Spring - a new beginning

Today I was invited for a 'mensuf' (the Jordanian national dish) by the ladies of Bani Hamida in Makawir. We had a wonderful time eating, singing, and dancing. After lunch my friend and I decided to drive down to the Dead Sea on the new road from Makawir. It's a beautiful drive with stunning views of Machaerus, where King Herod built his palace, the hot springs of Ma'in, and the Dead Sea with the hills beyond. Several times we got out of the car to enjoy the scenery and to take pictures. All is quiet out there except for the sound of the wind, twittering birds, and occasionally, drifting up the valley, the song of a shepherd or the bleating of new-born lamb. Spring is in evidence....flowers are blooming, the hills are green, and the trees are budding. It's a beautiful time of year....a time of new beginnings.

And yet this peaceful calm is really quite deceptive. Not a day goes by when one doesn't hear the painful news of yet another bombing, another targeted assassination, house demolition, raid, more death and destruction. Every day we go through check points and security checks to enter hotels, malls, restaurants, banks, etc. as if this were the most ordinary thing. Perhaps we accept it because they say this is all about democracy. I have my doubts.

My wish this spring, for all the people of this area, is that they too can have a new beginning....a new birth of freedom, justice and peace which will only come when we all realize that to build a country is harder than to destroy it, that to dialogue is more productive than to impose one's will on others, that to make peace is much harder than war. z