Kites.

The theory of relativism put to practical use: If something feels bad – put it next to something else that is worse. Like during exams spring 2009: Radiohead There There   on the ear, and 5:23 minutes of looking at the New York Times world in pictures. It kind of put my own up until then horrible unbearable situation under a bit more privileged light. Relativism usually works its magic if one knows how to use it. But what if you’re really down, and you look at the photos  – and end up seeing your own situation?

Right now it’s the church week for peace and reconciliation for Israel and Palestine. A week of focus, prayer and the ever so demanding effort of looking beyond one’s own beliefs. I spent three weeks the summer 2007 travelling with the Palestinian grass root movement Sabeel as a delegate to their annual conference for young adults. The program involved travelling around Israeli and Palestinian places. Jerusalem, Ramallah, Efraim, Hebron, Betlehem, Jeriko, Kapernaum and Nasareth, places that up until then were distant and close to imaginary places known from the Bible in sunday school or through troubling tv-reports, suddenly became concrete through buildings, food, sounds (nothing is like being awoken in Ramallah from several different mosques crying out their call to prayer far too early) and most of all, through faces, people and stories. So many stories, carving impressions in my brain forever. A varied program was set up with lectures given by international, israeli and Palestinian organizations working for promoting peace in the region thoroughly denouncing all use of violence.

I came to Paris for many reasons. One of them was to find a place to live with a good view, enabling me to think more freely. And so many times I have looked out on the sky, and remembered a calm morning in East-Jerusalem, at my friend’s house, seeing two dragons flying high up in the orange coloured morning air, so still. Held by the hands of two small boys. A silence profound, a technique refined. A thread so thin and so strong, and being all the way down here still making something fly high up there.

So that’s what you do. You remember kites, and the children who fly them. And you take a break, you go back to what you loved doing as a child, you master something, you forget the time and place a bit, you breathe, you laugh. You get some perspectives, some rest. You remember hope. And you get that kite flying.

Shoufat, Jerusalem