Like all good art-loving Xennials, I was a fan of the musical Rent. I got to see it in New York City in 2001, burned the soundtrack from a friend onto my first laptop in 2002 and even had it on a cassette tape for my car. I haven’t listened to it for years, but was reminded the other day at the Story Summit online. Brad Montague shared one of Jonathan Larson’s lyrics from the La Vie Boheme number and it confirmed my desire to build in the face of the world we are living in:
‘The opposite of war isn’t peace, it’s creation.’
Like many of us, I want to DO something about the genocide that is happening in Gaza and there is very little apart from signing petitions and giving money to aid organisations like Save the Children, the Red Cross, Unicef or countless others. I want this killing to stop and for all Palestinian and Israeli people to be free. I also want our Ukrainian friends to be able to return safely to their beloved home in Sumy. And I want to halt the Climate Crisis and put a stop to wage slavery, people trafficking and abuse in the church and elsewhere. I want to put a stop to patriarchy for the sake of boys and girls. I want an end to fear and disease, racism, antisemitism and homophobia. I want us people to learn how to listen to each other.*
But I can’t.
What I can do is plant and build good things where I am. It sounds small, but I know that it can make a difference. I know because our littlest guest from Ukraine (I’ll refer to her as Sosiska**, which is what I call her), is learning how to build where she is. She didn’t have much English when they arrived in summer 2022, and so she learned a lot from us as well as from our local school. When the next spring came around and we spent more time outside, I referred to all the creepy crawlies we encountered as friends. I’m not sure when I started doing this myself but she heard me say it and has adopted it. When she first referred to a bug as a friend, tears came to my throat, because it felt so beautiful. She has, of course, learned other less edifying things from me, and I have learned a lot from her, but this will always stay with me. It’s a challenge, of course, but shouldn’t we all be referring to every creature, plant and person as a friend? Especially if we don’t know what it is, or where it comes from or before we know the name for it/them?
Yes, it sounds naive. But naivety doesn’t have to be in isolation. It goes well with righteous anger, with rage even. It goes with hope and with grit and with staying around. I find naivety goes well with swearing too. And with taking action.
I have been trying to think what small thing I can do to stand up and stand in solidarity with people in Palestine. After Brad shared Larson’s quotation last week, I went to Zaytoun.uk to buy Palestinian dates but saw that it’s possible to plant trees there and decided to do that instead.
I know it’s not much, but it’s a good time to build and plant and create here where we are and when lives are being destroyed elsewhere.
Because ‘the opposite of war isn’t peace, it’s creation.’
Years ago while I was still struggling daily with very loud life-limiting anxiety I visited Anne Frank’s House in Amsterdam and saw a note from Emma Thompson about Frank. Thompson writes, ‘All her ‘would haves’ are our possibilities and opportunities.’ I’ve had a scrap of paper with this written on above my desk ever since. Frank was killed in a genocide we must not forget and we must build and create and speak up now in the face of another, because we have the opportunity and the space and safety to do so.
Can we try to do good in our small ways? To build, create (art, safe spaces, all kinds of families, gardens etc), and grow good things as an act of protest?
Love,
Deb
*A bit of Ecclesiastes 3:2
**This list could go on, add your own.
***Russian for sausage