Preparing to go

I am happy we will be able to have the experiences that we will share in the Middle East in a few short days. As I pack I think about what this trip will mean to me, over all I look for my own growth. One thing however I find myself thinking of the late Israeli poet laurete Yehuda Amichai and his life long struggle with wanting peace. Here are three of his poems that may help us think about what we are working towards. ~George

An Arab Shepherd Is Searching For His Goat On Mount Zion
An Arab shepherd is searching for his goat on Mount Zion
And on the opposite hill I am searching for my little boy.
An Arab shepherd and a Jewish father
Both in their temporary failure.
Our two voices met above
The Sultan's Pool in the valley between us.
Neither of us wants the boy or the goat
To get caught in the wheels
Of the Had Gadya machine.

Afterward we found them among the bushes,
And our voices came back inside us
Laughing and crying.

Searching for a goat or for a child has always been
The beginning of a new religion in these mountains.
My Child Wafts Peace

My child wafts peace.
When I lean over him,
It is not just the smell of soap.

All the people were children wafting peace.
(And in the whole land, not even one
Millstone remained that still turned).

Oh, the land torn like clothes
That can't be mended.
Hard, lonely fathers even in the cave of the Makhpela*
Childless silence.

My child wafts peace.
His mother's womb promised him
What God cannot
Promise us.
*Known as the Tomb of the Patriarchs it is traditionally seen as the place that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah are buried.

An appendix to the vision of peace

Don't stop after beating the swords
into ploughshares, don't stop! Go on beating
and make musical instruments out of them.

Whoever wants to make war again
will have to turn them into ploughshares first.

Have a wonderful Christmas if you are celebrating and I look forward to sharing the journey.