A reflection on the ongoing violence in Gaza, CW: war, death violence against children
God
I hear her
in the middle of the night
Sometimes when my children
run around the house
in their ruckus game of Hide and Seek
(which I do not tell them they are too old for)
their teenage feet sound like
hippos
With the hunger to go with it
a trail of crumbs
going up and down the steps
I do not yell at them
for the noise
the chaos
the mess
I hear Rachel weeping
All the way from Gaza
it is a whispered
choking sound
Her snuffling lament
It sounds both angry
and full of hurt
And I can hear it
all too often
echoing across the oceans
Rachel is weeping
for her children
She refuses all comfort
I see her pacing
Unable to eat or sleep
because her children
are buried under rubble
or blown to pieces
Her children who were scrounging for food
and licking the rain off of gutters
Her children who she packed up
in the middle of the night
First to travel to one part of the world
and then another
In the bitter cold
In hats and gloves knitted by
an old Auntie, who unrolled all the wool they had
Just to cover the children
And then in a blink of violence
Rachel’s children are gone
And sometimes her eyes play tricks on her
And she thinks that she sees them
Out of the corner of her eye
or in the line marching towards a border
Blocked by soldiers
Even as her heart beats
They are gone
They are lost
I can’t find them
Rachel weeps
the tears flow
so that she does not notice them
any longer
she does not
notice…
Jeremiah 31:15 Thus says the Lord:
A voice is heard in Ramah,
lamentation and bitter weeping.
Rachel is weeping for her children;
she refuses to be comforted for her children,
because they are no more.
Picture of the wall written on by these students, which is lovely because it gives a fuller story of the conflict which is complicated by the terrorist group Hamas who wanted this war, the corrupt governance of Netanyahu and the anti-semitism throughout the world that begs for a safe place for Jewish people to exist and be (and this summary does not even do the situation justice, however this poem expresses some of the pain of this moment) https://lisaschirch.wordpress.com/2017/10/10/rachel-is-weeping-at-the-separation-wall/
With thanks to Rev Kyle Delhagan and Presbyterian Women for finding the image
katyandtheword 