I know, I know. We are your chosen people.
But, once in a while, can’t you choose someone else?
—Tevye (Fiddler on the Roof)
* * *
It’s not easy being the chosen people. I mean, it’s like being the teacher’s pet. You don’t want to be. You didn’t ask to be. But you can’t shed the title. Once you get it, you’re stuck with it. You get the best desk, books, treats, and treatment.
But there’s a downside.
I don’t care how smart, friendly, or helpful you are, people will hate you. Hamas will tear you to shreds for no other reason than that they think you think you’re special, even if you say you’re not. Even if you share pencils and paper and a slice of your pie with them, they still hate you.
Turn the other cheek and they’ll strike that one too.
They have a 3,000-year-old grudge against you. They may hide it, but they never stop nursing it. They resent your very existence.
Long ago they uncovered an email between Moses and your God.
Speak to the Israelites and say to them: “When you cross over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, destroy all their figured stones, destroy all their cast images, and demolish all their high places. You shall take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given you the land to possess.” (Numbers 33.51–53)
You came. You saw. You conquered.
Sorry to see you go. But our God gave your land to us. Shalom.
They asked for proof, for negotiations. But no, you just dispossessed them. It was your manifest destiny, you said.
(Not that it excuses you, but others have done the same in the name of their God. Just ask the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Those who are left.)
It’s hard for them to believe, but you have been harshly mistreated too. Brutalized, terrorized, caged. And yet you can be fair, kind, and generous. You have a heart for the underdog.
But they don’t see that. They see cockiness. They see your guns, bulldozers, and prisons. Your walls.
They strike.
You strike back.
An eye for an eye.
If necessary, ten for one.
They have their reasons.
You have yours.
I don’t believe in chosen people.
I believe in imaginative people.
Imagine peace.
Please.
It will get better if enough imagine peace. Lead the way.
Thank you. Almost no words except to quote my favorite all-time bumper sticker (not as a Christian):
When Jesus said “Love your enemies” he probably meant Don’t Kill Them.
Why don’t the world’s religious practitioners “cherry pick” THAT one?
Exactly.
Imagine peace and freedom and justice. Thank you for your wisdom and compassion. Domination and dehumanization are not the way to peace. Peace is the fruit of love and compassion and justice. As our Catholic Sisters say: “If you want peace, work for justice.”
I love this. Thank you. Only peace can lead to solutions and true justice for all humankind.
If only we could do away with so-called “holy” script and see human history for what it is–full of the good, the bad, and the ever-present possibility to create a real heaven, on earth. Imagine that, indeed.
If humanity could only move his/ her ego out of the way I believe peace would have a better chance. Decisions would be made from the place of what is fair and just. “You say I’m a dreamer.” Bottom line…No one wins in war!!
Oh – my heart hears yours, and I thank you.
“People think in five generations – two ahead, two behind – with heavy concentration on the one in the middle. Possibly that is tragic, and possibly there is no choice.” John McPhee
The begats of the bible are numbing. Numbing as well, are the begats of lands and nation states, with corresponding wars, pillage, and domination cutting across millenniums. Thumb through the historic pages of the Earth and you will come to know victims and victimization as a default policy.
A sense of manifest destiny and entitlement cast a long shadow across nations and peoples, the haves and the have-nots have different perspectives, sowing mistrust, hatred, and violence.
Historical grudges are the authors of our times. Nation-states seem to be an archaic notion when whole-Earth and humankind solutions are needed most.
Einstein wrote, “As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable.” Peace is hard, difficult work which entails a great deal of mindfulness and understanding as well as negotiation and imagination. The quick, easy route is embodied by the war manufacturers who are pleased to provide the short-term “solution” of killing so war will “never” happen again and they will reap profits. Another factor is some kind of divinity-sanctioned land grab as a rapid, nonsensical excuse for oppression, domination, greed, plunder and murder. Wrong perceptions of “othering” create immense suffering. Right perceptions and intentions add to a healthy shift to a different world, a better one. If we would value our common humanity more and our national sovereignty less, then perhaps we could “give peace a chance.”
Well said as always. Thank you.