Pass the Butter, Please (and the peace)

The news out of Tel Aviv yesterday perhaps sounded ordinary to our American ears: another suicide bombing in a place far, far away for reasons we can’t fathom because the dirt we build on isn’t as old as theirs. But, to those of us who feel pain when we hear of another young person cutting his or her life short, it was yet another sign that things aren’t getting any more peaceful in the world. It is also a reminder that a workable solution to all conflict must be found, even if it isn’t discovered in this generation.

Almost immediately, fingers were pointed, and the rifts deepened. In order for their to be lasting peace in that area of the world, a multitude of things have to happen, and sometimes I think the easiest thing to do is move everyone to some swanky resort somewhere else, level the Holy Land, and start selling off parcels to the highest bidders, with the proceeds going to women’s education initiatives or disease fighting programs around the world. But this solution is nearly as impossible as the right one, and so the fighting continues and even the most optimistic among us is left wondering whether or not any good news will ever come from Palestine or Gaza.

But, today, at lunch, I witnessed a simple act that left me hopeful and lost in the wonder that is simple understanding: I saw butter being passed.

I attended a lunch honoring some of Nashville’s finest volunteers. Among the long list of nominees were students who are part of a program aimed at acclimating immigrant youth to life in America by involving them in community service. It’s remarkable to see young people who came to America in order to escape persecution, poverty, disease or war helping people facing those same conditions here.

I was at a table of young women, freshmen and sophomores in high school, some of who had never eaten a plated meal at a hotel banquet before. As they tried to find out what knife or fork to use when, they happily passed the basket of bread around the table. When each had selected their roll, the plate of rectangle butter pieces made its way around. And, one young lady asked another if she would kindly pass the plate her way.

While this occurrence probably happens countless times in American hotels every day, this instance was remarkable because of the different backgrounds of these two teenagers. A Muslim had asked a Jew to touch and eat food from the same plate. Had we been on the Israeli border or somewhere deep in the Middle East where conflict and hate is taught along with first steps and first words, this never could have happened. It never could have happened because these two would have never eaten at the same table together, much less shared food from the same plate, hands touching as they exchanged the diary-filled china. In fact, the two might not have ever been in such close proximity to one another unless one was running full speed at a sidewalk café with a bomb strapped to her chest and $25,000 going to her family.

Granted, these young women were not Israeli Jews or Palestinian Muslims. But, the conflict that has gone on for millennia is much deeper than a faith tradition or a geographic birthplace. There is religion and geography involved, but there is also culture, technology, politics, history, identity, change, money, and fear. But, even though it was a Canadian/Native-American Jew passing butter to a Kurdish Muslim, I saw a glimpse of hope that perhaps some sort of peaceful coexistence could happen among all of humanity. While their national identities don’t mirror the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, their heritages do have their share of violent histories.

These two young ladies embody more than the peaceful passing of butter. Their involvement in their community service and educational programs demonstrates the desire many immigrants have to give something back to the country that has given much to them. Their desire to find a commonality as they ate their chicken and rice shows that differences and diversity enrich not merely our existence, our breathing in and breathing out, but everything we call ‘life.’ And, as youth, they have a unique optimism about their own futures. Flawlessly transitioning from speaking Kurdish among one another to speaking English to me, these butter-eating girls showed me that a shared meal is a great first step to understanding, even if the only spoken shared understanding is that no one really cared for the chicken.

At my predominantly white college, several friends of mine wondered what it would be like to go to a ‘black church.’ But no one ever went. One day, I went to a class in which the (yes, the) one African-American trustee of the university was speaking. I’ll never forget what he said: “If you want to understand me, don’t come to my church and see how I worship for an hour or so. Come to my house and sit down and eat with my family.”

I wish I had a banquet table big enough for all of the world at war to sit at and eat and pass butter together.