Spiritual Musings: Why Do Such Incidents Occur?

 

Day 14: October 20th

Spiritual Musings: Why Do Such Incidents Occur?

I had an image or a dream inspired by a magical mantra. It was the image of a soul flying like a phantom. The soul was looking for a place to call home. She decided ‘I will go and live in the Holy Land,’ thinking it was the best place. She found it a wonderful place; the weather, the food, the people’s warm heart, their humor, the alleys of thousands of years old cities and villages, and the energy in this place was uplifting.  But she also witnessed so many horrors done to humanity, and the burns she felt in her heart stung like electrical shocks. The soul had so many of them that she decided to go home and hide in fear and decided that she would love only her sons. In hiding, the stings slowly healed, and the sadness eroded, but she discovered that the sons she loved and protected would suffer from the same things she tried to hide from: fate and the cruelty of humans. Fate is part of life that can’t be avoided. However, she thought, wishing to provide some hope and meaning to what might be a meaningless experience called life, she, step by step, tried to unlock the mystery of human cruelty. “It can be healed or at least addressed,” she wrote, “Why does so much cruelty exist? And why did it always exist in this holy place? Why is it holy then?” How is suffering linked to God? It should be the opposite, a place providing an elixir for humanity. Does suffering over time soften the heart? Do pain and faith reside next to each other? Do they heal each other like love birds and become stronger together? Only a stronger heart, not a hardened one, will probably have enough faith to stop human cruelty.  Is cruelty the whip God uses to teach suffering so that it is never used again? Why hasn’t man learned that yet?  Isn’t it time to learn?

She realizes that questions are endless and hardly provide the answer.  She wanted to use her strong and softened heart to expose the meaning of suffering, and maybe, just maybe, it would be time to give meaning and hope to others.

Yesterday, I wrote about the incident of hospital bombing in Gaza from a political perspective. However, this was one tragedy among many inflicted on both sides. And here I go again. A Palestinian who acknowledges the pain on the other side can be easily accused of being unfair to the cause. The victim cannot be equated with the aggressor, they all say.

 Yet, I see this conflict as a projection of fear and a compensatory superiority complex the other side manifests due to their suffering in Europe. Europe's history, when it persecuted its Jewish population, was also projecting its own theological and economic problems. The process continues across history. Isn’t it time to stop repeating the history of the cruelty of humanity? How can we take a step closer to the divine ending of finally not repeating the history of genocide or exile? This is the opportunity that the Palestinian-Israeli struggle holds for the world to change its path. Both sides need to acknowledge that it is not “either us or them”.  This is the responsibility we all hold.

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