Shabbat Shalom

My dear Friends
Sabbath has fallen again. None of us can rest easy in our beds, knowing that there is so much violence going on in what we know as the holy land. The situation, as ever, is complex, and it is very tempting to take sides, especially as the violence coming from the Israeli side seems to know no boundaries.

When my mother, God rest her beloved soul, was living in a Jewish care home in Golders Green in London, an Orthodox Jewish man came from Ireland to visit his mother, who, by chance, was sitting in the chair next to my mother's. We fell to talking: I never told him I was a Christian but did tell him what were my aims in life. Shalom and more Shalom.

I think, my dear, this man said to me, that if we were to describe ourselves politically, you would be on the left and i would be on the right. But I do admire you - you are sitting in the middle of the road with the cars coming at you from both directions.

Its very difficult to be objective, but as Christians that is what we are called to do. The only thing that keeps me going in all this is that my people, who are perpetrating such an injustice at the moment, seem to be hurting internally at the moment with a very deep wound. Holocaust or whatever, who knows. We all need the love of Christ, which John Paul II showed when he went to the Wailing Wall some years ago and drew such attention and admiration for his peacefulness.

I was staying in the Scottish Presbyterian hospice a little while later, when the manageresss came over to me. 'I never know anything good could come out of the Vatican, she said to me.. Neither did i ... I retorted... But when the Pope was here and spread the Peace of Jesus across this land..

We can pontificate and we can pray. We can march and hold up banners. We can stand alert and be ready to do our part.

Shabbat Shalom
from a land where for the moment there is Peace.
Sister Gila