No Words

Johannes and Janina are deeply committed to peace & justice for Palestinians. Johannes is a German journalist living in Jerusalem, and one day when we both had returned from visits to The Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, he said to me, "there are only so many ways to write about war and its effects on people--there are just so many words. It is difficult to describe to someone who has not seen or experienced it. Many writers like myself find times when we simply can't put the words on paper." I was not keeping a journal then, and I was not sure what Johannes meant. But, perhaps I have an idea now. Sometimes nothing seems to have the same relevance it once had. Momentarily, life seems to lose any familiar context, and words and language lose their meaning. Sometimes, the blank page seems to say more. People here need to tell about the war, and the memories are still raw. I know that the time of still silence at the end of the story, our eyes locked in a sacred quiet moment; that is often when the most is said. There are no words.