I wrote something before I went to the rally for Lebanon on Broadway. I described how a lot of people were asking me variations of a question: how are you? And when I showed up, I was still in that headspace. The one where I’d replied in the best way I could. Honestly, concisely, with equal-parts appreciation and reserve. I went to the protest out of a sense of duty, but I was feeling burnt out, and it was probably showing in my photography.
I’d admitted that I’d been copy-pasting a few replies. I tried to be genuine without over-performing vulnerability, because that’s just how I am, and that’s how we tend to be. “Welcome to Lebanon.” We play it cool. But I’d showed up at that protest after having stopped to ask myself the same question so many had asked me: how am I? Combustible and about to burst into flames.
So, I wasn’t comfortable being here. I didn’t want to chant, and I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to document. But then, after the sun dipped low and it was much too dark for photos, after I had put away my camera, the Holy Spirit spoke through an Imam who gave a speech more akin to a sermon and poured balm over my burns.
Imam Akram preached about “excellence” in doing good against the “excellence” in doing evil. This is measured, in God’s eyes, through the small things we do consistently.
At first, I found it amusing to hear him echo teachings on what the Episcopal Church I go to every week calls “the spiritual disciplines” — it’s almost like he was reading off the same Google Doc when he said: “you are what you habitually do.”
But then I started to really feel the message behind his words; the exhortation to savor the wins however small they may appear, because they’re blessings from God, who encourages us to persevere even when the end-goal and ultimate victory seem out of reach. And so, the Imam wanted to remind us of all that’s been achieved in the past year. He listed them off one by one: diplomatic wins, symbolic wins, moral wins — each one a glimpse of a Free Palestine.
I needed to hear that tonight. I needed to stand there before the God of Abraham, raising prayers up to our shared maker, each in our own way. It was only then that I felt like chanting and sloganeering again.
The organizers ended the rally most brilliantly. After a round of chants and just before the Imam led evening prayer, an organizer shared an excerpt from Walid Daqqa’s writing, asking us to reflect on finding our purpose, the way that Daqqa found his:
“I confess that nothing was planned. There was no plan to become an activist, a militant, or to engage in any politics at all. Not because I thought there was anything wrong with these paths. To me, politics was not a reprehensible business like it is to some, but it did seem complex and immense. I am not a premeditated activist or politician. I could just as easily have remained a house painter or a gas station attendant, as I was until my arrest. Like many, I could have been married young to one of my relatives, and she could have bore me seven or ten children. I could have bought a freight truck and learned the car trade and how to exchange hard currency. All this might have been possible, until I witnessed the atrocities of the Lebanon War and its massacres. Sabra and Shatila shocked me deeply.”
This was the dismissal. This was the “go in peace to love and serve the Lord.”
Thanks be to God.