We have this one short life. If you are still breathing, do the good you are meant to do…stretch your heart to hold more. Feel your own pain, and make the deepest commitment you can to not pass it on.

How do we learn to disagree and stay connected? I think it involves the human heart; I KNOW it involves the human heart and the human mind. And I know that we must listen to each other.

People from the West Bank can’t get out and Jewish people from Israel are frightened to go in. It took creativity - and the profound trust, faith and desire our group feels to make this happen.

…all the feelings came. It was an explosion, it was beautiful and ugly and strong, and difficult and people said things they had NEVER SPOKEN, on both sides….

Can we then hear each other, can we listen to each other’s fears and hopes? Can we decide to take action as simple and as difficult as setting down our narrative and listening, truly listening to the other side?

כן نعم YES

A day that ended with the ability of the human heart to hold so much and find it in us to sing a song of healing and hope. I hope you are listening. These songs are being sung everywhere. They so deserve to be heard.

What comes after all of this? The recognition of miracles, feelings of hope, I see you- I can understand you, even though we may not agree. We are willing to find the path.

If you met these people, you would not call them naïve or foolish. They are not denying anything, they are not in a pretend happy world, they are staying with each other under the most difficult of circumstances.

When we spend time together, so many of the stories we tell about each other fall away. And when stories fall away there is the possibility that we can tell a new story together.

These participants are willing to challenge the status quo that tells everyone on both sides that “the other” is a monster and not to even bother questioning that. We are creating something real and new in which peace is possible.

We offer a space where nothing is off-limits, no feeling, no idea, no expression. We intentionally make room for intensity, realness and conflict. We are not telling people how to feel.

Truth comes out, hard truths. Eyes are opened. People are changed. People keep being changed. They work the principles, and we go, we go where so many fear to go. And we keep going.g

It is not just forgiveness, it is change. How hard it is to change. To validate our experience and be willing to open again, to stand together, to STAY.

I am reminding you that death will come to us all. Do not waste your time as you walk this earth, DO YOUR PART, DO YOUR PART, DO YOUR PART…

ONE DAY, just one day. What can you do in one day? Really, quite a lot.