Day 3 of Immersion: Last Day in Jordan and Crossing to Palestine

Our next day began with a drive to Madaba to see a church built on the remains of a mosaic floor:


6th Century mosaic on the floor of St. George Mosaic Map Church in Madaba.

Above: St. Georges Mosaic Map Church Madaba, an Orthodox Church in Jordan.

After visiting the church in Madaba, we headed to Mount Nebo.  Along the way, we passed many Bedouin homes.

Above: Bedouin dwellings in Jordan. 

Mt. Nebo also has a 6th century mosaic and is said to be the spot from which Moses viewed the Holy Land.  The views are, of course, spectacular.  The idea of approaching the mountain top and seeing below it a piece of fertile land that a wandering tribe could possibly call their own... the hope was real.  The hope in my own heart felt real as I glimpsed it from a distance and longed for the coming moment when I would walk on that ground with my own feet.

Above: Mt. Nebo, where Moses is said to have viewed the Promised Land.

I thought about Moses.  Our stories suggest that Moses never made it to the Promised Land.  I imagined him looking at the Holy Land with longing, like many Palestinians do.  Maybe he saw that place and knew in his bones a sense of belonging, yet also knew he would never be able to touch it with his own hands.  I imagine Palestinian children today, looking at a wall that blocks their view of the land they have heard their parents talk about... I imagine that key to a house that an Israeli family lives in today being passed from hand to hand as the house is described from memory.  

That sense of longing is real, too.  Perhaps like the Jews of the Exodus, many of the Palestinian people are landless.  While they don't quite wander through the desert, since their movement is so restricted, I imagine their longing for the home they know from memory or from a parent's story.  It must be terrible to live in a refugee camp, knowing that only 50 miles away, your home is there-- so close and so far.

The sense of belonging and longing for the Holy Land is felt by many people... I often think, however, that folks have trouble imagining the longing of others.

Perhaps I am getting side-tracked, though.  

After Mt. Nebo, we went to the Jordan River.  We first visited the site of a 3rd century monastery built at the spot believed to be John the Baptist's cave:

Below is the cave (and the monastery built around it):

The site of John's cave was had water access (a spring is nearby) and is surrounded by reeds that make a beautiful sound.  There is also wild honey and locusts.  The spot felt very intense for me and I had a spiritual experience at the site that I prefer not to share (at least not yet).

Above: Remains of a 3rd Century monastery at the site that may have been the cave John the Baptist lived in. There were locusts, honey, and the Jordan near the cave.

(at Jesus Baptism Site, Jordan River)

• Spot thought to be where Jesus was baptized. Remains of the church around it are from the 3rd Century.

Oh, hello. (at Jesus Baptism Site, Jordan River)

 (at Jesus Baptism Site, Jordan River)

Above: Jesus Baptism Site, Jordan River

Metaphors.

My experience at the Jordan River was intense.  It left me questioning the universe and reality in a way that I cannot explain.  Sometimes you feel in your bones a truth that is more true than other truths.  

Maybe you know what I mean.

Above:  Feet in the Jordan River. I can’t even… (at Jesus Baptism Site, Jordan River)

The Evangelical Lutheran Church at the Jordan River in Jordan gave us our tour at the Jordan.  It was lovely.  The pastor was wonderful in his descriptions and the sense of spirituality he brought to our time.  He gave us lovely blessings in the water and had a great energy and commitment to justice.  After our tour, he invited us back to the church for coffee... of course he did!  Everyone in Jordan has a fantastic sense of hospitality.

Above: Lutheran Church at the Jordan River. (at Jesus Baptism Site, Jordan River)

I found the witness and spiritual work of the Lutheran churches in the Holy Land to be quite impressive.

Above: Altar art inside the Lutheran Church. Stunning.

Above:  Feels after crossing the border into the West Bank. It took 4 hours and was a terribly dehumanizing experience– one that Palestinians go through regularly in their own country. It’s now nearly 2:00 a.m., but we are in Nazareth and will rise early for more. 

We went through a Palestinian border crossing.  Israelis and other groups (like our own) can go through another one, but we went through this crossing, one Palestinians must use, so that we would see what few visiting do: how dehumanizing the experience is for Palestinians who are simply trying to enter their own country.  

There were about 7 different checkpoints our vehicle had to pass through, then about 7 different lines we had to get in to get through the border.  Baggage and Passport.  Passport.  Baggage.  Passport and questions.  More passport and questions.  Baggage.

People in our group were stopped and harassed at various points, but faced only a fraction of the discrimination that Palestinians face… GOING INTO PALESTINE.  It took 4 hours, but likely would have taken more on a different day at a different time, and surely would have been worse if we were Palestinian.  The process treated us like animals.  The atmosphere is strange.  People squish through, simply trying to get home amidst chaos and never-ending lines.  Despite the chaos, one must keep smiling if one doesn’t want to be harassed by Israeli security.  

Happy cows come from…

wait.

Peter observed a young man trying to speak to a member of the Israeli security.  He spoke in Arabic.  “This is Israel.  Learn to speak Hebrew,” said the man.

It was Palestine, not Israel, and even in Israel, one of the national languages is Arabic.

A 15-year-old boy stood next to one of my peers in line.  “Do you see what they’re doing to us?” he asked.

“I do,” he said.

We see it.  We will not be silent.

...

After crossing the border, we had a late dinner in Jericho before heading to our hotel in Nazareth.

Here are a couple of videos that may help you better see and hear what is going on in these lands:

Life in a refugee camp.

It's a Sign

I guess if your school is really old, its signs need fixing.

Deuteronomists

The response to the destruction of Northern Israel reminds me of much American reaction to the September 11 attacks.  I see the response as one toward homogenization in an attempt to weed out “dangerous elements.”  For Judah, this meant eliminating forms of worship that were not exclusively of YHVH.  I have to wonder what forms of Jewish identity were stamped out by these efforts of the Deuteronomists.  By creating more uniform worship, they believed they were helping their people.  Through their lenses, tragedy struck when the people and their rulers failed to live up to their covenant with YHVH.  Somewhat similarly, there seemed to be a heightened move by many toward America as a “Christian Nation” in the wake of 9/11.  The movement suggested that those who were not part of white, Christian America were not living up to what they “should” be doing and were damaging the country (with special vehemence against our Muslim brothers and sisters).  I think in both instances, fear of destruction led people to cling too tightly to what they felt were their identifiers.  While many would see this as a “return” to a former way of doing things that “worked” (That mythical time in which we all worshiped YHVH properly was so wonderful!“), it strikes me more as a move toward homogeneity (which may, indeed, reflect other similar movements in the past).  People feel safe when others are "like them” (because I’m not a bad person).  

Perhaps, like circumcision, food laws, and other cultural markers, movements toward “sameness” do in some ways strengthen a people when they are at risk.  If people come to strongly value their membership in a group and the things that make them part of it and like their neighbor, they will likely try to protect it.  However, I would imagine that many people whose “high places” were taken away were left unhappy and perhaps less likely to find value in a group that was depriving them of their religion.  

Gendered God

It’s interesting to consider imaginings of the divine that are explicitly gendered.  In pondering gendered metaphor, I reflected on my own tendency to use ungendered language surrounding God and how “distruptive” gendered metaphor is for me.  It limned the importance of using gendered conceptions of God (for me) to break us from our habitual theologizing and expand our imaginings and the ways that different imaginings have potential to resonate with others, even if they challenge my personal theology.

Voice

"Exercising the right to speak says something about the power and value of authorizing one’s own perspective. To be author of our own reality is to claim the value of our experience, to trust our ability to reason and reflect, and to accept ourselves as we really are. This is central to the meaning of “voice” as authoritative expression."

— Mary Donovan Turner and Mary Lin Hudson, Saved from Silence: Finding Women’s Voice in Preaching (Lucas Park Books, 2014), 12.

The Attraction of Apocalypse and the Evil of the End

spinachandmushrooms:

Love it. #seminary #theology

Process Theology

"To the extent that our conscious beliefs are in tension with the universal features of human experience, we are split within ourselves.  We do not experience psychic wholeness, since our emotions, valuations and purposes and consequently our behavior are informed by conflicting beliefs.  For the sake of psychic wholeness and consistency of action, it is important for our conscious beliefs to correspond with the prereflective beliefs involved in our primordial experience."

— from Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition by John B. Cobb, Jr. and David Ray Griffin

San Francisco

Golden Gate Park in February

The Last Lecture

Cheating in Seminary

revelation19:

(via seekinguncertainty)

Day 2 of Immersion: Day in Jordan

Hardly slept, even though I was exhausted. Too many thoughts! Anyway, time to see Jordan in daylight. Today’s plan: meeting with the Jordan director of the Orthodox Initiative, the Jordan liason to the Middle East Council of Churches, and meeting with Syrian and Iraqi refugees. Up and at ‘em! (at Century Park Hotel)

Good morning, Amman.

We spent our first day with the Orthodox Initiative.  Our first task was meeting with Wafa, the leader of the organization, whose work is primarily with refugees.  She briefed us on our activities for the day and what the Orthodox Initiative does more generally and some of their big projects as of late.  The Orthodox Initiative is a Christian (Orthodox) organization.  

Hospitality in Jordan is amazing. When we got to the offices for the Orthodox Initiative, we were given some info about the work they do and the refugees we would be visiting before we had to load up in the vans. “There is no time for more questions now, but we will have coffee.” Priority 1: generosity.

 
In the van, driving through Amman.

The feeling of hospitality continued as we moved on to our next site, a church where we were greeted with tea and snacks.  

Jordan almond in Jordan. 

Again, when we arrived at this church to see the Orthodox Initiative, one of our denominational partners in Jordan, to give heaters, jackets, and food parcels to Paelstinian, Iraqi, and Syrian refugees, they offered us tea and snacks.  Arabic hospitality.  It’s a thing.

The Orthodox Initiative, with support from the UCC and Global Ministries, has helped get food parcels, jackets for children, and space heaters to Syrian and Iraqi refugees whom we met at the church.  After the supplies were handed out by some of my peers, we got back in the vans and headed to a refugee camp in Jordan.  The camp houses Palestinian refugees, the families of whom have been at this spot since 1948.  The town was originally tents, but with the help of the U.N., has become more stable housing.  

An image of Jabal el-Hussein, a refugee camp that Jordan set up in 1948 for displaced Palestinians. Originally tents, people built more permanent dwellings after it became clear that they would not be able to return home. The homes are incredibly small, do not shield inhabitants well from the elements, and have become permanent realities for refugees who cannot work in their host country and cannot return to their home.

Images of the refugee camp

The above picture is from inside the home of a family we visited. The kitchen is 2 square meters, if that. There are two other rooms, each roughly the same size and filled mostly with the family’s limited belongings. “Bedding” (looking less warm and comfortable than my camping gear) is stacked everywhere. Their ceiling leaks, the walls do not meet the ceiling in some places. 8 people live in this home; every inch of the floor is used when they sleep. The family is very hospitable. Their home is ours, they tell us. They seem so grateful to be seen, to feel that someone in the world still cares about the struggles of Palestinians.

Here's a short, 5 minute history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.  I'll be posting more "versions" of this history, some of which I don't agree with (I feel some tellings are unfair, biased, and leave out important elements that help make more sense of the story).  This particular telling is quite focused on the situation as it stands now:

My Father's Hats

Day 1 of Immersion: Travel to Jordan

I'll be sharing my trip to Jordan, Israel, and Palestine.  I'll share photos and thoughts as well as other materials for spiritual reflection.  I'll also intersperse videos that are educational and that help show the situation on the ground, as well as the work of some organizations we were working with.

Boarding in about 10 minutes. Kinda nervous. First time to places where English is not the primary language. Also: someone is whistling “America the Beautiful” in the Lufthansa terminal.

“Any attempt to cloak the most extreme forms of human suffering with a view that sees in it intrinsic meaning fails to address the suffering we meet at the heart of the Shoah. Indeed, after Auschwitz we may say that it is a moral and spiritual outrage to justify anyone’s suffering, whether the most despicable human being or the Messiah himself, for some transcendent reason."— Henry Knight

Today I begin my trip in Jordan and Israel/Palestine.  I think this quotation is of particular relevance to the situation in these lands.

We cannot justify anyone’s suffering.

__________________________________________

"We're now flying over Israel," the Lufthansa flight attendant announced over the loudspeaker.

"Philistine!" shouted a passenger, followed by another.

The flight attendant went on, using the occupying title again.

"Philistine!" they shouted.

No one said anything.

Soon after, one of the gentlemen turned around to comment on my rapidly wiggling foot.  A refugee and resident of Amman, he told us how great a time we'd surely have.  "You must see Petra!" he said.  After a fairly substantial conversation for a plane ride, I typed my name into his phone so he could find me on Facebook.  Everyone has been so kind.

When we arrived at the Jordan airport, we were greeted by 3 men with 3 vans who would be driving us for the next few days.  We split into 3 groups and 5 of us headed to a van, following our guide.  He loaded our baggage into the trunk.  As he started the van, Arabic music flooded through the speakers.

"Sorry," he said, and turned it down.

"No!  Please!" we insisted and enjoyed the voice, moving along an unfamiliar key with beautiful agility.  The driver told us about the farming in the region-- strawberries, olives, bananas, oranges...

We pulled to a stop alongside another of our vans.  The two rolled the windows down.

"I am the king!" said the other driver.

"You are a refugee!" our driver said, smiling.

"We are all refugees, my friend," was his response.

They were laughing, but it was only funny because it wasn't.

We have arrived in Jordan and and have eaten a yummy dinner. We’ve all been up for over 24 hours, though, and it’s bedtime. Here are the handles on the dresser in our hotel room. Michelle noticed that they are spoons :)

Those Winter Sundays

The Names of God

I find the multiplicity of names for God, especially the “I Am” names, to be both confusing and reassuring.  Understanding God as fundamentally Present is reassuring.  That Divinity exists and is with us is a comfort.  That Divinity is mysterious and ungraspable makes God hard to wrap my head around, but I think there is some comfort in that as well.  An ambiguous God is hard to hold dogmatic ideas about… which I think is a good thing.  Leaving room for diverse understandings and unclutching our certainties allows us to encounter divinity in ways we might have been closed off to and also allows us to glimpse Divinity in practices and spiritualities that may be different from our own.  

I think it is important to allow for diverse understandings of God and to accept a multiplicity of understandings as valid for the individuals who hold them.  Allowing this space makes room for us to meet each other and embrace our own forms of connection and each other without condemning that which is different from our individual understandings.