Hopelessness Feeds Cowardice
A missed opportunity to address the Genocide in Palestine
What’s good everyone,
On Easter night (last Sunday), after my run of shows with Isaiah Collier in San Francisco, I took a red eye home from SF to Chicago. I so happened to be seated amongst 50 teenage students. (Imagine that: a 4.5 hour plane ride at midnight with 50 14-year olds, and everybody has access to TV’s on the plane.) I sat next to two girls who were rather funny and outgoing. Their chaperone sat right next to me, and he always offered to switch places with me so I could sleep.
Once the girls could tell I was failing to fall asleep because of their volume and jokes, I took my ear plugs out and listened to them regale me with stories about the boys at camp who had crushes on them. It was so reminiscent of carefree days of yore - or at least, it was until I learned more about their group and their trip.
Their name tags said something about Israel, and they proceeded to tell me that they had been in SF for a camp to learn about Israel. They would’ve traveled to Israel instead had it not been for the war. One of the speakers that addressed them was from the IDF who talked about their experience in the military. The girl next to me said that that was a cool talk.
As they shared, I grew increasingly uncomfortable. What do I do or say about Palestine? Here I was, a Black man, exhausted from 4 days of intense shows, on a red eye, desirous of sleep, in a sea of White Jewish teenagers, next to their chaperone, on a 4.5 hour flight to Chicago, entertaining their gleeful, calm discussion about their beloved Israel. I was overwhelmed because I wanted to interrogate them about possible zionism while at the same time doing so in a way that steered clear of antisemitism. It was too much to contend with, so I just decided to escape into sleep as the plane took off.
As I was drifting off, I got the sense that I was supposed to tell them that they needed to use their security to help protect others who were vulnerable, especially given what’s happening in Israel right now. I told them this when I woke up towards the end of the trip, to which one of the girls immediately agreed, saying she was going to be a doctor or a lawyer to help people when she grew up.
And that was that. I never mentioned Palestine or the genocide. I never asked them their thoughts about the 30k+ dead. I never asked what exactly the IDF soldier said at the camp. I just listened to their stories about boys and gave them some benign advice about respecting themselves even when boys do not. They said I’d be a good girl dad. I found that encouraging.
When we got off the plane, they congregated near the gate with the rest of their group, and I went to the bathroom nearby. As I washed my hands, I had half a mind to just blurt out “free Palestine” as I walked past them. But I felt that would need unpacking with these kids or would be coming from my guilt more than my deep-seated concern for the people, so I said nothing and just walked away.
I share this anticlimactic story both because it’s haunted me all week, and because it’s an invitation to consider what really needs to change in me. In 1 Peter 3:15 the writer admonishes the faithful followers of Jesus to “always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you.” That plane ride showed me how little hope I had that these girls (and their chaperone) would engage in robust conversation about Palestine. Just based on what these girls said and the name of their program, I had assumed that these girls were being conditioned to sympathize with Israel’s decimation of Gaza, and that conversation with them was a lost cause. I had no hope in God to defy my expectations.
But where did my expectations come from? I actually had no exact idea what these girls thought about anything, because I never asked. I figured I was too tired to do so, although I wasn’t too tired to laugh with them about adolescent frivolities. Man, you know what they say about assumptions…
While I regret my silence, I am thankful for that night. It showed me how hopelessness feeds cowardice. We don’t take risk when we don’t believe a new way is possible. And given the ongoing slaughter, now down to the tune of murdering aid workers serving food, we need hope more than ever to take the risks that God is calling us to take.
For as much as I talk about Palestine online and in-person with people I already know and agree with, Sunday night showed me it’s totally different with strangers. But knowing God, I suspect these moments will arise again, for as my friend Dr. Kyle Brooks says, time is not linear, but oceanic. When they do come back around, I prayerfully will engage grounded in a hope worth asking about. What a way to confront Easter.
abundantly,
Julian
What’s Next:
Apr 8 Notes of Rest at Dominican University
Apr 10 Notes of Rest at Endicott College (Beverly, MA)
Apr 11 Notes of Rest at Boston Theological Interreligious Consortium (Boston, MA) (Watch the Livestream)
Apr 13 Isaiah Collier at Dorian’s (Chicago)
Apr 25 Julian Davis Reid’s Circle of Trust at Dorian’s (Chicago)
Apr 27 Isaiah Collier & the Chosen Few (Los Angeles, CA)
Other Happenings in the Contemplative World
The “Nap Bishop” Tricia Hersey (a fellow Candler grad) is teaching a 3-week class on her famed project The Nap Ministry through Candler’s online platform the Foundry starting Apr 17. I’m going to be in the number as a participant.
I’m one of the faculty teachers for the Academy of Spiritual Formation hybrid model, an 18-month spiritual formation journey held here in Mundelein, IL. My module will be on Spirituality and Creativity. I invite you to sign up today.
Thanks! Its brave to tell one thinks have been a coward.
Allthough, in my opinion, you havent been one at all.
Sorry to agree with you on this take, but thoses girls would have been a lost cause without a doubt.
So probably are their parents, who are so called, adults, and grown up people, to have the "face" (im french, sorry) to send their children to such a wrong camp, at such a time.
So, lets not even begin to dream anything to come out their doxa, from teenagers.
To be realistic is not being a coward.
You are a precious man, we need your good will, and you to have energy, for the causes wich are reachable. (?)
I tell you what.
Merci depuis Angers en France. Ur brother in humanity, Samuel Hounkpe. 😉❤️