There is a fire moving through the waters. It burns not in destruction, but in passion… power… devotion. Devotion to liberation and to justice. To all those who have set sail - and those still to set sail toward Gaza on ships filled with medicine, food, and your strength to scream no more, thank you.
I will admit I’ve been absorbed in the news - this news - the news of the Global Sumud Flotilla and the genocide happening in Palestine. I called representatives… asking if calling representatives even works (they said yes!). I prayed, talked about it, shared about it, grieved about it, and fought not to numb from the horrifying footage I was watching. I changed my purchasing habits. I cried and I sat in silence. I looked for acts of kindness and generosity out in the world and in my closest relationships every day. I watched Adeona in awe of the stink bug, then the broom, then the crying of the baby downstairs, then the beeping of the oven, then the unbutton-able button on her pajamas. Every time I held her body, resting in my arms, I felt a sharp pain move through me, imagining the parents whose arms held their lifeless beloved children.
Watching the Flotilla move towards Gaza and be intercepted one-live-video at a time… I felt the wildness of grief consume me - grief for the genocide and ethnic cleaning happening in Gaza, grief for the deepening roots of hatred and for our histories that still bleed from it, grief for each individual’s story and for the immensity of life lost.
This is not the grief of resignation. It is the grief that burns for life, the kind that calls forth action. Grief and love are the same beast, after all… grief and gratitude, the same hill.
And… Fire.
There is a fire beneath this grief.
Fire.
Because life matters.
Justice matters.
Taking care of each other matters.
Standing up and speaking up matters.
Feeling it and taking action - big and small - matters.
May we give and protect life.
May we create and share beauty.
May we take care of each other now and always.
May we let how much it matters crack us open.
Powerful, Alyssa. And moving. Bringing me home again: To love we must open our hearts to grief -- fiery and otherwise -- and in grieving we open our hearts to love -- perhaps also fiery. Oh, the energy it takes to build our insulating walls. I know it because I've spent so much of my life doing it. As you wrote: "May we let how much it matters crack us open."