Rising from Ramah, loud lament, Rachel, inconsolable, crying for her children— their bodies beaten, brutalized, burned, scattered across landscape; their lives carried away, taken captive, huddled in darkness, held under death’s shadow; their futures uprooted, stripped of leaf and flower, left to dust and wind— as they sink into the ground, which opens its mouth to receive their blood and cry out to God. Wandering in wilderness, one voice, Hagar, helpless, hopeless, weeping for her children— their bodies bombed, blasted, broken, buried beneath rubble; their lives abandoned, alienated, sheltered in tents, forced from refuge to refuge; their dreams smashed, splintered into kindling, turned to smoke and ash— as they sink into the ground, which opens its mouth to receive their blood and cry out to God. Rachel refuses consolation in Hagar’s desolation. Hagar finds no peace in Rachel’s pain. Mothers, without comfort, mourning for their children, because they are no more.
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