A Cycle Unbroken

December 30, 2008

While horrific images flash across my TV screen each morning from Gaza, I hear only bellicose statements from both sides, nonsensical statements from the White House, and silence from most of the world. Meanwhile the children die, the young men die, families are shattered.

Want to read the same story, but with different names, different places, and a different time? Check out the story of the Nez Perce Indians. It has all of the same elements - determination to crush resistance, defiance, and yes - suffering. It ends with Chief Joseph's famous surrender -

"I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. The old men are all dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are -- perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever."

Does history repeat itself - sadly, yes it does.

--Greg