Bethlehem, Oh Little Town

As the patriarch proceeds down the Star Street route*

That is reported to be the path that the Magi’s took 

So long ago.

The honk of horns from the cars that are 

Cascading on their ascent to the famed square 

From  David’s city afar.

While the cacophonous sound  of drums 

And bag pipes proceed before them 

In some declaration when

Out of the corner of my eyes I saw 

An older man with young boy in tow, 

Whom he appeared to be dragging unmercifully so - 

It got my attention-

Only to soon see that his charge was sightless, 

As he pulled him along, quite boldly it seemed 

In hopes that some holy one would cure him of disease.

Amidst all the clammer in both haste and speed

Our healing God goes unseen in the space between.

The words above capture some of the feeling of the second week in Bethlehem where I lived with the Daoud Nassar family whose family’s historic home still exists on Star Street,  and*where legend has it that the Magi’s traveled there on their way from Jerusalem to the baby’s manger cradle.  But this day, a two hour long parade of scout troop bands from neighboring villages and towns marched and played to crowds lining the walls of the old city street, as a fleet of cars, escorted the pious Roman Catholic Cardinal of the region seated in the back of a Mercedes, passed us on the way to the waiting crowd in Manger Square.  I say “capture the feeling” because what I experienced that holiday were not the tinsel and wrapped packages of my own experiences at such time at home, but the feeling of family and the expectant arrival of the Holy one there in that little town.

The incident that stands out in my mind so vividly still, and reflected in the poem above, is the image of an older man, perhaps the father of a young boy being compassionately brought close to the priest in hopes of receiving his healing blessing.  At first, I was alarmed by the counter flow up the street of the two people going against the grain of the parade coming down, and the almost desperate, but later it seemed, loving way the elder presented his son to the holy man.  The story in Luke of the faithfulness of friends lowering their sick companion through the roof to Jesus below was what I really saw at that moment.

Later, Daoud  who had seen it too, confirmed that the man and boy were his neighbors and indeed what I saw was accurate.

So family, love and hospitality is what I felt that week in Bethlehem.   After the parade that afternoon, and I had had yet another one of those many savory meals, we attended the Christmas Eve candle light service together at the English speaking Lutheran Church, a short walk away uphill.   The church was full when we arrived, and many had come far to celebrate the birth of Jesus that night.  Many like myself, from other countries, and many who were serving in some volunteer capacity in the region, gathered together in the wooden pews surrounded overhead by the majestic arched walls above.  At one point during the prayers of intercession, one could hear nine languages reading antiphonally the nine prayer passages coupled by a collective phrase of gratitude in Arabic. There was a sense that silent night of the universality of the faith community as we lighted our candles together.

The next morning, on Christmas Day, we went as a family to the same church to the Arabic service where the Nassar family children dominated the music program with their playing of tubas, handbells, trumpet and voice - such talent!   Receiving communion among the Arab members of the church was very special, and even more meaningful a service than the evening before.  Following  worship, I walked to the home of an old friend who works as a diplomat in the Palestinian government, and shared yet another scrumptious meal with her and her mother, and the memories of her father who had died during the year.  He had always welcomed me and my friend Bill, so warmly as “brothers” each time we came to his home.

The remainder of Christmas Day, I shared time with Daoud’s family as a steady flow of relatives came to the home to express their love.  It is custom that family members visit the members of their family who have married outside their own circle to express solidarity.

The next day, Daoud and I went with his brother Daher, to the farm to plant trees that were a gift for 12 members of the Endo clan in Virginia.  It was a wonderful time for us of working and relishing the events of the week.  When alone in the chapel cave with my harp, I couldn’t help to remember that image of the father and son in their encounter with the holy one on Star Street.  I wonder.....?

“Amidst all the clammer in both haste and speed

Our healing God goes unseen in the space between.”                 BP 1/9/13

Dancing Between the Spaces

The harp’s voice is sweet and harmonious

As it dances between notes and enhances other voices.

From a C major chord to a Bb minor, the sound resonates

For new ears, in surprising new tones that await the hearer.

The voice in between is so pleasingly rich 

And comforts the spirit in its newness of name, 

As in the Genesis passage with Jacob so clear, 

This musician is called to be melodiously here and there.

And God dances between the notes.

Is it a Waltz, a Dabke, a Hora, that plays so richly in our ears?

Or, is it something more spiritual which transcends such traditions, 

Some mystique, some riddle,

That even the dancer knows not who the partner is?

But what does it matter in the bigger picture for sure,

For the sound is what appears from the heavens, its seems,

And we know God is dancing in the steps, between.

The harpist travels  to new places each time, often not

Reasoned or part of some rhyme.

This wanderer has been led for some, many years

To those spaces in both places not seen by his peers, 

Which calls the traveler to listen for new sources of light 

Which give meaning within the dark lands which lie in sight,

Where the harpist wanders with hope for something more 

Of God’s wisdom in the form of the “bouncing ball” 

That dictates some pattern for the singer and dancer,

And, with the hope for assurance that harmony and rhythm 

May soon fill the spaces.

The harpist finds the path along the ridge of the mountain 

Just south of the city of the Babe born so long ago. 

Others have proceeded with all forms of the day

With maybe a cymbal, a drum or even a stringed Qanun to play.

Then comes a cave, a place of retreat, where one can really 

Release the sounds from within that come naturally 

From some inner voice, or a distant self,

Which resonate off the walls of time in a titillating style

In the festival of life and its dance between the spaces.

BP

Written after my 8th visit since 2006 to Israel/Palestine in 2012, the poem was inspired by both the playing the harmonica, a constant companion, and feeling the spirit of the land, a regular encounter.  The “harp” as it is often referred to, is not typically a solo instrument.   It’s role is to lift up the voices of others in the “chorus”.   As the new Poet Laureate, Natasha Threthewey said recently, ..”what poetry can do for us is to remind us when we feel most alone, we are not alone at all”.  I hope you feel that sense today. BP  1/3/13

Reflections on the time with Israel's Arab Citizens

One of my intentions on this trip was to understand better the conditions of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship within the State of Israel. Unknown to me before last year was the scope of discrimination experienced by the nearly 1.5 million Arabs living there.

Here are a couple facts gleaned from Mossawa, the Israeli Arab Human Rights Organization, and from the Follow-up Committee on Arab Education:

• Over 32 pieces of discriminatory legislation were passed by the Israeli Knesset during 2012 including new restrictions as to where Arabs are prohibited to live.
• Over 6,000 classrooms short in Arab-only schools in separate system for Jews and Arabs
• 25% achievement gap between Arab and Jewish students
• 23 % gap in end-of-schooling testing results which determines future vocational and educational paths.

I participated in the 6th Annual Jaffa Convention on Arab and Jewish Relationships where members of the Israeli Knesset, ministers of the present government and Arab leaders had conversations about the future of Arab relationships within the State.  I visited both the headquarters of Mossawa in Haifa, and the center for the Follow-up Committee Project on Arab Education in Nazareth and met with staff of the Palestinian Media project in the ancient port city of Acca.  

I also lived for several days with the Halloun family in the village of Isofia near Haifa, a Palestinian Christian family with Israeli citizenship, and visited the town of Ibillin where two friends are teaching in the Mar Elias H.S .   While in Ibillin I had a private meeting along with some Canadian Mennonites visiting the school, with Archbishop Elias Chacour, author of “Blood Brothers” and a nominee for several years for the Nobel Prize for Peace.  All of these experiences led to some new understandings of the plight of Arab citizens in Israel.

• The Israeli government has some deep and serious problems inside its own state which violate the human rights of nearly 20% of it’s people.

• Through projects like the “Follow-up Committee” which serves as a professional body addressing the educational and pedagogical issues pertinent to the Palestinian Arab community in Israel by pressing the Ministry of Education

  and local Arab Councils, there are efforts for pushing for reforms.

• Israeli Arab citizens have a number “02”  stamped on their passports, along with “Arab” for Nationality, while Jewish passports have “01”  and “Israeli” on theirs according Archbishop Chacour. *

I find this story relatively untold in our country.  Just as I said during my first trip to Israel/Palestine and witnessing the occupation first hand in 2006,  “I never knew”, so is the case inside Israel.

Sources:

arabedu@netvision.net.iL

mossawa.org

Jaffa Convention: The Citizens accord Forum between Jews and Arabs in Israel.   jaffaconvention.org.il, Home page

I’Lam Media Center for Arab Palestinians in Israel. www.ilam-center.org

          

BP: 1/1/13

* Archbishop Elias Chacour

Entries and Departures to and from Israel

On Sunday evening of the 16th, I flew into JFK at around 7:00 for a 11:00 flight to Tel Aviv.  New York airports are hectic places, filled with people rushing to get somewhere.

Pardon my bias, but New Yorkers do it in a uniquely brusk style.  The 747

bird that carries 300 plus folks is like a small city, a borough at least, maybe located

in Brooklyn for that matter.  The presence of small groups of travelers dressed in black, and young people with “T” shirts declaring their independence dominate the scene.  After all, they are traveling to the promised land and some perhaps on the “Birthright”

pilgrimage. Some might be settlers.  Some are Israeli citizens heading home after visiting family here.

After queuing through a number of  land-based security systems in D.C, and then again to the Delta gate at JFK, before finally reaching the gate at the end of the long, dimly lit corridor, where  the 747 awaits me with flashing lights on its wings, and attendants appear like ants scurrying around before the plane’s departure, I finally feel I’m there . And yet before me  is another scrutinizing machine to pass through even though I  haven’t been exposed to the light of the outside since I departed the D.C terminal.  “What is this about, again?” I ask.

The plane started to fill nearly two hours before its took off.  I sat outside in the jetway

waiting for the last moment to board.  Meanwhile groups of young American Jews

sang songs in Hebrew and jaunted down the plank; men with dark suits, long beards and tall hats with women and lots of children in tow, merged  into the cabin doorway.

I was feeling quite alone and unattached. I didn’t seem to fit.  I wasn’t aware of another Christian-looking person on the plane, at least I felt that way, though not really knowing how to distinguish between us in an impartial way.  I stood by  my aisle seat for a half hour waiting for the other person to move to the middle seat between me and a young man at the window with a kippah a top and ear phones wrapped around.  He was ready for the flight with or without me it seemed.

Finally She arrived, an older women with wrinkled skin, angry eyes and disheveled hair.  She had  her ticket in hand and  while pointing at me and the two contested seat, She shouted several words at me in Hebrew which most always appears to me to be loud and hostile even though the message might be something like “ I love you”. ( I get that feeling about Arabic too.)   I had no idea what she wanted.  At first I thought it was for me to exchange places with her, but since I  make frequent investigations of the nearest lavatory during the night, I wasn’t willing to give up that seat.  She was almost screaming at me and it seemed to everyone else around us at one point, and then she moved several rows down and spoke to the flight attendant as animately. 

This incident did not help improve a deep seated feeling that all the people on this plane must be political zionists, and if they knew my view of the occupation of Palestine, they would have my life in a flash.  My perception of this woman’s personal attack only enhanced an already, angry resentment for people that I didn’t know, but thought were evil.  For that is what the Israeli Occupation is for both parties.

Then,  when the plane seemed full, a woman boarded hurriedly, having arrived late from her connection from Boston. As she scanned the ship for her seat, my adversary came forward and convinced the late arrival  to switch places with her which she did willingly.  I concluded later that she was also Jewish as she read meditatively in her prayer book during the next few waning hours of the night flight. Her response seemed to please everyone on the plane including me.

When I asked my new companion what seat she had, she said, “all the way in the back, in the middle seat”.   “Oh” I said. Then I thought, the angry woman must not have wanted to sit next to me, a goy perhaps?  “Why not?”  I thought.  The experience only confirmed my perceptions of my fellow passengers, though I really didn’t know any of them personally, other than the hostile one.  Then an announcement came on, the plane would delay its take off until 30 passengers from Boston arrived.  An hour later young people ran down the aisles to their seats with their back packs bobbing- more “birthrighters” I suspected.  We were late.  I felt alone.  I was tired but it was too early to sleep.

*********

Twelve days later, on the flight to New York, I boarded the plane and found my economy class Plus aisle seat on the first row with lots of leg room and the lavatory within two steps.   Ahh.  heaven!  Then when the plane was about to depart, a young woman with a two year old, collapsed in the empty seat next to me.   “Oh, oh!  This was going to be a difficult flight for all of us,” I thought.  

Then the husband-father came over and asked if I might give up my aisle seat (in heaven) for the one on the other side, (less than heaven).  Reluctantly and a little resentfully, I picked up all my stuff,  and moved to the other side.  There was a young man with a kippah by the window in the three-seated row who greeted me friendly like, almost over apologetically as if he were making up for some lost moment in the past. He then said as the doors closed, “It looks like we have a middle seat to share between us.”   This seemed like heaven again. 

Later, his 8 year old little brother switched seats with him from the business class where youngest had been sleeping.   In the middle of the night as he lie there scrunched up in a ball and apparently cold, he must have put my jacket on.  I reached over and I boosted it up to cover his exposed shoulders.  He smiled.  He reminded me of my grandson Jackson.  It was heaven.

BP