Battle

War is a failure of humanity. An inability to communicate. To perform atrocities against another group of people, we must dehumanize them so we can ignore the fact that there are faces, hearts, loves being destroyed.

When I hear about the conflict in Gaza, all I can think about are the innocent families caught in the crossfire. Families on both sides of the border. The pain and the emotions run so deep, so far back in time, that I have little hope of a solution in the near future.

I heard today on the news about an Israeli blogger who calls himself "Hopeman" and a Palestinian blogger who calls himself "Peaceman" who live close to each other across the border around Gaza. They have come to know and trust each other through years of blogging. They have reached across centuries of hate and mistrust to strive towards a common goal: peace and cohabitation. That story sparked a prayer.

The world continues to get smaller with all of our technological advances. We can meet people across the world, or even our neighbors across the street, whom we would never otherwise talk to, through the miracle of social networks, blogs, and websites. Maybe there is a way to reach across cyberspace and make tentative, non-emotional contact. In the privacy of our own homes to find out, one by one, what it is like to step away from a tradition of war and hatred toward friendship. To find the face, the humanity of our supposed enemy.

Shanti, shanti, shanti. I pray for peace.