Whenever this ends — and I pray to God it’s soon — no one will ever be the same. The words “freedom” and “love” and “democracy” and “faith” and “goodness” have lost their meaning. We are losing our humanity, and I am afraid for us.
James Baldwin writes, “neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind.”
Anas al-Sharif is dead. As a journalist in a conflict zone (Gaza has been bombarded for almost two years) he wears a blue vest over his darkened shirt. On the vest, “PRESS” is written in bold white letters. Behind him, a neighborhood is reduced to rubble. He looks down toward the ground in a numbness too deep for words. “This is my will,” he writes in what would be his last public message. He was more than a journalist — he was a husband, father, and friend. He was 28 years old. Budding with life, with dignity, with courage; and now, he is dead.
In his last video, the sounds of Israel’s missiles — missiles funded by American dollars and arrogance and disregard — hiss loudly in the distance. Boom. Boom. The dark skies flashes in oranges and fluorescent whites. “Non-stop bombing, for past two hours …the Israeli aggression on Gaza City has intensified,” he says. The booming grows until there is a deafening silence. I am watching the video and my body rattles with anxiety and tension: the killing never stopped.
Imagine: Outside the al-Shifa Hospital, the same place doctors pleaded for help and Palestinian children held a press conference in 2023, al-Sharif and four other journalists were in make-shift tent housing. They were truth-tellers, lovers, heroes in the truest sense of the word. They left home — whatever was left of it. A mush of rubble. Buried beneath the broken concrete were the remains of thousands of the dead and departed. Beneath their wardrobe: fierce hearts of mercy and eyes sharp as steel.
And they never should have been. They never should have had to watch their people beg for food. They never should have had to wake up every day to the sound of drones drowning out the sobbing of the survivors. They never should have had to stand in the place of children pleading, many of whom are dead, steadying their helmets beneath the torrent of artillery. No people should have to survive this way. No people deserve to be displaced, bombed, terrorized, and forgotten.
A news reporter says, “In today’s news on the Israel-Hamas War….” This is no war. This is far worse.
I don’t know if we have fully processed the fact that for some two years we have witnessed a genocide. Just think for a second on those words. Not a war, but worse. An inhumane addiction to other people’s suffering. Erasing. Punishing. Removing. Blaming. Scapegoating. And then: killing.
I don’t know if we have fully processed the fact that Palestinians have not just endured the unimaginable — whole bloodlines wiped out, children with maimed bodies and missing limbs — they are being starved. It is one thing to think people don’t deserve to be free. It is another thing to make their existence unbearable. The first makes you evil. The latter makes you a monster.
I don’t know if we have fully processed the fact that just a few days later, Donald Trump declares he will once again abuse federal power, being what he always has been: a bully. That he and then terrible Christians believe God is on their side. That they care more about children in the womb than children in the world. That they have cared more about order than justice, power than people, hatred than goodness.
I thought to dehumanize a person was to rob them of dignity and value. But I’ve come to see it is also destroying everything around people that makes life possible.
What we are collectively having to endure on a daily basis — here in the states and around the world — isn’t normal. Yes, violence, death, and evil has always been the norm but with this intensity? This feels different. I think what’s so sad isn’t just the feelings of powerlessness. It is how chaotic it all feels. I just wonder: what is this doing to our humanity?
I don’t know what comes after this, meaning like in the event that what the world wants — ceasefire, liberation, repair, and care — actually happens. I don’t know what traumas our bodies have taken on themselves. Whatever we face, what haunts me is that what Palestinians will have to carry is far worse. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross calls this “anticipatory grief,” the kind of gnawing at your gut that knows what’s to come is as heartbreaking as what’s taking place now.
Then there is a deep sense of betrayal that we feel. That betrayal is about how people use and exploit us. That betrayal is about how the fighting and protesting has been met by denial and erasure. That we have collectively endured for years and we still haven’t grieved what we lost. That everyday feels like a spiritual and political battle, that we don’t want life to be a war. That we are afraid for ourselves and our future and our children.
I just really don’t know. And honestly, that’s what makes me afraid. No one knows. What we do know is the killing never stopped. The betrayal has deepened. Inhumanity has become a parasitic condition. Whatever it is, I just pray we find a way through it. I pray that we remember everything that has been lost and protect the sacredness of everything that remains.
Whatever you must do to protect the part of you that is angry and sad at the way things are, do it. Whatever you must do to hold one another, do it. Whatever you must do to protect your humanity, do it.
If you have cried more than you have laughed, you are not alone. If you have cried more than you have posted, you are not alone. If you have felt more sadness and anger than joy, you are not alone.
Please remember: this world is yours, you live in it and belong to it. You and everyone else deserves to live in peace. And peace should not come at the expense of another person’s humanity. Peace means love, liberation, and life for all. And if it can’t mean that, it’s not peace at all.
I don’t know what comes after this. I just hope we find a way to tell one another again and again, and once more: you matter, you are loved, you deserve to be free, you deserve care, you are human, the world is yours, we want you here, with us.
The world is heavy,
I lift what I can.
"The world is heavy, I lift what I can." Powerful.
A blessing. 🙏🏾 May he receive justice.