Hi.
I was in a shop today looking at local Israeli artists' handcrafted jewelry and couldn't help but notice that the radio was tuned to the news and that from amid the jumble (to my untrained ears) of Hebrew the word "Hamas" kept surfacing, clear and sharp. I could have continued casually browsing through the glass cases asking about this necklace and that pair of earrings and ignored the broadcast. But it was a tiny shop and the saleswoman and I were the only ones in it. We were in our own little glass case of a world, with the traffic shop-window-distant, muffled, and I couldn't pretend I wasn't aware of the state of things in Israel. The pain, the angst, the weariness, the stiff upper lip and the going about as if nothing was the matter.

So, I said, "It's troubling news today, isn't it? With Hamas." I glanced up and she nodded looking relieved to have it in the open. We talked, and though her manner was casual and easy, when our eyes met they held and I could see she earnestly wanted me to know and to understand. She said, "I'm glad you're living here so that you can see. Because when you are over there (the U.S.) it sounds like Israel is always the bad guy, that Israel is doing terrible things to the Palestinians. But the news doesn't report the rockets that are launched from the Gaza Strip into Israel again and again. The people there run into the bomb shelters again and again. But the news doesn't report that."

My former college roommate who immigrated here 25 years ago said similar things when she called me to tell me she was not coming to see me tonight after all. A rocket had hit just outside of Tel Aviv and she was afraid to make the hour drive from there to Jerusalem. Instead she was going to clean the bomb shelter in their apartment complex. Her daughter is in the military and had called earlier to say she wouldn't make it home for the weekend. The military is on alert.

The friendly Palestinian cab driver we got to know today just shook his head and looked sad and frustrated about the situation. When Tim asked him what he thought the answer was, he pointed to heaven and said, "God. He knows." He and his wife adopted a baby girl recently, after twelve years of being childless. He and Tim talked about children and customs of engagement and marriage. They warmly shook hands at the end of the ride, the driver calling Tim a good man.

And tonight a weary professor at the university spoke of his wife's family who have spent most of the month in a bomb shelter in one of the Israeli towns north of Gaza. The organization he directs will be sending volunteers to help the refugees of the military engagement. His organization helps persons of all nationalities and religions, so it's very possible they will be helping refugees of both sides.

There are a lot of good men and women, a lot of babies arriving to joyful parents, a lot of people weary of the destruction on both sides. Surely somewhere in the long history of hurt there is a chance for peace. The people we talk to agree with us when we say we will pray.