by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen
After the violence began between Gaza
and Israel,
I felt such pain about the situation, and I didn't know what to do with those
feelings. I was upset about many aspects and impacts of the conflict, and I was
immobilized.
Then one day something shifted in me, and I suddenly found
the strength I had been lacking. I began to realize that there is one thing we
all share, and that is our intense grief – grief for those who have been
killed, grief at the shattering of any hope that might have been building,
despair that the future will ever brighten, and so much more. And it occurred
to me that our grief could bring us together. I have led grief workshops in
other contexts – facilitating and holding the expression of intense emotions in
others are skills that I have. I realized that this was a way that I could do
something, here was a way I could make a difference in peoples lives.
I reached out to my Muslim friend Chaplain Shareda Hosein,
whom I know and respect from the chaplaincy world. When we spoke, she told me
that when she read my email, she felt as though an aching prayer in her heart
had been answered.
Shareda and I worked hard to design an environment for deep
listening, which we wanted at the core of the program. The two of us clicked
– the process was simple, for the planning simply flowed forth without
hindrance. We contacted Open
Spirit Center
– A Place
of Hope, Health, and Harmony, in Framingham,
where both Shareda and I had previously lead workshops, and they eagerly
agreed to host the event.
Once Shareda and I knew what we wanted to do, we asked other
faith leaders to help us facilitate the gathering, six in total, knowing that
it would be too powerful for just the two of us to hold, and wanting to include
our Christian friends. When the evening arrived, we had no idea how many people
to expect, but at least there would be the six of us – Rev. Debbie Clark of
Edwards Church and Open Spirit
Center,
Rev. Fred Moser of Church of the Holy Spirit in Wayland, Nabeel Kudairi of the
Islamic Council of New England, Rabbi Matia Angelou, chaplain at
Newton-Wellesley Hospital and Care Dimensions Hospice, Chaplain Shareda Hosein
of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center and the Association of Muslim
Chaplains, and myself, chaplain at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and rabbi of
Ma’yan Tikvah – A Wellspring of Hope.
When the evening came, people started arriving early. One
woman told me that she wanted to get a parking space, and she feared the
parking lot would fill up! Slowly people trickled in, in ones and twos and
threes. Before long, the parking lot did fill, and we kept adding chairs to
our circle.
Debbie welcomed everyone to Open Spirit, and we stated that
we were not gathering to solve anything or to blame anyone, but to share what
was on our hearts and to hear what was on the hearts of others. We acknowledged
that what we had gathered to do was difficult, and that we needed both to be gentle
on ourselves and also to hold ourselves to the ground rules we agreed upon.
We began by using ritual to create a sense of safe and sacred
space. In the center of our circle we placed a large glass bowl of water.
Shareda spoke about the importance of water in Muslim tradition for ritual
cleansing, and then about gratitude. Matia gave each person a beach rock to
hold, inviting them to squeeze it tightly if they found themselves triggered by
something someone said. Fred spoke about deep listening from the
perspective of Christian tradition.
Nabeel invited people to pair off and to practice deep
listening by introducing themselves to their neighbor and then sharing about
something for which they felt grateful. The previously quiet room was suddenly abuzz
with voices as people got to know each other. We then took the time to allow
each person to introduce his or her partner and to tell what they felt grateful
for. A number of people mentioned their gratitude for being present in this
gathering. We went around the circle in order, and by the time each person had
spoken, the space inside our circle was being framed and held by gratitude. The
sense of the sacred was imminent.
We turned then to grief. I spoke about the mosaic of grief:
our grief in response to a personal loss is made up of many aspects and many
emotions; it is not a single feeling, but a multitude of responses to our days,
our environment, and our situation. When we are dealing with communal tragedy,
it takes all of us together, with all of our myriad emotions, to create the
mosaic of our grief.
We gave people sheets of colored paper and Debbie asked them
to write down their feelings and place their papers on the floor. Gradually the
floor became covered by paper “tiles” as we literally created the mosaic of our
grief. As people finished, we spread out the papers and invited everyone to
walk around and read all the comments.
Once we had returned to our seats, then, and only then, did
we invite people to speak their grief. The circle of 39 people held all of our
intense emotions. It was strong enough and solid enough to do so.
When we had finished speaking, we held our shared emotions
in silence.
I spoke about post-trauma growth, and the fact that
researchers have found that after a trauma, most people eventually work through
it and grow. Our losses can, and do, transform us. We affirmed our dark
emotions with a reading from Healing Through the Dark Emotions, by Miriam
Greenspan.
We then shifted directions and invited people to speak about
hope and faith and trust. Quickly, the positive connections began to flow and
to fill the circle, entering into the spaces in the mosaic between the paper
tiles of grief and fear and despair.
We took time for prayers from our heart, prayers for peace,
prayers for the people of Israel
and Gaza, prayers
of hope and healing and faith.
The last words from one of the participants were – “We may have
come in fear, but we needn't have. This worked. For me, it worked.”
We stood and stretched, with our arms and hands taking
blessing into our circle and ourselves, letting it go outward in to the
universe. And we concluded with Matia leading us in song, “Peace Will Come,” by Tom
Paxton, which ends with the words “Peace will come, and let it begin with me.”
You and I, we cannot change the situation in Israel and Gaza.
We can support those with whom we identify with our words and with our dollars,
we can go there, we can support those we know who live there, but we cannot
create peace there in the Middle East. We can,
however, create a little bit of peace here, if and when we are ready to begin
with ourselves.
Gathering in Grief for Hope and Healing: Israel / Gaza
2014 Conflict was not an ending, it was a beginning. We hope to build a cadre
of facilitators willing and able to bring this program to other communities. We
plan to develop follow up programs, to carry forth with the effort to connect
with those with whom we may not agree by touching our emotions, and by building
faith, and trust, and hope. We hope you will join us.
For more information, or to plan an event in your community,
contact Rabbi Katy Allen at rabbi @ mayantikvah.org or Chaplain Shareda Hosein at
shareda @ comcast.net.
Rabbi Katy Z. Allen is the founder and leader of Ma'yan Tikvah - A Wellspring of Hope in Wayland, MA, and a staff chaplain at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. She is the co-convener of the Jewish Climate Action Network and the co-creator of Gathering in Grief: The Israel / Gaza 2014 Conflict.
