A Bike Ride At Night

August 29, 2005

I went for a bike ride tonight, to try to process the words that I read about Deir Yassin. Even though I have been told many times, since coming here, about the massacre at Deir Yassin, there is something about reading personal testimonies. I felt sick to my stomach after reading the testimonies on the palestineremembered.com site; maybe because I have a very vivid imagination or because I have a very sensitive spirit, maybe both.

I didn't bring my map of Tel Aviv with me and didn't really want to know where I was going. I just headed north on rehov Ibn Gvirol (a main street near my flat) until I happened across the Yarkon river. I have seen it on my map before and thought about venturing that way sometime. It was just what I needed tonight; it was beautiful. I rode over foot bridges covered in lights, passed couples strolling hand in hand, eyed up packs of pretty of puppies, looked at friends sitting on blankets or benches having some beer and chatting in the night.

But still, contemplative thoughts kept coming back to me. The thought of how many people there are in the world hovered over me. How many stories. I would look at a couple sitting on a bench, arms enwrapped, and I would think that their lives are meaningful. They have jobs, interests, friends, frustrations, ideosyncrasies, personal problems, fascinations, ambitions, dreams. I kept on looking at people and thinking that there was someone, somewhere, who would be ecstatic to see them. I saw people engaged in what looked like deep conversations, with intense looks on their faces, waving arms and straight posture. I couldn't take my eyes off of people. People. Everyone, even loudmouths, are immeasurably valuable. I know it sounds very melancholic; but it didn't make me sad; it affirmed to me the mystical unity and love within human relationships.

I watched faces and knew I wasn't blaming them for the massacre at Deir Yassin. That's the problem: who, or what do I blame? I looked at couples laying in the grass by the riverside and thought about how normal everything looked; nomal to me, that is. I thought about how something inside of me wants veangence for the Palestinians. Something wants justice. But as I pedaled and tried to work through these issues I kept thinking about the injustice and ongoing unresolved strangling of the First Nations people in Canada.

No, the fact that Canada is not militarily oppressing the First Nations peoples of our land does not slight the severity of the oppression. A few weeks ago I watched a piece of news on the National (CBC) about northern Ontario communities of First Nations and how they are completely cut off from the country. They never see outsiders and many will never leave their small village. I know about the First Nations in British Columbia and how they live on Reservations, quietly packed away from all of us "Canadians."

Nothing makes sense. Not the persecution of the Jews over the millenia. Not the ongoing chokehold Israel has on Palestine. Not the forgotten slaughtering of Native Americans in the United States. Not the Reservations in Canada. I don't claim to be enlightened on anything. I don't even feel like I know much. In fact, the more I read, the more I think, the more I talk with others, the less I feel I know. Sometimes I get a moment of clarity but usually I am confused and bewildered about the mysteries of love, the ravages of war, the free will of humanity, and God's involvement in it all. I can get lost in these thoughts; then the depression sets in.

I followed the river west until it ran into the ocean. Then I continued on a road until I decided to cruise through some apartment-block streets. The buildings were all new and the cars were shiny. I pedaled hard, trying to tire myself out, trying to get rid of the images in my mind, trying to still the whirring thoughts in my head. I kept saying my version of the Jesus Prayer over and over, emphasizing the different words and trying to let them fill my mind and imagination. I cruised around museums and theatre houses, letting the streets lead me back to my apartment.

As I walked up the stairs to my place, I stopped outside of Apartment 8, where Wallace the cat was scratching at a welcome mat. I gave him some scratches of his own on his ears and his neck. Then, as I came up the final flights and entered my flat, his cries for love or food were slowly drowned out of my ears.