"If you're happy and you know it clap your hands" *clap clap*
[unison] "If you're happy and you know it clap your hands!" *clap clap*
"How does that one go?" Zoughbi asked me.
"If you're happy and you know then your face will surely show it. If you're happy and you know it clap your hands!" We did clap our hands. The chickens laid to eggs.
"Did you finally sing to them, like I told you to?"
"Look how much they love my singing! إثنين بيض"
I was not lying. Just an hour ago, I had quietly flipped the lid off of the lie above. The tricky part about this lie is that I think about it all the time. It's like the vegetable peelings waiting to be buried: "there aren't enough yet." Not enough worries and cares to justify treating myself or even giving myself a break.
Israel says they will release Khader Adnan from administrative detention in April. He broke his 60+ day hunger strike, hopefully not to be betrayed. He said his dignity was worth more than his life.
I typically wash over how the occupation makes me feel, on a personal level. I focus on collective responsibility because I feel like I have not right to be as upset as, say, Khader Adnan's family or fellow prisoners. At the same time, I get comments like "for someone with a passing knowledge of the conflict, this is overwhelming" and "I just wanted resources, you didn't need to go into such detailed analysis." I have elaborate fantasies where I am yelling at people and slamming my fists on table-tops...
I tend to forget that, even if I am not in close proximity to these crimes, I read and reflect on them constantly...
I am lying to myself. The ambient stress is getting to me and it's not because I am weak. Alex Awad, a general support missionary, took one look at me before we spoke to a group together at the Bible College. "Are you alright?"
"I'm tired, lately..."
"Maybe you should go to the Galilee for a few days."
"They cleared me to go to Ireland for ten. Visa renewal. Then I dance my way in again, God-willing."
"Enjoy it. Really, do enjoy it," said Alex with some concern.
How do I not feel spoiled, going to Ireland, when Khader Adnan is in administrative detention without a trial and voluntarily not eating? And what about Mustafa Tamimi who died at Nebi Saleh (bled-out while his ambulance was delayed at a check-point) -- that was the time I almost cried on the bus. I shoved it all inside, again, and after that day the winter got colder and colder. At the missionary meeting yesterday, Janet brought-up the ambient stress levels again. There is never any one thing that we can point to but all of us feel it. Today, I came to believe that it really is a spiritual drain -- as if frustration has reached critical mass in the community as a whole and it passes like a radiation cloud from Jenin to Hebron... ...what if we lived in Gaza?!
I took it easy at work. When I came home, I played for a while and had dinner. After dinner, though, my mind drifted back to one of my over-the-top e-mails. I argued with ghosts until I sat down to pray. My meditation was filled with static.
"What did I do wrong?"
"I took it easy today, why do I feel like this?"
"...I miss sharing my everyday things..."
"If I could just jump in Lake Michigan once."
"But my life is so good! Life is really good, in spite of..."
"...or jump into Fiona [05 Sunfire] and roll down the windows"
My evening reading session was barely tolerable -- "The Prophetic Imagination" is normally just what the doctor ordered but I struggled to stay awake. My six-hour nights of sleep leave me sorely missing the weekend. I reminded myself, however, that I had some self-care time coming: "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"
...half-way through chapter one, I was done. I didn't want a Swedish novel -- I wanted to buy something from iTunes. I had "Whisper & a Clamor" stuck in my head, though I hadn't heard it in over six-months. Why?
So, I treated myself:
"A Whisper And A Clamor" (By Anberlin)
Growing tired of bedside resolvePublic display of depression
Something's got to give now
Something's going to break down
I grow tired of writing songs
While people listen but never hear what's really going on now
Tell me what's so wrong now
Clap your hands all ye children
There's a clamor in your whispering
Clap your hands tonight
Hear what the silence screams
Clap your hands
Clap your hands now all ye children
Clap your hands all ye children
There's a clamor in your whispering tonight
For most who live and breathe
Hell is never knowing who they are now
Tell me who you are now
Finally safe from the outside trapped in what you know
Are you safe from yourself? Can you escape all by yourself?
Clap your hands all ye children
There's a clamor in your whispering
Clap your hands tonight
Hear what the silence screams
Clap your hands
Clap your hands now all ye children
Clap your hands all ye children
There's a clamor in your whispering tonight
Clap your hands
Clap your hands now all ye children
Clap your hands
There's a clamor in your whispering tonight
It's not the lies that you sing
But what the silence will scream
It's not the lies that you sing
But what the silence will scream
It's not the lies that you sing
But what the silence will scream
Clap your hands all ye children
There's a clamor in your whispering
Clap your hands tonight
Hear what the silence screams
Clap your hands
Clap your hands now all ye children
Clap your hands all ye children
There's a clamor in your whispering tonight
The judge says my stress levels are not high enough and I have not produced enough. I can suck it up and be even tougher.
The victim says I am a burnout by nature and not by circumstances. I don't deserve to be galvanized -- or given $2 grand by churches in West Michigan.
Truth: I am Mega-Man -- and I am tired of taking all this ticky-tack damage. I demand energy capsules.
...so, I downloaded a couple more songs. Rock-on.
.
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