By Steve Fisher

We started out in East Jerusalem meeting with Fr. Hosam Naoum, Dean of St. George’s Cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of the Middle East.

Father Hosam Naoum

Fr. Naoum, a graduate of Mar Elias High School, offered his kind hospitality as we learned about their many ministries. Perhaps the high point was learning from him this beautiful song written by one of the former cathedral canons, Garth Hewitt:

“Ten Measures of Beauty”

Ten measures of Beauty
God gave to the world.
Nine to Jerusalem,
And one to the rest.

Refrain: Pray for the peace, Pray for the peace,
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
Pray for the peace, Pray for the peace,
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Ten measures of sorrow
God gave to the World
Nine to Jerusalem
And one to the rest.

~ Words and tune by Garth Hewitt, in his album, “Lonesome Troubadour”

We walked to the UN office of OCHA (Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) where Catherine Cook presented an overview of the punishing brutality wreaked upon the residents of both Gaza and the West Bank. The UN sadly only can chronicle what’s happening and try to soften the devastation a mite.

A student host/guide and her art teacher at Ramallah Friends School

A hopeful note was our lunchtime visit to the Friends School in Ramallah, an elite private school infusing their education with Quaker values since 1869 and offering their approximately 1000 students a path to universities the world over and thence, in many cases, to the empowerment of the Palestinian community.

Our last visit of the day, to DCI-Palestine, gave us a searing picture and data about the terrorizing of Palestinian children (700-1000 per year, ages 12-17), by the Israeli military, whose purpose seems to be to crush and break the will of these children. DCI Palestine is doing all it can to mitigate through legal means some of the suffering, while working with their supporters (Save the Children, Unicef, Amnesty International, etc) to generate support in the US Congress for their “No Way to Treat a Child” campaign. While inspired by the courage, tenacity, and keen analysis of DCI, I also left feeling nauseated by what I was hearing — are there no limits to hate, especially towards children?

On our drive home and assisted by an endless traffic jam, we sang ourselves silly with the sweet delight of Spirituals which then morphed into Christmas Carols as we approached Bethlehem. So healing, I hope, for all of us.

Further solace came in an email from my wife Cynde, which included the following poem by Adrienne Rich:

My Heart is Moved

My heart is moved
by all I cannot save
so much has been destroyed

I have to cast my lot
with those who
age after age,
perversely,
and with no extraordinary power,
reconstitute the world.

Those who suffer under oppression, who live into the refining fires of the Cross, have so much to teach us about what being human, what being alive is all about. My prayer is that we all be given the Grace to receive this gift. Then we can bear witness with our Palestinian brothers and sisters to Martin Luther King’s affirmation that “unmerited suffering is redemptive.”