Final thoughts: Hope for Tomorrow

Hope for Tomorrow

People are obviously a basic component of all facets of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict we have discussed in our Living Jerusalem class.  They are also the component that touch my heart and bring tears to my eyes.  In listening to our many class discussions related to Jerusalem and her people, I have heard thoughts and opinions, pros and cons, general speculation and personal testimony.  I have witnessed well-articulated disagreements, friendly fire as intensity mounted, and have heard questions asked that beg answers, though none exist.  I have witnessed passion expressed for a land and for her people, and sadness and disillusionment as well.

Though we sat in a small classroom in southern Indiana’s Indiana University campus, it seemed our hearts and minds seldom remained there.  Bombarded with information on Jerusalem, we learned of her historic past and the many peoples that laid claim to her.  Each generation seemed to bring new issues and agendas, with her complexity becoming interwoven and tangled, one people against another and one religion against the next.  Sordid battles raged in the name of religion, wars in the name of land possession, and bias in the name of identity for her diverse myriad of people.   

Though far removed from the physical reality of the land, her people, and her continuing conflict, our class discussion became living pieces of this reality: some had lived in Jerusalem and witnessed the division.  One had lived so close to the wall that she could almost touch it from her Jerusalem window. One had to fight to keep the passport of her birth country.  Several had Israeli or Palestinian family living there.  Some had no previous understanding of the conflict while others had a part of themselves woven into the multi-faceted issues and problems.  All of us listened; all of us offered a thought, a question, or an opinion. But no one could offer a solution.    Our small class of students, though widely diverse and willing to share, were unable to see an end to conflict in Jerusalem and her land.  I felt an overwhelming sense of sadness: Jerusalem, the heartbeat of her land, has endured her bitter past and remains today as complex and as unresolved as ever.  Her battles and wars are still real, and her people still cry.  A peaceful resolution to her age-old conflict seems as far away as her distant beginning, with no solution in sight…and life goes on:

“Oh Jerusalem, your people cry.  Is there no way to dry tears?

Your people fight to live, fight to survive for another generation.

Where is the joy of your land?  What has become of the smiles of your people?

They are behind walls, where smiles and dancing eyes cannot grow.

Eyes of like young become eyes of like old,

Filled with uncertainty for today and without hope for tomorrow.

Circles of identities maintain separation to exist

And motions of daily living rely on checkpoints to count time.

Walls offer security that should come from peace,

Walls offer peace that should come from humanity,

And humanity offers more walls…..

How can this be?  There must be hope for tomorrow.

Hope for tears to dry, for life without fighting, for joy in the land.

Hope for smiles and dancing eyes of the old

To pass with the stories of their people to the young,

Who offer the same to their children.

Circles of time living together as one breath among many,

With humanity offering peace

And peace offering security

And security offering life without walls.

Is there not hope for a tomorrow of peace?”

Hope.   I heard the word echo within our class discussions.  I felt it wind in and out of the many speakers we heard from Jerusalem, her land, and our land as well, who cared to share their thoughts with us.  I witnessed it with those who believe in projects of coexistence enough to dedicate their lives so others might someday live in peace.  I believed it as we spoke of tolerance and eventual acceptance of others around us, so necessary for the peace tomorrow could bring and so lacking in our world today.  With the wall, without the wall, sides or no sides at all, hope seemed the remaining thread for humanity’s peace offering.  Without it, how can we survive? And with it, how can we fail?

My mind and heart return to the people of Jerusalem and her surrounding land.  If hope can be heard and felt and witnessed and believed, why has it not grown into peaceful coexistence? Why has it not taken root in the hearts of those who say they yearn for life without conflict and struggle, yet only dream of smiles and dancing eyes and a home with no wall of separation?  Perhaps hope lacks innocent soil in which to grow, feeding rather on hostilities of previous generations and lack of tolerance or acceptance of those different from themselves.  Perhaps tolerance could have been mistaken for weakness or assimilation.  Perhaps. 

“Where can hope be found?

Perhaps it rests in the children, with minds and hearts untainted by bias.

Tomorrow’s generation,

Where friends may speak a different language, wear different clothing, and

Share family stories of customs common to neither on a land common to both.

Perhaps hope will allow tears to dry,

Fighting to cease, and joy to return.

Perhaps smiles and dancing eyes will be the result of acceptance and love for one another,

The innocent soil, tomorrow’s children,

Feeding tolerance and acceptance to

Circles of identities in close proximity.

Perhaps this hope of tomorrow’s peace lies within the children of today.

Perhaps.”

And I think, perhaps it does.  Within our own small classroom at IU, I was so encouraged to witness smiles and dancing eyes that seem the result of acceptance and love for one another.  I listened with admiration as each of you presented information for us to consider, striving for fair and unbiased words in a world where both may be hard to find.  Sincerity could be felt in the words of personal testimony, and passion carried by honesty and humor.  And I watched with renewed hope as a group surveyed the large blackboard, laughing as they worked together to write ‘peace’ in Arabic, in Hebrew, and in English. 

“The innocent soil, tomorrow’s children,

Feeding tolerance and acceptance to

Circles of identities in close proximity.

The hope of tomorrow’s peace within the children of today.”