The Nature of Human Children

What is an infant?

Don't ask theologians or become entangled in illusions and delusions, long-winded metaphysical splits/spit;-) of religious thinking. Even some Quakers in the U.S. and Britain have been adopting Augustinian untruths about young humans!

Let us, instead, realize each baby is a gift from the Light.

Human beings at birth are neither divine nor depraved. A baby is a natural offspring of a primate species. Uniquely, she has the potential to grow spiritually--to seek the Good, the True, the Just...and to create herself and bring newness and improvements into existence. Human primates have been created with a sense of morality and transcencence.

What a wonder each infant is!
I recently held my 6th new born grandchild. Experientially, the moment was blessed. How perfect her tiny living body. What a true gift from the Light.

But a little later, when she got hungry, wow, what lungs and what a puckered face she suddenly developed!

I must admit, I don't think something called a "soul" enters a baby at conception, or for that matter anytime later.

At conception a new life begins with amazing characteristics from the genes of her/his ancestors. At conception, the life appears to have no awareness. But brain wave activity begins early in the womb.

Even after birth, however, a baby is sort of an eating and pooping blob;-) She has awareness, but probably not much except she wants to be fed, and fed now!

Then gradually her awareness grows month after month. Finally she becomes self-conscious. Then later her sense of conscience develops.

Finally, an awareness of her finiteness and the mystery of existence comes into her consciousness.

No, a baby doesn’t come into the world a walking, talking, mentally active philosopher/theologian/moralist/saint.

On the contrary she is a living breathing consciousness at the most simple level.

As she grows in the next 6 to 7 years in her consciousness, self-awareness, and her moral conscience develops with a sense of ought, then she will become a moral and spiritual individual who acts. Sometimes she will fail, sometimes "miss the mark."

But even then she is still an innocent child struggling to function and to understand and to fulfill needs and desires and hopes, and the demands of the big people in her life.

Is not this the stage that Jesus referred to when he said those who enter the Kingdom of God must do so as a little child? And where he said to people to let little children come to him for of such is the Kingdom?

And this was my own personal experience—when so young. I don’t remember being a sinnig child that many religionists claim all babies and small children are.

Instead, as far back as I can remember, I had very deep desires to do good, to be good, to know God and to love him. And I had a lot of childlike wonder questions about God, life, others…always asking why about everything:-)

Of course the slither of wrong thought, wrong action, wrong living does come to us all, but not yet.

A child's awareness will grow if she is introduced to God and is shown her responsibility to share, to think of others and their needs, even though she still doesn’t voluntarily give outwardly if it is to her own privation.

Finally, the moral consciousness kicks in mid-childhood. At each given moment, there will be a tussle between her babyhood past (all spontaneous need and desire) and her adulthood future (potentially all give and bliss).

At that moment by moment juncture—that possibility moment--she must make continual ethical, spiritual decisions. She is finite and so will make mistakes and fail. She is learning in her emotions, her mind, her conscience, and her body as she moves through time.
Her choices are a much more complicated version of the way she learned to walk and to talk 3 years earlier--by trial and error.

But now a new possibility rears its ugly or saintly head. If she doesn’t continue to develop holistically, widening outwardly her care, her helpfulness, her compassion, then she slows, stalls, or even regresses backward to a total need/want level.

However, since she isn’t an infant but has the outer body and will and growing mental ability of a 6 or 7 year old, her regression hurts herself and others.

To try and fulfill life as a growing child, by returning to the barely conscious self-focused life of an infant actually distorts life and will bring harm to others to varying degrees.

Continued growing, in contrast, takes her through new stages of human development and new challenges. Each developmental advance brings new ethical and spiritual choices—either good or bad, advancing or regressing or a combination of both.

As anyone knows, when climbing a mountain, the higher one goes the more dangerous the climb becomes—not because the action of climbing mountains is evil, or because individuals who climb mountains are depraved sinful beings, but because the very nature of going "higher" also offers more options of choosing.
Some of the ways are wrong, even could cause one to plummet to the bottom. Some of the ways are right, and lead toward the peak.

When a small child cries when she hungry or grabs another child's food that doesn’t show she is sinning.

On the contrary, that is how G_D created children. If a 4-year-old child throws a tantrum and takes her little brother’s bottle because she thinks she isn’t getting enough attention from her parents, while her action is wrong and to be corrected, she hasn't failed because she hasn’t developed enough in her conscious awareness and moral conscience to make altruistic decisions.

However, if at 8, she hides her little brother’s medicine, because she wants all the attention instead, this is very wrong because by then her mental, moral conscience has developed enough to know that her action isn't the right way to get attention.
And, besides, by this point she should be widening her compassion and care for others out beyond her own needs and desires.

If at 18, she steals her younger sister’s boyfriend to build up her own ego, very deep wrong has occurred. By 22, if she joins with her countrymen and demonizes another country and lies, steals, and kills the enemies, we do have actions of evil;
just as if in contrast,
she joins an outreach organization such as Habitat for Humanity or World Vision and sacrifices her time, talent, and money and inspires her younger sister to do so as well; then we have actions of goodness.

Then the two sisters think of a way to get other people in their neighborhood, school, and city to get involved. One such inspired girl, about 13 years of age, raised thousands of dollars for starving, hurting people in a far off country.

See how the moral growth of human beings happens. A human being is in process from simple surviving to becoming the liver of moral truth.

Now that is the beginning of good news. Reminds me of several of Jesus’ moral speeches...

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

WHY DO millions of dedicated Christians accept obscene cursings and unjust actions by their Christian leaders?

Tragic, absurd times--when famous Christian leaders, supported by millions of Christians, CURSE at others:

Look at a few of these statements from famous Christian leaders in the U.S., many of whom have strong support from millions of Christians:

--“Mother [F obscenity], I'm aloof with you because I don't want to talk to you.”
--“That’s a great asset, more inflation...What a stupid son of a [B obscenity].
--Calling another government leader, “a [F obscenity] idiot”!
--“They’ll be hit so goddamn hard. If you don’t support me, you’re going to be so goddam poor.”
--Calling another Christian leader, “That [F obscenity] and a “corrupt [MF obscenity].
ETC.

And some Christian leaders also lie, bully, demean, are cruel, proud, etc.
VERSUS

...Put on hearts of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience-endurance.
Colossians 3:12
altruism, joy, peace, goodness, generosity, modesty, self-control, fidelity...
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Galatians and I Corinthians 13



In the LIGHT, the GOOD, the TRUE, the JUST,

Dan Wilcox

"A Better Country"

Nationalism in the United States, again, is often far right or far left.

BUT both extremes are actually dead center.

In the U.S. whether we are liberal or a conservative, we, probably, are culpable.

If the latter—Trumpers, right-wingers, you champion the U.S. calling it the best country in the world, but deny
selfhood to emerging nations and minorities, and fail
to admit your own nation’s shortcomings and unethical actions, past and present.

Your whole focus is on U.S. First, U.S. First. (Talk about selfish!)

If the former—BLMers, Antifaers, you enthusiastically support the cause of any ethnic or other religion
or group or foreign nation in the world to be self-determined, yet look with abhorrence
at the U.S. if it defends itself.

Your whole focus is on U.S. Last, U.S. Last. (Talk about negative!)

But those who follow the Light "desire a better country."


In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Israel Evicts Elderly Palestinian Family--Who Owns the Land?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-41159653

Tragic how humans only think of themselves--in this case Jewish settlers:-(, focused on their own lives, not caring that they have forced an elderly Arab family out of their home of many years.

At other times, Palestinian haters do the same, and much worse as when they praise Palestinian murderers as "heroes."

Have both sides forgotten each other's histories, all the suffering, injustice, etc.?

Yes, the problems of land ownership are incredibly difficult.

Why didn't the Arab family buy the house if they have lived there for 53 years?

Since they have lived there for so long, why didn't the Jewish owners of the property--who sold it to Jewish settlers--help this elderly Arab family to stay?
(It's true that the Israeli owners allowed the Palestinians to stay while the case was legally fought through in the courts. BUT why not help the elderly Arab family keep it?)

Why go back now and change things from back in 1948, punishing this elderly Arab family now, who probably had nothing personally to do with the loss of the house in the 40's?

And why, if this is necessary, WHY has NOTHING been done for all the Arab lands lost, stolen back then by Jewish soldiers?

Look at the maps, study the histories. Jewish people confiscated millions of acres of Palestinian land.

Of course, everything is unfair in war.

And why is the Israeli government also still trying to take away land owned by a Palestinian family near Bethlehem, who have a Turkish legal deed from about 1906?!

All of this smacks of nationalistic and religious selfishness, prejudice, inequality, injustice, and inhumanity.

Based on Israeli reasoning, here in California in the U.S., I ought to lose my home that my family has lived in for 26 years.

And it ought to be given back to Mexicans who used to own this land before it was stolen.

Of course, the Mexicans also stole it from the Chumash native Americans.

So utterly sad.

Two wrongs don't make any right.

(Note: I lived for most of a year on an Israeli kibbutz near Bet Shean, have seen and studied the Israeli-Palestinian chasm for many years. Have also been a guest of a Palestinian family in the city of Nablus, Palestine.)

Troubled in the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

How Our Generation Got Lost

"There’s the known. And there’s the unknown. And what separates the two is the door, and that’s what I wanna be."*
Jim Morrison of The Doors

After their Celtic Pagan wedding in June 1970 in which she and Jim Morrison wed in the summer of 1970,
Patricia explained, [It] "is a blending of souls on a karmic and cosmic plane that has an effect on future incarnations of the two involved: death does not part, and the vow taken is "forever in the Goddess’s sight."

They stood inside a circle during which a little of their blood was drawn and it was mixed with wine and then drunk by them.
However, they never filed for a legal marriage license.

A few months before, Patricia had told Jim she really loved him. And he told her he loved her.

Except for the false and superstitious Paganism, this ethical emphasis upon monogamy and permanence sounds so positive, so loving...

But it wasn't.

Like so many actions and events in the 1960's to the present, talk is cheap, actions speak much louder than words.

--

Kennealy wrote that she became pregnant from Morrison after he pulled out her diaphragm.

Jim was most cordial as they drank at the hotel bar, but whenever Patricia tried to direct the conversation toward her pregnancy, he skated away.

Again he dodged Patricia, telling her twice on the phone that he would see her but never did, spending time with another friend instead.

In August 1970, Patricia talked with him during a break in his trial, "I know it’s not exactly the best time and place to ask you to deal with this, with the trial and all but the fact remains, it happened and now—"

Jim smiled awkwardly and said, "We’ll manage."

"Listen, I’m not exactly thrilled by the idea either, you know. But you happen to be the only man I ever considered good enough to father a child of mine, and now it’s come to pass and I don’t know what to do. I do think you owe me a bit more than your checkbook."

Jim glanced at her, then away. "If you have that baby, it’ll ruin our friendship. A baby isn’t going to change my life at all, but it would alter yours tremendously, forever."

"I could take it to court."

"And I would deny the charges..."

"I can't believe you said that." By now, tears were streaming down her face.

"Well, what did you expect me to say?"

"I don't know, goddamn you! I suppose it makes no difference that it's our baby, yours and mine not yours and Pamela's."

[Jim was sleeping with both at the same time, plus carrying on one-night-stands with groupies and brief affairs with other girls he met. One night he ripped rings off from the hands of a girl he had taken back to his motel room.
When Pamela, suddenly, showed up at his door demanding to know who he was with, he told Pamela, "Look, these are for you."
And he handed the other girl's ring to Pamela.]

"I--no, no difference. I won't support a kid. Any kid. I can't afford it and I don't want the responsibility."

"The only way you can't afford it is emotionally," she shot back at him.

"Well now, wouldn't it be better to have a kid with somebody who wanted to be its father?
It's really up to you. If you have the kid, it'll be your kid. If you want the abortion, I'll pay for it and I'll come to New York to be with you when you have it. I promise I'll come."

[He also had at least 20 other paternity suits against him. But he said] "You know, this subject has never come up with me before."

Patricia exploded. "Don't give me that bullshit! I know it has. I've been told..."

"No, no it's not true, none of it--it's never happened before."
--

The first week of November Patricia Kennely entered a hospital in New York and Jim's child was aborted in the 20th week of fetal development.

Contrary to his promises, "Jim was not present and he did not call."

"Well, I just got into town about and hour ago
Took a look around , see which way the winds blow
Where the little girls in their Hollywood bungalows

Are you a lucky lady in the City of the Night?"

"L.A. Woman" by J.M./Doors

At a concert in Florida, he had yelled, "...ain't nobody gonna love my ass?...you're all a bunch of fuckin' idiots! you're all a bunch of slaves...I'm talkin' about love...I wanna change the world..."

One of his defenders at his obscenity trial in Florida said, "...I mean for all the obscenity, he was really telling the audience,
"Fuck" meant love...and to love each other."

Jim told reporters, "This trial and its outcome won't change my style, because I maintain that I did not do anything wrong."

"And then he fought so bitterly with Pamela that she left him--flew off to Paris to be reunited with her rich French count."

Days past "spent in bars and the nights were passed in the Strip hotel, where he told a buddy, ...look at this!"

"Jim was hanging from the balcony railing outside his room in the Hyatt House Hotel, ten stories above the Sunset Strip. He had been drinking and snorting coke."

He worried about LA cops who "...are almost fanatical about in believing in the rightness of their cause. They have a whole philosophy behind their tyranny."

Excerpts from No One Here Gets Out Alive, by Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman

Jim "devoured Friedrich Nietzsche," who wrote of Dionysian excess, the uber-man, and going "beyond good and evil." Morrison would often speak of Nietzsche and include his ideas in his writings and poems.

A young Frenchman, Gilles Yepremian, came across Morrison being evicted from a Parisian hotel...

“He was totally drunk. Nobody recognized him...Jim saw some policemen and he rolled down the window and shouted, ‘Fuck the pigs!’, so the driver kicked us out."

"It was no secret that Paris was awash with heroin, nowhere more so than in the rock clubs."

“A lot of drugs, yes, a very free time for sex, a lot of jealousy and tension. The night club scene was heavy – gangsters and very bad cops. There were a lot of fistfights inside, which wound up on the stairs and in the street. There was a gunfight outside the club. I used to carry a bayonet for protection. Crazy but necessary."
L.A. Woman and the Last Days of Jim Morrison
By Max Bell

Jim's father was a "Naval Captain—later Admiral—who participated in the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964, an event which marked the beginning of large-scale US military involvement in Vietnam.

As Captain/Admiral George Steven Morrison rose in the ranks of the Navy, Jim rejected him and his mother. "In 1964, at the age of 21, he spent his last Christmas with his family...
Jim’s original bio for Elektra records indicated he had no family and his parents were dead."

Then Jim "heard that Janis Joplin was dead of an overdose. First Jimi [Hendrix] Then Janis."

Jim's repeated comment to friends was, "You're drinking with Number Three."

Soon he was dead of a heroin/alcohol overdose, and probably, cocaine abuse.

Isn't there so much in that brief vignette
from the biography which captures our generation's contradictions?

It's hypocrisies, empty political and spiritual rhetoric,
abuse of others, demeaning cruelty,
heavy drug/alcohol addiction
and refusal to accept our infants, the ones we had chosen to create,
while all at the same time,
claiming
we were rejecting the Establishment, and seeking to help everyone find peace and love and justice?

Early on in Jim's meteoric rise into rock, I was a devoted fan of The Doors' first album. I listened to it over and over. I loved the songs, especially ones like "Light My Fire," "Backdoor Man, "Break on Through (To the Other Side)."

That is until one decisive night; I actually sat down, while very alert and rational, and read the lyrics, and figured out what each of his songs meant.

They were ALL songs of abuse, adultery, drugs, immorality, and even killing and incest.

Allegedly, "The End," is a song about his own hatred for his military father. But why does Jim, in the lyrics, emphasize obscene incest for his own mother?

The latter one, a very powerful rock anthem, was so gross and obscene that it got him and the Doors thrown out of the famous Hollywood nightclub, the Whiskey a Go-Go. The owner strongly objected to Jim's screaming the last line.

One night, he kept repeating those lines over and over, like an immoral mantra. At one concert, even though he saw his mother and younger brother in the audience,
he screamed the incestuous obscenity, and refused to see them,
having his team repeatedly lie to his mother that he would see her later in the evening.

But like with his lies to Patricia in the pregnancy case, and to other friends, he never did.


How tragic was our generation,

Daniel Wilcox

*The inspiration for The Door's name was from Aldous Huxley's book on mescaline, The Doors of Perception.

Awake to Seek

Wake

Up and suit yourself,

Into the floundering pattern-mudded

Consciousness of this our finite skin---

Into a being 'berthed' bemused, beseemed morning

So like the proverbial hog, the typical sow of the round ring

Who as life's suitors are led about by their snouted 'knows;'

Beshrewed, besotted, bemired so we instinctively grunt,

Following our sensual, careening awareness

Or our dutiful grindstoned routine,

We press our life's suit 'til evening

Or wallow down

To our suited

Wake.



by Daniel Wilcox

First pub. in Moria Poetry

--


in the time of Darkness

to commune with the Ultimately Real
in the midst of our utter loss
in the darkened night of alone
to contemplate despite a soon demise,
to live in the Infinite's silence
deafens our wayward heart and leaves
our confused mind bereft;
the Divine answers no pleas
our anguished request left--

Selah

to hope against midnight's despair
to trust in all that is blessedly Fair,
so Beautiful, Right, Good and Just
despite our world history of horror
for naught, and absurd;
we seek
a slight glimmer
of the billion-lighted
meaning shimmering briefly
in our finite reason and creative awareness,
before the cosmos spun into place,
eternally ever always
Ultimate
Becoming.

Selah

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Whose Land?

Whose Land Is Palestine/Israel? Who Does It Belong To? This Land Is Mine

This Land Is Mine from Nina Paley on Vimeo.

Please check out the very important political/historical animation by Nina Paley.

Who Owns the Land? Jew or Arab? Neither!

Who Owns the Land? Jew or Arab? Neither!

Again recently, Jews destroyed animals and olive trees, vandalized mosques and cars, attacked Arabs, stole much more land, and dropped many more lethal bombs, etc.

Again recently, Arabs attacked Jewish families, lobbed hundreds of missiles into Israel trying to kill as many unarmed civilians as possible, etc.

In the last 12 years at least 6,700 Palestinians have been killed and at least 2,000 Jews.

What in HELL for? That’s right, that’s where the New Testament says destroying actions come from, from Hell.

All because of their selfish land claims—both by Arab and by Jew.

How do Arabs feel when they have lived on land for many years, (some families for over a 1,000 years!), but their land is confiscated by the Israeli army and given to immigrants from New York or Russia?!

How would you feel if your Arab family owned the deed to your own land but now the Israeli government is trying to take it away because they want it and claim the land is theirs because their ancestors lived on it over 2,000 years ago?

True story! You can read about it at World Vision’s website: http://blog.worldvision.org/stories/we-refuse-to-be-enemies/

On the other side…

How would you feel if your Jewish family can trace its ancestry on the land back to Bible times, but terrorist groups like HAMAS want to exterminate them, and keep launching deadly rockets to slaughter all, and then take over their land?

Plus, you need to keep history in your sites…

In 1880 there were 24,000 Jews living in the area of the Ottoman Empire called Palestine; there were 450,000 Arabs.

Only 5.3% of Palestine was Jewish!

Where then did all the Jewish people come from? From elsewhere...

But, of course, many people think since Jews once dominated in Palestine before 70 A.D., they have a right to return, as many, many thousands have from all over the world, especially from Europe and America.

Let’s assume so, but does that give them the right to intimidate and persecute Arabs and take away their land?

Please read what Amos has to say about injustice in the Jewish Bible.

We live on the Central Coast of California on what used to be Indian land. Because Indians used to live on this land (but were driven off long ago by the Spanish and Americans, like the Romans drove off the Jews), does this give Indians the right, now, to come back onto our property, kill my family, and confiscate our land?

Even if the Indians have historic right to the land, it certainly doesn’t justify their confiscating it by force of arms, and by killing people who now live on the land and then giving the land to their cousins from Florida.

Both Jew and Arab are violating their own religious scriptures, and are basically being selfish, because they won’t share.

<< James 4 >>
American King James Version
"From where come wars and fights among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? 2You lust, and have not: you kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: you fight and war, yet you have not, because you ask not."

TO BE CONTINUED

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

The Problem of Nationalism

Don't miss reading this powerful analysis of the biased conflict between President Abbas versus Prime Minister Netanyahu at the United Nations.

Again, nationalism and ideology trump truth and peace. If only we humans could be delivered from our human nation-self-centeredness.

from the website http://www.musalaha.org/default.asp
Musalaha (which means reconciliation in Arabic) is a ministry of reconciliation in the Middle East, established by Salim J. Munayer.

"In conflict situations, these two merge more closely, and each side has a historical narrative made up of truth and myth in which “our side” is portrayed in a positive light, and 'we' are always the protagonist hero and victim in 'our historical narrative.'

We saw elements of the Israeli and Palestinian historical narratives in the recent UN speeches. Abbas opened his speech emphasizing the Palestinians’ openness to previous negotiations, their tireless attempts at presenting their position, and their sincerity during the process.

But these endeavors proved futile, primarily as a result of Israel’s refusal to “commit to terms of reference” and its continued engagement in settlement activities.

From the beginning, Abbas, in effect, presented the Palestinians as the protagonists who are committed to a two-state solution, arguing that the Palestinians are the reasonable party as the Palestinians came to the negotiating table sincerely and were willing to compromise; the Israelis then are the antagonists, unreasonable and unwilling to compromise.

Throughout his speech he discussed the effects of the occupation on Palestinians, and recounts the Nakba of 1948 in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were exiled from their homes. In effect, he established the Palestinians as the victims of the conflict.

While renouncing terrorism and violence and affirming peaceful resistance to Israel, he never recognized the detrimental and traumatizing effects of violent Palestinian actions against Israel.

He talked about the Holy Land being a land holy to Muslims and Christians, pointedly excluding the Jewish people from their historical and religious connection to the Holy Land. In spite of the Palestinian people he detailed throughout his speech, he emphasized that the Palestinian people extend their hand to Israel for peace.

When Netanyahu gave his speech responding to Abbas, he constantly emphasized that Israel also extends its hand to the Palestinian people in peace. He stressed Israel’s constant hope for peace and its willingness to make sacrifices for peace, not only with the Palestinians, but with the rest of the Middle Eastern world.

In effect, he presented Israel as the peace-seeking protagonist, summoning the Palestinian people back to negotiations. He rhetorically reasoned with his audience, asking if they would wish for danger so close to their cities and families, reminding his audience of the resultant barrage of rockets that followed Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza.

He discussed the suffering of the Israeli people as a result of the rockets fired by Hezbollah in the north and Hamas from Gaza, presenting Israel as the victims of the conflict, never recognizing the detrimental and traumatizing effects of Israeli actions on Palestinians.

Consequently, he presented Israel as reasonable in its demand for military presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories as he argued this is necessary for Israel’s security.

In effect, he showed that the Palestinians do not understand and are not reasonable in their requests. He argued that the primary issue is that the Palestinians refuse to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

Toward the end of his speech, he discussed the ancient and undying Jewish connection to the land of Israel, but he pointedly failed to mention (thereby excluding) any comparable connection the Palestinian people have to the land, giving only a brief nod to them in closing as they “dwell” on the land.

Is it not interesting to note that reading between the lines, they are mirrors of each other?

One side is reasonable, the other unreasonable. One side is the aggressor, the other the victim.

Both sides claim to extend their hands in peace, yet they make no room for one another in their narratives. Neither side is willing to publicly acknowledge its contribution to and perpetuation of the conflict.

Both sides reference their religious heritage to justify their historical narrative...it is internally focused, often contains half-truths, and when the other side is addressed, it is morally excluded and devalued.

In order for us, both Israelis and Palestinians, to make progress toward reconciliation, we need to learn to truly listen to each other’s needs and be willing to recognize our own shortcomings.

The basic needs for mutual legitimization can be found in the speeches of both Netanyahu and Abbas.

Words of peace can be found in both speeches, but words of good will quickly dissipate when they are not coupled with acts of good will.

Instead of recognizing each other and respecting each other, they belittled and excluded each other. Instead of employing self-criticism, they criticized each other.

...we are all called to repent of our sins and shortcomings and seek peace, but this does not preclude us from reading the Bible in light of our own historical narratives...We can also read the Bible as an ethnic group, taking certain passages and using them for various purposes.

We should apply Biblical passages to our own lives, but we have to be careful that we do not do this in isolation. We have to be careful not to read the Bible selectively, overlooking passages that may be uncomfortable to us.

Above all, we are called to peace, love, and fellowship. We work for this every day and we hope you will continue to walk alongside us as we pursue peace, encourage love of our neighbors, and journey toward reconciliation. Musalaha is a non-profit organization that seeks to promote reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians as demonstrated in the life and teaching of Jesus."

By Salim J. Munayer
Edited by A. Ben-Shmuel


[1] See “Stages of Reconciliation: Encounters between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs” for more information http://musalaha.org/articleview.asp?offset=20&ID=9.


Let us live in peace, for peace, with peace
in the Light,

Daniel Wilcox