And G!d says: sometimes, the victory isn’t written for many generations.
Sometimes, freedom feels like the dread of being unable to turn back. Sometimes, an entire generation dies on an endless trek through the desert and nobody is willing to call it a victory until the survivors write the book of it.
And G!d says: Miriam and her dancers were among the first to reach the other side, all nimble feet and bangles, the hems of their skirts wet with salt.
They shook their tambourines into the desert sun, shouting LOOK! LOOK! so the Israelites wouldn’t have to watch their oppressors drown. And so we forgot. We take ten drops from our cup of joy, but not one for the way we could not bear to see them die.
And G!d says: you marched from your narrowest place into the river of neighbors.
That river carried you through the desert, past the army’s taunting spears, to the edge of the sea. And the river broke through it. It worked because you walked together, because you prayed and sang and danced together. You did not have to destroy and rebuild in order to begin again. You simply went together, and that made it new.
From Dane Kuttler's Unlikely Victories: a Handbook for the Good Fight, 2017
