The violence unfolding in Israel/Palestine is horrifying and heartbreaking. As a follower of Jesus, I stand for peace and am opposed to killing. And as Dr. Martin Luther King said, “There can be no justice without peace and there can be no peace without justice.” The tensions between peace and justice makes this conflict so heavy and morally disturbing.
I’m writing on Pentecost Sunday, filled with powerful images of breath and fire. I think of 100,000 people (and many more) who ceased to breathe. And one unarmed black man named George Floyd, who could not breathe under the weight of a white police officer on his neck. And the fires that have erupted in the midst of protest, leaving all of us mesmerized and breathless.
The most powerful ways to disarm our fear are spiritual. Christianity offers us tried and true practices such as prayer, contemplation, singing and approaches to Scripture that, when practiced deeply, move us into a strongly felt sense of love. People over the centuries have described this sense as “expansion” (Teresa of Avila), “a strange warming of the heart” (John Wesley) or abiding in love (Jesus).
Nearly every morning, I put the coffee on to brew, indulge in morning Tai Chi, pray the Lord’s Prayer, drink my first cup of coffee without artificial light and then I write in my journal. Of all the forms of writing that I do, journaling is the most pleasurable.
