roll the dice

I am living an easy life the hard way. It seems I keep missing the point. I am aware of too much. Everything is in constant conflict somehow, if not this hour, next hour. My attention to detail is microscopic, but there is a fault in the details that appear more prominent to me. I am torn, all the time. I am wrong, even in being right, because I am in truth, an impossible person.

There has been something off in my understanding of what this life is. Of how to make priorities. Of how to make decisions. I keep believing in something more, in rewards that come when truth is made to matter more than priorities or decisions or fears or needs. I have believed in rewards that come and bless everyone you love, when you dare to live according to your cosmic, heartfelt beliefs.

But it seems I have been wrong. Life is coincidence, and luck, and hope, and determination. Life is action, and building, and gritting your teeth to keep your eye on the ball. Beautiful things happen. Energies abound, and lead us. Karma has its gentle way. But we, we are pinballs in an enormous and random game. We give meaning to things when they are amazing. We take meaning away when realities shift. We perceive our perceptions to be true, and bond with people who see things the same way. We have a hard time bridging perception gaps with others, because we imagine that there is a right and a wrong, and life is too short to tolerate other people’s ignorance.

We want love, but we do not know how to find it, or how to keep it when we do. We look for soul mates. Sometimes we find them. Sometimes we don’t. We look to our friends for support, because they can love us without having to live with us. And we somehow fail to understand that there is a reason we are not married to our friends, and fault our lovers for not being more like them.

We blame people, cities, jobs, situations, for our unhappiness. And it may in part be true. But contentment, we will eventually learn, only comes from within.

I have met many people now, in different stages of their lives, with different problems, different dreams, different tragedies and disappointments. I think I have learned something that I would have never accepted just a year ago.

It is not everyone’s destiny to be happy. It is just everyone’s hope.

The rest is random. But while we're healthy, we at least get to roll the dice.

how you are with me

Under bright and unbecoming lights, we sing and dance and stomp for peace. Why this venue, we do not know. But this is where the movement has a home, and so this is where Amen and Sheva come to talk about the Sulha, about the fundamental need for forgiveness, and about steps, significant even in their insignificance, towards lasting reconciliation.

It is here in this cold exhibition hall, with Arabs and Jews sharing pillows, that their words and their music ignite in all of us the fire of hope, the positive energy of idealistic aspiration, and the mind-forming belief in the power of human spirit.

I danced. I clapped. I stomped.

And I sung. Even though, most of the words I did not understand. They were in Hebrew. Your language. (Which became my language too, the language of my love. But also, in a strange way, the language of my heart beyond you or me or my heritage or any of my dreams. It is the language that flows most naturally through my body, that I seem to understand without understanding. A language that comes to me not as a language, but as a deep spiritual echo with a message much deeper than words.)

Yes, we danced. And we talked about idealistic, maybe even impossible things. (But maybe they are not impossible, and that maybe is good enough for me.)

But still, even here, how you are with me.

I know how you would have hated this gathering. I know how I would have hated having you there. How I would have struggled with you, but really struggled with myself. I know how we would have argued afterwards, irreconcilable (although in the end, leaving you less bitter and more accepting of our differences than me).

I know we could not share these things. (I will never forget the Iraq protest and the woman and the mud puddle. The intolerance of it.)

But still, in the presence of these lyrics, in the presence of my vision for your country, in the presence of all things beautiful and hopeful and sincere and pure, it is you who are with me.

Of all the people I could share it with who would understand. Still, it is you.