غزّة – AN FRAOCH

Help them

The first thing they always ask is

“How are you my friend?” with a beaming smile before you can even get a word in as they hug you the way friends should hug; with warmth and sincerity.

Not the German way with one arm by their side and barely getting close to your body; barely even patting you on the back with one hand before quickly pulling away.

You respond with a “Don’t worry about me. How are you? Are your family okay?”

“Hamdulillah”, they always say. “Alhamdulillah.”

The same is the case when you approach them in the knowledge that they have lost someone.

“I’m so sorry for your loss”, or “I am so sorry that they are doing this to your people”, or something similar is all you can offer as a pathetic, pointless condolence.

“No problem. Alhamdulillah. Allah is enough for us.”

Why am I even allowed to walk on the same ground and breathe the same air as these angels on earth – these superhuman superhero saints?

These People of God in this godforsaken place?

How do they keep going?

“Allah is sufficient”, “I don’t know what I would do without my religion” or “They will pay for their evil on judgement day”, they say time after time.

How can it be that they are the ones consoling me?

Embracing me when I tear up?

Asking me how I am doing?

When they have been to hell and back, through hell, over and over, showing up time and time again for their people, living and dead, near and far?

Thank you for coming.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for always being here with us.

Thank you for everything you do for us.

Whaaaaaaaaat???!!!

“What can I do for you?” I ask, hoping not to be met with a tragic story of another human lost, another heart broken for the umpteenth time.

“Pray for them. Pray that this madness will end” or “You are doing more than enough”, they always say.

Whaaaaaaaaaat???!!!

“Will you be singing at the next demo?”, they ask, with an enviable, unbelievable, unfathomable twinkle in their eyes.

I know that behind the smiles and the twinkling eyes there is an ocean of pain.

How couldn’t there be?

But they power on regardless – in a manner I will never even come close to emulating – with their heads held high, standing tall and steadfast.

I don’t even deserve to walk on the same ground or breathe the same air as you angels on earth, you superhuman superhero saints.

You godliest of People of God, not of this hellish, hell-hole, hell-bent-on-your-annihilation Earth.

Beyond People of God.

Beyond God’s People.

God lives in them.

In them I see God.

They are doing more than God’s work.

They are God on Earth.

God help them.