throw stones!
Recently on the news, I was deeply shocked at seeing how a couple accused of adultery was stoned to death in Afghanistan under the Taliban look triumphalist. Rocks! Is not that what also struck by seeing those hundreds of opponents to throw stones in the streets of Cairo and other cities in the Middle East?
I witnessed such a clash in Jerusalem, Friday, March 30th of the year 2001. We just finished our lunch when, after prayers at Al Aksa mosque, Palestinian youths began throwing stones at Israeli soldiers stationed youth in the alley in front of our house. It is located inside the old Arab neighborhood near the Lion Gate. The sound of bombs the Israeli army in no way reduces the enthusiasm of protesters who chanted the cries of Allah Akbar.
the second floor of my bedroom window protected by shutters, attending a violent confrontation that television reports can transmit faithfully. The stones on the terraces and resulted in the courtyard of the house, including glass beads thrown at high speed by skillfully manipulated fronds by the protesters. In a previous conflict, one of my colleagues had seen a young Palestinian boy dying from a bullet to the head. Suddenly, a cohort of students rushed to the lift. Several were then soaked their hands in his blood, blood of a martyr.
Soon after my arrival in Jerusalem, I have breathed hatred that emerged from alleys and city walls. Is it possible to breathe Hatred? Yes! This is especially true in finding that the stones used in construction of existing buildings from the ruins of war destruction of centuries past. It's a cycle that continues past 3000 years.
I was walking one day in Bar Lane Kur in search of a historic site, two children I threw small stones under the gaze of disinterested adults. They took me for a Jew? I avoided the escalation in speaking kindly to them. My accent was enough to assure them that I was a "strange" visitor. Like me, these children breathed this atmosphere unhealthy rivalry combined with the constant provocation of the Israeli occupation. Without realizing it, these children do not understand they were met by a germ of death which the seed was thrown into the human heart for centuries.
Then May 20, 2001, to be precise, I meditated on the terrace at the back of the land where our house is located, that is to say by the pool of probation where Jesus healed the paralytic lying on his pallet (John 5 1-19). One can still see the ruins of the five gates on which are ruins of other churches destroyed during Muslim conquests.
I slowly penetrated into inner silence. My breathing was accompanying a level of peace that seemed endless. Soon reached a plateau, I went down to a level deeper and deeper. It was an experience I had never previously lived with such intensity, never repeated since. Everything became surreal. It seemed to me a level beyond time in the sweet sensation of a sunny afternoon. And then came a new attack.
Just before the beginning of my meditation, I had two boys who graciously welcomed similarly answered me in an English schoolboy. Hidden behind the wall that separated us from the alley, they threw me small stones. They fell all around me by making a slight noise in the foliage. The first time I jumped a little without being distracted. Then a second! A third! And again! They tried to intimidate me. Peace came to disappear in a game of hide and seek in which children's heads pointing to the top of the wall to check if their bullets had reached their goal. The meditation was broken. I understood that silence was even threatened Jerusalem.
These days, it is not child's play which engaged people in Arab countries. The stones are killing in the cries of hatred between opponents.
- Do you think peace will come one day in Israel? was I once asked.
- No! Not before Christ's return, I replied .
- Why?
- Politically, left to itself, the State of Israel can not survive unless it is united against a common enemy. Humanly, it is in Jerusalem, ideal to ponder the mysteries of Jesus' life, that hearts are more thirsty for revenge for many generations. Religiously, he is even between Christian churches, which jealously guard their memory in historical divisions, their petty squabbles. What about the rivalry between the monotheistic religions? Most importantly, it is also here that the silence of God has been annihilated by stones Thirsty homicide that stack on each other, resentment and cries of revolt.
Jesus, are you doing today to transform our hearts of stone heart of flesh?
is a stone on which Jesus built his Church, that of Simon son of Jonah.
Jesus calls PIERRE (John 1.42).
Even today, Jesus brings all the stones of revolt, hatred and anger and turn them into " stones spiritual offering "to make peace of God.
These " painful stones " are those of my unhappiness, of burning my sinful soul, my pain and my fears, my lack of faith and hope, the weakness of my impetus for forgiveness.
These are the stones that Jesus uses to build the edifice of his sacrifice of love that is become a nation of believers which is itself the " cornerstone . The stones of division, which are built on the walls of separation and discrimination, are changed into " gemstones " thanks to Him who recreates the world in abolishing the wall of hatred by the breath of Love crucified .
See also my blogs: www.sergestarno.blogspot.com and www.sergestarno.wordpress.com
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