Monday, July 29, 2019

Pilgrimage Is in the Leaving: Keep Walking

This post originally appeared as the concluding post for a blog series I curated with NEXT Church on the May pilgrimage to the Holy Land. 
“That’s not how the story goes,” I said to the Canadian pilgrim next to me as the doors to the tomb slammed shut. It was very early in the morning on the first day of the week after the Sabbath, just like the gospel story. I had ventured alone from my hotel in Jerusalem, through the Damascus gate, winded my way through the empty and narrow streets of Old City, and into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where tradition says the empty tomb of Jesus is located. The wait was too long the day before and I was looking for a different ending to my pilgrimage.
After taking the Eucharist in front of the open tomb, I was third in line when an ecumenical argument broke out between two priests responsible for their tradition’s worship on opposite sides of the sepulcher. Whatever the dispute, one priest presumed it was enough to shutdown visitation. My fellow traveler leaned over to me, “Did we just get barred from Jesus’ tomb?”
This marked the end of my Jerusalem journey. Despite the disappointment, I logged the homiletical illustration and kept walking.
The call to keep walking was a common theme for the week. Whether in Galilee or Bethlehem, Jerusalem or Nablus, Shiloh or Joppa, our local Palestinian guide, Iyad, frequently whispered through our audio devices, “keep walking.” This was a short pilgrimage and our ambitious clip was designed to ensure adequate time with local partners like Daoud Nassar. After all, pilgrimage is about people as much as place.
VW Bus surrounded by olive trees and parked at Nassar Farm due to road restrictions for Palestinians. (Greg Klimovitz)
Daoud, a Palestinian Christian, lives on land his family has owned in the West Bank for well over 100 years. Also known as Tent of Nations, Israeli settlements are constructed all around them, suffocate the farm, and cut off the Nassar family from running water, electricity, and access to public roads. Yet Daoud Nassar and his family reject intimidation and keep walking. They peacefully resist through remaining, grounded on the mantra, “we refuse to be enemies.”
Daoud spoke with us about a Israeli military raid that burned down 250 of their olive trees, a major source of their livelihood. Tent of Nations shared their plight with partners, assured God would somehow hear their cries and concerns and resurrect something new. And God did, through a UK based Jewish community. Empathizing with their story, this community purchased new olive trees, organized a visit, and planted life alongside their Christian neighbors. I bought an olive tree that day, prayerful I would revisit this symbol of hope. “We believe in justice,” Daoud said before we left. “One day we will see the Son of Justice rise again.”
As likely noticed throughout this blog series, many of us wanted to linger longer in the caves and among the olive trees of Nassar Farm. We had spent two days in Bethlehem, where a thirty-foot wall lined with barbed wire, video surveillance, and snipers snakes throughout the region. This wall imposes separation, perpetuates fear, and sustains modern apartheid. At Nassar farm, however, we found an alternative narrative of hope through the prophetic witness of a new friend whose faith was grounded in the One who, amidst first-century occupation and oppression, also called this region home. Then we heard a familiar voice in our ears, “keep walking.”
So we did.
Sunset on the beach of Joppa (Greg Klimovitz)
We walked to Nablus and Hebron and alongside Muslims, Jews, and Christians. We walked with refugee children before we dipped our hands in the well where Jesus offered living waters to those written off as other. We even walked the beaches of Joppa, where Jonah was spit onto dry land and Peter reminded, “not to make a distinction between them and us” (Acts 11:12). There we were reminded of our call to keep walking towards Philadelphia and Charlotte, D.C. and Atlanta, San Diego and wherever we called home. Empowered by what we had seen and heard, keep walking to confront the dividing walls of hostility that snake through our own communities and threaten our own borders. Awakened by the courage of new siblings in the (inter)faith family, keep walking as advocates for neighbors oppressed by the ghettoization of our own neighborhoods. Stirred by the systemic restriction of resources through racial grids in one nation, keep walking with interfaith and ecumenical partners to dismantle the same practices in our own. And when the doors of tombs slam shut and resurrection hope appears burned to the ground, lean on the witness of Daoud and keep walking towards the Son of Justice, who will rise again. Keep walking, whispers God’s Spirit, because pilgrimage is as much in the leaving as in the initial going.
---------
A poem written in the airport prior to leaving, which stayed with me on our pilgrimage and upon return:
Life is pilgrimage.
Travel well and never alone.
Venture to spaces where the divine and human collide
in a particular place.
Go with eyes wide open
where stories and parables
share the ground your feet now tread.
Pray en route
and listen to the voices of the other
those more oft passed by.
Ask questions
linger longer.
Expect to encounter the Holy
to return different than when you first set out
awakened
as you keep walking.

Wednesday, July 24, 2019

That's Morgan Freeman not Nelson Mandela: Whose Face Do You See in the Struggle for Freedom?


As I continue to see news reports with horrific images of Palestinian homes being destroyed by the arms of bulldozers reaching across the Wall in Bethlehem, and residents watching with their belongings curbside, I cannot help but think of the images that continue to linger from my time in the West Bank. And I pray we become better. And I pray we remember this is real a human struggle with real human faces and stories who are both victimized by empire and courageous change agents in the midst of oppression.
That's Morgan Freeman's Face

That’s Morgan Freeman
not Nelson Mandela
a fellow pilgrim whispered
wondering if any of us had noticed.
We walked by the dividing wall 
of Bethlehem
in sacred silence
the kind provoked
when words fall short
unable to speak to the questions
and confusion that comes when
oppression and occupation
transcend social media feeds and
cable news reports
to expose a thirty-foot
concrete intrusion
upon human co-existence.
That’s Larry David
not Bernie Sanders
another pilgrim echoed
wondering how the artist could be so
naive
unaware
of the erroneous portraits
of movers and shakers
by Hollywood stars
upon this imperial snake
of fear and apartheid.
The quotes were rightly attributed
calling for freedom and justice
daring the viewer to join in quests
for liberation of all people
South Africa
Palestine
United States
The faces
they did not belong
they were wrong
they were meant for the screen
not the protest
nor perspiring push
or movement for deliverance and fairness
reconciliation and social welfare
they were the faces recognized from the couch
theaters with stadium seating 
reclining with popcorn in one hand and
snow caps the other
they were not on the frontlines with placards or cuffs
and the point was made
through graffiti and irony
justice reduced to made-for-tv drama
human struggle to 90-minute theatrics
late-night satire
heroes and sheroes more recognized
by celebrity stand-ins and #hashtags
than the nature of their cause
collective dreams for equity and dignity
beloved community and human flourishing
near and far
here and there
no
that indeed is not Nelson Mandela
but those are his words
calling us to be better
to see the struggle as real
and raw
unable to be tamed
by cinema or comic sketches
and we dare not forget the faces
of those whose words worked their witness
and invited us to carry their vision forward
beyond the walls
even tearing them down
wherever they are
West Bank
Rio Grande Valley
Bethlehem
Chester
Flint
Tegucigalpa
Nablus
and to recognize new faces
and voices
neighbors with whom we are called to love and link arms
whose prophetic imaginations will never be mistaken
for celebrity or used to bolster box offices
but serve as plot line to a narrative more expansive and inclusive than any other
one that ends not with credits or curtain calls or golden awards
but universal assurance
all is well and good again.

Thursday, July 4, 2019

On Children at the Border: A Poem as Prayer for Those Who Need to Be Freed

Banksy art at the Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem,
where children are also detained by another empire. 
On this "day of independence," freedom is an illusion at best for many children and their families at the border. And they are all I can think about as I run the local "Good Neighbor" 5k, sit poolside at a family BBQ, and pass by a prison en route that has a history of being used to detain immigrants.  While endless articles (like this one) illustrate the realities of what is happening in this land, which is neither your land nor my land, the horror transcends words. We need to confront head on these tragic imageries and allow ourselves to be unsettled, for to do so is the first step to humanize those whose humanity is being detained by a nation historically built by immigrants and refugees on land that was not their own. Empathy, in whatever way you nurture it, is the pathway to liberty and justice for all. So here is my offering, a prayer in poetic empathy that lingers with me in meditations and as I put my own children down to sleep each night. 

you awake
on a cold 
concrete floor
night terrors
from the journey
the sending
the leaving
or being ripped away
my love will go with you there
their voices echo in your head
still alone
yet surrounded 
by other children
more than you can count 
making their way too
are they awake
are they afraid
who do you go to
for comfort
as my kids do 
when they are frightened 
and tremor in the night 
who is your refuge
your comfort
who rubs your back bedside 
who runs their hands through your hair
and whispers
just a dream
a nightmare
it’s not real
but you are awake
and it is real
in the land of the want-to-be-free
and the home of the afraid
and you are alone
your breath not even freshened
by mint on a bristled brush
you hunger and thirst
for food 
for water
for affection
for it to be made right again
do they even know you are
where you are
knees folded in your arms
for sure they wake up at night too
wondering if you made it
across
safe
let the little children come to me
so the story goes 
is he here
where you came
where you are
afraid and alone
wanting to be home
who will fight for you
until home is here
and the dream that carried you
overwhelms the dark
and love finds you
takes you up in their arms
embraces you
assurance you are
safe 
well
once again

Wednesday, July 3, 2019

Life Is Pilgrimage: Collection of Reflections from Recent Holy Land Excursion


Life is pilgrimage. 
Travel well and never alone.
Venture to spaces where the divine and human collide
in a particular place.
Go with eyes wide open
where stories and parables
share the ground your feet now tread.
Pray en route
and listen to the voices of the other
those more oft passed by.
Ask questions
linger longer.
Expect to encounter the Holy
and to return different than when you first set out.

I wrote this as I sat in the JFK airport waiting to board and head to Tel Aviv. And I can say without hesitation I returned different than when I first set out. I continue to linger in the conversations with all those I engaged, from friends on the bus to children in refugee camps, others on farms suffocated by settlements and leaders of mosques, synagogues, and grassroots justice movements. Questions. So. Many. Questions. They remain abundant, whether in casual conversations or engagement with the Scriptures, even more so in sermon preparation. My eyes have been opened anew through the collision with the divine in the place where the story that has centered my life first took shape. And I am grateful. 

I am also humbled by those who shared they felt as though they took the journey with me through my regular postings to holy sites and other places throughout the region. I have compiled some of those posts here in one place and provided a link to the photo book I developed, something I have loved watching my kids flip through as they have continued this journey with me. 

While I have returned from the Holy Land,  I will keep walking. I pray you will just the same. 

Pilgrim on...

And please do check out the blog series I curated with NEXTChurch that has incredible posts by dear friends with whom I shared the venture of a lifetime: https://nextchurch.net/blog/ . My post will be shared here and through the NEXTChurch platforms later this month.