Until I’d read Sara Schley’s Jan. 2 column in the Recorder, “Planting Dates,” nothing I’d previously read or heard about the horrendous, ongoing Israel/Hamas all-out war in Gaza gave me any real hope of a possible near-term — or even longer-term — end to the ongoing slaughter (a slaughter in which, to be sure, the U.S. is an actively “guilty party” if only because we supply the money, weapons, and tacit encouragement that the Israeli government depends on). And even less hope of a genuinely lasting resolution to the conflict itself.

But when I read what Sara’s daughter wrote to her about the powerful vision of Vivian Silver, the young Israeli woman brutally murdered in November during the Hamas attack on Kibbutz Be’eri — “a vision of what is possible,” she wrote, “if we lead with love” — my spirits lifted. Sara wrote that Vivian’s devoted friends call her vision “Vivianism” ... and that “the voice of the murdered calls forth from the Earth, ‘Not for my sake violence. For my sake, love.’”

Is such a vision, of leading with love and forgiveness, as totally unrealistic as it seems, especially in the context of Gaza today?

I, for one, believe it’s not. And, to quote John Lennon, I know “I’m not the only one.” I believe that buried deep within each of us, though perhaps unbeknownst to us most of the time, there is a little seed, a quiet voice, perhaps the voice of God, that is urging us, pleading with us — the people of Israel, Palestine, and the United States — to break free from our cynicism and despair and to “lead with love and forgiveness.”

Perhaps the young people of Israel and the U.S. can find a way to lead the way together. Sara Schley’s moving essay reminded me that this is possible.

Randy Kehler

Shelburne Falls