Narratives

I had intended to write more blogable entries while schlepping about these holy plots of land. I have been plodding through my experiences with the discipline of daily journal writing, doing my best to set one word next to another in an attempt to find some sense of cohesion and meaning in the situation on the ground in Palestine/Israel. But – and this is really no surprise – my entries have taken shape as rambles and disjointed thoughts, pulling from a hundred moments a day and as many emotions, sifting through layer after layer of narrative only to arrive at the end of an entry (and the end of each day) exhausted, frustrated, resigned, and all too ready to slap my head down on a flat pillow and stretch my legs to the edge of the narrow bed that cradles me.

In broad strokes we have gone from historic Jerusalem, through the sacred spots of the three monotheistic traditions, into a Bethlehem that is diced up by the ominous presence of a twenty foot wall, and for days now we have been hopping from one living room or lounge to the next hearing from residents and grass-roots leaders, lawyers and clergy and students and activists, farmers and veterans about the their pieces of this complex tapestry. They have shared their space, their values and perspectives, their initiatives, and when at all possible they have extended what little hope for peace and coexistence there is in their hearts.

I have learned a lot about Judaism. A lot about the state of Israel. And a lot about the conflicting claims placed on plots of land, not to mention a bit about the dilemma that those claims pose to the land itself. Yesterday, for instance, we learned about the politics of water in the Golan Heights, which for a boy who grew up flipping faucets on and off without a second thought as to its source of origin, was an illuminating discussion. We began today with a clip from Life of Brian that ironically and comically shed significant light on the complexity of any situation (which to date has been every situation, at least in this place) where there is an imbalance of power. One would think it would be quite simple to diagnose the goods from the evils. But one would be wrong. One would only need to sit in the living room of a Palestinian family on one side of the wall, feeding their gold fish and talking about the latest Pixar movie one day, and then sit down in a dining room on the other side of the wall to share Shabbat dinner with a young family of five the next to know that they are wrong about the ease of diagnosing any situation of conflicting interests.

One needs to encounter the other, to hear their narrative, their angle, to be afforded the opportunity to ask questions and push into their story to understand that claiming a monopoly on truth or a monopoly on what makes sense or claiming to know what solution is the right solution is rooted in immaturity and ignorance.

From what I’ve seen and heard it strikes me that those who are most honest about life in the midst of conflict (and what life isn’t in one conflict or another?) accept, even embrace, the need to release the simplistic notion that an ideal is possible. Ideals clash. Absolutes collide. It takes courage and grace and a ridiculous amount of hope, but it seems necessary to consider the other’s presence as essential to one’s own wholeness. Love your neighbor. Love your enemy. Love your next-door enemy. It is not the proximity of conflicting narratives to one another that causes violent conflict; it is the fear of the other and hyper-insecurity about oneself that escalates our natural differences into occasions of hostility and brutality – whether verbal or physical. It’s not okay anymore, if it ever was, to shun diversity. The fear of multiplicity arises from a craven heart or an ignorant one. It is not okay to pretend like human homogeneity is an option. It is okay to be yourself, embodying your narrative, while accepting the other and honoring a plurality of voices.

Coexistence is possible. I’ve seen it. Peace is more elusive – both in reality and in any definable form. Perhaps the elusive nature of peace is a practical trait. If peace was static and could be enshrined in one place or fixed into some society, it would be missing elsewhere – another human community or the ecological neighborhood we are a part of. Our actions, habits, happiness, and security impact the lives and presence of others. Perhaps the best peace is an elusive peace, one that is always being hoped toward but never quite reached. For if I am at peace then my neighbor may be suffering, and that is not just. But if we both attempt harmony, while not neglecting the reality of our differences, perhaps we may transcend inert coexistence and participate, as broad conduits, in the dynamic and enduring flow of peace.

Beyond Jerusalem

We arrived at the pinnacle of a month of green in a land typically adorned with hues of brown. As I gazed out the window at this rare verdancy, the narrative of the land began to bud, awaiting the careful cultivation of stories and further experiences.

The geography here impacts. It is politically and tactically vital. Religiously packed. Commercially vulnerable. On our ascent to Jerusalem our bus climbed the road from flat coastal lands to the mountainous places that have captured generations of attention and held memories that span millennia. It is a climb that has been manifest in spirits seeking God, in people claiming patrimony, and in farmers tending to tangled fruit.

Yesterday we sat on the stone with our backs to the Temple Mount, seated where many have climbed. From whichever angle and whatever distances it is really a singular ascent. A singular ascent with multiple accents.

A stroll through the streets just under the mountain’s gaze testifies to the many who have set their eyes on Yeru-shalem, coming to explore and express their roots. Coming to have a go at life – real life. Coming with their hopes set on what the place promises – a Yireh of Shalem, a vision of peace.

From fertile lands, desert lands, coastal lands, and foreign lands people have traipsed the heights. Alighting from afar they (and now we are amongst them) set step after step toward this collection of contours that have upheld countless pilgrims and pushed back against the friction of traditions that attempt to tame the wildness of this place with a collection of absolutes.

With my eyes closed I can see the wilderness, as it was long ago, an arm’s length from the wall. The wall that suggested the parameters of safety. Amongst other myths that we may or may not choose to question, the myth of safety is one that begs our questions without our permission. The current feel inside the walls is tense at best – a situation that can and should and, dare we hope, is, in some corners at least, being calmed and relaxed with the hard relational work of seeking understanding and mutuality in the edgy elements of confusion and plurality. We like the idea of safe. We do our best to approach and promote safe. But that’s a functional safe, it’s a bodily and emotional safe. It is not an absolute safe. Try as we may, we cannot fend off the realities of encounter no matter how firmly we construct our absolutes.

But that’s not what our structures are for any way. Our structures invite divine presence; they don’t contain it. At best our structures facilitate encounter. They are a place to wrestle out the logistics of sacred experience.

Jerusalem is not a place that panders to absolutes. It deals in truths, not certainties. In a sense we know why we’re here, our memories and the stories of this place make us secure in this space. But our knowledge ends with question marks and security is fragile.

God will show. God will be seen. God has shown. God has been seen. Stories build on each experience of divinity like the levels of the city, the strata of stone, and the layers of wall.

These walls were built to adorn God with a place to come. Not stay. These are the walls that pilgrims flock to for sanctuary from the mundane and the profane. But they are breach-able. The Jerusalem walls have been overflowed by neighborhoods. The neighborhoods have built more walls; walls and neighborhoods that mythically keep God in and neighboring neighbors out.

We are all afraid of the wild places – the unsafe spots – outside the walls we construct. But what are we really afraid of? Do we have the courage to risk contact with the unkown?

I can imagine intrepid pilgrims moving in reverse, guided by a hunch – as if their question marks were strapped to their foreheads like phylacteries pulling them into the curious possibility that maybe God isn’t stuck in the sacred and the secure. Maybe God is out there too, beyond the walls in the wilderness. Maybe God is in them too, breaching my prejudice. Maybe God is inexplicably tangled up at the root of the mountain in thousands of years of memories.

There is no need to destroy our structures. Let us keep them in tact. Let Christians flee to the Eucharist. Let Jews cling to the Torah. Let Muslims turn toward Mecca. But let us all risk the wilderness, because God is feral. And as we go today let us not stop looking, because outside the city walls a wild God wanders the desert.

born again and always growing

A friend of mine sent me an email the other day after reading some of my posts and posed a question: What do you believe about being born-again?

For some of my readers that question makes a lot of sense, because "being born-again" is central to your identity and a key means of articulating your self-understanding. It is a phrase, and perhaps an experience, lifted from Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus (and other biblical points of reference) that contains a whole lot of thrust for you. To be born again is key.

For others of my readers the significance of the question and the force of the phrase "born-again" is not apparent. You've heard certain Christians apply the label to themselves or each other. But it seems vague and rather cliche due to overuse. It's one of those phrases that has stopped meaning what it may have once poetically meant.

I took my friend's question seriously, mostly because I take this particular friend seriously. But also because I appreciated the opportunity to toss back some of my thoughts pertaining to my understanding of the phrase/phenomenon. I touched on my Wesleyan (and western) background and my appreciation for moment(s) of conversion. And I offered my understanding of and appreciation for the eastern Christian concept of theosis as an alternate means of understanding salvation and regeneration.

But really it would have been sufficient for me to have sent my friend a link to this video:

(thanks to the prettiest of human beings for exposure this beautiful bit of media)

pitter-patter

I wrote my final paper last semester on doing theology from an ecological foundation. We tend to do well at remembering that when it comes to God the sky is the limit, but I think more often than not we forget that the earth is our springboard. It is easy to imagine the bearded old man in the sky, the Our Father (who art in heaven), fielding our prayers. It is not as easy to remember that it is Mother earth who props us up and provides the substance for those prayers. It is she who cases our spirits with matter. Mother/Mater pittering our prayers to Pater/Father. The breaths we breathe, the flesh we bear, the relationships that sustain us and give us purpose – she accounts for them all. And while there is no telling whether or not our abstract image of the God out there is accurate, there is plenty of God right here to hold on to.

But hopefully our theology breaks through these simplistic dualisms of spirit and matter, female and male, earth and elsewhere. What if our theology did not thrive on static absolutes that fix God untouchably in the center of our lives? God is not an entity for us to gawk at. What if instead our theology thrived on the dynamism of possibilities? God is not a point of focus or a fixation. God is a blur of activity that occurs always in the peripheral. God happens at the margins of our vision.

I heard recently that the classic translation of Exodus 3:14’s Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh, “I am who I am”, is not the most accurate translation on the market. The translation fits well into a western mentality where the best things are established things, things that are fixed and secured and absolute. But whether or not we westerners like it Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh implies motion and becoming more than it does completion or a conclusive entity. It means something closer to “I will be what I will be” or the even more counterintuitive, “I will be that which I am”. This story of God’s intimate moment with the prophet Moses teaches us that God is something other than fixed reality. God is reality in flux.

A contingency of being open to God as reality in flux is that it requires one to foster a hyper-awareness. I have to be alert and attentive to what is happening around me and within me, and I must do my best to attend to what is happening around and within others (and not just other humans). The comfort of fixing God to an absolute standard of stability (God as unchanging, unmoving, the same yesterday today and forever) is that I can close my eyes to the others around me and neglect the dynamics that swirl within me. I can take comfort in the certainty that even if the world gets tumultuous I will be secure, barnacled to my monolithic God. This metaphor for God – my rock and shelter in the storm – has a profound function. It can be used as devotional assurance in turbulent times. It is especially available to those who are dispossessed – the homeless, the refugee, threatened and abandoned populations.

But it is not an absolute description of reality. There are equally profound metaphors that suggest that God is more akin to the storm itself. God is not primarily a being to latch onto for comfort – especially for we who are already excessively comfortable. God is a forceful occasion to participate in. Contemplation and devotion are not excuses for inaction. We reflect on God in order to engage divine momentum. Our meditation functions to sharpen an intuitive responsiveness to the moment, every moment, wherein God occurs.

urban landscapes by night

urban landscapes by day