A Growing Reality

The cycle of life was presented in noisy drama on Wednesday when rallies were held all over Palestine focussing on children - and their future. This made me think about rites of passage. As I'm soon to become a grandfather, God willing, the rally I attended in Manger Square in Bethlehem had a kind of double meaning. I don't mind admitting that as I panned the video camera across the sea of young faces a deep emotion welled up from low in my gut and I had to put the camera down to dry my eyes.

In the front were half a dozen kids in wheel chairs. Then probably 300 kids and their parents with the older ones holding up banners with messages such as "Life without violence is possible" and "Stop the killing and end the occupation. 734 child martyrs, more than 9000 children injured - It must end" and "Make the world a safer place for Children" and "Disabled children have the right to enjoy life to the full" and "The segregation wall is discriminatory and unjust". (More details from http://www.pncr.org/arabic/home.cfm for those who can read Arabic).

I found the message of hope deeply touching as I focussed on these kids - and their parents - enjoying a joke, dancing to the music, clapping and shouting with total enthusiasm. You see, these children will become students, and then managers and teachers and politicians in 20 years time. "There is no point in being depressed. It doesn't help. That is why we laugh and are happy. And yes, that is an important part of our approach to growing a relationship with Israel" - so spoke a student I met in one Palestinian University.

From talking to so many people it is clear that there is a rising wind of change - not yet really happening, not yet really touching their lives, but embrionic, coming to birth like my future grand child.

What I pray, for both my daughter and son-in-law, and for Palestine, is that this wind is a gentle Spring wind, not an Autumn storm. That it brings soft rain and not a deluge. That it brings healing and not destruction. And that under it's caress there should be new growth, as of a tree in Spring.

One student commented "We don't really want to push the Israelis into the sea - We must work with them, with America. This is the reality."

One man I chatted with today said to me "The intifada is over. Sure. Now we will see where we go from here. Ramallah - they will be okay. But what about us (in East Jerusalem), what about the other villages?"

We are, I believe, seeing the shoots of new growth, the young, tender shoots with the potential for a new beauty. Maybe, just maybe, we are witnessing the birth of a new reality. For their sake, for the children's sake, I hope so.