Turning our grief into action

We’re faced with the desperate actions of people in impossible circumstances. Our choices are often bleak. But let us move from sorrow into action.

I am angry about the war in Gaza. But these days, that anger has given way to an emotion underneath it, namely: sadness. It is unspeakably sad to see Arab people not unlike my family and me being displaced once again, their homes and neighborhoods destroyed. It is wrenching to remember that the conflict is fueled by trauma on both sides. 

What goes on in Gaza haunts me every day. Paying attention to my sadness, instead of covering it with anger is more difficult, but ultimately more useful. It requires me not just to act but to sit, listen, pray. The spiritual aspect of activism is often overlooked as we plan actions, organize volunteers, host meetings.

 Sometimes our feelings are so overwhelming, we aren’t sure what to do. Helplessness and powerlessness can drown us. The incorrigibility of our elected officials and their partisan support for Israel, including the weak pressure they apply to Netanyahu, is outrageous. I want to organize with other Christians and makers of peace to do something different. 

But when others act and behave in ways I wouldn’t, I want to move towards empathy instead. I am committed to practical action, of course. But I understand why 100,000 Michiganders voted “uncommitted” in the Democratic primary last week. For my part, I’ll do my best to offer the wisdom I can to binary choice our electoral system provides.

I also empathize with people whose activism is violent—whether towards self or others. This week, many of us watched in horror the video of an officer of the U.S. Air Force self-immolating in front of the Israeli assembly.  Senior Airman Aaron Bushnell knew what he was doing, and spoke frankly about it. I’m not a doctor, so I won’t try to diagnose him. Nor would I judge him from an ethical standpoint. I feel called only to stand as witness to the message for which he gave his life.

As of Thursday, 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza. That’s one out of every 73–and probably an underestimate.

To believe that indiscriminate killing is wrong is normal, not extreme. The extreme measures are the ones taken by Netanyahu, and supported by the U.S.

Sometimes it takes a crisis for us to become conscious of what might have been obvious. Sometimes it takes a video of Derek Chauvin killing George Floyd for the country to wake up about racialized police brutality. Sometimes it takes a trans person’s tragedy to wake the cis world up to the horrible treatment of trans people in our society. 

It doesn’t always take a tragedy. Sometimes we are able to wake one another up through disciplined action. I think we’re organizing to do that as a community in response to this bloody and horrifying war. 

In the absence of justice, we face our oppression without hope. We face it alone, in despair, and with no end in sight. Communities of faith and action can be built around hope. We grieve, but do not despair because we believe that our God can do the impossible.

As I visit John Fetterman’s office weekly, as I act with Mennonite Action, as we cry out for a ceasefire, I sometimes feel like my actions won’t matter (and my neoliberal interlocutors assure me of their uselessness). However, I hope, in the midst of our action, that we wake our neighbors up. That someone pays attention, that someone sees our demonstration, and acts alongside us next time. That something changes. I pray that God hears us and gives us God’s power.

When we see Michiganders essentially voting “no confidence” in the President due to his pro-Israel policies, when we see the act of desperation by Aaron Bushnell, I think we witness the hopelessness that people are experiencing. I wish for a better world. I want to act for a better one. And most of all, I want to have faith in a better one. Some days are easier than others to hold that faith. Some days, I wonder where God is. I ask, echoing the psalmist: “How long, oh Lord”, how long must we remain in this anguish?

Our collective faith is as vital as the harmonies we create together in sacred song. Some weeks it is not difficult to sing. At other times, we need to catch a breath, and trust that others will sustain the notes we miss. The hope that we have in our not-aloneness, in our togetherness, as a body, will sustain us. 

 As a Christian, I believe I follow the Author of Hope. We believe that Jesus’ liberation and salvation, which was completed thousands of years ago, still frees us. We await our deliverance, even as we move our grief to action.