City of...

So, my sister is home. Which is awesome.

I haven't seen Anne in a year, and I probably won't see her again for a long time after this. She is in the Peace Corps in Peru, in a state in the Andes called Ancash. She's just back for a week, to visit and to attend our annual Hosey Family Reunion (which is as funny as it sounds, trust me). Her term ends in Nov-Dec, but of course I'll be in Jerusalem by then...inshallah (Arabic for good-God-willin'-and-the-creek-don't-rise).

She got in Tuesday morning, but I didn't get to meet her at the airport: I had somehow gotten pulled into helping with Vacation Bible School, not my favorite thing in the world...I dressed up like a servent of Joseph and told the Bible story. The kids in VBS can be divided into two groups: kids who are too young to pay attention to you, and kids who think that they're too old to have care about you. So, that went well, because when NOBODY is listening to you, it doesn't really matter what you say!

The first night Anne was back we went out to dinner with my mom, dad, aunt, uncle, and our two young cousins, at Fisherman's Inn over the Bay Bridge. It was delicious. Anne forgot her ID (one of those things you just don't have to worry about when you're living in Peru), so afterwards we went to Annapolis to get some drinks and meet up with a couple of her high school friends, people she hadn't seen in a long time. It was fun times, complete with random drunken faux Annapolitan's getting in a fight as we left.

Last night we went to DC, hung out with Anne's friend Patrick from college and a different couple of friends from high school she hadn't seen in years. We ate delicious crepes and, later, laughed at how different our lives are shaping up to be than the classier folks who have various business jobs in the D.C. area and go to bars where you have to tip people at the bathroom. In the U.S. Not my speed.

As Anne says, she and I just aren't meant to be 'hip.' We're meant for crazy stuff that makes people look at us funny. Like work in Peru for three years, plan to run a marathon in Buenos Aires on the way home after her term is up, and then hike the entire Appalachian Trail. Or become a missionary and go to Jerusalem to work with an ecumenical liberation theology center while discerning for ordained ministry. Not exactly the stuff that makes for light, schnoozy bar conversation...but to each their own! (Patrick is a cool guy. Not really the schnoozy bar conversation type, either). Coincidentally, we also ended up near Lindsey Kerr's "pink fringe" Dumbarton United Methodist Church...unfortunately Kerr was in Alexandria and couldn't meet up with us. The combination of my sister's high school friends and the Kerr throwndown would have been hilarious.

So, anyway, we depart tomorrow for the family reunion, in Wintergreen, VA, which promises to be fun and involve lots of eating, aggressive card playing, and probably at least one rousing game of Balderdash. Mmmm...30 Hoseys. Hilarity ensues...

Anne and I are going to agree to travel Latin America when I'm done with this missionary thing, since I never got to visit her in Peru. Many a mile to go...

So I sent a resume to Sabeel today, but still no word on when I go. Or....anything.

In the meantime though, this is pretty cool:

"Sabeel is an ecumenical grassroots liberation theology movement among Palestinian Christians.  Inspired by the life and teaching of Jesus Christ, this liberation theology seeks to deepen the faith of Palestinian Christians, to promote unity among them toward social action.  Sabeel strives to develop a spirituality based on love, justice, peace, nonviolence, liberation and reconciliation for the different national and faith communities.  The word "Sabeel" is Arabic for ‘the way‘ and also a ‘channel‘ or ‘spring‘ of life-giving water."

That's from their website, www.sabeel.org.

Also, I've been reading my soon-to-be supervisor's book. His name is Naim Ateek. His book is called Justice and Only Justice: A Palestinian Theology of Liberation. Check it out: "contrary to all appearances, this world is ultimately governed by justice. God, in whom justice and power are one, would not allow it otherwise."

Amen.

Wow, I could probably just use other people's words to write all of my blog posts. In fact, I could probably just post poems by Rumi from now until my term is done and people would think I was awesome. Just read this:

          You that love lovers,

          this is your home. Welcome!

          In the midst of making form, love

          made this form that melts form

          with love for the door,

          soul the vestibule.

          Watch the dust grains moving

          in the light near the window.

          Their dance is our dance!

          We rarely hear the inward music

          but we're all dancing to it nevertheless,

          directed by the one who teaches us,

          the pure joy of the sun,

          our music master.

Can you imagine waking up every morning to a voice reading that to you? Wow. What do you even say to that?

Today, in church, my pastor gave a sermon based on the text in Colossians 1, verses 15-28. It's an amazing passage. Paul talks about Christ, not just as a particular manifestation of God in a particular place at a particular time, but as universal, as the Law of Love that everything is created through. In verse 27, Paul, who was imprisoned at the time of writing the letter, writes, "To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles (the outsiders, the people who aren't, supposedly, chosen) are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory."

Christ IN you. The hope of glory.

My pastor usually gives sermons that deal with personal crises that many people in the congregation face, and today was no exception--he spoke of hope in situations of family strife, death, illness, and depression, which is important. But at one point he singled me out and said: "David is going to live amongst people who hate each other, in a situation where there often seems to be no hope. But as Christians, we all have the responsbility to bring people together, to be peacemakers."

There's a generalization in there--not all the people there hate each other, and I hear that it is a beautiful city and a beautiful country. I don't doubt it: Bosnia was a beautiful place despite all the pain and the violence that has afflicted it. (Speaking of Bosnia, and people I met there, I went to a party at my friends Shannon and Kate's house last night, which was a really good time, especially with Emily and Dan there as well).  

But the point is still there: no matter where we are, whether in our homes, our work, our neighborhood, around the globe--we are called to live Christ into the situation, because Christ is in us.

We are all--no matter our religion, our sexuality, our skin color, our political leanings, etc., etc.--made in the image of One who is Love. We are all offered the chance to share the hope that is within us with a world desperately in need of hope. Christ in YOU, the hope of glory.

Not silly glory, not glory as in fame--glory as in celebration, as in rejoicing, as in peace, as in everyone's glorious humanity being recognized.

Not Christ in a book, or in a sermon, or in a painting. Christ in you and in me.

Amazing.

Who do you know who has shown you the Christ in them? I could name so many. Not all of them would be Christians, that's for sure. Not all of them would be people who shared my vocabulary, or my beliefs, or my opinions. Christ in them. Christ in you.

Amazing.

Today, Emily asked me to explain Jerusalem to her, which was brave of her, as she then had to sit through the sloppiest 'explanation' of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ever given. Between me forgetting names (yes, I majored in International Studies. Yes, my concentration was in the Middle East. Leave me alone.) and trying to deal with the biases inherent in the situation (my own definately included, my father's as well), I stumbled through, hopefully not creating even more confusion along the way.

But the question reminded me of memories that have been stirring lately, memories that serve as road markers along the long, twisted path that got me here, heading towards this city and this land that has been called holy, as if the holiness of a place could be measured in direct proportion to the amount of blood shed there.

Some of these memories sit at such a basic part of me that I often forget to share them, so I thought I would try to share some of them now. This account will, if anything, be more jumbled than me trying to explain my take on a place that has become, to most of us, a conflict and little else. Or a list of holy sites that ought to be safer to get to. But maybe it's worth a try.

I remember: my father, nervous, taking us from church to church, and from potential new house to potential new house, frantic in his search for some kind of peace, as friends got into airplanes and helicopters to go someplace far away, to fight in a war that nobody wanted to call a war (call it a storm, a weather pattern, anything but what it is), and it sounded awfully scary to me. And that was the first time I heard the word Iraq. And that sounded scary, somehow, too.

I remember: Ariel Sharon at the Temple Mount, sounding angry. And the name Rachel Corrie, and being sad. And hearing the word intifada. It was the second one, but I didn't know what the first one was. It sounded scary, but not as scary as a tank crashing through your house. Not as scary as Hellfire missles coming to seek out your family, because someone had decided someone near you was a threat. Not as scary as being a kid, with a rock, and anger, up against automatic weapons and war machines.

I remember: a blue, blue day--with brilliant, blue, cloudless skies. And no planes in my sky. But planes, and flames, and newscasters with panicked voices. And image again. And again. And again. And somehow, kids cheering when they heard we'd get out of school. That's how much they hated it there. Remember this, in case you ever are tempted to believe that people in other places have a monopoly on anger.

I remember: fear and hate. Arguments in classrooms, arguments in Sunday school. People asking why, but not really wanting to know, because there are ugly answers to that question, and sometimes those ugly answers are made in the USA, and have names like M-1 Abrams, and Hellfire, and Apache. And sometimes those ugly answers sound like us supporting murderers, and dictators, and war criminals, because they aren't red, and they control.

I remember: fear and hate. And the decision to send kids my age to kill kids half my age. And I remember thinking that if this was a solution, than the only 'problem' it could be solving must be forgiveness or sanity or love.

I remember: realizing, even if I didn't have the words yet, that I had to find God in this. And the Bible opening again. And others opening it for me, because I couldn't always open it myself. And getting glimpses of the Word that goes beyond words. And beginning to thank God that it does, because my words are so limited and so weak and so quick to exclude and offend.  

I remember: shock and awe, and lies, and blood. It was my senior year, and kids cheered then, too, when the principal announced over the loud speaker that we were 'finally' going to invade, ignorant of the fact that, across the world, in the eyes of others, we have never left, we are just a new face to an old menace that rolls through again and again and again.

I remember: too many things that aren't God.

I remember: knowing in my heart that I had to find a way to serve life. knowing that I would fail. knowing that it didn't matter, I had to anyway.

So this is a prayer that perhaps you could pray for me:

Abba,

Help me remember the cross.

Help me remember the empty tomb.

Help me remember grace--and how amazing it is. And how disturbing it can be.

Help me remember Your kingdom.

Help me remember You.

1) Pre-departure cuddle puddle

2) The reminder that bearing a cross and wearing a cross are two different things.

3) Having a puppy hanging around your house when you get home, even when it's not really your puppy and it pees on things. Actually, especially because it pees on things. That's hilarious.

4) Seeing friend, girlfriend, and roomie again.

5) Knowing that the people that I miss are with me even when we're not close to each other.

6) God.

Dear David,

You should stop leaving the room when your blog is opened. 

Beth

In other news, anchor cross necklaces are lighter than the real thing.

I was commissioned today, and am now officially a Mission Intern with the United Methodist Church. Crazy. The service was beautiful, if a bit scary...the bishop laid his hands on extra heavy, as if to remind us of the weightiness of what we were agreeing to, and we read the Wesleyan Covenant Prayer....which is as follows:

 I am no longer mine but yours. Put me to what you will; rank me with whom you will. Put me to doing; put me to suffering. Let me be employed for you, or laid aside for you; exalted for you, or brought low for you. Let me be full; let me be empty. Let me have all things; let me have nothing. I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your please and disposal. And now, glorious and blessed God, Father, and Holy Spirit, you are mine and I am yours. So be it. And the covenant which I have made on Earth, let it be ratified in Heaven. Amen.

Whoa. That's scary stuff.

How good am I at carrying it out? Awful. God awful, to be punny. Whether it's being scared to talk to someone I met yesterday on the subway when I see her again, asking for money, or retreating to the safety of our temporary residence here at Columbia University, or thinking I can help people...I'm not so good at being ranked with whom God will, at being brought low for God, at being empty.

And so it begins. Now my face is turned to Jerusalem, the city of peace, the holy land...the city that, as Jesus says, does not know the things that make for peace.

We'll see how this goes...as Rumi says, I need more grace than I thought.

 For now, though, it is wonderful to spend time and share hearts with this amazing group of people. Body of Christ is starting to mean something tangible.

Oh no. What have I done...

So I used to think that blogs were for pretentious jerks who thought that everyone was really interested in whatever it was they had to say. Of course, I didn't know anyone who had a blog, so that was pretty easy to believe. But now that I have some friends who are writing about things that I'm interested in, and maybe want to hear some things I'm doing, I'm going ahead and starting this thing, thus telling you two things about me:

 1) I'm pretty selfish, or

 2) I'm a pretentious asshole.

Or both.

Anyway, here it is. I get commissioned tomorrow, which means that the United Methodist Church puts an anchor around my neck. No seriously. We get bling, in anchor form.

Send your love.