William Stafford At His Best

THE GIFT

Time wants to show you a different country. It's the one
that your life conceals, the one waiting outside
when curtains are drawn, the one Grandmother hinted at
in her crochet design, the one almost found
over at the edge of the music, after the sermon.

It's the way life is, and you have it, a few years given.
You get killed now and then, violated
in various ways. (And sometimes it's turn about.)
You get tired of that. Long-suffering, you wait
and pray, and maybe good things come--maybe
the hurt slackens and you hardly feel it any more.
You have a breath without pain. It is called happiness.

It's a balance, the taking and passing along,
the composting of where you've been and how people
and weather treated you. It's a country where
you already are, bringing where you have been.
Time offers this gift in its millions of ways,
turning the world, moving the air, calling,
every mormning, "Here, take it, it's yours."

--William Stafford, The Way It Is, Graywolf Press, 1995, p. 165

A Poem For The Latest Dead In Gaza

I read the news today oh boy
about a Gazan on the strip
They blew his brains out in a car
He didn't know they let a missile rip
A crowd of people stood amazed
to see a body set ablaze
There was nobody there to know
If he was Hamas or PLO

Sorry, John Lennon. I wanted to adapt "A Day in the Life" to Gaza life and start the song with a missile attack by a F-16 given gratis using my tax dollars. I couldn't hear the screams, probably because I was so busy screaming at pictures of carnage from the preceding day's news.

I'm going to take the week end off from futile screen viewing. I've got laryngitis and my tear ducts are currently on loan to my wife who is renouncing motherhood for sisterhood. So the innocents and gallants of Gaza are on their own for a few days. But before I send you the latest news of Israeli war crimes, I thought I'd type out a poem by Williams Stafford that I am dedicating to those valiant members of the Israeli Luftwaffe who kill Palestinian civilians in Gaza/Guernica without my permission or approval.

If there is a hell, it will be a screening room where eyes can't close, attention can't drift and the projectionist keeps replaying videos of the war criminals' acts of murder. But don't worry. My God--formerly known as Yahweh (as in, Have it Your Way) has received Christ. So the show only lasts two hours--albeit in eternity--before reincarnation as a Palestinian who will spend his whole brief life resisting the urge to throw rocks, bottles or anything else within easy reach at Israelis so that he can finally get off the wheel of vengeance and be born as, who knows, a Buddhist monk or a whirling dervish. When offered rebirth as an Israeli, I hope the Palestinian war crimes victim chooses more wisely than to be a smug victor. I hope he, too, chooses safron or Sufi robes.

Do I sound angry? I meant to show you a shot of the missile-mangled Palestinian car. Want to bet that the owner had just finished paying it off? You might say, sardonic shades of Hitchcock, the festivities got a little out of hand and he had to be carried away.


SOME REMARKS WHEN RICHARD HUGO CAME

Some war, I bomb their towns from five
miles high, the flower of smoke and fire
so far there is no sound. No cry
disturbs the calm through which we fly.

Some day, a quiet day, I watch
a grassy field in wind, the waves
forever bounding past and gone.
Friends call: I Cannot look away--

And my life had already happened:
Some save-up feeling caught, held on,
and shook me. Long-legged grass raced out;
a film inside my head unwound.

The bodies I had killed began to scream.

--William Stafford, The Way It Is, Graywolf Press, 1995, p. 164


Israeli forces kill at least 11 Palestinians in Gaza incursion
Report, PCHR, 27 June 2007



A member of the al-Qassam Brigades inspects a car that was targeted in an Israeli air strike on Gaza, 27 June 2007. (Wissam Nassar/MaanImages)


In the early morning hours of Wednesday, 27 June 2007, IOF conducted two incursions into the town of Khuza'a to the east of Khan Yunis and into Sheja'eya Quarter in the eastern part of Gaza City. Up to the publication of this report, these incursions resulted in the death of 11 Palestinians. Among those killed are six civilians, including two children and two brothers. In addition, 50 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been injured. In the afternoon, IOF withdrew from Sheja'eya, leaving behind considerable destruction. The incursion into Khuza'a continued at the time of publication. In light of this escalation and the persistence of IOF military operations, PCHR is concerned over the falling of additional civilian victims. It is noted that this escalation coincides with the continued hermetic closure of the Gaza Strip imposed two weeks ago, thus threatening to cause a humanitarian crisis in the Strip.

PCHR's preliminary investigation indicates that at approximatel y 15:30 on 27 June 2007, IOF armored vehicles, supported by military aircraft, moved nearly 1.5 kilometers into the town of Khuza'a to the east of Khan Yunis. IOF troops stormed a number of residential houses in Abu Reida neighborhood in the town; and transformed many of these homes into military outposts and held residents as hostages. Palestinian resistance activists confronted the IOF troops. Sporadic clashes continued till time of publication. These clashes resulted in the killing of two resistance activists and the injury of two others. The activists killed are:
Deya Mohammad Abu Daqqa (24), killed by a bullet to the chest.

Husam Abdallah Abu To'ema (24) killed by a bullet to the head.
IOF is calling upon all males aged 15-50 to come out of their homes and gather in one of the town squares.

At approximately 5:00 on 27 June 2007, IOF armored vehicles, supported by military aircraft, moved into Sheja'eya Quarter in the eastern part of Gaza City. IOF fired a shell at two civilians, killing them instantly:
Nafez Mahmoud Hilles (27).

Ahmad Ayyad Hilles (16).
Ten civilians, including a child, a girl, and an elderly man, were injured by indiscriminate IOF shelling and fire against civilian houses.

At approximately 7:30, an IOF plane committed an extra-judicial execution by hitting a civilian vehicle in Baghdad Street in Sheja'eya. The driver, Ra'ed Amin Abu Fannouna, was killed instantly. He was a member of Al-Quds Battalions, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad.

Using disproportionate force, IOF killed four civilians in Sheja'eya at approximately 11:30. Among the civilians were a child and two brothers. IOF fired a shell at a group of four civilians standing in front of the house of Sa'id Jundeya in El-Muntar Street in Sheja'eya. The shell fell in the middle of the group and killed them instantly. The victims are:
Izzedeen Sa'id Jundeya (14).

Hazem Eyad Jundeya (23).

Yusef Kamal El-Manasra (18).

Sami Kamal El-Manasra (28).
In the afternoon, Shifa Hospital announced the death of a resistance activist, Anan Abdel Aziz El-Ar'eer (24), of wounds sustained in the morning. In addition, IOF fired a tank shell at a group of resistance activists, killing one of them instantly: Yousef Khalil Juha (22).

In addition, to the 10 injured civilians mentioned above, another 40 wounded from Sheja'eya were admitted to Gaza City hospitals. Most of the injured are unarmed civilians injured by IOF indiscriminate shelling of civilian houses.

In the afternoon, IOF ended the incursion into Sheja'eya and withdrew to the Gaza Strip border, leaving behind considerable destruction in civilian houses, property, and agricultural areas.

In light of this IOF escalation, PCHR:


Condemns these crimes that are a continuation of Israeli war crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), which reflect indifference and negligence towards civilian lives. The Centre views these actions as a form of collective punishment and reprisals that violate Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949).

Points to the fact that IOF do not respect the principles of necessity and proportionality when employing its lethal military capabilities in civilian areas, causing additional casualties among the civilian population.

Condemns the IOF policy of extra-judicial executions against Palestinian activists, and stresses that this policy increases tension in the area and threatens the lives of Palestinian civilians.

Calls upon the international community to intervene immediately to stop these crimes; and calls upon the High Contracting Parties of the Fourth Geneva Convention to fulfill their responsibility under Article 1 of the Convention to ensure that it is respected under all circumstances. In addition, the Centre calls upon the High Contracting Parties to fulfill their responsibilities under Article 146 of the Convention to prosecute persons suspected of committing serious violations of the Convention, and the responsibilities under Article 147 of the Convention stipulating the protection of civilians in occupied

A Poem By Yours Truly

TRUCE
for Don Delillo & Huang Po

1
He needed to hear
about like occasions

and remembered he had worked
with the man who broke the story

of the B-25 that crashed
into the Empire State Building

July 28, 1945
killing, by puny comparison,

only 14 people
and destroying only 5 floors.

"I saw the plane coming.
I knew what would happen

and called in the headline
before any debris hit the ground."

2
You want to see
the elements
from places where
they can't harm you.

So you look up at the sky
from which most days
nothing falls
except sunlight and dust.

Or you imagine yourself
a bird flying above
a waveless ocean
where you can't drown.

Domesticating fire
remains a challenge
as you still watch smoke
billowing from ghost towers

that frantic, frozen September morning
you learned Icarus was a suicide
with more fire inside
to erupt

than in any sun.

3
Global warming
is caused by the friction
of wayward liquidity
changing hands.

Wealth becomes anti-matter
impervious to destruction
now that it has learned
a way to flow and flood

wider than the hungriest mind.

4
Make the mind
too small for thoughts
of even Buddha to arise
or the last temptation
to eternal bliss.

Make the mind
too small to serve
as a slot for the penny
Satan gladly pays
for such thoughts

in uncontrolled recurrence.

5
River run of watchfulness
rapids of thought
carrying shredded life raft
your meager marriage to the elements
shipwrecked on the rocks
where no church
can ever be built
that will not fall prey
to the prayer
for salvation hinged
to the whims of an almighty

6
Flood tide of mindfulness
Sangha City swept away
by risen river of melted snow
from the distant mountains
that usually look lunar
on those talkless, dusty nights
when you're dry
and dying for a drink

7
When he dropped his wedding band
in the toilet as it was flushing

his first frantic thought
was that he was no longer married

then came the belly laugh
followed by the luminous

resumption of the real
and a second marriage

where Buddha himself
performed the ceremony

8
It's easier now
that there is nothing
for Bodhidharma
to appear in the West

It's easier
for the Patriarch
to spread understanding
now that there is nothing

to stop him

--David Federman, June 26, 2007

SLEEPERS AWAKE

Dear Sally,

I read the beautiful, well-reasoned letter from the Palestinian poet to her inducted and would-be terrorist brethren [printed below]. It is sweet and sincere but to me futile. The people she addresses are not amenable to her pleas, nor will they be until things change greatly. That change lies with us who as yet do not see our co-dependency with them through incitement and fear. Let me explain myself.

Slowly the gleaming platinum-shiny surface of race, ethnicity, religion is revealed as a plating with a shelf life shorter--hopefully, much shorter--than the true heart and body of gold it conceals. It is that skin we all share as common fact/faculty. And once the skin is shed, and we stand revealed in our true, shared softer flesh of shining, there can be no killing and, for some of the stoutest hearts, not even the thought of it. Terrorists have already refused any but their second skin. Their belief in it is dissoluble only through death (usually suicide). We must reach the people who drive them to this point. But we must do so purged of the emotions that drive them to the terrorist's point of no return.

For me, there can be no killing, even, I pray, in self-defense. I have seen and heard and read of despicable men whose acts are so ignominious that I would be tempted to inflict cruelties commensurate to their own upon them. But who will undertake them on my behalf? Why should I ask another to commit an act I could never perform?

I have a friend who wrote a book about four of America's dwindling band of professional executioners. I asked him how he felt about capital punishment after he finished writing the book and he answered, "I can now see both sides of the argument." Writing the book actually opened him up to the possibility that taking life could be justified. I wondered if the book had been worth the change from being against the death penalty to racking ambivalence about it. Amy who cried when they sentenced Timothy McVeigh to lethal injection (or was it the electric chair?) told me after he was executed that she believed his sentence was a justifiable exclusion to her opposition to capital punishment. When she said that, I cannot tell you how much I missed the Amy who had wept at his sentence.

I realized this morning, after reading about addiction last night, that citizenry is an avowed state of awareness. I also realized that the Declaration of Independence is a series of vows and commentaries on those vows. My first vow is what the Buddhists call mindfulness. Without the substrate of mindfulness, America, to me, is nothing but a nation of Hungry Ghosts where the first duties of its inhabitants (willingly stripped of their citizenship from any covenantal standpoint) are fear and craving.

Lately, I have had to fight some long-lingering demons who I did not recognize as such because they served at and for my pleasure. Now they scream like banshees for resumption of servitude within me. I feel like I have one last chance at true life but, at the same time, pray for one last shore leave on the isle of the damned. There's only one trouble with 'escape.' The isle of the damned is clearly showing signs of age and authorship in my mind. My sisters of mercy are using far more botox than I remember.

Now here's the good part of hell. God will, if asked, keep us company even there. As Ramakrishna said to the womanizer who begged for his help: "Never stop seeing the Mother in any woman that you desire or touch."

Slowly the thought of unity, the way of oneness, the deepest human ontology of God become the habits and habitat of this hand-me-down consciousness. As the Zen Master said, "My robe is worn out from a lifetime of walking in dew-covered grass." The karma-mind is also becoming threadbare, giving way to the Dharma-mind. Fatigue from craving is bringing glimpses of the original mind, awakening from a cryogenic sleep in this fangless, fearless haunted house where I was tempted to think it was held hostage. But it was just waiting for its first true use in my life. One cry to it in a context of deepest need and nothing can keep it from taking full occupancy of the house. This can happen. Each one of us knows it can happen and secretly suspects that we were born for the purpose of such an event. In that sense Dostoevsky is right, "Each one of us is happy, but we just don't know it." It is that happiness that is enshrined in America's Declaration of Indepen dence. But it is a pursuit--as in discipline.

I write all of this to you because I don't know if pleading with terrorists is the way to set the stage for a better world or a greater number of illuminations. I have chosen instead to plead with those who create the intolerable conditions which push terrorists over the edge of reason--knowing that in their lack of compassion and ignorance of their contribution to the plight of such people and their irreparable states of mind that they become equally dispossessed of their humanity.

To me, humanity is nothing less that our collective sentience risen through sightings and sittings with embodiments such as Christ and Buddha to full and full-time awareness. If our individual humanity still sees the embodiment as other and therefore as an impossible measure of conduct, then to me it has not discovered that to worship God requires commitment to the complete flowering of consciousness and the well-being of the entire mankind-composite. "I only give you what you are ready for," Bawa said a thousand times after cracking our skulls with his staff.

Unawakened sentience is too often the shroud of our divinity. For me, awakening requires a balance between non-engagement of our lives in the constant fear and craving that have become our most familiar forms of allegiance to our world and engagement in activity to alleviate the suffering of those who do not have the leisure that I do to pursue happiness. Henceforth my letters and remonstrations will be directed to those sleeping co-dependents whose awakening is the only hope and cure for the threats and curses they force their 'enemies' to heap upon them.

Love,

David

Naomi Shihab Nye, 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East

Letter from Naomi Shihab Nye, Arab-American Poet:

To Any Would-Be Terrorists

I am sorry I have to call you that, but I don't know how else to get your attention. I hate that word. Do you know how hard some of us have worked to get rid of that word, to deny its instant connection to the Middle East? And now look. Look what extra work we have. Not only did your colleagues kill thousands of innocent, international people in those buildings and scar their families forever, they wounded a huge community of people in the Middle East, in the United States and all over the world. If that's what they wanted to do, please know the mission was a terrible success, and you can stop now.

Because I feel a little closer to you than many Americans could possibly feel, or ever want to feel, I insist that you listen to me. Sit down and listen. I know what kinds of foods you like. I would feed them to you if you were right here, because it is very very important that you listen. I am humble in my country's pain and I am furious.

My Palestinian father became a refugee in 1948. He came to the United States as a college student. He is 74 years old now and still homesick. He has planted fig trees. He has invited all the Ethiopians in his neighborhood to fill their little paper sacks with his figs. He has written columns and stories saying the Arabs are not terrorists, he has worked all his life to defy that word. Arabs are businessmen and students and kind neighbors. There is no one like him and there are thousands like him - gentle Arab daddies who make everyone laugh around the dinner table, who have a hard time with headlines, who stand outside in the evenings with their hands in their pockets staring toward the far horizon.

I am sorry if you did not have a father like that. I wish everyone could have a father like that.

My hard-working American mother has spent 50 years trying to convince her fellow teachers and choir mates not to believe stereotypes about the Middle East. She always told them, there is a much larger story. If you knew the story, you would not jump to conclusions from what you see in the news. But now look at the news. What a mess has been made. Sometimes I wish everyone could have parents from different countries or ethnic groups so they would be forced to cross boundaries, to believe in mixtures, every day of their lives. Because this is what the world calls us to do. WAKE UP!

The Palestinian grocer in my Mexican-American neighborhood paints pictures of the Palestinian flag on his empty cartons. He paints trees and rivers. He gives his paintings away. He says, "Don't insult me" when I try to pay him for a lemonade. Arabs have always been famous for their generosity. Remember? My half-Arab brother with an Arabic name looks more like an Arab than many full-blooded Arabs do and he has to fly every week.

My Palestinian cousins in Texas have beautiful brown little boys. Many of them haven't gone to school yet. And now they have this heavy word to carry in their backpacks along with the weight of their papers and books. I repeat, the mission was a terrible success. But it was also a complete, total tragedy and I want you to think about a few things.

1. Many people, thousands of people, perhaps even millions of people, in the United States are very aware of the long unfairness of our country's policies regarding Israel and Palestine. We talk about this all the time. It exhausts us and we keep talking. We write letters to newspapers, to politicians, to each other. We speak out in public even when it is uncomfortable to do so, because that is our responsibility. Many of these people aren't even Arabs. Many happen to be Jews who are equally troubled by the inequity. I promise you this is true. Because I am Arab-American, people always express these views to me and I am amazed how many understand the intricate situation and have strong, caring feelings for Arabs and Palestinians even when they don't have to. Think of them, please: All those people who have been st anding up for Arabs when they didn't have to. But as ordinary citizens we don't run the government and don't get to make all our government's policies, which makes us sad sometimes. We believe in the power of the word and we keep using it, even when it seems no one large enough is listening. That is one of the best things about this country: the free power of free words. Maybe we take it for granted too much. Many of the people killed in the World Trade Center probably believed in a free Palestine and were probably talking about it all the time.

But this tragedy could never help the Palestinians. Somehow, miraculously, if other people won't help them more, they are going to have to help themselves. And it will be peace, not violence, that fixes things. You could ask any one of the kids in the Seeds of Peace organization and they would tell you that. Do you ever talk to kids? Please, please, talk to more kids.


2. Have you noticed how many roads there are? Sure you have. You must check out maps and highways and small alternate routes just like anyone else. There is no way everyone on earth could travel on the same road, or believe in exactly the same religion. It would be too crowded, it would be dumb. I don't believe you want us all to be Muslims. My Palestinian grandmother lived to be 106 years old, and did not read or write, but even she was much smarter than that. The only place she ever went beyond Palestine and Jordan was to Mecca, by bus, and she was very proud to be called a Hajji and to wear white clothes afterwards. She worked very hard to get stains out of everyone's dresses -- scrubbing them with a stone. I think she would consider the recent tragedies a terrible stain on her religion and her whole part of th e world. She would weep. She was scared of airplanes anyway. She wanted people to worship God in whatever ways they felt comfortable. Just worship. Just remember God in every single day and doing. It didn't matter what they called it. When people asked her how she felt about the peace talks that were happening right before she died, she puffed up like a proud little bird and said, in Arabic, "I never lost my peace inside." To her, Islam was a welcoming religion. After her home in Jerusalem was stolen from her, she lived in a small village that contained a Christian shrine. She felt very tender toward the people who would visit it. A Jewish professor tracked me down a few years ago in Jerusalem to tell me she changed his life after he went to her village to do an oral history proje c t on Arabs. "Don't think she only mattered to you!" he said. "She gave me a whole different reality to imagine - yet it was amazing how close we became. Arabs could never be just a "project" after that."

Did you have a grandmother or two? Mine never wanted people to be pushed around. What did yours want? Reading about Islam since my grandmother died, I note the "tolerance" that was "typical of Islam" even in the old days. The Muslim leader Khalid ibn al-Walid signed a Jerusalem treaty which declared, "in the name of God, you have complete security for your churches which shall not be occupied by the Muslims or destroyed." It is the new millenium in which we should be even smarter than we used to be, right? But I think we have fallen behind.

3. Many Americans do not want to kill any more innocent people anywhere in the world. We are extremely worried about military actions killing innocent people. We didn't like this in Iraq, we never liked it anywhere. We would like no more violence, from us as well as from you. HEAR US! We would like to stop the terrifying wheel of violence, just stop it, right on the road, and find something more creative to do to fix these huge problems we have. Violence is not creative, it is stupid and scary and many of us hate all those terrible movies and TV shows made in our own country that try to pretend otherwise. Don't watch them. Everyone should stop watching them. An appetite for explosive sounds and toppling buildings is not a healthy thing for anyone in any country. The USA should apologize to the whole world for sending this trash out into the air and for paying people to make it.

But here's something good you may not know - one of the best-selling books of poetry in the United States in recent years is the Coleman Barks translation of Rumi, a mystical Sufi poet of the 13th century, and Sufism is Islam and doesn't that make you glad?

Everyone is talking about the suffering that ethnic Americans are going through. Many will no doubt go through more of it, but I would like to thank everyone who has sent me a consolation card. Americans are usually very kind people. Didn't your colleagues find that out during their time living here? It is hard to imagine they missed it. How could they do what they did, knowing that?

4. We will all die soon enough. Why not take the short time we have on this delicate planet and figure out some really interesting things we might do together? I promise you, God would be happier. So many people are always trying to speak for God - I know it is a very dangerous thing to do. I tried my whole life not to do it. But this one time is an exception. Because there are so many people crying and scarred and confused and complicated and exhausted right now - it is as if we have all had a giant simultaneous break-down. I beg you, as your distant Arab cousin, as your American neighbor, listen to me. Our hearts are broken, as yours may also feel broken in some ways we can't understand, unless you tell us in wo rds. Killing people won't tell us. We can't read that message. Find another way to live. Don't expect others to be like you. Read Rumi. Read Arabic poetry. Poetry humanizes us in a way that news, or even religion, has a harder time doing. A great Arab scholar, Dr. Salma Jayyusi, said, "If we read one another, we won't kill one another." Read American poetry. Plant mint. Find a friend who is so different from you, you can't believe how much you have in common. Love them. Let them love you. Surprise people in gentle ways, as friends do. The rest of us will try harder too. Make our family proud.

naomi shihab nye

The Bodhisattva Vow As Taken By Robert Creeley

An exceptionally incisive poem by Robert Creeley, ending with a glorious New Englander's version of the Bodhisattva vow, written around 1970:

ON VACATION

Things seems empty
on vcation if the labors
have not been physical,

if tedium was rather
a daily knot, a continuum,
if satisfaction was almost

placid. On Sundays the restlessness
grows, on weekends, on
months of vacation myself grows

vacuous. Taking walks, swimming,
drinking, I am always afraid
of having more. Hence a true

Puritan, I shall never rest from my labors
until all rest with me, until I am
driven by that density home.

--Robert Creeley, The Collected Poems 1945-1975, University of California Press, 2006, page 485

The Bodhisattva Vow (as taken by Creeley):
". . . I shall never rest from my labors
until all rest with me, until I am
driven by that density home."

Has the word "density" ever sounded so immense yet fragrant and served as such a personal synonym for the collective weight of our humanity? Has the word "home" ever resonated with such a sense of a final resting place short of and far other than the grave? Slowly but surely we draw to the ineluctable, irreducible condition of our oneness and common Godliness--by dint of that perceived unity and felt substance. Paradise is glimpsed and often gained in that sighting. And our lives become a fulfilled prophecy of heaven on earth through fully awakened sentience. By continued watchfulness, we stay rooted and resident in that place.

The only rescue from the continuing sagas of neurosis and worse, it seems to me now, is to feel the Puritan's pangs for violations of that commonness, to welcome guilt for the various crimes of wanting satisfactions short of the wholesome (whole-sum) all of us.

Reading Creeley this morning, I was reminded of how my teacher Bawa Muhaiyaddeen once chided two students for playing tennis instead of using their leisure for meaningful exertion on behalf of others. He was a Puritan in the best sense.

What the grace-filled gracious Puritan knows is, as Herschel said about true worship, that it is sabbath at every second and we stand together on the commons of our community, the common ground which I call God. Creeley took me there this morning and I wanted to share the peaceful, redemptive place for which his vow-sealed poem is habitat.

We Need a One-State Solution: Palesrael

IF WE ARE THE SONS OF GODS, WE CANNOT BE CAINS AND ABELS

As a Jew and as an American, I realize I can no longer be a part of any people but the whole of humanity. The world is too small to be divided into peoples, races and tribes. Sure, I could raise my kids to be Jews--but only if they are mindful of the fact that the core teaching of their tradition is the same as that of Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and any other -ism of long, luminous standing. When Leo Tolstoy defined true Christianity in his 1894 book, "The Kingdom of God is Within You," he was also defining true Buddhism, Gnosticism, Sufism, Kabbala, as I understand them:

The Christian doctrine in its full significance can alone . . . [give] new meaning to life. Christianity recognizes love of self, of family, of nation, and of humanity, and not only of humanity, but of everything living, everything existing; it recognizes the necessity of an infinite extension of the sphere of love. But the object of this love is not found outside in societies of indiviudals, nor in the external world, but within self, in the divine self whose essence is that very love, which the animal self is brought to feel the need of through its consciousness of its own perishable nature.

The difference between the Christian doctrine and those which preceded it is that the social doctrine said: "Live in opposition to your nature [understanding by this only the animal nature], make it subject to the external law of family, society, and state." Christianity says: "Live according to your nature [understanding by this the divine nature]; do not make it subject to anything--neither you (an animal self) nor that of others--and you will attain the very aim for which you are striving when you subject your external self."

The Christian doctrine brings a man to the elementary consciousness of self, the divine spark, the self as the Son of God, as much God as the father himself, though confined in an animal husk. The consciousness of being the Son of God, whose chief characteristic is love, satisified the need for the extension of the sphere of love to which the man of the social conception if life has been briught. For the latter, the welfare of the personality demanded an ever-widening extension of the sphere of love; love was a necessity and was confined to certain objects--self, family, society. With the Christian conception of life, love us not a necessity and is confined to no object; it is the essential faculty of the human soul. Man loves not because it is [in] his interest to love this or that, but because love is the essence of his soul, because he cannot but love."

--Leo Tolstoy, "The Kingdom of God is Within You: Christianity Not as a Mystic religion but as a New Theory of Life (1894)," University of Nebraska Press, 1984, pages 107-8

A Good Day For Palestine

WHY AMERICA MUST STOP SPONSORING THE OPPRESSION OF PALESTINE

By the time we took to the streets of Washington yesterday afternoon near to 4:30 PM, there were, I guess, 4,000 to 5,000 of us--at least 40% of whom were young people, mostly Arab and Jewish Americans. For the first time at any peace event in recent memory, the participants were of one mind, focused on one issue: ending apartheid in Palestine. This unity of mind and spirit was downright uplifting. I felt a joy and well-being I never feel at protests.

I have no illusions. Every building we passed was empty. The White House and the Capitol Building looked as if they had long been uninhabited--stern alabaster monuments to the idea and intention, not the reality of democracy. Washington seemed a city of Sundays, filled with tourists like myself who still believe the city is pledged to the practice of this nation's highest ideals: equality and justice for all. These tourists with their blessed naive faith in their country chase out the people we pay to keep the promise of America to its own citizens and the citizens of other nations.

Our commitment to equality and justice is guaranteed not just to those who live between the shores of the Atlantic and the Pacific--but to all nations who are recipients of our largesse in any form, even defense dollars. Our largesse is founded on and granted in the name of the principles for which this country stands: justice and liberty for all. Therefore, Israel which receives $3.5 billion annually in arms grants, is bound by the covenants of human welfare and human-rights protection that are, or should be, the basis of every dispensation of US taxpayer revenue to a foreign power.

It is, to me, a moral transgression of all founding charters of this country-- including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights--to use U.S. taxpayer money for the subjugation of any people. If Israel cannot use my money to protect and promote the welfare of the Palestinians whose lives they have controlled completely and ruthlessly for 40 years, they must pay every cent of it back to me and my countrymen. And we must, in turn, give this money as reparation to the people damaged by its misuse. Further, Israel must forfeit all further aid until it can prove itself a responsible recipient and conduit of this country's largesse.

I read this morning that when we are blinded by the light, only that which belongs in the light can be seen. Israel has become a shadowland of nationalism, colonialsm, racism and fanaticism--requiring, like any dysfunctional power which poses a threat to its neighbors, intervention. Until Israel admits to its loss of humanity and begins a recovery program of its lost humanity, it is no longer worthy of receiving and distributing American largesse given in the highest interests of humanity.

Look at it from a covenental basis: Israel is a second party to whom we entrust our wealth and it is honor-bound to act as a beneficient agent to use it wisely and justly with regard to third parties. The chief third-party recipent of our largesse to Israel is Palestine which we have no other way of reaching and assisting. Israel is in the proven process of destroying Palestine--through a system of apartheid equal in inhumanity, ferocity and devastation to that of South Africa before its liberation. Israel's behavior toward Palestine has been cruel not covenental.

Consequently, I ruefully, regrettfully conclude that apartheid will end in Palestine only when its biggest sponsor, the US Treasury, witholds the money that funds and sustains it. Yesterday in Washington I made known this conclusion through silent prayer and chanted pronouncement. Whether my government likes it or not, there is now a profound moral residue and spiritual resonance of my aroused presence in Washington. And it will linger--sustained by more prayer and activism here at home.

I believe in the Power of One--when one's actions are an expression of the One God and one love which resides within us as the indestructible substrate of human consciousness. As a "son of God," I say that if Israel won't quit Palestine, then America must quit Israel. It is that simple, fundamental and decent. I don't know if we can save the soul of Israel, but I do know we can, and must, save the body of Palestine.

Hence I will no longer tolerate use of my hard-earned tax dollars for murder, humiliation and degradation of the Palestinian people. My money is to be spent providing opportunity in terms of material comfort and prosperity to the Palestinian people equal to that enjoyed by the Israeli people. If Israel cannot distribute American largess with equality to all peoples who live under its dominion, then my money is being given in betrayed trust. If Israel is not up to the task of equal dispensation and equal treatment of all people under its jurisdiction, then we must find other ways to dispense the means of comfort, well-being, justice and prosperity to Palestine.

One thing for sure: Palestine must not be allowed to perish. Its survival and success as a fully sovereign state must become a national American priority. America, as a fiscal sponsor of Israeli apartheid, bears direct responsibility for the fate of Palestine. I will dedicate as much of my life to ensuring Palestine's full destiny as a sovereign nation as I can. And I will ask forgiveness of this country's brutalized people for my contributions as a Jew and an American citizen to their undeserved misery.

Jewish Moral Bipolarity

WHY I AM IN WASHINGTON TODAY
PROTESTING APARTHEID IN PALESTINE

INTRODUCTION: ”JEWISH MORAL BIPOLARITY”
I am an American Jew who suffers from a unique congenital and cultural condition common to his people. I call it “Jewish moral bipolarity.” Since this disorder is spiritual and moral rather than psychological and behavioral, there is no medication for its cure, or control, other than truth.

I believe this moral bipolarity afflicts tens of thousands of other Jews in this country, in Israel and around the world.

What exactly do I mean by “Jewish moral bipolarity?”

TWO DIFFERENT WORLDS
I mean this: my life has been a constant collision between two hostile value systems: Liberalism and Zionism. Let me explain.

I grew up in a secular post-Holocaust Jewish home where I had instilled in me a fierce belief in universal justice and the Brotherhood of Man as the best preventatives of future war and genocide. In connection with these sacred concepts, I was taught to resist nationalism, bigotry, religious fanaticism and ethnic supremacy in any and every form—but always and only with non-violence.

At the same time, I was encouraged to overlook or rationalize violent acts committed by the state of Israel that were clear expressions of nationalism, racism and colonialism. Jewish foreign policy was exempted from condemnation, even criticism, solely on the basis of Israel’s unquestionable right to exist. And it didn’t matter what price the country ultimately paid in terms of its own moral legitimacy. This reckless, supercilious disregard for its own legitimacy in the eyes of others is the tragedy of modern Israel.

After 40 years of apartheid against Palestine, it is becoming appallingly apparent that Israel is rapidly squandering its little remaining moral legitimacy. For its own sake, it must abandon its apartheid policies in Palestine.

“JEWISH MORAL BIPOLARITY” IN ACTION
When I grew up, I felt Israel was just, generous reparation from a guilty world for the Holocaust. It never dawned on me until 1967 that from an Arab perspective, Israel could be viewed as an ex-nihilo state imposed upon the Middle East by the West—for crimes against the Jewish people in which it had not participated.

From then on, the idea of a homeland for the Jewish People in Palestine became a riddle that could only be solved—existentially—by Israel’s demonstrable determination to win the good will and trust of its Arab neighbors. As an ex-nihilo state, one understandably perceived as a foe, Israel had to quickly become a friend.

I am in Washington today because just the opposite has happened. Israel is justifiably perceived as a proxy of the United States in its imperialist ambitions in the Middle East.

This perception first dawned on me in 1967 when “Jewish moral bipolarity” erupted into open conflict with my family. In April of that year, I marched with my family’s proud blessing to protest the war in Vietnam. Yet the next month, my father and I almost came to blows because of my equally staunch opposition to Israel’s lightning-swift land grab of Sinai, Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.

How, I wondered then, could liberal Jews have such divided, hypocritical and deeply bi-polar responses to equally immoral wars in Vietnam and the Middle East?

How, I wonder today, can liberal Jews have such divided, hypocritical and deeply bi-polar responses to equally immoral occupations of Iraq and Palestine?

LINKAGE: THE ONLY CURE TO “JEWISH MORAL BIPOLARITY”
I am in Washington today to protest this lethal paradox. I am here as both a Jew of conscience and an indignant American taxpayer who pays for the jet fighters Israel uses to bomb Gaza and the bulldozers it uses to demolish Palestinian homes (both those of Muslims and Christians) and crush peace activists like Rachel Corrie. I want my government to know that I do not authorize the continued gifting of $3 billion a year to Israel for armaments in a mythical, self-serving war against terror.

And, finally, I want my countrymen to know that since the blood of Palestine is as much on our hands as Israel’s, then its fate is as much in our hands as Israel’s. I am in Washington today to ask my government to save Israel from itself by saving Palestine from Israel.