Tag: Middle East

One Thing the Middle East and Sexuality Have in Common

I’m pretty sure I’m in Florida and it’s Friday as I write this, but I know I’ve missed posting on the days I usually do.  This week feels a little like being on the spinning cups ride at the fair – twirling from a set of controversial conversations where the narrative of one is at odds with the other in the Middle East, to another set of complex conversations around the issue of being gay and faithful to God’s Word.

I got home from Israel/Palestine on Tuesday so that I could be in MN for a conversation we hosted Wednesday night at our church between two friends – Jeff Chu and Wesley Hill.  Both happen to be gay Christian men who are trying to faithfully follow Jesus as best they can.

What do the Middle East and sexuality have in common?  Well-meaning, broken, faithful people are trying to find their way in a world that often feels hostile and unsafe.

The Wednesday night conversation was rich and honest and gentle. The overwhelming response I got from people afterwards was, “I can’t believe how gracious and kind the tone of the whole evening was…how thoughtful and respectful both guys were.”

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Yep, it’s sad that this is not what we’ve come to expect from dialog in the church over things we disagree about.  Why is that?  Why is there this anxiety about needing to be “right”?  Why do we use the Bible as an weapon to bash the other rather than an instrument of love to guide our conversations? Continue reading

Learning the Language of Peace

Ok, so here’s the thing.  Two years ago when I traveled back to the Holy Land, I didn’t know where the West Bank was.  West Bank of what?   And if the West Bank is so important, what’s up with the East Bank?  Anything?

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I didn’t know what, where, or why the settlements were so controversial.  The Nakba? Is that a type of falafel?  It was all Greek, (or, more accurately, Hebrew) to me.

I didn’t know the mean things Muslims had done to Christians, or Christians had done to Jews, or Israelis had done to Palestinians.  Or what everyone had done to everyone else. Continue reading

Peace in the Middle East and at Starbucks, the Sequel

If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.
Orson Welles 

I shared the beginning of a story last week and today, the tide of the war has turned once more.  This morning usurper guy was back in “my” spot.  I think he may have looked a tad guilty as I walked by.

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John says he thinks it’s more like an illegal immigrant situation than a land fight in the Middle East.  He blames our friend Cory, the barista, or “border guard” for letting usurper guy slip through.  Cory says he just turned his back for a minute…took a break.  He doesn’t want to take responsibility for losing ground on his watch.

I sit at my “less than best” table and look longingly at what I’ve lost.  But then I screw up my courage, walk over, introduce myself.  I try to make small talk. Continue reading

Two Words Preventing Peace

The other day I was wrestling (and by that I mean full body Hulk Hogan throw-down wrestling) with the tangled Christmas lights outside by the prickly pokey evergreens in front of our house.  My hands numb, my nose drippy.

And under my frosty breath I muttered “He never helps with this.  If any decorating is going to get done it has to be me.  Always me doing all the work to make us Christmas-ready.”

I know.  My problems are so real!

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The Truest thing I’m Learning About Peace, part 1

Last week I was driving around running errands, preparing for our daughters to arrive for a visit and for me to leave for Israel/Palestine.  I changed into the left lane to zip ahead of an old blue-green mini station wagon.  As I accelerated past I noticed the car was significantly bashed in as if from an accident.  A man was driving the car, smoking a cigarette and talking on his cell phone.

Confession.  Here are the three thoughts that went through my head:  This guy is irresponsible, unsafe, and makes unhealthy choices.

All that from a 3 second glance in traffic!

If I had gotten close and talked to him I might have learned that he was on the phone with his pregnant wife who just went into labor.

And maybe it wasn’t a cigarette, but a tootsie pop in his mouth.

Perhaps he had been rear-ended by someone texting and driving, and he didn’t have the money to fix his car because he had lost his job in the recession.

Getting close might have given me a more compassionate posture towards this guy.

I have thought often of this 3 second drive by during my time here in Israel/Palestine.

We know from the constant stream of words on the news that there is division and violence, and passionate feelings of injustice among Israelis, Palestinians, Jews, Christians, Muslims…But it’s hard to sort out the complicated details, so if you’re like me, you often tune out.  It’s just too much.

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Squirrels and World Peace

This was a text exchange between daughters Katy and Maggie last week:

Ahhh…So many questions!

It was a timely reminder our family’s issues with squirrels and how God may want to use this to prepare me for an upcoming trip to the Middle East with a group of women pursuing peace.  Here’s an edited version of some thoughts I posted last year…

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Why Christ is at the Checkpoint

As I write this I’m sitting in Bethlehem, as in “Oh little town of…” in Palestine.

My husband John and I are here for a conference called Christ at the Checkpoint, a gathering of Palestinian and Israeli Christians trying to pursue peace.

Confession:  I am an idiot when it comes to the politics of the Middle East.  I’m just trying to keep my head down, my ears open, and my mouth closed.  I want to learn all I can and I figure it will be a win if I don’t inadvertently cause an international crisis.

There are people from all over the world here.

In our devotional time yesterday the speaker asked us to turn to the person next to us and guess how many churches are represented.  I guessed 50.

The answer?  One.

And one of the most powerful experiences for me?  Singing How Great Thou Art.

In English.  In Arabic.  In harmony.  Simultaneously.

It’s one thing to sing together.

But here in Israel it’s something very different to actually live together in a place where there is deep pain and misunderstanding and anger and injustice between Palestinians and Israelis.

Both literally and figuratively this is represented by walls and checkpoints separating people who say they love God.

Let me tell you about a new friend I met the other day.  Charlie and his wife have two children, and are expecting their third child next month.  You would think that would be a great thing.  And it is!

But…  It’s also complicated, and very hard for me to understand.

You see Charlie is a Palestinian Christian living with his family in Bethlehem.  So that his child can have the privilege of Israeli citizenship, Charlie’s wife needs to deliver their baby in Jerusalem, just a few miles away.  But for that to happen, Charlie and his wife will have to wait at the checkpoint at the wall that separates  Bethlehem from Jerusalem.  Separates Palestinians from Israelis. Jews and Christians and Muslims, separated by one of many walls and checkpoints dividing the land.

The guards at the wall have been known to keep women who are in labor waiting until they deliver their baby at the checkpoint (some stillborn with out a doctor).  Because they can.  They are the ones with power at this point in history and they can.

Hurting people hurt people as they say.  Those who have been the most oppressed are often the worst oppressors.

And I keep thinking of my friend Sherrie, whose baby shower I went to the day before I flew here.  Sherrie, who is due at the same time as my new friend, will zip down the Crosstown with her husband to Southdale Hospital in about 10 minutes.

No walls.  No checkpoints.  No guns. 

Two pregnant women in different worlds.  This is a very small example of a huge reality of walls and division.

In this different world, Palestinians who have to go to work in Jerusalem line up every morning at many checkpoints, sometimes coming as early as 3 a.m. to wait for hours, and hours, enduring humiliation, treated as second-class citizens.  Trying to get to work to support their families.  It’s not fair.  But then nothing much seems fair for anyone here.

Here’s what my small brain can take in:

It’s about us’s and them’s.  Power and weakness.  Gain and loss.  History and violence and land.

The Palestinians have been mistreated by the Israelis.

The Jews have been mistreated by the Arabs.

Muslims, Christians, and Jews have ALL behaved badly.

At the end of the devotional study the other morning, John Ortberg made this observation:  Jesus’ categories weren’t “us” vs. “them”.  They were “holy” vs. “sinful” and we’re all sinful so He “crossed over” to our side to save us.  All of us.

And as true as that is, it’s still not nice or neat or in any way “easy.”  I really don’t understand so much of this.  And even those who do understand a little more than me recognize this is a God-sized problem.

When I asked Charlie if his NGO had hired any Israeli Christians his face registered pain and he said, “No, not yet.  But someday.”  Christians working through pain towards reconciliation…a God-sized problem.

Shane Claiborne had a great line in his talk the other day:  When injustice has a name, it comes with responsibility.  Now you know Charlie’s name.

Will you please pray with me for God’s peace in this place and in all the places where you are experiencing walls of division and injustice?

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