Fierce Love: On which side does love stand?

Shana Tova to my Jewish friends. I read a post today from a Rosh Hashanah liturgy:

This last year has been cursed with violence; death; broken buildings, bodies, and hearts. As we approach the one-year mark of this carnage, I'm praying with my head bowed in sorrow. I'm praying with ash in my mouth and tears in my eyes, with hope that there will soon be peace. That all in the region will soon come to remember their kinship, connectedness, and shared stories.

I'm praying, Please G-d; in your mercy, Allah; in the name of Love: Let there be peace. Praying we can all be free.

My prayers are with my Jewish family who have lost loved ones; may their memory be a blessing and may this new year bring you light and love. May the remaining hostages be returned.

My prayers are also with my Palestinian family and friends, who have suffered devastating loss of life, and destruction of buildings, safety, and security. I mourn that U.S. bombs have been used to destroy your world, and I am working to end that. Now.

And as I pray, I am committed to this truth: These people—all these people—are my family. They are all human; they all deserve love and dignity and a place to call home. I pray for a Free Palestine, the end of Occupation, and for Jewish siblings to thrive in a state alongside, also free.

These people—all these people—are also people. As an African American woman, I have been deeply affected by the philosophy of Ubuntu; it shaped my thinking in my book, " Fierce Love ." It is said in Bantu languages, : "A person is a person through persons." This philosophy is inherently humanistic and pacifistic, a worldview based on the belief in the fundamental interconnectedness of all human beings. Archbishop Desmond Tutu explained it this way: "...Ubuntu (is)—the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness...We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole world. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity."

In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail , the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. put it this way, "In a real sense, all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be...This is the inter-related structure of reality."

It is difficult in this time of extraordinary violence to stand for all the people, to demand a Free Palestine and the release of the Israeli hostages; to love the humanity of Palestinians and Israelis—be the Muslim, Christian, or Jewish, and advocate for their right to not only survive but to thrive. But fierce love requires complex thinking. Fierce love calls us to listen deeply, to learn from the stories of our neighbors—even those we consider our opponents—and to find a way to advocate for the greater good of people and the planet. Fierce love demands we take a stand for liberation, justice, and compassion. We must learn to stand on the side of love and ask, "What would love require us to do?" Don't all the people deserve that?

I don't think we can bomb our way to peace. I don't believe hatred can take us to love. I believe God is Love, and Love is the most powerful force on the planet. Love can cause us to tell the truth about what is broken in the world, and to face it so we can fix it. Love can cause us to increase the people in our tribe, and to think of their self-interest alongside ours. Loving our neighbor as we love ourselves is an ethical mandate in most of the world's major religionsThese are teachings grounded in Ubuntu. With them, we might get to a promised land, a land of peace for all the world's children.

This is my hope and prayer. Let's stand on the side of love.

Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis is senior minister and public theologian at Middle Church in New York. She champions racial, economic, and gender/sexuality justice and is the author of several books, including "Fierce Love" and the "Just Love Story Bible." Her work has been featured on ; and in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Ebony and Essence magazines.