A Tower Of Sorrowful Babble

       Yesterday morning I called my friend with the intention of rejoicing with her over the birth of her first grandchild. Rejoice together we did, but before too long the conversation somehow devolved into the heartbreaking events over the past week in Israel,

...and Gaza.

     In the afternoon I was in CVS picking out a baby card when I ran into another friend. We spent a moment chatting about babies and baby cards before we fell into talking about Israel and Gaza. We stood amidst the cheerful baby cards for a good twenty minutes venting our sorrow, our outrage, and ultimately our helplessness to do any thing about it.   
​      Over dinner my husband and I read the papers,

 ...talked about how heart-wrenching it all was, and tried, the same as we'd tried during breakfast and lunch, to figure out between us the answer to ending this terrible conflict.

       That night at 9:44pm my son called. He was down-hearted about all the suffering in Israel and Gaza. We talked about it until 10:45pm. At 10:54pm my daughter called from Los Angeles. She was also upset about Israel and Gaza. We talked until past midnight. 
         First thing this morning my husband and I started off the day by talking about it some more. 
        In the middle of the morning my daughter from Los Angeles called again. She was still feeling sad about Israel and Gaza and wanted to talk about it on her way to work. 
          As soon as my daughter hung up my sister called from Oregon. I was talked out about the Israel/Gaza war. I didn't want to talk about it any more. My sister didn't want to talk about it, either. We talked about it for half an hour.
       This afternoon I called my son-in-law, who's down with COVID, to see how he was feeling. He said he was feeling better, except for being distressed about Israel and Gaza and he wanted to talk about it. 
      It was after I hung up with my son-in-law that it occurred to me: Israel has always had a massive presence on the geopolitical globe, this last week more than ever in recent years. 
         And yet look at Israel's actual size:

       
        And within Israel, the size of Gaza:

         And though Israel and Gaza are 6,000 miles away from Columbus, Ohio, they’re right here in the front yard of my mind and the minds of my loved ones. It's all we can talk about.
          If only thinking about and caring about and talking about it could end the suffering and bring peace to this small, turbulent patch of the planet.