Violence is the sickness, the communicable disease, that occupies the souls of peoples, churches, whole nations. Whether it's a well-funded and U.S.-bankrolled army bombing Gazan hospitals (over and over again) or an antisemitic terrorist setting fire to a Governor's mansion in Pennsylvania, the temptation comes for us all, inviting fear and not mercy to rule our hearts.
Until we set our hearts on justice, on shared wellness and collective liberation, until we tell the truth about war's many lies--violence will all too easily leap from crisis to crisis, from grievance to grievance, from one broken heart to the next. This particular disease is only to be eradicated by spiritual practice, prayer and confession, repentance and broken bread. An eye for an eye is a failed project. Only love--embodied and brave--will save us now. Gaza's resurrection has everything to do with purging our many hearts of antisemitism once and for all; and the vitality and freedom of Jewish communities (there and here) depend on a reckoning with an occupation unchecked for far, far, far too long. And a genocide fueled by religious pride.
In the end what Josh Shapiro and his family need is precisely and always what every Palestinian family needs: lands (and neighborhoods) made holy by covenants of justice and mutual aid, governments devoted to human rights (and voting rights) in their fullest expression, and a shared sense of wellness and purpose. Violence is our common enemy. War is the spirit chewing through our spirits and hearts. It fails us now in a thousand terrible ways.
We must beat our many swords into plowshares, as the prophet says, one ghastly weapon system at time, and then study war no more.
