Family Love/Hate

I love my family. I write about them a lot. I have fond memories of them and enjoy spending time with them. But sometimes I just want to smack them. Some of my family is desert redneck, and that's okay. They're good people, funny, know how to have a good time with a piece of plywood, some rope, and an ATV, and can make one hell of a mudslide (the drink). But, they also say some things I just can't handle - it comes with the territory.

My mom's cousin is one of those people who says a lot of things I disagree with. She's had it rough, fighting cancer and then later her daughter was born with Cystic Fibrosis. C was pretty cool - I have a lot of her art. She was fascinated with death and dying, big on the punk scene and Tim Burton movies. But she didn't make it past 16, and that was hard on her mom - on the whole family. After C died, my mom's cousin took a trip to Israel with her other daughter.

So here's the post I saw on Facebook today: The most amazing, spiritual & emotional 10 days of my life were spent in Israel. Hanging out in Downtown old Jerusalem. Being baptized in the Jordan. Actually touching the pavement where they forced Jesus to walk with his cross. The saddest pictures are of Ron and I on the beach in tel aviv, which is now empty because of the bombing. And lastly the empty tomb. Please pray for Israel and the Jewish people, "CHRISTIANS STAND BEHIND ISRAEL"

Blah, blah, blah, (Jesus didn't walk on pavement) blah, blah - "Christians stand behind Israel."  38 likes. I'm sorry, what? I'm not Christian, but I was raised Catholic so I should have a pretty fair idea of what this means and why people are getting behind it. But aren't Christians all for brokering peace? Didn't Jesus say he who is without sin, cast the first stone? Israel is bombing the hell out of Gaza and Hamas is trying like crazy to send out rockets, but their attempts are feeble in comparison. 

So what I'm hearing is that she's all for a religious and territorial war that she has no business being a part of or cheering for. If you want to pray for something, pray for peace, pray for resolution. Pray for both sides and the lives that have been lost in the names of gods which are all ultimately the same.

If you haven't read the Gazan Youth Manifesto for Change, read it now. It's halfway down the page, marked in bold with Manifesto.

Also, if you're interested, this is a NYT article focusing on the three generations of a family living in Gaza that were killed during an Israeli airstrike, as well as the emotional climate of the area right now.