I have work to do 🌊
I’ve spent the last few months trying to hold the full range of life: its joys and terrors. I’ve been prepping for a unit on Palestine & Israel, which lately has meant reading the case that South Africa is bringing against Israel in the International Court of Justice under its Genocide Convention. Beginning on page 59 of the 84 page application, South Africa lays out 10 pages of evidence demonstrating Israel’s “genocidal intent.” On 7 October 2023, Giora Eiland (Israeli Army Reservist Major General, former Head of the Israeli National Security Council, and adviser to the Defence Minister), describing the Israeli order to cut off water and electricity to Gaza, wrote in an online journal:
This is what Israel has begun to do — we cut the supply of energy, water and diesel to the Strip . . . But it’s not enough. In order to make the siege effective, we have to prevent others from giving assistance to Gaza . . . The people should be told that they have two choices; to stay and to starve, or to leave.
More than 23,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza. Mothers, fathers, poets, students, cooks, musicians, artists, journalists, doctors, teachers, grandmothers. More than ten thousand Gazan children have been killed, and a thousand more have lost limbs - many requiring amputations without anesthesia.
Though I still cry about this almost every day, I can feel myself becoming numb to this suffering. How can our hearts possibly hold it all?
In class, we’ve been learning about privilege and I’ve shared this quote from Noam Chomsky several times:
“The more privilege you have, the more opportunity you have. The more opportunity you have, the more responsibility you have.”
I’ve taught these privilege lessons for several years now, but they’re hitting differently this year. I have seen so many images in the last 3 months of people who look like me, children who look like they could be my children, starving, wailing, experiencing grief, pain, and suffering beyond my ability to comprehend. And then I walk to my faucet, turn it on, and drink. I drive to the grocery store and buy whatever I need. I complain about how much time it takes to wash lettuce. I go to sleep next to my husband, buried in a cloud of cotton and down.
I can, and often do, get caught up in feeling guilty about this privilege. Why should I have so much, when it easily could be me in the Gaza Strip? Those children my children?
But I always tell my students, “it’s normal to feel guilt when you realize your privileges, but don’t get stuck there.” Our guilt and self-flagellation help no one. They can only lead to shutting down and turning away in denial when we can no longer tolerate the psychological pain.
I know that the only way I can be of use is if I find moments of joy. The only way I can sustain myself in the face of this unimaginable suffering is to embrace the full spectrum of life and live inside the truth that this world is full of both beauty and horror.
I’m reminded of this quote, whose source is unclear, except that it comes from Jewish Rabbinical teachings:
Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly now, love mercy now, walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.
I hope you are finding ways to act against this horrific genocide. I hope you are finding joy in the beauty of life. I hope you are fighting, resting, and holding it all.
Below are some joyous autumn beach days on film and one of my favorite Mary Oliver poems.
I go down to the shore in the morning
and depending on the hour the waves
are rolling in or moving out,
and I say, oh, I am miserable,
what shall -
what should I do? And the sea says
in its lovely voice:
Excuse me, I have work to do.
// I Go Down to the Shore, by Mary Oliver from A Thousand Mornings, 2012