A while back, I was sitting in a friends’ café in East Jerusalem, striking up a conversation with a very precocious 14 year-old girl. We were talking about Israeli-Palestinian issues. I had that gut feeling that a very interesting conversation was about to happen. The girl, whom I will call Suzanne, in case she’s reading this . . . then shifted the conversation from the greater political scene in Israel and the West Bank, to her personal life. She began to describe the drama of her relationship with her older sister, who was 17. The older sister then approached us, complaining about her life, how she was late for a date with her boyfriend, was hot and sweaty, etc. I offered her a short-term solution of Armani perfume to help out with the hot and sweaty part. After she left, the 14-year-old, Suzanne, continued waxing not very eloquently about her sisters’ shortcomings, abuse, double-standards, etc.
I then asked Suzanne, who was quite politically astute for her age, instead of complaining about the stalled peace process between Israelis and Palestinians, why didn’t she start more local. Say, starting a peace process in her home. With her sister. With her mother. Her father. Even with herself.
I began to explain to her that the world is full of people with criticisms about problems. But how many of us actually begin to take responsibility on a true grass-roots level, In our hearts and homes? It is very easy to criticize, often justifiably, behaviors we see played out on a national levels. But are we at home acting out the same way??
Apple trees produce apples, right? Critical, angry parents tend to produce critical, angry children. Critical and angry children grow up, and find other critical and angry children with whom they can agree with (the criticism) and fight with (the anger). They then enter colleges, universities, the workforce, the political arena, prewired with certain behaviors based, to a large degree, on what they learned at home.
How many people complain about a political party, or governmental coalition, and then go home and discourage or cut down their children? How many political and/or business leaders emotionally (or even physically) abuse their wives or children?? Or continually replay in their minds their own failures? Not forgiving themselves for past mistakes.
I explained to my young friend, Suzanne, that a basic rule of life is that hurt people hurt people. Maybe it’s time to take our criticisms of governments, the peace process, etc., down a few notches and make changes in ourselves, our hearts and homes. It is another basic rule of life that our words carry much more authority when we ourselves are living them.
A few months after this conversation, I was chatting with Suzanne on Facebook. I asked her how her personal peace process was going. Happily, she told me she was doing much better with her sister.
