A headline in tonight’s Olean paper proclaimed that Secretary of State Rice has asked other governments around the world to cut off aid to the newly elected Hamas government in Palestine. Secretary Rice is a brilliant woman, she holds a Ph. D., but brilliant woman or not she’s headed in the wrong direction.
In the 12th chapter of Romans the apostle Paul states, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.” It’s age old wisdom that St. Paul was repeating from the Book of Proverbs, but even highly educated people like Dr. Rice ignore it at their peril. If you throw a stone one will come back at you. It’s almost common sense. For every action their will be an equal and opposite reaction. The Gospel of Jesus Christ calls on us to break the cycle and to turn the other cheek. St. Paul clearly instructs us to do the unthinkable and to feed our enemy. That just does not make any sense, but I can tell you from personal experience it works time after time and it is a lot less expensive in the long term.
I’m a bit of a “doubting Thomas” and a bit of skeptic on top of that but, all these Gospel principles really work. They are not just pious pronouncements by some idealist. I wish I knew Dr. Rice better, I’d go talk to her. Maybe I’ll write her. Writing letters does work. Little things like letter writing, praying and practicing the Gospel really work. Mahatma Gandhi once said, “be the change you wish to see in the world.” Sometimes I get discouraged and wonder if living this way really does change things. Change takes a long time and I hope I won’t give up trying. If Secretary Rice really wanted to impact Hamas she’d go to Palestine and sit down with them, be present to them and get to know them as people. I don’t know how or what we could do to feed this enemy, but I do know that is the only way to defeat them. Cutting off aid from them is just another way of throwing stones and eventually the stones will come back to us. Everything in this world is connected.
Peace.