It wasn’t only wickedness and schemingthat made people unhappy, it was confusionand misunderstanding; above all, it was the failure to grasp the simple truththat other people are as real as you.” —Ian McEwan in Atonement

“

The Adjacent Possibleby Dolores Wilber

The postcard read B C A left to right. Un remarkable landscape except for theletters indicating something not known.Important marks but god knows why.

has proposed a 4th law which is this. The game keeps getting more and more complicated and there are alwaysdifferent ways to play. This has lead to an idea called “the adjacent possible.”

A leap. A leap away and out of that inevitable disorder. Or maybe just a leap out of the game. It’s chancy but consider this. It’s like the first flying squirrel (and this isn’t my metaphor, others

have used it). Maybe that first flying squirrel just had ugly flaps of skin that came in handy when she jumped. Maybe there wasn’t anything inevitable in her genetic

encoding or the way her squirrel family raised her that taught her to fly. Maybe she just jumped into another trail of stars.

Can’t we all just jump—leap—into the adjacent possible? Will you jump with me? Or am I alone in this game?

THE ADJACENT POSSIBLE

by Dolores Wilber

Read by 10-year old Alex Schorsch

The three laws of thermodynamics have been explained as: 1 – You can’t win; 2 – You can’t break even; 3 – You can’t get out of the game.

This sounds like some people’s definition of hell, but it’s other people’s explanation of life on earth —or how energy happens, how things change. In modern times, thermodynamics has been based on theo-ries of mixing. When you mix cream into your coffee, the coffee and cream come into an equilibrium. Theenergy dissipates, it falls apart, but it doesn’t disappear. The swirls in your coffee, the tempest in yourteapot are fractals.

Fractals are units of measurement in geometry. They are irregular shapes, self-similar bits, that look like the whole of a thing but are independent of scale. They look similar, no matter how microscopically small they are, yet they all differ in shape and size. This phenomenon is almost more than a person can grasp. Each one is different and each one is the same. Like snow. Or mountains, Or clouds. Maybeeven like you or me.

The second law of thermodynamics —you can’t break even — is entropy—things fall apart, always. There’s disorder. And some say, the inevitable increasing disorder that leads to the inevitable heat death of the universe.

Someone

M I would likehim to bemartyredand me aswell. I don’twant one ofus to bemartyredwithout theother. I alwayswant to bewith him.And he feelsthe sameway. Yes,because I’malways withhim. I don’tlike beingwithout him. Most of thetime, you’llfind me with him. I’m withAhmed. You alwaysfind me withhim. I go toschool withhim. I go tofootball. I go to . . .anywhereI’m going Igo with him.

A So even ifyour motheris sad, youwant to diewith me?

M Yes.

I’m not better thananyone else.Let everyhouse give a martyr.

I want to do whateverAhmeddoes.

James Miller was killed while filmingthe documentary.

If a boy’s fault is one of wrong physical response, thecorrection may perhaps be made by physical means. But disobedience, carelessness, thoughtlessness are not primarily wrong physical responses. They are a failureof the boy’s heart and mind to correlate and respondproperly. Correction then should be directed at influencingthese attitudes, changing the heart and mind feelings.

Spanking a boy in a horizontal position in a more or lesssensitive region is not a direct approach to the desiredresult—does not lead even indirectly to influencing attitudes of the heart. The approach is so roundaboutthat he boy will seldom make the correct interpretation of its significance.

The contact is too far from the heart . . . There is no logicalconnection between the cause and the result.

If punishment is to be effective, there must be an intelligent connection between the failure on the boy’spart and the correction administered. The penalty must fitthe wrong. The boy must see the significance of his errorand the justice of the correction. The punishment mustteach what we want it to teach, or else it is completelyimpertinent. To attempt to punish a boy for disobedienceand thereby merely teach him dislike of the one administering the treatment is worse than no punishment.

The punishment needs to be understood by the boy andaccepted as fair and fitting. He must understand its purpose. At least he must recognize down in his heartthat it contains an element of justice—that he deserves it.

—Scout Leaders in Action by Walter G. MacPeek,Abingdon Press 1969

ImpertinentPunishment

AHMED I’m Ahmed. I’m 12-yearsold. I likeplaying withmy friends. I want to belike all thekids on mystreet. I don’tlike fightingwith anyone.

MOHAMMEDI’mMohammed. I was bornhere and I didn’t knowany of myfriends. So I startedgrowing andgrowing. And I got toknow myfriends.

I got to knowAhmed. He’s so niceto me. He’slike mybrother. He’s my verybest friend.Because he’sbetter thanthe others.He isn’tgreedy. He’s so niceto me. I want to benice toeveryone, all the world.Apart fromour enemies.

A It’s not goodhere. There’slots of shooting.Tanks come everyother day. The paramili-taries say ‘When tankscome intoour wherewe live. ’We mustblow some-thing up.’

M This is ahandgrenade,made of iron, sulfur and sugar and charcoal.

A For throwingat theenemy.

M This is toprotect us, tomake thebulldozers goaway.

A The handgrenade, it can’t hurt atank or abulldozer. But if it wasnear to anenemy, itmight kill him.A piece ofshrapnelcould go intohis eye, hishead, into anorgan of anenemy body.Maybe his heart. It might killhim. That’swhy weribbed it likethis, with amachine.

This otherone stays inone piece. It mightbreak in two,but most ofit staystogether.

This one fliesapart. I mean itfragments. All thesebits, they all fly at the enemy. If it landednear them, I mean.

M It’s not possible tohave peace.Becausethey have killedso manypeople.

A We’re thesame. Exactly likeeach other.

M Neither of usis stronger.

We’re thesame ineverything.

He and I arefriends tothe bone, likebrothers.

What hedoes, I want to belike him. If he dies, I want to dieafter him.And he’s likethat too.

The one who getsmartyred isvery happy.He goes toheaven andsees all hismartyrfriends.

M I worryaboutAhmed. I worryabout him as much as I worryaboutmyself.

A He worriesabout everyone, he worries.

M Why do Iworry aboutAhmed?

I’m afraidthat he willbe martyred.That he willdie and I won’t. I worry somuch abouthim.

A He worriesabout me, Iworry abouthim.

BB YY WW AA YY OO FF EE XX PP LL AA NN AA TT II OO NN

Transcribed and editedexcerpts from Death in Gaza

by James Miller