• Lucinda J. Garthwaite, Founder & Director

Enraged. Helpless. Full of sorrow. Afraid. Confused.

These and more are the words I heard this week, talking with friends, neighbors  and colleagues as the wars of the world, especially right now in Israel and Gaza, rage on.  Quite a few said something like, “I just can’t figure it out.”

But I’m not trying to figure it out. Hearing stories of people brutally murdered and worse in Israel and Gaza, I’m so achingly, pleadingly sad that it feels sometimes like my bones hurt.  But I’m not confused; I know what I believe. I believe that any action rooted in hate is categorically, morally wrong.  I believe violence always begets more violence. I believe that steely, strategic, nonviolent action is the most effective way to end repression, and to sustain that change.  I believe in the evidence of history that supports that claim.

I believe in the right of all people to thrive as who they are and who they are becoming. I believe in the responsibility of all people to behave in ways that make it possible for others to thrive.  I know that is a complex and endless, often Sisyphean task. I believe, anyway, that it’s worth trying.  

Beyond that, for today, I don’t know what to say about what’s to be done.  In fact, in the face of the complex histories that undergird most if not all of the wars in the world, if I waited on knowing I’d stay stunned and still for a long, long time.  

But knowing is not all it’s cracked up to be. There are other ways to engage the world.  

I  worked for a while at a College that rested its practice on the ideas of progressive educational philosopher John Dewey and his colleagues in 1930s through the 1960s.  Dewey wrote among other things of the importance of being and doing, in addition to and often overriding knowing, in education. For Dewey, being was a verb, and doing was a way to grow.

Now, educational theory and practice is replete with knowing-being-doing frameworks.  But I’m not sure it really embraces the notion that simply being, with intention, is often enough of a response to a troubled world. 

This week, as a part of its alumni community, I received a message from Fielding Graduate University Vice President Allison Davis-White Eyes about the Israeli-Hamas war. She encouraged Fielding alum to “be mindful and alert to individuals who may seek to elevate levels of extremist rhetoric, and not fall prey to bigotry of any kind,”  and to “center themselves in our university values that honor reason over brutality, and human life over hate.” 

Likewise, Unitarian-Universalist Association President Sofía Betancourt included this in her message to congregations about the Israeli-Hamas war this week, “Be gentle with yourselves when you need to be, but do not turn away unless you must.  Let us center ourselves in justice as we call for peace.” 

Both leaders called for centering. Together they called for mindfulness, attentiveness, and honoring —  all ways of being, not of knowing.  Being is the way I hold myself in relation to my beliefs, a posture rather than a stand. Being is who I am when I am still, when I notice my relationship with the world around me. Mohawk Elder Pat Green speaks of being as a place of connectedness to the earth and all people, suggesting that is the place from which all right action grows.

Centering in belief and connectedness is not enough of a response to hatred and violence on a large scale, but I believe it’s an essential foundation for doing.  I don’t think knowledge is, though. I believe there is plenty that I can do, even in the context of  horrific events like what is happening right now to Palestinian and Israeli people, without understanding with any certainty what should be done on the ground in that part of the world.

I don’t need to know much in order to act on my beliefs.  I can speak up for U.S. policies and foreign relations that insist on defenses that reduce harm to civilians, and at best encourage nonviolent strategy, and that seek to curb repression. At the very least, I can behave each day in alignment with the possibility of more people thriving in ever more peace. I can be curious, accountable, aware of myself and what’s around me.  I can hold compassion even in my rage. I can stay steady even in my sorrow. I can “not fall prey to bigotry of any kind.”    

I can be, and I can do, without knowing much. I don’t have to wait to figure it out.