Unitarian Universalist Church at Washington Crossing

“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, that wants it down.” Versus, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

I was touched by the intensity of being in the land that so many call holy. I was touched by the intense love and identification the so many have with the land. I was also touched by the intense divisiveness caused by faith-differences, especially among people who believe so much that is similar. My experience in Israel and Palestine confirms for me what Frost wrote in that Poem. There are strongly differing opinions about walls.

Our group included Rabbis, Imams, Christian Ministers, Nuns, several lay leaders from Jewish, Muslim and Christian traditions plus one Buddhist and me, a Unitarian Universalist Minister. I referred to myself theologically as a Mystical Humanist with neo-pagan and panentheist leanings. At first, I received a few quizzical looks and laughs but soon a general acceptance from all sides. They actually, not only became aware, but quite sensitive and even appreciative of my Unitarian Universalist religious perspective.

Our group started crossing borders at the airport in New York. We showed our passports several times and had our baggage screened by machine and by hand. At the final passport check we all quickly passed through, except for our two Imams. With names like Abdullah and Muhammad they were each lead off to different rooms for special questioning. The rest of us waited as close as we could until they were cleared to join us. When we landed in Israel, the story repeated itself at the Tel Aviv Airport. Once again, it was only the two Imams who were led off for questioning. Again, we hovered as close as we could.

They were finally cleared to join us we boarded our bus for Jerusalem. As we approached Jerusalem we stopped at the Mount of Olives to look across the valley at the old city of Jerusalem. For me, the Golden Dome of the Temple Mount seemed to dominate the view. It was early morning when we arrived at Saint Stephen’s Gate to the wall surrounding the old city. Our bus had to stop because it was much too large for the streets. We got out, walked up the hill, crossed through the gate and walked along the Via Delarosa to the convent of the sisters of Zion.

We had a busy afternoon of touring various sacred places in the old city. We walked through numerous check points or gates as we walked to the Wailing Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the Temple Mount. We began with an emotionally intense first evening. We met Rami and Mazen, two representatives of the Bereaved Family Group. This Jew and Muslim passionately referred to each other as brothers. Rami is a 7th generation Jewish resident of Jerusalem and Mazen’s Muslim ancestors have live in the area for generations.

Rami talked first. He spoke of being a soldier at the age of 34. Then, on Yom Kippur 1973, he lost his best friends in a military conflict. He reacted in anger at the fighting and wanted no more of it. He said that he had built a bubble around himself, his wife and four children. He worked hard and by-in-large lived detached from things going on around them until 1997, my first year in Titusville. Then, our son, Bronson, was 13. Just before Yom Kippur in 1997, Rami’s 14 year old daughter was blown up by a suicide bomber while she was buying books for school. It occurred only a ten minute walk from where we were staying. Her name was Smadar which came from the Song of Solomon in the Bible in and means “The Grape of Vine.”

Rami said, “At first in the depths of your heart you hope that the terrible finger won’t point at you this time. You find yourself running crazily through the streets, going from one police station to the next, one hospital to the next, until eventually, much later in that long accursed night, you find yourself in the morgue and this terrible finger is right between your eyes and you see a sight that you will never, ever, be able to blot out…”

Yitzchak Frankenthal, founder of Bereaved Families came to Rami’s house during the Shiva period of mourning. Rami said that at first he was angry at such boldness. But then, Frankenthal talked with him about how his son Arik had been kidnapped and murdered by Hamas in 1994 and how he had established this organization of people who lost children in the conflict but nevertheless want peace. He invited Rami to attend one of the meetings. Rami thought it was a group of crazy people. But he agreed to come. He wanted to see for himself.

When Rami came to that first meeting he was aloof, detached, cynical and reluctant. But as a deeply rooted Israeli he was moved when he saw people he considered living legends descend from the busses. They were people he had read about in the newspapers, but never dreamt that one day he would be one of them. One was a holocaust survivor who lost his son, in the first Lebanon War. Another had lost both his sons in the conflict, and yet remained a determined peace warrior.

What struck him even more powerfully was seeing Arabs getting off the buses, bereaved Palestinian families. He was overwhelmed when these men, women and children greeted him in peace, hugging him and crying with him.

Rami said that he was not religious and was at a loss to explain the change he underwent at that moment. But, suddenly, he realized that he had crossed a border, lightening struck and he felt a deep reason to get out of bed in the morning. It was the message: “This is not our destiny! It is not a decree of fate that cannot be changed!!! Nowhere is it written that we must continue dying and sacrificing our children forever and forever in this difficult horrible holy land. We can and once and for all must stop this crazy vicious circle of violence, murder, and retaliation revenge and punishment; this never-ending cycle, with no purpose, with no winners and only losers.”

Then Mazen began to speak. He told us how frightened he felt as a five-year-old when suddenly Israeli soldiers kicked their way through the door of his refugee home. He said his father and other Palestinians are homesick in their own country. There are no jobs for Palestinians, no land and no money. Mazen is not religious, but he believes in God. He said that his motivation for being an active participant of the Bereaved Families is because he feels like he is carrying all the Palestinian refugees on his shoulders and he does not want his sixteen-month-old daughter to live a life like his.

Mazin’s father was six in 1948, sixty years ago, when he was forced to leave his home and family’s property. His father’s family had to flee to a refugee camp for shelter. They are still there. He spoke of two societies; one Palestinian and the other Israeli, that are taught to fear and hate each other and encouraged to give their lives for an angry religious cause. He believes that there is another way. He said that we do not have to be animals tearing one another apart. He believes that we can make something positive from our pain and suffering.

Every week, Mazen and Rami speak to groups and in schools. People from both sides criticize and hate them. When they told their stories at one school, a child told Rami that he should have been blown up with his daughter. At another school, a teacher advised the students not to listen to them because what they say will make you weak.

Mazen and Rami persist because they see a high wall of fear blocking people from listening to the pain of others. They compared the powerful pain that they and others experienced being like nuclear power that can be used for good or evil.

They have no illusions that they can effect over-night changes. They see peace-making like planting a seed that is invisible as it begins to sprout underground. As religious leaders, we came to listen compassionately to the people of Israel and Palestine. Now, I realize that there are hundreds of people, Israeli and Palestinian, like Rami and Mazen. They are unseen by most of the world, hidden from view like the seed sprouting in the ground. Rami and Mazen said to us, “You are our hope – we send our truth to you and you receive it.” Then Rami added, “Remember, during the holocaust, the free and civilized world stood by and watched, doing nothing. Your presence here with us amplifies our voices; your presence here gives us hope.”

After fewer than twenty-four hours in this holy and divided land I was already in awe of the courage and sensitivity that I was hearing and seeing. I was stunned by their fondness for each other referring to one another as brothers, brothers in peace. They radiated hopefulness. They kindled within me, the beginnings of hope for this war torn, hate filled holy land where walls, fences and barriers both physical and emotional keep people apart.

Our compassionate listening delegation experienced many of those walls, fences and barriers. Here where we live, we see few visible dividing walls within our state or our country. Yet, if we are honest, we know that here too, we have deep fear and mistrust that erects subtle and not so subtle walls, fences and barriers between people based on differences in race, religion, class, gender, gender orientation and many so other reasons.

We stayed in the Muslim Quarter of Old Jerusalem. It really was so very moving to be in the land long called holy by Jews, Muslims and Christians. How ironic and sad that this “Holy Land” is a place of intense division among religious cousins. All three, Jews, Muslims and Christians, claim Abraham as their spiritual ancestor. They all worship the same God. Yet, they live in fear of one another. So, tall and foreboding barriers are created by those who believe that strong fences make good neighbors. As we traveled, we came to, waited at and crossed through many checkpoints; checkpoints that allowed us to cross through but kept others out.

We saw the tall cement wall separating neighborhoods and families being built to zigzag throughout the land of Israel and the Palestinian West Bank. We saw tall barbed wire topped fences surrounding refugee camps. In Hebron, near the tomb of Abraham, revered by all who claim Abraham as their spiritual ancestor, our two local contacts were detained at a checkpoint. They stood in the hot sun as we crossed through but waited uncomfortably for these two men who had provided us with home hospitality and who were caring for our safety and security.

Our goal as interfaith religious leaders, was to listen to the stories of individuals on all sides of the conflict dividing this holy land. We wanted to listen compassionately. In addition to meeting with those two remarkable leaders from Bereaved Families, we met with many other remarkable people. We met one of the founders of Combatants for Peace, an organization of former Israeli and Palestinian soldiers. We met political leaders from Israel, Hamas and Fatah. We even met with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam el-Faddad. We were scheduled to meet Shimon Peres, President of Israel, but he was called away to a special summit. We met the President and Dean of a progressive Palestinian college. We met Rabbi Menachem Froman, founder of the Takoa Settlement. We met Sheikh Buchari, a Sufi Imam and Eliyahu McLean, co-founders of Jerusalem Peacemakers, and so many others.

As we listened, we realized that we too have experienced wounds. Some of our wounds have visible scar tissue. Some of our wounds are less visible, but have equally strong emotional scar tissue. We construct defensive walls around our wounds to protect ourselves. Compassionate Listening is a discipline of listening from our hearts, not from our wounds or our defensive walls. It is a simple concept, but not an easy discipline to practice consistently. It takes the help of a caring community.

The most difficult task we face is to bring people together who fear each other and have been taught to hate each other. The twenty of us in our delegation, diverse religious leaders, learned how very important it is that we come together as people of different faiths; all from one common human family. Religion, at its best, is something that can bind us together in loving and supportive community. Religion, at its worst, can also be something that builds barriers of fear and hate that destroy community.

Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 and observed on 30 May 1868. That date was intentionally selected because it did not mark the anniversary of any battle. Flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. Since then we as a nation have expanded the observance as a remembrance of all who have died, especially in service of their country.

I challenge you on this Memorial Day weekend to strive to listen compassionately to one another, be we Israeli or Palestinian, Muslim, Jew, Christian, Buddhist, Unitarian Universalist, Hindu, Pagan or members of the same congregation, community or country.

Hadrian ’s Wall was built to keep barbarians out. The Berlin Wall, was built to keep the East Germans in. The 4000 miles of the Great Wall of China remains a marvel, but only keeps out rabbits.

A wall is sometimes just a wall, at other times it is a barrier. At times it is built to keep out the unwanted at other times it is built to keep in the unwilling.

For the sake of human society, let us identify with that which doesn’t love a wall.

“Mending Wall” by Robert Frost.

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
‘He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall
That wants it down.’ I could say -Elves to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.