Lift It All Up

So, here we are.

Hi friends.

It’s been a minute. I’ve been meaning to write to you but the truth is, I’ve been spiritually unwell. I had the impression that I just needed some time to collect my thoughts before posting them on the internet, but the thoughts just kept on coming, and so did the brutality and grief that is trying to swallow this planet whole.

There is so much sorrow and there is so much fear. I am not a neutral narrator when it comes to Israel, I have family there who I love and worry about. I am also the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors and can feel the rise of anti-semitism on a cellular level, I don’t know how else to describe it. The Jews are not OK and our stomachs are very not OK.

I am also just a human being who feels deeply and will not look away from or diminish the death and destruction happening in Gaza and the pain and suffering of the Palestinian people. Violence and oppression have never, in the horrendous history of humanity, led any of us to peace.

I think we have enough cynical takes and they are not mine. Vengeance is not justice and there is no justice without empathy. I want to live in a world where children are never killed over territory and war-hungry sadists are never the ones in charge. I want to live in a world where we hear each other’s stories and have compassion for everyone’s collective pain.

Despite what I glibly named this newsletter, what I want for this broken world is transcendence, not more destruction, and I am holding space for a better future that includes something we’ve certainly never known — peace, safety, and freedom for all.

And if you think I’m being delusional, then fair enough, but it’s 2023 and we’re all delusional about something, so I am putting that energy towards hope. I will be delulu and envision a reality where innocent people are never slaughtered in their homes, or taken hostage, or dehumanized, or bombed to smithereens while the whole world watches on their phones then fights in the comments as if the real conflict is one of opinion. The alternative, for me, is too much to bear.

I promise I’ll get back to roasting unhinged nonsense as soon as the horrors abate. In the meantime, take care of yourselves and each other, and please don’t come for me, if you do, this is who you’ll be coming for.

Shabbat Shalom ❤️‍🩹

Liz