The Land of Living Stones

A post is long overdue, but it’s easier when there’s something truly unique and exciting to write about.

Thursday March 5th  I headed to Haifa on the northern coast of Israel, overlooking the Mediterranean sea. This was a trip arranged for a learning tour coming from Canada to see the work of MCC. I wanted to tag along to see Abuna Elias Chacour, Archbishop of the Melkite Church in the Galilee, whose quote inspired the title of my blog. His story is about how he was displaced as an Arab boy living in Palestine at the time of the war in 1948 and then he became a priest and worked tirelessly for ecumenism and peace/reconciliation. He has written great autobiographical books, including Blood Brothers and We Belong to the Land. Chacour is amazing in person truly, he was articulate and witty. The tour was continuing on to Nazareth, whereas I had to go to work the next day, so I stayed behind, by myself. It wasn’t my original intention, but I didn’t have any choice, so I decided to see the town. There are some beautiful Baha’i gardens that contain 1400 steps up to the Shrine of the Bab, the grave site of their dead founder and spiritual leader. Every member of the faith should make a pilgrimage and climb the stairs in their lifetime. Read up on Baha’i.

Haifa’s a mixed city with Christian and Muslim Arab Israelis and Jewish Israelis. It is the major port for Israeli imports/exports. They are renowned for their seafood so I wound up finding a restaurant that was recommended by the guidebook. Sadly, as a single woman, I felt quite awkward in this sit-down joint and then they proceeded to bring out like 12 different fancy salads, complementary with the meal but usually split amongst the table. I had an amazing shrimp and mussel dish with fresh lemonade. Divine. I took my awkward self out and made my way to what I thought was the bus station but which was actually Haifa’s train station. The bus that goes direct from Haifa back to Jerusalem was difficult to reach, and I wound up taking a real train to the bus, catching it, and then riding 2+ hours back to Jlem and then another bus to the old city and another bus to Bethlehem. 6 odd hours later, I arrived back home exhausted.

Friday (the 6th) was a working day and afterwards a friend I met in the Fall at this Israeli-Palestinian peace meeting invited me to attend Shabbat with him and his roommate, the two of whom I hadn’t seen since that meeting. They live in West Jerusalem and are something like modern Orthodox Jews. I was fascinated by the opportunity to experience Shabbat because I have never gone to a synagogue before or participated in any Jewish customs. First I arrived in the neighborhood before sundown so I would not be hampered by the turning of cell-phones and the closing of stores and ending of bus service that is the preparation for Shabbat. My friends busily cleaned up the apartment and put finishing touches on the meal (preparation of food is one of the parts of “work” not permitted during the day of rest). Also they turned on the lights they would need for the next day and set the timer on their oven so it would turn on itself to warm food for Saturday.

I went with my friend who is a guy to his congregation, but because men and women worship separately, I found myself alone in the back of a packed service, fumbling through the English-Hebrew Prayer Book my friend so thoughtfully sent with me. Everything is in Hebrew all around the world in the services, but many congregants are apparently from English-speaking countries originally so the women were helpful to me. We actually only stayed for the last hour of the program which ordinarily is two or more hours long. The community is said to be very unique because even as Orthodox Jews they allow women to participate extensively in the service and try to be egalitarian in their style. Feminist Orthodox…highly intriguing. The place is called Shira Hadasha and their website is this: http://www.geocities.com/shira_hadasha/

After the service I walked home with my friend and there were 10 of us together for the Shabbat dinner, I the only Gentile amongst them. They were most interested to hear about my time living in Bethlehem and I enjoyed learning more about life in Jerusalem in the Jewish community. The food was excellent and there was homemade challah bread, red wine, and the boys made salads, soup, chicken in rosemary wine sauce, and apple crumble. I was so impressed by these guys–I don’t have many male friends in the States who could accomplish such a wonderful meal all by themselves! We discussed a little politics but mostly other things such as the gift to humankind of Wikipedia…and Lithuania…etc.

On Saturday (the 7th) I was up bright and early to go to Akko/Acre with a crew from Bethlehem Bible College. We borrowed a van and headed off on the 2.5 hour journey, west to Tel Aviv and then north past Haifa. Unfortunately, we were lost in Jerusalem from the start, but then finally found the town. It was flat out gorgeous, terrific weather in the 80s and sunny, with a strong breeze off the Mediterranean. The sea was marvelous to gaze into and we spent a while strolling before heading into the Old City, mainly populated by Arab Israelis now. The city has a long, long history, as it was an ancient port that was revived by Crusaders, conquered and utilized by Ottomans, then by the British Mandate, and which has played significant roles in the state of Israel’s history. It also is spiritually relevant to the Baha’i faith.

We visited the Citadel which was a fortress used by Crusaders and Ottomans, and Britain and Israel. It is a very strategic location with beautiful stone structures that would probably have been highly useful for defense. There was also a mosque that I visited named Jazzar mosque after the tyrant from the Ottoman Empire who ruled ruthlessly (and I think he was insane too) killing many people. “Jazzar” means butcher. It was a beautiful mosque. Then we saw a small Israeli modern art museum and an ethnographic museum on the peoples living in the region during the British Mandate period. I was most disappointed not to get any fish while I was there, but maybe I will return one day. Everything is so expensive there, and it’s a huge tourist market for Israelis Jewish and Arab, and for foreigners like us We lastly splashed around in the Med for a little while, just to say we did. 

Life has gone on and on, with work ebbing and flowing, high tides of social activity and low points of rest and anti-social behavior on my part. Stay tuned for the next installment of exciting-days-in-the-life-of-Kim.   

The Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in the Old City of Jerusalem has a service annually on October 31^st, and not for Halloween! No, this day is remembered by many Christians (especially Lutherans) around the world as Reformation Day, a commemoration of that fateful day when Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg Church. Now, I am an Episcopanabaptiquaker by virtue of my various religious affiliations over the years and Luther never really grabbed my imagination or my interest too long. I was more into the shady dealings that brought the Anglican Church into being to curb papal power in England or the brilliant, brave martyrs of the brethren who were hunted down across Europe and killed indiscriminately by Lutherans, Calvinists, and Catholics. So I’ve never read his stuff though I’m a bit blindly prejudiced against him based on some things I’ve heard fifth-hand about his views.

 

Maybe it will all change this year with my weekly attendance at Redeemer, and my frequent contact with all the Lutherans in the Holy Land—there are eight American internationals I know in Bethlehem affiliated with them, plus countless in Jerusalem. There are I think at least three Lutheran private schools in Bhem too. They’ve really made a name around here. It’s pretty close to what I’ve experienced service-wise in Episcopal congregations…though I can’t say I know many of the hymns. The service for Reformation day included Arabic, English, Danish, and German speaking congregations that meet there for worship, and what a crowd we were! A school from Bethlehem got their choir kids special permission to enter Israel for their performance and it was great.

 

I’ve heard one good quip here attributed to Luther, that clergy are like manure. Spread them out and they encourage growth, but when all together, they stink. I saw dozens of people in clerical vestments, some not actually from Lutheran churches, but it was funny to see so many in one place. Having three languages alternating was interesting, and it was difficult to sing or recite when the voices around were speaking completely different words. I like though, that pentecostal sense of things, many tongues united for worship.

 

A few days ago I finished a book that I’ve long desired to read based on many positive recommendations: A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. I think it qualifies as some sort of American classic. I was extremely moved by the narrative and I found myself very much identifying with the voice of Johnny Wheelwright who tells Owen’s story from his perspective. As the best friend of a very unique individual who believes he is directly an instrument of God, Johnny plays the role of “Joseph”, the obedient observer, the man on the sidelines. I don’t want to ruin anything if someone hasn’t had the chance to read it, but it provokes a lot of interesting questions about faith-doubt, divine intervention, miracles-coincidence, the morality of war, etc. All those things that I like to ponder.

 

Especially in the extended scene of the Christmas pageant, I was struck by the story’s resonance with my spiritual journey/personal experience of life in the Episcopal church and then with being here in Bethlehem town—the original. Just as it’s the cast of characters in the pageant who make it profound, it is the living stones, the people of this land that make it holy, not the place itself.

Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

As I embark on a journey to Bethlehem in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (oPt), I hope that this will be a place where I can share my thoughts and experiences with those friends and family back home and anyone else who finds them interesting. My task is an assignment given through the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) as part of their Serving and Learning Together (SALT) program. For eleven months, dozens of young North Americans will be scattering the globe to…er…serve and learn. See their website: www.mcc.org/salt/ for more info on the program.

Particularly, I will be working with a school in Al-Khadr, a suburb of Bethlehem, in administrative activities, as well as helping out the MCC Palestine group as much as they need/want. There are few specifics yet but the Hope Flowers School has a great site at www.hopeflowersschool.org that you should also browse through. I spent a couple weeks in the West Bank and I really have a heart for the pain and beauty of the region which has been wracked by violence and war but which also has millenia of history and tradition. Particularly I am excited about the local peace and reconcilliation initiatives and non-violent conflict resolution that have sprung up underneath an international perception of danger and instability.

The title of my blog comes from the thoughts of Fr. Elias Chacour, a great peacemaker who lives in the Galilee and is a Palestinian Christian with Israeli citizenship and ancient roots in the area around Nazareth. He works as an archbishop of the Melkite (Greek Catholic) Church and has spoken around the world to encourage people, especially Christians, to work for peace in the Middle East. In his book, Blood Brothers, Chacour so eloquently notes that living stones, i.e. the people who live and work in the land, are much more important than the stone structures that so often capture the most attention by tourists and internationals. For Christians worldwide who make pilgrimages to see the churches and places Jesus was, Chacour urges them to pay attention to the plight of their fellow Christians who are a living monument to Jesus’ work but whose livelihood is ever threatened.

The SALTers will be gathered in MCC headquarters (Akron, PA) for an orientation week August 9-16, which will culminate in our dispersal around the world. In the remaining 15 weeks, I will be frantically attempting to prepare for the adventure by raising financial support, collecting cool-but-modest clothes and other desert necessities, and reflecting on what lies in store over the next year. Thanks for joining me in this endeavor!