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May delete or make this section much much shorter entirely

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Like so many, I have felt at times powerless to affect any change, to really be of help. What can one tiny, little person like me possibly do in a situation so immense, so dire where there are such extreme powers at play? So much darkness at hand? The story of the Palestinians who have had a wage waged upon them for 100 years is the same story as the indigenous, marginalized, colonized, and oppressed people all over the world and people with some degree of sensitivity can intuit this. Most of us feel this is not right in our hearts. It is not merely something “political” to leave up to the political experts, the historical experts, and the pundits but that it is something that deeply violates our sense of humanity – what it means to be actually and fully human. For we often misunderstand, we believe erroneously, that it is the oppressed that suffers alone (although their suffering is apparent and immense) but the oppressor and the majority of silent bystanders that implicitly support the oppressor in their silence suffer as well… and what is that suffering? For the oppressor and those complicit in injustice - we too are in great peril of losing sense of our own wholeness, our own humanity – without which life quickly becomes a meaningless shell, a dried and calcified husk of a human having to increasingly seek some outer source to fulfill that nagging sense of lack that comes from the absence of Being. Being whole, being fully human, with the capacity to feel and to love. To love, not only within our tiny little sphere of life, under the misapprehension that we are somehow all disparate parts lacking any connection… any cohesion, but to love our fellow mankind. As we widen the gap between “us” and the “other” we become ever more separated and alienated from ourselves. To cut off an entire group of people is like cutting off our own leg. 

And yet how… How do we mend these ruptures?… How do we bridge these apparently ever widening gaps?… What can we possibly do in the face of so much darkness? I know these questions have bombarded my mind as much as the images of violence and suffering we are now bearing witness to.  So much so, that it seems hard to have the energy to meditate and create… and yet I know that is what I must do. I was given a gift to paint in a unique way with a unique voice and also given the gift of the very desire and passion for painting. And so it is. It is my job, my profession, dedication, my little way of holding up my tiny corner of the universe. And that’s all each of us can do… our given role… whatever that may be…to follow the deepest calling of our hearts for good. And lately, as so much darkness has fallen upon us, even though I must fight to keep at the easel and not let the prevalent sense of density and inertia take over, as if painting through molasses, I can see it…revealed brushstroke by brushstroke. That the light of heaven still struggles through the 20-haired tip of the brush to express something of our deepest selves, our soul, our shared humanity calling out loudly for us to return to the Self, to restore our inherent and natural sense of goodness and harmony… the calling to become ever brighter beacons of light in these days of darkness with the unfathomable light of the heart leading the way. 

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