Sanctity
The morning hike was beautiful and quiet in the North Carolina forest. The sparkling light of sun rays were pouring through tree limbs and leaves as if God Himself was sprinkling golden glitter among the trees. The calm of the early morning with its fresh smell of tree bark, and clean air inhaled into filled lungs and hearts filled with gratitude.
Suddenly, there was a loud cracking noise to our right splitting the calmness of the serene morning. We turned to the sound and witnessed a tall pine tree shudder and slowly fall to the ground bouncing a few times and then complete silence. A sacred moment. A tree that had grown for years had its roots pulled from the ground and would now lay on the forest floor to decay and return to earth to nourish other trees. There is no silence like the sudden sound of a living thing that has died. Certainly it was just a tree, but it was a living thing that released oxygen into the air and inhaled the toxic carbon dioxide, it provide life to insects and birds, and many other organisms. It will continue to do so until it is completely decayed and disappears into the ground its seed grew from.
While working in a hospital I walked into an OR room where a 62-year-old woman who had undergone a heart transplant had just died. I expected quiet, the acknowledgement of a meaningful life that had pased, but instead the OR medical staff were either on their cell phones or laughing and joking. The woman on the table still and quiet; a life extinguished with her last breath while her husband and grown children anxiously waited to hear the happy news of a successful surgery. I stood in a state of shock, and then began silently praying. A sacred moment. A woman who had a husband, grown children, and grandchildren. A woman who tenderly cared for her children and supported her husband. A family was eagerly waiting for this woman who had cared for so many to let them care for her as she recovered. It appeared as if the OR staff perceived this as just another day’s work — oh well, this one didn’t make it. A medical professional once told me he had done missionary work in a small poor hospital in Asia in which every time a patient died bells were rung over the intercom to acknowledge the sacred moment a life passes. At that moment all movement in the hospital would stop in stillness as a life passing was acknowledged — a sacred moment.
Back to that pine tree that slowly fell in the dawn of a new day. When forests are thoughtlessly cut down, there is typically a response of resistance to preserve the planet’s forests with increasing action until laws are passed to save the forests. There is a forest of humans that are being razed to the ground with thoughtless abandon, with laughter and joking, drinking, eating and partying on Superbowl Sunday, as the IDF move into Rafah where they told the Palestinians they would be safe but to then joyfully kill shaking, starving men, women, and especially children. One American doctor recently reported that children being brought to them for medical attention all had sniper bullet holes in their skulls.
Remember those images of the Holocaust- of children being dragged into gas chambers, and children even being shot just for fun. Remember the starving, gaunt faces, with eyes staring out at the camera with such a deep sorrow that it haunted your dreams? If we attempt to speak out about the atrocities being committed against the Palestinians we are accused of being antisemitic, but when many Zionist Jews commit such atrocities or support the senseless killing of civilians including a significant number of children and babies without acknowledging the sanctity of life, they are killing the soul of their people that once were called the Chosen People of God.