Heaviness!

Every night I go to bed with heaviness.

Every morning I wake up with the same heaviness.

As a father, it’s so painful to see distraught fathers running through the rubble with their babies covered in debris and blood. They’re wailing in pain, in despair, in desperation.

I feel so helpless, but not nearly as helpless as those suffering in Gaza and the West Bank.

We march in solidarity with millions of others begging the Powers-That-Be to put down their weapons of mass destruction and choose peace, knowing it is the poor, the weak, the prisoner, the oppressed, the colonised and the sick who are suffering and dying.

I march for a ceasefire. I chant on the crowded streets, "Ceasefire now". I pray for a ceasefire, but not nearly as much as those surrounded by death and destruction in Gaza.

I believe Jesus called us as followers of him to bring good news to the poor and liberation to the captives and oppressed. I believe Jesus called us to "love our neighbours as ourselves". 

I believe that as followers of the Great Liberator, we are called to stand with the oppressed, the prisoners, the poor, the blind, and the suffering.

I believe that Jesus is in the rubble, is the wailing father with his blood-soaked child, is the terrified hostage hoping to be set free, is the young child watching and screaming for mercy as their home is obliterated by a US-sanctioned bomb, is the mother trying to find and count how many of her children she has left.

I struggle, I struggle, to know what to do, being so so far away, I’ve gone on 5 marches in Tāmaki Makaurau pleading for the violence and occupation to end, we’ve given to humanitarian aid, we post on social media, and we pray, we pray, for Palestinians, for the hostages, for peace.

But all this seems so little, so futile, so insignificant!

Lord have Mercy! Bring liberation! Bring freedom! Bring peace!