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May there be abundant peace upon us
Aug. 5th, 2009 03:00 pm“The poor candles don’t have a chance,” I laughed gently as I watched people leaving lit tealights and tapers and pieces of paper that said “pride,” “support,” “love” and their Hebrew translations in the central garden of Sackville Street Park, near the statue of Alan Turing. We’d been struggling to keep this candlelight vigil lit in the summer breeze as the light faded from the Manchester sky yesterday evening.
“They do, though,” Dan said. “That’s the point.” I smiled a little at this, as I took our two little tealights to re-light them before replacing them on the corners of one of the pieces of paper to hold it down.
We were brought there by a tragedy in Tel Aviv, a shooting at a gay and lesbian youth center where many were injured and two people died. We gathered only a few weeks away from a Pride celebration even our city council is proud of, I’d just come from the Lesbian and Gay Foundation, just the kind of place where this horror took place, and was reminded to be grateful.
We heard about how Tel Aviv is a bubble of safety and openness for gay people in the bubble of relative acceptance that is Israel, and yet even there such a thing could happen. We listened to someone read Kaddish, a Jewish prayer said at funerals, read off an iPhone. I couldn’t dream of understanding a word of it but the feeling of solemnity that had gathered us shone through in the “amen”s we all repeated as we’d been asked to.
Injury and death, fear and pain and loss, can’t help but be ugly, but I think the best thing we can do to counter that is to remember and acknowledge the dead, who they were and what they were like. Stories are the most important tool people have for making sense of our lives, they are as close as I get to the sublime and numinous. And maybe i’m not the only one; before we were asked to leave our signs and candles in the park for people to see when they went to work this morning or whatever, it was also suggested that when we go home we tell people what happened in Tel Aviv, and so I’m doing that now.
When I walked away from them, all the candles were lit. Physics tells me that can’t have lasted long, but I tell physics I don’t care. I was glad to have been told how wrong I was about the little lights not having a chance.
“They do, though,” Dan said. “That’s the point.” I smiled a little at this, as I took our two little tealights to re-light them before replacing them on the corners of one of the pieces of paper to hold it down.
We were brought there by a tragedy in Tel Aviv, a shooting at a gay and lesbian youth center where many were injured and two people died. We gathered only a few weeks away from a Pride celebration even our city council is proud of, I’d just come from the Lesbian and Gay Foundation, just the kind of place where this horror took place, and was reminded to be grateful.
We heard about how Tel Aviv is a bubble of safety and openness for gay people in the bubble of relative acceptance that is Israel, and yet even there such a thing could happen. We listened to someone read Kaddish, a Jewish prayer said at funerals, read off an iPhone. I couldn’t dream of understanding a word of it but the feeling of solemnity that had gathered us shone through in the “amen”s we all repeated as we’d been asked to.
Injury and death, fear and pain and loss, can’t help but be ugly, but I think the best thing we can do to counter that is to remember and acknowledge the dead, who they were and what they were like. Stories are the most important tool people have for making sense of our lives, they are as close as I get to the sublime and numinous. And maybe i’m not the only one; before we were asked to leave our signs and candles in the park for people to see when they went to work this morning or whatever, it was also suggested that when we go home we tell people what happened in Tel Aviv, and so I’m doing that now.
When I walked away from them, all the candles were lit. Physics tells me that can’t have lasted long, but I tell physics I don’t care. I was glad to have been told how wrong I was about the little lights not having a chance.