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Wars
 The first war that appeared at our front door 1939 was World War II. It began right about the time I was born - June 1939. I doubt if I heard bombs on South Parkway East, which is now a popular neighborhood for African Americans. Memphis escaped the bombs since the war was in Europe and Japan. It was the second big World War. There weren’t many planes or bombs floating over Memphis houses or airport, although I’m sure the airport was one of the most important ones preparing and sending off military in those days. Many a mother failed to hide her weep and fears as they watched their only sons, packed in monster gears, as they marched up wide open airplanes that would take them off to the spots where war was dancing all over the place in Europe, and one wondered if or why God was allowing this to happen, if God really cared about us.
Now, there is another unfriendly attack of some sort of war, mostly based on religion and who has what land on which side of an enormous wall built to keep at bay the Israelites so they can keep up their faith and prayer. For many that is the daily hike to the Wailing Wall to continue prayer and repeating thoughts of the Jewish faith. The bombing of Gaza in the strips next to Israel must stop, says Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He states that no one can confront Muslims and the resistance forces if the Zionist crimes against Palestinians continue - the bombardment of Gaza must stop immediately. Khamenei told a group of students in Tehran, do you think God is sitting there with a whip or a candle or a silver star watching his creation of mankind exploding in all directions as it exercises its rights in its not even considering or forgiving men and women, much less the animals from monsters down to tiny ants crawling across the concrete pathway in some public garden. These needs to be uplifted after all the bombs of war have been soaring overhead and probably on the streets.
This is the Holy Land, folks. This is where you and I have had the privilege to pray in Mary’s deep dark tomb, or touch the tomb where Jesus was supposed to have been in at some point at least for a while, but had somehow risen and left that white marble tomb for you and me to see, to bend over while praying the Lord’s Prayer or something delightful and powerful that you are expressing before that Empty Tomb, because the guard will whip you out of there fast as possible, for the line is long, and the weeping is always the music one hears. Without out failure, I go to this place every time I am in Jerusalem so my soul and heart won’t forget all that had happened in history, while I am eagerly making sure I can get in to leave a prayer at the white marble tomb and thank Jesus for leaving something for us to believe and to respect and to love, even though it is, at this time, a beautiful marble tub sort of thing. I start all my trips to Israel - when I was able to go there - by visiting first the empty tomb, and everything else radiates from there as I re-set and recharge my love for the Great Christ who, though busy as He might be in a minute or day, I know He knows who I am and why I am there and He accepts my presents of thanksgiving, mostly the gift of my husband Roberto.
It’s the truth. Israel is conflicted with Hamas. I don’t know why it had to happen, that they got so tangled up in politics and evil and fear that they said, “let’s do it” and they thought, I guess, they thought, it would wake up the dead and the wayward ones who have forgotten not only about the beauty of God and the whole story of Mary and Her perfect child Jesus. We all know that to the core. Sometimes we forget to bring it down from our mental tomb and praise the Son of God that owns it ever since He touched the earth in Jerusalem.
On Oct 7 2023, evil rolled into the streets of Jerusalem, yawned at a massacre and that cut up all hope into tiny pieces that mankind would create. Now it was obvious that there was an aftermath on Oct 7, that included a mini war with Hamas. Of course, there were protesters in Tel Aviv fighting to exchange hostages. Releasing prisoners, be they criminals or just thrown into a facility to cram up cells to show power. This can get tedious and not make anything better or close to victory because somehow, one hopes, the two enemies must figure out how they can get along without killing each other or hating each other because each side could control if they gave it a boost. True, Israel took hostages, locked them up in Hamas, and that irritated even the Israeli Jews. Up to this point the Palestinian Authority had not condemned the October 7 Hamas attack and so poll results were Hawkish, according to TIME. But somehow the Israel’s surveys tossed out the thought that Israelites are more hopeful than the attacking early. I think all were confused, having lived with the enemies and each other’s characteristics and food and habits and holiness, and then suddenly, oops, something happen, and a true war began to blossom as it seems the warriors began dancing in the street as if it were a rock and roll contest. They lack any “gotita” of the idea of failure. It’s all gotta be victory because the Israelites cannot give up Jerusalem. If Hamas is defeated, what happens to Gaza? Gaza and Hamas and Judea have been fighting among each other for decades and they blame everything on Israel for everything unpleasant comes from them. All we get here in America is the results of the competition, like football or soccer or basketball when your team loses because no one was paying attention sufficiently to dump those balls for points. It happens in some way like the wars that are decorating the holy lands. It’s tragic.
People “killing” people and people cheering others for killing people is okay at a football game but it’s not credible or even interesting when people cheer others as they are eliminating people from the lives they deserve to have. It’s hard to keep up with who respects who, who speaks to whom often through a scarf wrapped around the sounds of life and who trusts they can get things done with other teams like in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military throws down airstrikes and wants a million to move south. Palestinians are hunkering down in fear. Damn you. I love Israel. I wear my comfortable five-dollar shoes on the streets outside the hotel and it makes me feel good when I walk in them around the lake aware it’s made by some Israel shoemaker.
What in this world is important to God - just a bunch of angry people trying to outdo or be better than the ones across the street - or trying to dominate the ignorant so they can vote in such a way that everyone is crushed and gone forever - or, is there some possibility that God knows where the poor folk are, the weak animals and crawling ants that no one likes, and yet, when I walk the beach in Carmelo, I often see a whole tiny parade of minuscule, almost invisible black ants, a long line of them, crossing the rather crude tight sand that’s kind of useless because not many people go over or step on that, since it is rare people cross or avoid that line in the sand. Is one just as important as the other? Does God sit there and wonder why the humans, who are so obsessed with money, power, and soccer and basketball and preparation for the nights asado or the incredible giant flat my favorite Soul Fish crunchy fried catfish being the first or the highest or the most attractive or throwing out the best ideas that might solve the problems that are destroying everything going on in circles, like the early morning traffic crowds, or the lines at Starbucks were so many (mostly younger than older) stop in and get a frappuccino with variants, and, hey, one can even get an egg bacon and sausage wrap to go along with the high calorie drink.
It’s funny what we think of as a satisfaction of the stomach, not the soul, and we think we just downed a boost to carry us through the day - when all we really have to do is do a quick view of the blue sky or the heavens rumbling with gray thunder - and we can confirm that God is up there, out there, and right in the middle of us, probably guiding our decisions although we don’t know it because we so much want to be the victor or creator or, heaven forgive me, destroyer, the dreams or hopes of someone on the other side of the wall, the block, the street, who defied what was once beautiful, a pile of laughter, a monster tree that crashed in a storm or a misguided bomb, a hope in prayer banging on the Wailing Wall hoping it isn’t too late to say one more prayer, stick in on more folded prayer on white paper. Does any of this matter? Is God surrounding you with His words, His feelings, His guidance, His efforts to bring war and rumors of war to a halt. It has not been very successful in the very land where My God, Your God, the People’s God made His first stand, sending down His Son to make things happen in such a way that people knew what God wanted from us, even though we failed to put it on the plate of life. So tragic we seem to be while power Mongols sent God’s son into the desert on a donkey and in the arms of His mother. There was nothing easy about His life, His task, His sandals that took him all over Jerusalem and its environment as He tried to put His spirit into the souls of all of those who saw him, heard him and said, yes, I agree and I want to know You Jesus, all of you, and please hold my hand as I try to get to the other side as long as I can serve and love you in the best way possible. Then, 2000 years later, your people, your sons, and daughters, are slaughtering each other. Have we no spirit left? Can we not learn to shake a hand and give a smile or yell a hallelujah because it is not over yet, and I pray without a doubt that God has not given up on us, yet. Can we love one another and give our children worldwide a chance to become who they want to be? It’s up to God. It’s up to you. Amen.
~ Rev
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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
www.audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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