The Western Wall

I, who am often lost and disoriented, orient myself in prayer. When I pray, I pray east in the direction of the Western Wall. Christians called it the Wailing Wall because their conquest and exclusionary powers could only be met with wailing by the righteous. I pray towards the Western Wall, and just beyond in the direction of the Temple Mount, praying with the hope of the Holy of Holies.

After I put my children down to sleep, I read about agents of power tearing children from the arms of their parents along the the Southwestern Border where Trump wants to build a wall. Our president has become a terror on this earth because Americans gave him political power for an end to be obtained regardless of the means. I pray in the direction of the Wailing Wall.

Our administration would put a gag law on federal funding for doctors who need to talk to their patients about options when their patients find themselves with pregnancy. This gag law will only affect certain people. Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, “There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore...So we have a policy that affects only poor women, and it can never be otherwise, and I don’t know why this hasn’t been said more often." She said, “That we have one law for women of means and another for poor women is not a satisfactory situation.” I pray in the direction of the Wailing Wall.

Our political officials would insult and threaten North Korea in the midst of diplomatic negotiations. Trump breaks up with Kim Jong-un before he has the chance to break up with him. Ego and power moves (and almost certain failure no matter how you cut it) hang on a pinhead or maybe the button of a nuclear weapon. Meanwhile, people are starving. People are suffering. People are living lives that are unlivable. “Dear Honorable Chairman, our weapons are so much greater and more powerful than yours.” Let us pray.

“Our weapons are so much greater and more powerful than yours,” said Roman conquerors in Palestine, said the Christians who enslaved generations (stealing children, controlling reproduction), and says the American President in a tweet. And in the Holy City, this corrupt man poses for a picture by the U.S. embassy. He poses with a smile on his face—eternally captured in time with ears that cannot hear and eyes that cannot see. I pray towards the Wailing Wall, knowing that problematic term is wrought with a political power that must come to an end. I pray to the living God alive in the hearts and minds of those who weep—the One who sees and hears.

"Prayer is a waste of time," says my agnostic lover. So, I will also pray with my feet. Let us pray with our feet: Let us walk a mile to the Border. Let us walk a mile to receive reproductive healthcare. Let us walk a mile with the people whose only weapons are plowshares, and only powers are pruning hooks. Let us pray with our feet as we go out weeping, sowing our fields with tears, oriented in the direction of the Western Wall.