Categories: uncategorized
Date: 31 March 2006 22:28:39
I'm lying on a bed in a small room in Beit Sahour. It's nearly midnight but the children of the family I am staying with are awake, and very excited. Sinta Claus came earlier this evening, tommorrow is Christmas Day.
Lying in the room, in the darkness, I'm trying to think what to write, having written the same scentance again and again in a futile effor to put my feelings into words. And I know I'm failing. There are few words to describe how I feel.
I can hear sounds from the dark town outside seep in through the metal shutters on the window. The sound of orthodox chanting and singing, the shouts from the Political Rally in the building accross the road.
2000 years ago this land was occupied. Today, this land is occupied.
2000 years ago the angels sang over the shepards fields, singing songs of peace on earth, of mercy, of hope. Today, I lie where those shepards fields once stood, a wall errected around this holy town.
For us a child is born.
Born into poverty, living as a king.
Born as a refugee, living as a citizan.
Born into opression, living as though free.
Born into darkness, living as light.
The children in the house I was staying in laughed and laughed. We played. We couldn't communicate, but they could use me as a climbing frame. Their house had been shot at whilst they were in it, their friends had been shot at, dennied entry to Isreal for vital medical treatment.
The stories we heard, the people we met. There are so many. They are so brave.
I want to go back.