Thoughts On: Palestine, Part I

I never know what I'm thinking until I write it. I cannot speak until I write, and I cannot explain until I write. So I will write in order to make sense of what happened these past two weeks as I went with a Vineyard Columbus team to Bethlehem, in Palestine. I want to describe the generous people I met, the vivid grief I felt, the tremendous healing that took place in my own soul. I want my friends and family to taste the warm pita and hummus I had for breakfast every morning and for them to smell the arabic coffee with its cardamom and strength. Mostly, though, I want to understand. I need to write because I cannot make sense of my own head and heart, and somehow black ink on a page always helps.

Last Saturday we went to Shepherd's Field, where they believe the angels appeared and declared the birth of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. We laughed and sang and yelled through the experience, just like true Americans, but at one point I found myself splitting from the group to overlook the valley. I don't know what happened in that moment, but the tears poured out of me as though they'd been locked up for years. It wasn't a gentle cry - it was a heaving sob, the healing kind that rocks your body and your soul at the same time. In that moment I felt my heart crack wide open, like God had been drilling a wedge into me and chose that moment to push down and break the barriers of bitterness and fear. 

I think it's important to note that I almost did not go on this trip. I made up a lot of excuses for avoiding it, but the real reason was that my heart felt a nudge toward this specific adventure, and I didn't want to listen to my heart again. The problem with listening to your heart - that deep place where love comes and goes freely as long as you haven't stopped it up - is that hearts break. I had felt my heart shatter too many times to listen to it again, and so I only put my name in for this trip once I knew that there would be little chance of my getting accepted. But I did get accepted, and the inevitable came to pass: I fell in love. 

I've travelled to a few places in my life so far. Always, though, I have wanted to come home. Almost immediately, in Guatemala, in Ireland and in Paris, I wanted to leave. I love those places, Paris especially, but none of them did what Palestine did to me. None of those places immediately felt like home. None of those places made my heart do summersaults. Only the Eiffel Tower had ever left me breathless - but this - this was a whole country. The weight of it cracked my defenses in two and led me down to a place of endless water; a well of love and contentment. I wanted for alone time and a place to call my own, but I never wanted to leave. 

Yesterday, though, we did leave, and I think it will take me a long time to understand what happened there. I'm not rushing it - God always reveals himself when he wants to, no sooner and no later. What I will fight for now is an understanding of the conflict we witnessed. The wall in Palestine, the Zionist movement, the different stances, the pain and the suffering and the deep, deep injustice - I want to know more. I am a context person, and I'm going to need a lot more of it to articulate what it was I saw in this beautiful country. I don't have a lot to offer, but God gave me a voice, and he gave me a pen, and I don't take either of those lightly. I want to study. I want to learn. Today I walked into my apartment and cried, because it felt like something beautiful was over. I don't think that's true, though. I think the truth is that the beauty has only just begun.