2019 writing competition

– by Mahmoud Hamarsheh –

If you want an Apple, you have to plant an apple tree

In our environment we care about agriculture a lot, and our ancestors cared even more, they took care of trees and planted them carefully, leaving the good reaps its own good fruit. They cared more about the trees and agriculture than they cared about the fruit, but their faithfulness gave them their harvest every year, and the year of drought blessed their little with much.

But perhaps now we care more about the fruit than we care about the tree!

Plant the seeds of what you want to harvest, if you want to see peace, do we cultivate peace?!

If it is true that we reap what we plant, what do you expect us to harvest?

Do we have peace with ourselves, our relatives and those around us?

Do we have peace with our environment? With the other?

If a tree would grow out of everything we plant in the soil, how many trees of garbage will we be surrounded with?

If we plant a seed and then out of it grows a tree which then gives us back all the negativity we put in while planting it, won’t this lead to air saturated with negativity and end up suffocating us all?

What we have done to our children

I think my grandfather, whom’s main profession was cutting building stones from rocks, was not only working hard in the land “the farm”, agriculture, and takes care of the plants. I think he was also praying to God while planting and watering his crops with the sweat of love.

I learned that agriculture is concerned with the roots and even the stem, which grows in a way that remains crooked and grows on in this shape, and sometimes we put weight on the branches to be bent, become low and easy to pick the fruit off the tree.

However, doesn’t the peace that we use the olive branch as a symbol of it will grow in a distorted way or will not grow because of hatred, hatred and the absence of peace.

We have to reject acts, ideas and principles objectively, not by partiality and using double standards .
If we reject violence, we need to reject it everywhere and from every perspective.

How much of the schizophrenia, contradiction, psychological distortion and confusion that we were told about growing up truly exists? How can we raise the new generation without all of this propaganda?

We tell children not to bully their peers and accept the other and not hate , but we do not act as role models.

The worship of idols is the worship of what must be used , or the use of what must be worshiped

The land is for us to use, not to worship, no matter how we refer to it in this relationship

We will not perish who lives on the to keep the land, there once was another saying which believed that the land belongs to the one who takes care of it or farms it, then if the land will grow and become alive, others will also grow and will also be able to live whether it be people, plants or animals.

And if they didn’t farm it and kept fighting, then they will die, the land will die, and the nature will die. The remains will only be stones , stones with no stories or life to tell, or maybe only sad stories to tell…

Let us be lavish souls, lives in peace, love honestly, generously give and laugh bluntly, treat innocently, give without asking for anything in return, and distribute instead of collect.
Forgive and do not hate