He did this because of his faith in reconciliation as the only way for Israel and the rest of the Middle East to survive.

Deep reconciliation is a kind of ‘letting go’ into the very depths and darkness of love itself. We confront the hatred of both the past and the present in that place. The tragedy of the current conflicts in Syria and Iraq is that its key players have neither the will nor the motive to ‘let go’ in this way because they are driven by hatred. Hatred, like love, absorbs people completely, so that you end up hating not only those who you think are your enemies but also those whose interests you claim to be defending. This is how we recognise evil for what it is. It is a lie which leads only to the ‘black hole’ of nihilism and despair.

But there is also a darkness of love, which is its opposite. This is the darkness, or stillness, at the heart of the whirlwind, the tornado, in which Elijah the prophet was caught up and heard the word of the Lord. We can all connect with the stillness which is at the heart of the tornado around us, the ‘still small voice’ of God, when we engage with faith and hope at a deeper level. In the context of the world’s storms and tornadoes – political as well as environmental, we return to this place of darkness which is at the very core of our being, as it is at the core of the world itself. In it, we are offered a terrifying choice, whether to succumb to the despair of hatred, or stand firm in the heart of the darkness of love and of ‘not knowing’ and hear the still small voice of God speaking hope into it. This is what Christians call spiritual warfare. It can be done alone or in the company of others, although it is best done together. So if you are reading this and know of one or two people with whom you could undertake this work, tweet or facebook them and share the link.