I was sitting on my night flight to Tel aViv and was having a hard time falling asleep, so I stood up in the isle. I saw a young man bowing down on a rug in the bulk head area. I watched him for a moment. There were a couple men lined up behind him waiting to use the rug. I had an immediate flashback of some of the news and intelligence I was given on the Muslim people before I left on Convoys in the Al Anbar province. I found myself wanting to judge these men…..but caught myself! I reminded myself, that I know nothing about them, they are human beings, and maybe I need to break some barriers I have built.
These men were Muslim, and performing their 5th Call to Prayer during the day. So to help start breaking the barriers in my own heart and brain, I decided to talk to one of the Saudi Arabian men who were waiting in line to use the rug. I asked him about himself- where he was from, his family, what his experience was like performing 5 Call to Prayers a day. He looked at me with the most kind eyes and said, he was taking his family on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia where he was from. He mentioned he enjoyed taking time each day to worship because it gives him peace. It is like meditation he said a way to find calm. My heart and mind was smiling. My judgement had since passed and new pathways and experiences in my mind and heart were being created because I was connecting with a human being…a human who belongs to a religion that is very often judged.
I feel I am an educated woman who still can get swayed by my experience in the Marines, the intelligence I received, what I read and hear in the media, and what people around me talk about. I studied the Palestinian Israeli conflict in college as my major was Political Science with an emphasis on International Relations. I can study, read, hear all I want, but meeting people, experiencing the culture first hand I learned the most. Listening to the Call to Prayers, visiting the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, staying in a beautiful Palestinian hotel in Jerusalem, being herded through a check point in Bethlehem and scoffed at by one of the guards, walking the steps of Jesus Christ on the Via Delorosa in the Old City of Jerusalem, being escorted by a poor Palestinian man, praying and meditating it the Garden of Gettsemene, standing on the womens side of the Western Wall or Wailing Wall, being conned into getting my tennis shoes shined, floating in the dead sea gave me so much perspective on life and what truly life is like outside of what news I hear and read in Southern California. It was incredible and an experience I will never every forget.
The one place where there was peace and everyone treated each other with respect, there were no pissing matches, no issues with prayer time was when I was in the CrossFit gyms. I had the opportunity to teach the Movement and Mobility Course in the two countries was Isreal and Turkey, and despite the conflict with the government in Turkey and its people, the Palestinians and Israelies in Israel, there was no animosity or issues inside the gym. It was as if the box/gym arena all prejudices, ego’s, conflict was put to the side, and change really could happen, friendships were formed, movement improved, lives improved, and nothing but gains were made.
My judgements and beliefs were squashed and new ones were formed. I am so grateful for the experience to travel- as I learn and experience humanity at its finest, weakest, and its actual reality! As a human who has been judged harshly by her own piers and who has also judged, my eyes, heart, and mind are open to experiencing what is true and real and dismissing anyone, anything who chooses to live life through judgement.
Experiencing Humanity
Experiencing Humanity
Experiencing Humanity