Love Begets Love
Lots on my mind.
It seems like the world is divided, but that doesn’t match my lived experience. All of my stress and anxiety comes from what I read or hear in the news. I know there are places in the world experiencing great harm—Gaza is on my mind. My experience in Bethlehem, filming with Palestinian Christians (watch here), helped me understand the human side of war. The people who are suffering just want to survive and live in peace.
Israel security wall next to a Bethlehem playground.
I can see pretty clearly that what Israel is doing in Gaza is genocide. I don’t understand why war crimes are so hard to prosecute. One innocent person dying while in line to receive aid should be enough to justify criminal charges. But the global attitude toward suffering numbs as the death count grows. It leaves me feeling helpless. Especially when speaking out against Israel gets me labeled “antisemitic.”
I mean, dang... what happened to Jews during the Holocaust is a nightmare. I don’t deny that. I have also come to understand that trauma begets trauma. If Israel as a nation never properly healed, their default posture toward the world is probably fear and bitter suspicion. Protect and defend. That makes sense to me. After WWII, how could Israel trust anyone again?
But now Israel is the aggressor. And how tragic is that? That the oppressed has become the oppressor. Yet we’ve seen that pattern before—generational domestic violence often works the same way.
What’s also hard to understand is our own country’s obsession with deporting “illegal” immigrants (and seemingly legal citizens too). We’re building deportation detention centers that look an awful lot like Nazi concentration camps. Shouldn’t Israel be the first to say, “Wait a minute... that looks familiar”? Where’s commentary from Germany?
I know how I feel. I feel hopeless. Like something is deeply wrong or broken, and I don’t know what to do about it. I need context to make sense of things, but uncovering what’s true is deeply problematic. What is “true” has become subjective—based on political affiliation.
Remaining neutral has never been the goal. Remaining in Jesus has been. But when both extremes claim loyalty to Jesus... whew, boy. Jesus command to “love your enemy” (Matthew 5:43-45) has never been more crystal clear.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”
Immigration has long been a political talking point, but I remember my trip to Lebanon like it was yesterday. It happened at the same time arguments were exploding on social media about the U.S. accepting Syrian refugees—back in 2015. Ben and Violet were three years old at the time. I remember reading stories about families boarding boats to cross the Mediterranean Sea in search of safety. Many died trying.
One story showed a photo of a 3-year-old boy, face down in the sand, washed up on a beach in Greece. He looked like Ben. I remember feeling stuck—wanting to do something, but not sure how.
Not long after, the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM) reached out to our pastor, Mike Slaughter, about a Christmas Miracle Offering opportunity. They proposed raising money to support refugees around the world and, in doing so, raise awareness about the rising crisis of global migration (which connects, for better or worse, to U.S. immigration debates).
To my surprise, Pastor Mike sent me—just me—to Lebanon with a camera to capture the story. This was my chance to do something. I had to grow up fast. I read everything I could about refugees. Who are they? Where are they going? Why are they leaving? How are they getting there?
Dan on a rooftop in Beirut, Lebanon (2015)
I studied Lebanon’s history of receiving refugees from Syria, Palestine, and Jordan. I learned that, much like in the U.S., the Lebanese are divided in their opinions about acceptance. Incoming refugees strain infrastructure—trash collection, food security, internet bandwidth, housing, jobs. Yet a national pride remains: one in three people in Lebanon is a refugee, the highest concentration in the world.
GBGM provided me with a fixer. In film, a fixer bridges the production team and the local context—handling permits, locations, crew, customs, logistics. It was the first time in my career I could say, “I need [this],” and my fixer would get it done. He hired a film crew, lined up interviews, secured transportation, even took care of meals. My job was to stay focused on the story: to humanize refugees and reframe the UMC’s narrative around emergency immigration.
Syrian refugee camp in Northern Lebanon
In three days, I visited Palestinian and Syrian refugee camps, interviewed religious leaders, joined an Iraqi refugee support group, visited a kindergarten, and listened to personal stories from our crew. I learned this: a refugee is never a refugee by choice. It’s always by force. No mother boards her child onto a rowboat for entertainment. It’s because there’s no other choice.
Supporting a refugee means four things:
Supporting their right to stay,
Supporting their right to safe passage,
Supporting their right to resettle,
Supporting their right to return home.
The online conversation at the time was only working to divide people for political gain. Refugees aren’t terrorists. They’re middle-class bankers from suburban Syria. They’re humans grieving the loss of home.
My final meal before flying home was an Armenian spread shared with the whole crew. The food just kept coming. I had planned to pay for dinner as a thank-you, but they thanked me instead. I boarded the plane full—literally—and with a handful of new friends.
Kindergarten in a Palestinian refugee camp, Beirut.
Two weeks later, I was editing footage in my office when I learned ISIS had detonated a bomb a block from the kindergarten we visited. I don’t pretend to understand the geopolitical motivations behind bombing Palestinian children in a southern Beirut refugee camp, but I knew the project in my hands was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to reframe the conversation.
That Christmas, our church raised $550,000. Part of that funded emergency aid kits for refugees in Jordan. GBGM used the final video to launch a global UMC campaign. The initiative still exists, with a $2.5 million annual fundraising goal.
What made that experience so impactful? My heart broke. I witnessed unjust suffering caused by politics and war. And through relationship, skill, and circumstance, I had a chance to make a meaningful contribution.
How did that experience shape how I learn today? Context is everything. What we see on the surface rarely tells the full story. I’ve learned that I’m an experiential learner. My truth is truth experienced—truth observed first-hand.
And yet I still struggle with what to do about what’s happening in the world today. I feel isolated...like I’m in a bubble. Safe. Happy... and guilty for having happiness. As an experiential learner, I want to take my camera to Gaza. I don’t feel like I have the right to comment without critical context.
I grow more and more frustrated with keyboard warriors who think their opinion carries more weight than journalists, scientists, educators, researchers—people who spend their lives doing the work. I love globalization. I see human migration as an opportunity to taste new flavors and hear new stories. I struggle to understand why we see “The United States” before we see “Earth.” Tribalism is a cancer.
So I’m working on micro-actions.
When BIG opportunities to shape paradigm-shifting conversations aren’t available, I focus on small, everyday acts. This week, I painted a sun on our shed with Violet. I watched her overcome a two-year OCD-related fear of bees. Huge victory. A happy sun now presides over our backyard—the kind of tone I want presiding over my life: joy, color, warmth, opportunity.
Violet painting a sun on our shed.
O Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun, won’t you shine down on me?
I also spent the last two months photographing Ben’s baseball team. Hundreds of photos, hours of editing. From a freelance perspective, maybe $6,000 worth of in-kind services. But my gratitude for Ben’s opportunity to play motivated the work. I did it with joy. And after hearing from the coaches and parents, I know it was received with joy too.
Trauma begets trauma.
Gratitude begets gratitude.
Generosity begets generosity.
Forgiveness begets forgiveness.
Mercy begets mercy.
Grace begets grace.
I’m working day by day to ensure a legacy of love. That mine becomes ours.
Because love begets love.
And between the BIG moments, that day-to-day grind is enough.