More Truth-Telling

A beloved friend of mine wrote me an email after my last posting about Gaza. He served as a doc in the US Army in Iraq and he pointed out that he had to take care of people who were killed by rockets like those fired from Gaza into Israel and he wanted to remind me that they were shot off by teenagers, too. That the death and destruction didn't depend on who was responsible and weren't excused by it.

He is right. My blog seemed to discount those rockets; as though they're sugar-coated just because it might be teenagers who fired them or specifically Palestinian teenagers. The rocket firings are frequent and they do cause damage. Just recently a young Israeli boy lost his leg from a rocket injury. His life and his family's were brutally changed.

I was aware of a kind of "imbalance" in that blog. It was intentional, although I hope not malicious. People experience this place very differently. What has stood out most for me is that the truth of it is so hard to come by. Everyone wants to make it simple and cleancut. Life is easier then, isn't it? We know who the good guys and bad guys are and who to support and who to condemn. Terrorists. Racists. Victims. Heroes. All very easy to line up for or against. We sleep better. We can watch the Super Bowl without worrying about these messy situations and without worrying whether there are people somewhere who are suffering because of our action or inaction. That's no fun.

So what I want to try to do with this blog is point out different perspectives that come from living here, with and among real people - not stereotypes. These labelings are really poisoning us. They are tearing us out of our humanity and taking us places we really don't want to go. For example, Gee it's a real shame that the little girl in Gaza was wounded by shrapnel but she brought it on herself because her parents live in that terrorist state. Or it's a real shame that that little Israeli boy lost his leg but he brought it on himself because his parents are apartheid rascists.

When we just want to be comfortable and keep things neat and clean and in line with our myths, we start believing partial truths. What I hoped to do with the blog, perhaps clumsily, was offer a more complete truth about Gaza - What is actually happening there from a humanitarian standpoint. I wanted you to meet some people there who have been affected by the current strangulation policy. I wanted to force you not to fall back on stereotypes when you hear things about Gaza. Readers may then find the situation justified or not, but let them at least do so in truth.

St Paul wrote a letter urging his readers to tell the hard truth with love. We hear alot about that in church - speaking hard truths. But it means nothing unless we also listen to the hard truth. Like, "Wow, I don't want to believe that, it bothers me. But it's true and it's not right and I want to speak out against it."

My friend spoke the hard truth to me in love. I listened and am going to work hard to see both sides in the future. I hope readers will do the same.