I thought I’d exorcised it with this art 8 years ago but lately it’s returned—when Instagram shows me shriveled children or journalists report on a godforsaken regime “intentionally preventing the entry of food, medicine, and fuel”.
Back in the 90’s, I knew the kings and chronicles of Israel
like my kids know The Clone Wars. Miracles, murders, and the
most badass female roles in the Bible. They even get lines!
In this story, Samaria is under siege. The Syrian army has the city surrounded,
entirely cutting off the Samaritans from their supply chains, farmland, and trade
routes. The Syrians wait outside the walls while the Samaritan economy
collapses and the people starve. When the king is out checking on things, a
woman shouts for his attention:
“Help me, my lord the king!”
“What’s wrong?”
“This woman said to me, ‘Give up
your son, that we may eat him, and tomorrow we will eat my son.’ So we boiled
my son and ate him, and the next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son, that we
may eat him.’ But she had hidden her son.”
This was not one of Pollyanna’s “happy texts”. It was a
terrifying text—also God-breathed and dutifully recorded historical fact as far
as my younger self was concerned. A desperate woman so hungry that she cooked
her kid and even fed him to the neighbor. Worst cooking show ever. Happy Mother’s Day.
In sharp contrast, in Jerusalem a few pages back, two sex worker moms of newborns asked their king for help after one baby died. They each claimed the surviving baby was theirs, but the king discovered the real mom by threatening to kill the live infant, causing one of the prostitutes to say, "no, please, my roommate can have it!" Because moms are like that. We hope.
But, after all, what can you expect from Samaritans? Those liberals who seceded from the kingdom God gave them (after the king started making authoritarian
dick-jokes?). The Samaritans were the bad guys. Of course they would be cannibals. The writers of this history saw
themselves as preservers of the true Israel, the Samaritans as faithless
bastards who couldn’t help but eat their young. Hadn’t God threatened as much
in Deuteronomy?
“If you do not carefully obey all
the commandments…
They will besiege all your cities…
Then you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters…”
Moses goes into more gooey detail but I’ll spare you. Good
book, my ass.
The Samaritans survived. They number fewer than a thousand in Israel today. They don’t recognize the kings and chronicles stories as canon. Abrahamic monotheists, they are
neither Jewish nor Christian and Deuteronomy is the end of their Bible. They
are Israeli citizens but some are also--because they live in the West Bank--Palestinians.
In the Jesus stories, Samaritans are a punch line because they worship at
the wrong mountain yet they are compassionate and giving, and still our
definition of a good neighbor.
For a year and a half, the besieged inhabitants of ancient
Pelistim have shouted for our attention. They’ve filmed their crushed and
broken and malnourished children, preemies whose incubators were besieged, bandaged
orphans, newborns literally frightened to death; fathers cradling burnt
daughters; weary displaced mothers mourning lost babies, carrying maimed
toddlers away from bombed tents; voices hoarse from pleading, hearts bleeding
silent into the sand.
And everywhere I see hands. Reaching for each other. Comforting,
supporting, healing, holding, searching, rebuilding, feeding, planting.
When it comes to protecting and providing for our young, hard-boiled America struggles with a lack of imagination and of will. Can't do anything about guns. Died of measles? So sad! God has a plan, or a concept of one. Poverty? School lunch debt? Medical bills? Get a job, kid. The foster-home-to-homeless-encampment pipeline is real and not our problem.
Meanwhile, we keep making equipment to fry other people’s kids faster and harder.
I'm starvin', darling, let me put my lips to somethin'/Let me wrap my teeth around the world/Start carvin', darling, I want to smell the dinner cookin'/I want to feel the edges start to burn
Come and get some/Skinnin' the children for a war drum/Put in front of the table, sellin' bombs and guns/It's quicker and easier to eat your young
(Hozier, "Eat Your Young", 2024)