Israel and Palestine 😭

Israel and Palestine’s history is fraught with plenty of fingers to point but none of it justifies the recent brutal Hamas terrorist attacks. 

I’m trying to figure out how to say something, because I believe it matters as part of relating and truth and love, but I should also stay in my lane—I'm not a geopolitical figure who has any real insight into the situation, other than the obvious that executing babies is unacceptable for any reason. And most of you are not subscribed to this list to get my opinions on such matters...

So I guess here’s what I’ve got so far, drawn from relateful explorations. Forgive me for my inevitable ignorance and insensitivity—I believe it’s worth attempting to say something meaningful, and relateful, despite my inadequacy:

1. We must stop aperspectival madness, while including nuance.
   
   Immature empathy often loses the ability to make moral stands, draw boundaries, and hold people accountable for their actions.
   
   Understanding where someone comes from and why they did what they did doesn’t make their actions OK. This is intuitive: We understand that childhood bullies are insecure and usually themselves bullied at home, but we don’t let them act that out on others.
   
   You can love and forgive people while saying things are not OK, without being in contradiction. Similarly, loving and forgiving doesn’t mean you have to stop natural consequences. Render under Caesar what’s Caesar’s—the natural consequences and the accountability—and God what’s God’s—the love and forgiveness. Eg: Once I had to kick someone out of an event I was helping produce (for another company) because he physically hit someone. I understood and loved him and stayed friends, but also banned him from the following year’s event, all in connection with him.
   
   Immature empathy as described above is all too common in relating practices. It’s understandable; we’re learning. But let’s not pretend that pluralism and moral relativism is our destination. There is truth to be found in every view, but not every view is equally true. Hamas is not Palestine. Raping and beheading is not in the best interest of Gaza citizens. Hiding weapons in schools doesn’t lead to a more peaceful world. We’re heading towards a much more mature empathy that can hold subjectivity in a larger metaframe, with nuance as needed. Mature empathy can hold subjective truths in a larger metaframe that doesn’t lose perspective. This is the equivalent of moving from special to general relativity in physics.
   
   
2. Spiritual practice in the face of horrific events is difficult, but always the same: Stay present, stay committed to the higher good (for us, defined as truth and love), despite your unimaginable pain.
    

Terrorists and wild injustice have already taken so much, don’t let them take your character—don’t let them take your honesty, compassion, self-control, courage to take a stand, and capacity to see nuance. Doing what’s right doesn’t mean the world brings you personal justice, you personally bring justice to the world by doing what’s right. It doesn’t seem fair, but as far as I can tell, none of us are owed anything, not even a single breath. 

For me, this means catching my projections on the world stage—seeing my meaning-generation is about me. Seeing my temptations to drama triangle scripts. Seeing my fear of death and pain, writ large. Seeing all of these habits as ways to desperately avoid opening my heart fully to feel the suffering and devastation. We help each other see these habits in relateful sessions. Our invitation is always to bring what you got, bring what’s real. And then work to take responsibility for yourself. It will likely be difficult, people will likely be triggered, some of us will be unskillful—it is real life, after all—so our invitation is also to do so with tenderness, attunement and humility.

This looking away (in the form of projecting, fearing death) is where I separate and create a false sense of self and safety, hide that separation from myself, and justify it. I leave the Garden of Eden and blame God. But these horrors too are humanity; this too is me.  

My invitation to us all is to gently turn towards whatever it is we’re avoiding, feel it all the way into our bellies and bones, use whatever’s there to allow us to love each other, and let the whole process clean us up so we can be especially compassionate, kind, generous, understanding—and humble, since I have no idea what it’s really like—with our Israeli and Palestinian friends.

With so much love, Jordan