Losing it in Hebron and making friends with the IOF

This all occurred less than an hour after I lost it completely up on the roof top of the CPT headquarters building; which is only a few yards away from the Israeli Occupying Forces command post.

From the roof one can view the alley way directly below, which had been the soccer field for Palestinians. D informed me that one day, an Israeli soldier came to play and he kicked the ball around with Palestinians kids under his complete command.

Beyond the alley is a line of abandoned Palestinian apartments and shops directly in front of the IOF's headquarters and three water towers with the Star of David upon them.

We are surrounded by the illegal [under international law] settlements of Tel Remudi, Kuriabia, Beit Hadesseh and Airham Avinu. Up on the roof top, an overwhelming sense of vertigo assaulted me and my gut was in a knot from the visceral oppression that inflamed every nerve and cell in my little body. With buckets of tears pouring out of me, I blindly gravitated to a corner of the roof the furthest away from my Sabeel group. I wept like the Magdalena who could not find her Lord as I imagined Jesus weeping over Jerusalem.

It was not long until I felt the soft touches of a few of the new friends I had made in the Sabeel group. They offered me tissues and words of sweet understanding and compassion. One of them said to me, "Did you notice that soldier on the roof top?"

I had not, although only the alley way divided us. I then looked at him and he was already looking at me. I lifted my right hand with index and middle fingers in a V. He looked away. I did not. Only a few seconds elapsed before he looked back at me. I offered him the sign of peace again, but he once again looked away. This cycle repeated a few more times, and then he nodded YES while looking at me!

As I bang out these words from my heart in a hotel in occupied east Jerusalem, buckets of tears flow out of me and I hear the close by sounds of rapid gun fire.

"Writing...is hard because you are giving yourself away, but if you love; you want to give yourself. You write as you are impelled to write, about man and his problems, his relation to God and his fellows...The sustained effort of writing, of putting [words down while] there are human beings [with] sickness, hunger, sorrow...I feel that I have done nothing well, but I did something."-Dorothy Day

I cry YES to telling the truth and pursuing justice-equal human rights and an END to the Occupation, for they are the only way to peace and security for Israel.

"We have it in our power to begin the world again" -Tom Paine

All we need is the will which is always free; and the desire to do something.

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