The last few weeks, I have been dealing with severe pain in my hip, such that it makes it difficult for me to walk or sleep. I am grateful that I now have physical therapy which is slowly helping. But as I was lying on the table getting treatment today, I kept thinking about people in Gaza, right now, who also were dealing with hip pain, or chronic illness, or who were giving birth–any of the myriad kinds of human conditions that render us deeply vulnerable, even in the best of situations.

And instead of finding help or treatment, those human beings are being forced out of their homes, bombed, shot, starved. How would I evacuate when I can barely walk? How would I sleep on the ground with no pillows to ease the pain? How would I manage my illness with no medicines? How would I give birth with no clean water? It is not as if those human frailties cease to exist because of war. Underneath the other horrors, the deaths, the woundings, the destruction of homes, schools, libraries, hospitals, there is each human story.

I find in my body a small metaphor for this hurting world. I find in my body a deep scream of pain for this hurting world. They say the hips are the foundation for the balance of the body. And the earth is out of balance in so many ways. We see it in the chaotic weather, we see it in wildfires, we see it in an ocean warming faster than expected, we see it in cruelty toward children who are “different,” we see it in pandemics, we see it in politics of fear and hate. Who knows what the future will bring, with such a painful present.

I found encouragement in these words of Elie Wiesel, who survived the holocaust and wrestled with its meanings and repercussions for the rest of his life:

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1986/wiesel/lecture/

I found this image and quote posted by a friend on Facebook–the image is the Ukraine sunflower, and Ukraine is another country full of people in pain that linger in my own heart. But the flower feels full of beauty and hope. Wiesel goes on to say:

“The Talmud tells us that by saving a single human being, man can save the world. We may be powerless to open all the jails and free all the prisoners, but by declaring our solidarity with one prisoner, we indict all jailers. None of us is in a position to eliminate war, but it is our obligation to denounce it and expose it in all its hideousness. War leaves no victors, only victims.”

1986 Nobel lecture