Every day my heart breaks again for my Jewish friends and my Muslim friends, for my Israeli friends and my Palestinian friends. Every day my heart breaks for every person in this world who is subject to hatred and terror. My heart breaks because the dominant paradigm is violence and none of us is immune.
My heart breaks because we dehumanize others without a second thought – without recognizing that to dehumanize another is to dehumanize ourselves. It’s easier to lash out and blame than to sit with our grief and pain. As James Baldwin said, “I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”
I invite you to pause and turn towards your heartbreak; let yourself be tender as you take care of yourself however it makes sense for you. I invite you to remember our shared humanity. Years ago I heard Joseph Goldstein say that there is no hierarchy of compassion and it has stuck with me all this time. Everyone of us – everyone of ‘them’ – is worthy of dignity and respect and we must work to do what we can to shift the paradigm of greed, hatred, ignorance and the endless othering of our siblings.
I wish you and yours ease in this moment.
And it’s not lost on me that I have not written a blog in several years and the last one was called “Heartbroken”. The work continues.
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