What is Grace for me?

Morning attunment, 4/11/2008

Good Morning. Today is the 4th of November 2008.

Today a new president will be elected in the US. Maybe, hopefully, the first black president in the history of a nation which knew so much racism, discrimination and oppression. May this day will be a beginning of a new history for the US and for the whole world which is so effected by this nation.

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13 years ago, on the 4th of November 1995, the Israeli prime minster Yitzchak Rabin was assassinated in Tel-Aviv, by a young Israeli who didn't agree with Rabin's willingness to give back the occupied territories to the Palestinians. I was still in high school and i went with my first girlfriend to the demonstration in which he was murdered. The demonstration was about: “Yes for peace! No for violence!”, and Rabin was a hero for me. After the murder I swore “Not to forget and not to forgive!”. This sentence was also used after the holocaust: “Never to forget! Never to forgive!”.

Today, 13 years after, I wish to break my vow and to search for the path of forgiveness. To forgive the murderer who acted out of fear and was a victim of a nationalistic brain washing, to forgive Rabin for his mistakes as part of the system, and to forgive also myself for the aggression and wish of revenge that i still carry with me.

Grace for me means: “Not to forget but yes to forgive”. To give witness but not to judge, to learn from the history but staying in service of the future. From the place of grace i wish not to suppress the anger that pushed me to change the world in which i'm living in, but to transform it. Not to forget the injustice but to forgive the perpetrator who is always also a victim.

That is why I recognize that when i put myself in a war situation with Israeli soldieries in a demonstration in the occupied territories, i actually fight my self. As I served as a soldier in the army, and as i still take part in the system which oppress other people. Taking responsibility for this aspect in my past and in my present brings me closer to express my truth in a compassionate way instead of judging. To remember this aspects (not to forget) but to do it with forgiveness.

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I want to share with you a letter that i got this week from my friend Y' from Bet-echem. Y' is a Palestinian 17 years old guy who stayed in Tamera this summer. I adapted him as my son and these days i'm trying to help him to get a visa that will allow him to come back to Tamera in order to be a student here. Y' wrote:

hello father i love you and i miss you very much so much
Palestine its like before nothing change
its fucking boring
i start to speak with people. to love every body.
about the work i don't work yet but i'm looking for a work and i will find inshalla
about my family they were so happy because they saw me after 3 months
every body ask me how is tamera-portogal-girls-sex-war-peace-people-every thing
the most important thing you know uri, i don't have contact with my father even after tamera. some times problem some times no problem. my situation with my father its good but not really but i will change it.
inshalla i will come back to tamera
i will be some thing good for tamera-israel-palestine-the world
kiss kiss kiss for you one for tamera one for the peace one
anee ohave attach (i love you)
Y'

I'm touched by the relationship that i have with Y' because it combines together the simple friendship and the history that we bring with us. Not only i became a father but my son is a Palestinian. And this brings again this quality of not forget from where we are coming from and yes to forgive: forgive our history and our national identities.

Next week, Y' will join the meditation and prayer in the village Bilin in Palestine as part of the Global Grace day. Bilin suffered a lot from the building of the separation wall and became a center of struggle against the separation between Israelis to Palestinians.
I want to send Y' from here in the name of all of us the support he needs in order to survive the challenges of the life in Bet-Lechem:The challenges with the Israeli army, with the economic situation of Palestine and the challenges with his family.

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On Sunday i participated in a special event in the Bodega, our temple of love, in which the pilgrims from Colombia were welcomed. I met there in an erotic way my friend, my lover, Stephanie. She came back from the Pilgrimage in Colombia with some wounds on her beautiful body and also some marks on her beautiful soul. Before making love we spoke up a prayer for healing. Healing for Colombia and healing for us.

The contact between me and Stephanie was a special moment of Grace. A moment that sends new information to the cells and to the world: information of trust. I felt we were embedded in the political wide perspective, and in the depth of the spiritual believe. I can say god was also there with us in the room, as well as the whole humanity. And also just to be contained-embraced in her arms and to give my power as a man – this was Grace.

The wounds on her body were a sign for me for letting ourself to be touched by the painful reality. The truthful, tender, passionate physical contact was a sign for letting ourself to be touched by the sacred matrix. By each other. This combination of not forgetting the world but to allow the healing power of forgiveness – this is grace for me. I give my thank for Stephanie, for the trust and for the healing forces of love.

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I would like to end with a quote from the meditation text that Sabine Lichtenfels wrote for the global grace day:

“May the people who are willing to risk their lives for truth and justice receive the protection they need.
May the voice of justice, truth, compassion and solidarity with all beings be heard all over the world, and may it spread and become a powerful movement that stands for the protection for life and planet Earth.
May we set visible signs which show that the eternal life will win over all systems of wrong power, of destruction and exploitation.
May we become carriers of hope for all who come after us”.

Amen.