Reflecting once again. Until when dear Lord, until when?

Yesterday  morning after breakfast.  I stretched out on my reclining chair to relax a short while before getting ready for my shower,  when a pigeon appeared on my window sill.  What a beautiful starter for the day.  Could it be carrying a message of peace after those crows that have been hovering all over our trees recently.  I remember ever since I was a child a crow has been  a bad omen.  Even in Shakespeare’s  Macbeth which we  studied in high school,  Lady Macbeth alludes to the raven as a bad omen.  Well we saw enough brutality at the hands of the Israeli settlers, with the protection of the army  in so many places, like    Huwara, Jenin and Turmus Aya to confirm this bad omen.  Will it ever stop?   

And this morning we woke up again to another brutal raid on Jenin.  I could not help but wonder, how many pigeons would we need to bring about peace to this devastated country?  Will the Western world which had brought havoc to the Middle East ever take responsibility and atone for what it has done.  They claim to be Christians, and they accuse Muslims of being terrorists.  How ironic indeed. When we look back at the history of the Crusaders and the colonizers, and the   role they played not only in tearing up the country, but in dividing its Christians into different denominations.

 

I had just finished reading a book “Small Things Like These” by Claire Keegan sent to me recently by  an Irish friend.   Towards the end of the book the hero in the story is shown accompanying a destitute girl to his home for Christmas and posing the following question: “Was there any point in being alive without helping one another?  Was it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without one being brave enough to go against what was there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?” How sad that those so-called Christian countries cannot think of one good deed, Let alone have the  guts to atone for all their crimes that have caused so much suffering and devastation in our region and other places as well.  Over and above, the Bible continues to be used and abused to justify all the injustice that prevails in this so-called Holy Land. Until when, dear Lord?  Until when?