A Quote I Love

An anecdote on Ella's personal relationship with justice

“Our soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite.

Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody.

But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements?

Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.

For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.

Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing;And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.

I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house.

Surely you would not honor one guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both.

Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows -- then let your heart say in silence, ‘God rests in reason.’

And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky -- then let your heart say in awe, ‘God moves in passion.’ And since you are a breath in God's sphere, and a leaf in God's forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.” 

- Kahlil Gibran

The first time I heard this quote, I was at Clare's (my previous roommate) graduation from Barnard College. My prior year in New York shaped me into a person who is sure of myself and excited to stand up for what I believe in. This wasn’t even really a conscious thing that happened; but, using the subway, putting my foot down when a cab driver tried to take advantage of me, and even just going to a new school where I didn’t know anyone, heavily influenced my confidence. This newly flourishing sense of self gave me the footing that proved to be essential in the year to come. 

I had always been a very passionate child. My dad loves to tell the story of when I threw a tantrum so loud that I cleared out a restaurant in SFO and my feistiness and righteous attitude routinely come up when my family tells stories about my younger self. A couple of years ago, I remember finding a book in my mom's dresser titled, “How to Parent the Defiant Child.” It sent me into a sort of spiral where I convinced myself I was this flawed person for being loud about my opinions and challenging demands made of me. Am I implying that all of my tantrums were warranted? Certainly not. However, the negative connotation of questioning authority and wanting to understand why I must do certain things was rooted in this spiral. I didn’t understand why I was to do exactly what certain people told me to do, I wasn’t necessarily against doing them, I just wanted to learn why. As a parent, I see how that's extremely annoying. Nonetheless, I simultaneously see how these traits of mine have proved to be a central part of my personality. My parents have come to appreciate this part of me now. My mom likes to remind me now and then that “well-behaved women rarely make history” and my dad is just glad that I (mostly) listen to him now. My passion often overpowered my ability to reason when I was younger, but as I have gotten older, I have become much better at finding space for reason too. This synergy between the two, accompanied by my interest in law and history, has developed into a strong sense of justice. 

I went to my first protest when I was about 12, a women’s march protesting against Trump’s 2016 presidency, which would soon unfold. After that, I went to several more women’s marches, followed by “March for Our Lives” after the school shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School where 17 people were killed, then BLM protests after the murder of George Floyd, and finally, the countless protests against the genocide in Gaza for the last 11 months. I think part of the reason I have been so politically active from a young age is that I have always felt that I have a deep-seated need to do something meaningful with my life. It was never something I tried to cultivate, I think it is just embedded in who I am. I have a really hard time understanding how some people can go on with their lives and put the horrors of the world on the back burner. Like the phoenix, my passion has burned to its destruction, and yet somehow still it continues to rise from the ashes. Which, I guess, is also a sort of beautiful kind of resilience. I have found a lot of comfort in my passion, and in turn, I find comfort in action toward justice, whether it be protests, in my classes, on my Instagram story, or on this blog. I think there is a sort of magic that comes from the fire that passion ignites, that fire in your belly you feel at protests or during a heated debate. For me, the feeling of passion and righteousness, and the tireless pursuit of justice is that magic. 

My ability to reason, however, didn’t come to me as easily as my passion did. I have to remind myself in these times of passion to come back down to Earth and ask questions. The genocide in Gaza was a test of putting this synergy to work. I saw the pictures and videos from accounts like Eye on Palestine and was outraged, rightfully. But realistically, I didn’t know enough about the history of Palestine and the zionist occupation to have a well-educated opinion or discussion about it. I saw those posts and thought to myself, “I can’t justify this in any situation, this is never okay” but I knew I had to learn more; so, that’s exactly what I did. Now, I have the knowledge that accompanies my passion, equal in importance just playing different roles. Truthfully, the fact that those images aren’t enough of a reason is an entirely different conversation. Finding reason is still something I struggle with in times of passion, but I work toward the oneness and melody that Gibran speaks of every time I feel that fire beginning to burn. 

When I heard this quote for the first time, it was just weeks after Clare and I protested outside Columbia’s campus while Aya was being arrested for protesting for Palestine. I know I will always remember the fire I felt even on my sixth hour of waiting outside the jail for Aya to get out. I was shocked that even with one hour of sleep in the past day, that fire was still burning furiously. Among our friends, months of protests and encampments and tears precursed that day. As the faculty member read this poem, I began to cry. It felt like someone had explained my lifetime of internal dialogue to me in a single minute. I thought about this poem almost every day for weeks after I heard it, I think I have read it so many times it's memorized now. It solidified for me both, that I am not alone in the struggle to find this melody, and, that finding it is critical to staying sane. It encourages me every day to work to be a lover of all of my elements, though, I clearly have a favorite. 

Khalil Gibran is a Lebanese-American writer. Israel has committed terror attacks in Lebanon this past week by bombing civilians and continuing the fearmongering propaganda that has been used in Palestine for the past 76 years. Over 700 people have been martyred in Lebanon by Israel so far, with no intention to stop. Netanyahu and the U.S. Government continue to pay us lip service while cities in Lebanon are leveled. Demand an arms embargo from our political leaders, keep protesting, and never stop speaking truth to power.