Pilgrimage by Pen

Another poem and prayer in-progress

(Thank you @interfaith4ceasefire, Kira Allen and Gretchen Wegner for these images.)

This past Saturday, my heart especially ached, feeling geographically separated from loved ones who participated in the East Bay’s Interfaith Gaza Ceasefire Pilgrimage. I missed showing up alongside prophetic Bay Area beloveds like sistastar-artivist Kira Allen, and spiritual big brother Rev. Michael Yoshii.

I could sense Rev. Deb Lee’s vital, sacred organizing presence as I followed social media threads throughout the day. Thanks to her, many years ago, I was introduced to the postcolonial pilgrimage framework of Maryknoll Sister, Dr. Joanne Járuko Doi. I continue to find the work of these women to be phenomenal and urgently holy.

Because I believe pilgrimage is prayer, and prayer exceeds the bounds of space and time, I will try to join now with my pen, using Joanne’s framework:

STAGE 1. MOTIVATION and LONGING

Because my body needs a way to love the people of Gaza and the West Bank from here.

Because my body needs a way to move into the opposite of illegal occupation-turned-genocide and a rebranded Manifest Destiny.

Because the people of Palestine are my siblings down the hall in earthhouse.

Because the people of Israel are too though I am outraged at their leaders.

Because prayer is real energy, human heart to Source to human heart

of flesh of dazed

of gravecountry in rearview

of livelihood's olive trees in Wadi Foquin

of Israeli settlement on the hill above directing human feces into olivetree soil.

Because my fury is soiled and needs purification.

Because to walk arm in arm in arm in arm in Abrahamic lamentation.

Because if bodies don’t pray together, we will die some kind of death.

Because too much for one body must need have other bodies.

Because I stumble you lift, you fall I catch, we are cradle and complicit; we continue.

Because children’s eyes, parents’ ________________ (I cannot imagine a word sufficient for this space).

Because how to ever again rest the eyes.

Because what happens when sleep goes missing?

STAGE 2. PREPARATION & DEPARTURE

I set aside what or how I think this Pilgrimage should be.

I set down the heavy bag of my sins that will get in the way (sin = to miss the mark in archery), at the feet of the Holy Guardian of this thin place—

Just a few of the things in my bag: self-righteousness, individualism, fear, cowardice, guilt, agreeability, complicity, wanting to keep my comfortable lifestyle while also expecting things to change, sloth.

I carry forward my ancestors, bereft of homeland + forcibly removed in the new one. I carry forward their improvisational courage.

I carry forward my own longing to return, but nowhere to return to as an Asian body in diaspora.

I carry the shape of open space in my hands.

STAGE 3. JOURNEY & THE WAY

I walk with you from here. I am privileged to be able to do so. I am open to having my privilege transmuted into meaningful solidarity.

I notice the qualities of our shared space.

I bear witness to your day there. I pay attention to the roots of my longing here.

I trust my feet, our feet.

I listen for Palestine with at least five of my senses.

I breathe the space within me.

I breathe the space between us.

I open to You before and behind me, beneath and above me, beside and beyond me, within and right through me.

STAGE 4. RETURN & PROMISE

I have learned this was a day of global action; my partial homesickness believed it was just the East Bay. I promise to be less reactive, more mindful, caringly probing.

I’ve found and reached out to the LA Gaza Ceasefire Group. I will follow-up.

I’ve learned much more about the people of the Gabrielino Tongva Nation where I live.

I will parse my original body from my occupier body my occupied body yet create with them all as humbly and wildly as I can. I will affirm that Love is both spacious and directional.

I will pray my body into a life of repair insistent on a lineage of creativity and joy.

I will continue to follow my on-the-ground spiritually-rooted leaders and commend others to their work. I will continue to learn.

I will send others to support the creative activism of Mangoes at Midnight: https://mangoesatmidnight.myshopify.com/

This Holy Week, I will explore this gesture in prayer: palms down to palms up.

With you in decolonizing pilgrimage, prayer and palms,

Coke