“She said to me how am I supposed to sleep at night when there is so much suffering in the world? Nothing, nothing can justify the genocide of the Palestinian people! She is exasperated. Conflicts, wars and more, always more suffering killing children and innocent people. It never ends!

I remember my dad listening to the lunch-time news I said. We, the children had to keep quiet at the table. His right ear was glued to the radio and the news then were already dominated by the Israel and Palestine conflict. And that was in 1964.

Nothing has changed 60 years later, has it? She added, except for horrendous images on social media of dead babies and amputated orphaned children. She has 3 young children. Palestinian men and women share their agony and disbelief to a world that is watching and doing nothing. We see demonstrations in Paris, Spain, London, Germany, South America, New York… petitions circulating on the net requesting governments to stop Netanyahu. Nothing happens.

Her head hangs down. I have never prayed; I don’t know how to. The only thing I can utter is May God have mercy on these poor people. May be that is all you can do. I think it but I am not saying it. There is nothing I can say that would alleviates her anguish. Her anguish is real and legitimate. Jews all around the world are standing, marching and protesting that Zionism is not their religion. The man is a psychopath with complete immunity. What the f**k is going on?

It’s complicated I told her. Is it? Is it complicated to stop sending arms? Is it complicated to put peace before profits? She is so upset. Of course, she is right and I know it.

She is crying. I hold her and cry with her.

She has spent a lot of time on her phone lately. She has seen and what she has seen cannot be unseen.

 How am I supposed to sleep at night when thousands of children are being abducted at any given time everywhere in the world to get abused and tortured in satanic rituals? Or killed for the organ market? Or enslaved in basement and used as free labour? When imprisoned girls are raped and kept to make again more babies for a trade that brings in more money that the arms trade? When heads of governments including our own, are involved in these horrific barbaric and satanic activities?”

She is hurting. She is like Pierre I thought. I remember a conversation last time we went to see him. He was sharing how he could feel people’s suffering as if it was his own and how soul destroying that was. He gave an example of when he went to a chemist one Saturday night recently and there was a long queue of people coming to get some medicine in short supply. As he was coming closer, he could feel the pain each and everyone was carrying and it made him bend in half with the shock. He froze for a few moments and silently prayed for them, sending them some light. As he got up again, he could feel the suffering had diminished somehow … it’s not a gift he said. It’s a responsibility I never asked for.

These are such dark times. It’s always been like that I hear mum say. May be but does it have to be like that forever? I am arguing with her in my head.

Walking the sweet donkeys to their field this morning under a big blue sky, breathing in the autumn air so fresh and crisp, making plans for the day ahead… We are all one. We are all but one and we don’t know it. If we could really get that, the world would look so very different.

The thing to remember is that when a civilisation is corrupt beyond redemption, the fall is not far.

May ours fall soon and may God have mercy on us.