Since it was Sunday the traffic wasn’t completely clogged, thank God. My taxi was driving unexpectedly fast, swerving fluidly from lane to lane, passing cars on the left and on the right. I am enjoying and appreciating the fact that this man will help me get into the snow faster than I had hoped. His English was not so good. I pat him on the shoulder and say: “you drive very good”. Then he said: “In 1988 we had war. I drove the ambulance”.
Bearing Witness in Beirut
In Tripoli we went into a mosque during prayer. I was invited to pray with them, which I did. I like to experience the ritual. First I had to wash myself in a traditional way (hands, underarms, face, nose, ears, mouth, feet) then I joined them during prayer, mimicking the movements. Afterwards an imam-looking guy (who turned out not to be an imam but we didn’t know until later) wanted to speak to us. Somebody else translated his words. I think that around 20 people stayed to hear what the guy had to say to us. Basically he gave a small talk, arguing why Islam was the highest truth, using a lot of rhetorical questions that didn’t leave a lot of room for a different point of view (“Do you agree that God created all things?”). What I felt was that he had the need to convince us of something he was convinced of himself. What was most striking to me was the similarity between the Chassidic Jews in Tsfat and this guy: similar clear eyes and similar strong convictions.
Healing in Athens
How do I feel? I’m tired, relaxed and curious. My plane to Tel Aviv just took off and I have 1,5 hours to write about my experience in Athens. Where shall I start?
I am a different man. I lost my couchsurfing virginity in Athens. Coachsurfing.com is a website where local people offer their couch to travelers to spend the night on. So you get to spend the night for free. But that is not the most important thing. The most important things for me was that complete strangers made me feel welcome in their country, their city and their house. For a guy that fears rejection that is a big deal.
I made a profile about a week ago and sent out two emails. In both cases I was welcome. My first host had a home cooked meal in the oven when I arrived at her place, my second host had invited a small group of friends to have a workshop in his house. Both of my hosts took me to the Akropolis, which was closed both times (insert Greek joke).
D-Day
I have taken the jump. I’m flying from Frankfurt to Athens now. I left Amsterdam at 11.00 this morning. I have no idea what is ahead of me. The idea of being away from home for a whole year is still unimaginable. It feels like I have released the inevitable. Something is set in motion that is bigger than me and outside of my control. I feel scared, sad, vulnerable and accepting. There is nowhere to hide. Whatever wants to hit, hurt, penetrate or embrace me can touch me. I’m defenseless.
A sense of urgency
The tricky thing is: to awaken means to die first. If you are not prepared to die and are obsessed with your own survival don’t expect others to let go of their ideas about security and freedom.
My friend told me: “When the systems crash we need people like you. Because we will not fall back into the middle ages. We will have a developed society without guidance. We know what mechanisms brought us down. New forms of leadership will emerge. We need the warriors you are talking about. They have to show us a new paradigm for living. They have to show us how to live from the heart. That’s why we need you to go on your journey and that’s why we need your book.” You are not convinced? Let me illustrate it once again. Michael Franti performed on Occupy Amsterdam. He gave a free performance to the protesters. In the video below you see an interview with him where he voices to problems beautifully and eloquently. A true warrior he is, a man who united and not divides. Listen to him when he sings. And then pay special attention to the cheering of the protestors when the song is over. They are no different than the bankers that they react against. Let’s appreciate the complexity of the issues at hand. We must be willing to look at ourselves first before we judge the other. The sooner the better. Now.
A 21st Century Warrior
”Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”
Letter from a survivor
Dear Anders Behring Breivik,
A lot of the friends I met at Utoya are dead and you are the perpetrator. You are the man who, by coincidence, didn’t kill me. I was lucky.
You might think that you have won. You might think that you have ruined something for the Labour Party and for people around the world who stand for a multicultural society by killing my friends and fellow party members.
Know that you have failed.
You haven’t only made the world stand together, you have set our souls on fire and should know we’ve never stood together as we do now. You talk about yourself as a hero, a knight. You are no hero. But you have created heroes. On Utoya that warm day in July, you created some of the greatest heroes the world has seen, you unified people from all over the world. Black and white, man and woman, red and blue, Christians and Muslims.
When disaster strikes
What I feel now when I look at the picture is a beautiful illustration of how the mind works, or my mind at least. We tend to not really want to look at our stuff. We rather deny or avoid the confrontation with what we don’t want to see. Everything in our Universe is always in flux, always changing. On the one hand we know that, on the other we fear that. We want things to stay the same. That gives us a sense of security.
But we have no guarantees. Even our brick houses can collapse under the force of a hurricane. Disaster can strike any moment. Our sense of security can vanish in a second.
Mourning the suffering caused by our ignorance
Today, on May 4th, our annual WWII Memorial Day, I commemorate Mozes Bacharach, his wife Aaltje Bacharach-Mug and their son Louis Bacharach: Jewish people who were taken from their modest house in East Amsterdam to be murdered in Auschwitz (Mozes and Aaltje) and Sobibor (Louis). It’s the house I live in.
There is a list of 21.622 Amsterdam houses where once Jewish people lived who were taken to concentration camps during the 2nd World War. Two days ago I found out about that list and saw that my house was on it. I never knew that my neighbourhood was a Jewish neighbourhood. Not only the Bacharach family was taken away, 448 other appartments were cleaned out in a street that is barely 600 meters (approx 650 yards) long. There were more people murdered from my street alone than I have friends on Facebook (680).
The struggle for life
Last night I was having dinner with an old friend when his 15 year old daughter called him. He had to walk away from the dinner table to be able to talk to her because the restaurant was crowded. It took quite long before he got back. Turned out that his daughter was desperately sad, she had told her father that she wanted to end her life. She did not want to live anymore.
Let’s call this girl Jill. What her father told me about her was that she was smart, healthy, good looking, had nice group of friends and was apt socially. Still, she was going through rough times. She had developed an eating disorder and was feeling depressed lately.
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