Bon appetit was not something I ever said to my four children. I wouldn’t have dared. I’m no Julia Child, not even close, but I do have a couple of connections with her that I count: Julia who today would be 100 years old, graduated from Smith College as did I several yeas after Julia, and she openly loved McDonald’s french fries. Me too. Also Julia didn’t cook till she was 40; neither did I but for different reasons. Mine weren’t French.
As I approached 40 my life blew up in the way midlife lives sometimes do. My husband and I separated and I moved into a condo with two teenage sons and an alley for a kitchen. Most people at times like this would panic about marriage repair, divorce, loneliness, insanity, getting a job that actually came with a pay check, or despair. But I panicked about cooking.
Not that I ever had been a good cook. I made meals you couldn’t call cooking. My husband and I loved to eat and drink wine but we weren’t gourmands. Fortunately, because my first Thanksgiving turkey literally blew up, so dry it fell away from its carcass. My in-laws were gracious as they poured gravy (heated and from a can) all over the dried beast. The brownie mix worked out well at least.
But now I didn’t have the structure of marriage with flattering lies and money to go out for dinner. In one swift neurotic ego-crushing moment I imagined I HAD to be a good cook.
It was about this time that I fell in love. There was a man involved but the true object of my affection was a sweet, plump insouciant little cook called Crockpot. I named her Burnt Umber (BU for short) after one of my children’s crayon colors and filled her with one of four meals (beef stew, pork chops soaked in mushroom soup, chicken breasts soaked in chicken noodle soup, or some form of swiss steak smothered in French onion soup mix.) Even the all-embracing Julia would cringe at my repertoire, but I was thrilled and fell headlong in love with a machine that cookec for me.
My mother didn’t like to cook either although she enjoyed a brief foray into French cuisine in her late middle life. Still, it wasn’t her thing. Her signature meal for us as kids was English muffins slathered with peanut butter and jelly. We weren’t starved just palate-neglected.
Julia Child was more than a great cook; she was a gracious woman full of chutzpah and good heart with a voice you’d never forget, sort of a throaty blend of the Marlboro Man and Truman Capote. I’m sure she would have belly laughed about my Crockpot love affair and called me “dearie” anyway.
All of us somehow survived, Julia went on to be famous and spread the word about fun cooking. I went on to marry a man who had a bigger Crockpot than BU and loved to cook.
My Crockpot went to the church rummage sale to save someone else’s life. I will never forget my Crockpot; she not only cooked but taught me to simmer and trust.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Sunday, August 12, 2012
2012.08.12 Walking the Land Jesus Walked
After a pilgrimage to Israel and trekking the land where Jesus trod, my faith in Jesus as an historical figure was grounded literally—concretized and dramatized, challenged and enlivened in a way it had not been before.
Let’s face it! Looking out on the Galilean Lake while sitting on a patch of grass or a bit of stone wall, listening to the gospel story of the Feeding of the 5000 read slowly, hearing waters lap, feeling the caress of a warm breeze and the soothe of your teacher saying, “You see? You see? We are in Jesus’ restaurant” is NOT the same as staring at a reredos behind a church altar picturing Jesus in stained glass, no matter how beautiful.
Topography and geography were for me the missing pieces to round out my faith. Nothing like terra firma to sober up any leftover spiritual illusions harbored by the overly romantic—like me.
We visited all the churches and buildings of note, of course, but what pulled me into the ministry of Jesus, the guy of Galilee, were the untrammeled unbuilt sites. Of course we were never able to stand on X marks the spot of where Jesus may have stood, but we were assured that we were likely in the area of where certain key biblical events in his life happened. After all, Israel is about the size of New Jersey—small, dense. How far off could you be?
I don’t take the Bible literally but I do take it seriously. It is a bit Cecil D. deMille because how else would you remember all those fantastic stories? I believe every single story has ultimate dignity and worth for the power of its theological message, mostly all the same: God loves and God saves in spite of human idiocy and fear. There ain’t no hell but in our minds.
Once at a former parish I referenced the infant Jesus in diapers, suggesting that he actually pooped. A woman left the parish in a huff. Too much humanity for her:) Literally soiled her image. On the other hand, in most churches there is so much emphasis on Jesus’ divinity, all I can do is worship from afar but not get too close.
I know we can’t split up the Incarnation of God-in-Christ, but I confess I cheat and do it anyway. I find Marcus Borg’s vocabulary helpful: pre-Easter Jesus and post-Easter Jesus.
"To deny that the pre-Easter Jesus was God does not diminish Jesus at all. Indeed, it exalts him. He was utterly remarkable—one of the two most remarkable people who ever lived. When I say this, I am often asked, "Who was the other one?" I answer, "I really don't care." My point is that the pre-Easter Jesus is a human possibility.”
He is not special because he was divine and had a divine "boost" that we don't have. Rather, he was special because he was an utterly remarkable human being—like St. Francis with an exclamation point. Francis (1181-1226) is often seen as the most remarkable and Christlike of the Christian saints. Was Francis a human possibility? Yes. How often does a Francis come along? Not very often. Someone like Jesus doesn't come along very often either. The pre-Easter Jesus was extraordinary—so extraordinary that his followers saw in him the decisive revelation of God." (from “Speaking Christian” by Marcus Borg)
The beauty of the Christian faith to me is that Jesus Christ, its icon and hero, walked the walk as well as talked the talk. Everywhere we went in Israel I heard the echo of Jesus’ invitation to inquisitive disciples, “Come and see.”
I loved getting to know the pre-Easter Jesus better —walking his land barefoot and busting with energy for his beloved YHWH-God. Frankly, that's divine enough for me.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
2012.08.08 BirthDays
It was my 74th birthday yesterday. It was also my husband’s but he’s only 71, mere child. My first birth day was in 1938, my second birth day was in 1973 when Godde woke me up to, well okay if I must say it, myself. Amazing grace!
John Newton wrote “Amazing Grace” in 1748 at age 23 in the wake of a spiritual conversion. It came to him on a storm-tossed sea when he prayed to God that the ship wouldn’t sink. It didn’t and Newton dedicated his life thereafter to God instead of to the slave trade business he was in.
(What Newton didn’t know was that God was more interested in saving the African slaves in the hold, who were also praying!)
Back in 1973 I wasn’t converted, just returned. I’d sunk deeply into the listening presence of one I called God as a very young child under a table chatting and feeling heard and accompanied. As I grew up and began my efforts to fit myself into my lovingly dysfunctional family and a world of roles and rules I lost touch with the under-the-table God. You could say I went Stepford-robotic—functional but self-less. Where could I fit as an ambitious woman with ideas unsuitable for a woman and mother? Depressed I suppose, I baked chocolate chip cookies—too many but a delicious distraction for me and a delight to my children. I didn’t pray but God “spoke” de profundis anyway, asking, “Why are you doing this?”
Though scared witless, I recognized the dear old accompanist I’d 30 years ago fallen into love with. So I followed God’s provocative question and, like Newton, became a priest. The rest of my life still is the answer to God’s question.
And this hymn, as Newton wrote it, is its theme song.
*******
Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound) That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see.
'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, And grace those fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear, The hour I first believed!
Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come;
'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, And grace will lead me home.
The Lord has promised good to me, His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be, As long as life endures.
Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail And mortal life shall cease;
I shall possess, within the veil, A life of joy and peace.
The earth shall soon dissolve like snow, The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who called me here below, Will be forever mine.
John Newton wrote “Amazing Grace” in 1748 at age 23 in the wake of a spiritual conversion. It came to him on a storm-tossed sea when he prayed to God that the ship wouldn’t sink. It didn’t and Newton dedicated his life thereafter to God instead of to the slave trade business he was in.
(What Newton didn’t know was that God was more interested in saving the African slaves in the hold, who were also praying!)
Back in 1973 I wasn’t converted, just returned. I’d sunk deeply into the listening presence of one I called God as a very young child under a table chatting and feeling heard and accompanied. As I grew up and began my efforts to fit myself into my lovingly dysfunctional family and a world of roles and rules I lost touch with the under-the-table God. You could say I went Stepford-robotic—functional but self-less. Where could I fit as an ambitious woman with ideas unsuitable for a woman and mother? Depressed I suppose, I baked chocolate chip cookies—too many but a delicious distraction for me and a delight to my children. I didn’t pray but God “spoke” de profundis anyway, asking, “Why are you doing this?”
Though scared witless, I recognized the dear old accompanist I’d 30 years ago fallen into love with. So I followed God’s provocative question and, like Newton, became a priest. The rest of my life still is the answer to God’s question.
And this hymn, as Newton wrote it, is its theme song.
*******
Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound) That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see.
'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, And grace those fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear, The hour I first believed!
Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come;
'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, And grace will lead me home.
The Lord has promised good to me, His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be, As long as life endures.
Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail And mortal life shall cease;
I shall possess, within the veil, A life of joy and peace.
The earth shall soon dissolve like snow, The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who called me here below, Will be forever mine.
Monday, August 6, 2012
2012.08.06 A Dream and an Afterthought
Last night I dreamed of my old friend with the sad story. In the dream my friend was transfigured. She was herself, standing tall, majestic, gray-haired. Powerful I'd say. I thought the dream was a gift and I believed it.
What courage it took for my friend to call after all those years and pour her own dream and prayer out onto my answering machine.
What courage it took for my friend to call after all those years and pour her own dream and prayer out onto my answering machine.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
2012.08.04 One Sad Little Story
Writing a memoir creates a mind set for long term memory. Fine with me since my short term one is beginning to lag a bit.
Today I thought of a high school friend. Her face passed in front of me and I wondered how she had survived. She grew up with a severely alcoholic father who used to slap her behind and call her Bessie Broadbottom—then laugh with ghoulish gusto. She laughed too but I knew it wasn’t funny. I used to wonder about sexual abuse even back in the 50s in a suburban CT. shore town!
My friend’s mother was passive, sweet, and preachy religious. But she too had a steel magnolia edge. It was obviously how she controlled her internal chaos and ignored her husband. She told her daughter that she could have married Mr. Mack of Mack trucks and have lots of money and happiness. Cruel revelation I thought.
Growing up with cruelty made my friend unpopular in school because she was pushy trying to excel and be popular. I’m ashamed to say I didn’t like her much either but stayed friends because I felt sorry for her.
She idealized me and my family, wrongly really because I was in a similar cocktail situation but with far more love in it. My dad’s sarcasm was martini-induced and he never called me names or sexualized our relationship. My mom’s denial helped her kid herself and skim the surface of life. It irked me but helped me sharpen my awareness and thus my spirituality: dig deep for truth. But I never thought my parents were cruel and I knew I was loved.
When after college I got engaged my friend was excited to be invited to the party and later to be one of my bridesmaids.
I was far less excited about the idea of a big party than my mother who wanted a traditional event with lots of people; she wanted my father to announce with pride that his daughter Lynda was to be married, a little speech just for me. I felt shy and uncomfortable but my friend thought that would be the greatest thing in the world ever to happen to any girl.
She missed the big announcement arriving late to the party because her father had to have “just one more drink” at the restaurant.
I will never forget my friend’s face when she rushed in to find she’d missed what she had so wanted to be present for. It exploded, awash with pain, rage and helplessness, almost feral, when she turned on her parents like a trapped wild beast, and said “You made me miss it.”
Moments like that are ripe for despair. They are prayers.
The voice of despair came some 30 years later after I was ordained and through my phone answering machine. My friend located me because of a high school reunion list and dialed. I got the message and recognized her voice, drunk with alcohol and pain.
“I want to do what you do,” she said twice and hung up leaving no number to call back.
Oh, God.
Today I thought of a high school friend. Her face passed in front of me and I wondered how she had survived. She grew up with a severely alcoholic father who used to slap her behind and call her Bessie Broadbottom—then laugh with ghoulish gusto. She laughed too but I knew it wasn’t funny. I used to wonder about sexual abuse even back in the 50s in a suburban CT. shore town!
My friend’s mother was passive, sweet, and preachy religious. But she too had a steel magnolia edge. It was obviously how she controlled her internal chaos and ignored her husband. She told her daughter that she could have married Mr. Mack of Mack trucks and have lots of money and happiness. Cruel revelation I thought.
Growing up with cruelty made my friend unpopular in school because she was pushy trying to excel and be popular. I’m ashamed to say I didn’t like her much either but stayed friends because I felt sorry for her.
She idealized me and my family, wrongly really because I was in a similar cocktail situation but with far more love in it. My dad’s sarcasm was martini-induced and he never called me names or sexualized our relationship. My mom’s denial helped her kid herself and skim the surface of life. It irked me but helped me sharpen my awareness and thus my spirituality: dig deep for truth. But I never thought my parents were cruel and I knew I was loved.
When after college I got engaged my friend was excited to be invited to the party and later to be one of my bridesmaids.
I was far less excited about the idea of a big party than my mother who wanted a traditional event with lots of people; she wanted my father to announce with pride that his daughter Lynda was to be married, a little speech just for me. I felt shy and uncomfortable but my friend thought that would be the greatest thing in the world ever to happen to any girl.
She missed the big announcement arriving late to the party because her father had to have “just one more drink” at the restaurant.
I will never forget my friend’s face when she rushed in to find she’d missed what she had so wanted to be present for. It exploded, awash with pain, rage and helplessness, almost feral, when she turned on her parents like a trapped wild beast, and said “You made me miss it.”
Moments like that are ripe for despair. They are prayers.
The voice of despair came some 30 years later after I was ordained and through my phone answering machine. My friend located me because of a high school reunion list and dialed. I got the message and recognized her voice, drunk with alcohol and pain.
“I want to do what you do,” she said twice and hung up leaving no number to call back.
Oh, God.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
2012.08.01 Chick-fil-A??
Hey, hey it’s Chick fil A day. Not on liturgical calendars anywhere btw. All I can think of is the “dance” we do at weddings flapping our elbows wildly. This flap is about as funny.
Is it me or is anyone else thinking that Chick fil A is a sexist slur not very well disguised?
Chickens don’t immediately come to mind with the name, even though I know this is a, reportedly delicious, fast food operation, their top draw a buttered BUN with a pressed and breaded chicken BREAST. Think mammogram.
My associations go like this:
Chick=woman but maybe with unsophisticated tastes. Think chick lit or chick flix.
Fil= just short of a filly, also a female object of devotion or ogle—with great haunches.
A=a top academic grade, or, as I remember some of us teen chicks would say to flirt with the boy who drove a Model A Ford in high school, “Hows’ your A?” —and then roll over with laughter.
This all could be my own perverse sense of humor, my feminist ardor, northeast liberal prejudice, or displaced anger because the CEO of Chick-fil-A has openly “come out” against same-sex marriage. In a gutsy statement, Boston’s Mayor Menino blasted Chick-fil-A for its bias and said the Chick would not be welcome in Boston where plans to open a new restaurant are afoot.
Of course Menino has admitted he can’t prevent the permits issued for a new Boston business, but the chick, or the filly, is out of the barn. Who would eat there now? Kinda leaves a rotten chicken taste in your mouth—or mine at least.
Here’s a tweet from a buddy pilgrim (to Israel) and seminarian at the Virginia Theological School (in the south last time I looked): “I hope nobody asks the CEO of Chipotle his view on same-sex marriage, I’d be devastated to have to stop eating there.”
I should fit Godde in here somewhere. Some day I’m sure it takes all of God’s energy just to hold back divine laughter so the world won’t explode—prematurely.
Is it me or is anyone else thinking that Chick fil A is a sexist slur not very well disguised?
Chickens don’t immediately come to mind with the name, even though I know this is a, reportedly delicious, fast food operation, their top draw a buttered BUN with a pressed and breaded chicken BREAST. Think mammogram.
My associations go like this:
Chick=woman but maybe with unsophisticated tastes. Think chick lit or chick flix.
Fil= just short of a filly, also a female object of devotion or ogle—with great haunches.
A=a top academic grade, or, as I remember some of us teen chicks would say to flirt with the boy who drove a Model A Ford in high school, “Hows’ your A?” —and then roll over with laughter.
This all could be my own perverse sense of humor, my feminist ardor, northeast liberal prejudice, or displaced anger because the CEO of Chick-fil-A has openly “come out” against same-sex marriage. In a gutsy statement, Boston’s Mayor Menino blasted Chick-fil-A for its bias and said the Chick would not be welcome in Boston where plans to open a new restaurant are afoot.
Of course Menino has admitted he can’t prevent the permits issued for a new Boston business, but the chick, or the filly, is out of the barn. Who would eat there now? Kinda leaves a rotten chicken taste in your mouth—or mine at least.
Here’s a tweet from a buddy pilgrim (to Israel) and seminarian at the Virginia Theological School (in the south last time I looked): “I hope nobody asks the CEO of Chipotle his view on same-sex marriage, I’d be devastated to have to stop eating there.”
I should fit Godde in here somewhere. Some day I’m sure it takes all of God’s energy just to hold back divine laughter so the world won’t explode—prematurely.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
2012.07.29 Dream On?
I dreamed a lot as a kid, day and night, always about things I wanted to do or be or accomplish. I was lucky enough to have enough happiness, enough creativity and imagination, and enough intelligence to dream—and read many books.
After the fairy princess/ballerina/moviestar phase, I settled into the dream of having children and being a mother. The children made my dreams. Then I discovered no one paid for motherhood or gave it much recognition, so I thought it would be better to be a man. That one didn't last long, but I did invade the sanctuary of an all-male profession, priesthood, and discovered it wasn't that much fun to be a parish "Father"—too lonely.
Every dream I've had I've worked hard to help along, revise and tweak, and get help with.
We all dream dreams. It's what keeps us alive and vital. Even on my death bed I bet I'll be conjuring heaven and dream of meeting God and Jesus.
America was founded on a dream: liberty and justice and land, land, land. It was once bright and shiny and inviting— available to all citizens. Now it has turned to pablum spooned out by the unawares, the power-hungry, the ignorant, and the too-busy-scraping-basic-livelihood-together-to-notice.
Liberty has turned into license and arbitrary violence. Justice is an illusion because there is no peace on our streets. And land has morphed into private property that includes trophy homes and gated communities where we get isolated and insulated and mistake it for individual freedom.
The Occupy Movement of 2011 raised awareness about classism and increasing economic inequity, which means less mobility. Less is available to a greater number of citizens than ever before. 99% of us is falling fast out of the amenic middle class. It scares me to read about it but I am able to live comfortably enough not to really feel it.
Paul Krugman in his NY Times commentary on Jan 16, 2012, Martin Luther King day, wrote: “Mitt Romney says that we should discuss income inequality, if at all, only in “quiet rooms. There was a time when people said the same thing about racial inequality. [They said it about gender inequality, too, and still are.] Luckily, however, there were people like Martin Luther King who refused to stay quiet. And we should follow their example today. For the fact is that rising inequality threatens to make America a different and worse place — and we need to reverse that trend to preserve both our values and our dreams.”
Has our so-called dream become a lie?
Maybe we need to focus less on owning homes and more on being at home together.
Loneliness is a first sign of the waning of a dream. Are Americans lonely?
I'm lucky not to feel loneliness much, in part because I'm an introvert, and in part because I have a spouse I like. We convene the day and the evening together. And my dream of getting a memoir published, though dim, isn't extinguished.
Also I have a church community, a bunch of people who come together weekly to pray, sing, learn, and gather around a table to eat blessed food, after which they gratefully move to another no less sacred space to drink coffee or lemonade and eat "tapas."
The Christian church has a dream, of a God whose spaciousness knows no bounds. We learned it from Jesus. We try to practice the vision, yet sometimes we are too isolated in our own ways and community that, just like the nation, we forget to dream beyond ourselves. To complicate matters the church has gotten allergic to much if any mention of sin, awareness of the dreams of others.
Israel, like America, had, still has, a dream. Call it a home of your own. It's less about ownership than it is about identity, meaning, self-governance, and healing a long history of displacement, persecution, execution, and being scapegoats. I asked a young rabbi once why Jews kept getting blamed, almost no matter what happens. “It’s because we’re exclusive, think we’re special,” he said. Well, my God, listen to the braying of some Christians! And some Americans!
But once Jews got their homeland in 1948 their homeland security politics have run wildly beyond security. Palestinian land has been seized; refugee camps are established with curfews and locked gates; moving from place to place requires going through checkpoints, some of them now “flying” (you don’t know where they will pop up); mountaintop surveillance station feeling like”big daddy;” Palestinians who dream of a return to their land, elected a terrorist regime Hamas: and worst of all a Wall of Separation, the amen to mutual loneliness. I saw it and wept.
I asked a local politician, a liberal one, about U.S. Israel/Palestine policy. I received a firm reiteration of our alliance to Israel and a justification of military power tactics as "maintaining a qualitative military edge."
Are we as appallingly ignorant of the spaciousness of our own dreams as we are of Israel/Palestine's?
The feeling of threat, whether real or imagined, kills the soul and with it the land. Sin is as organic as love; it multiplies.
Israelis are, once again and understandably, afraid. So are Americans. So are Palestinians. So am I. I pray daily that God, who created land and leased it to humanity as blessing, will transform the hearts and minds of leaders and people ( it doesn’t matter which comes first) from fear to humility.
***
Either dreams are not a good idea at all, except in sleep, or we need help to listen to and respect the dreams of our neighbors, far and near.
Our Jewish next-door neighbor, the one who is a beautiful singer and who has never been to Israel, came over to sing a Christian liturgical chant she’d prepared for us as a send off on our Israel pilgrimage.
Yes! Dream on.
After the fairy princess/ballerina/moviestar phase, I settled into the dream of having children and being a mother. The children made my dreams. Then I discovered no one paid for motherhood or gave it much recognition, so I thought it would be better to be a man. That one didn't last long, but I did invade the sanctuary of an all-male profession, priesthood, and discovered it wasn't that much fun to be a parish "Father"—too lonely.
Every dream I've had I've worked hard to help along, revise and tweak, and get help with.
We all dream dreams. It's what keeps us alive and vital. Even on my death bed I bet I'll be conjuring heaven and dream of meeting God and Jesus.
America was founded on a dream: liberty and justice and land, land, land. It was once bright and shiny and inviting— available to all citizens. Now it has turned to pablum spooned out by the unawares, the power-hungry, the ignorant, and the too-busy-scraping-basic-livelihood-together-to-notice.
Liberty has turned into license and arbitrary violence. Justice is an illusion because there is no peace on our streets. And land has morphed into private property that includes trophy homes and gated communities where we get isolated and insulated and mistake it for individual freedom.
The Occupy Movement of 2011 raised awareness about classism and increasing economic inequity, which means less mobility. Less is available to a greater number of citizens than ever before. 99% of us is falling fast out of the amenic middle class. It scares me to read about it but I am able to live comfortably enough not to really feel it.
Paul Krugman in his NY Times commentary on Jan 16, 2012, Martin Luther King day, wrote: “Mitt Romney says that we should discuss income inequality, if at all, only in “quiet rooms. There was a time when people said the same thing about racial inequality. [They said it about gender inequality, too, and still are.] Luckily, however, there were people like Martin Luther King who refused to stay quiet. And we should follow their example today. For the fact is that rising inequality threatens to make America a different and worse place — and we need to reverse that trend to preserve both our values and our dreams.”
Has our so-called dream become a lie?
Maybe we need to focus less on owning homes and more on being at home together.
Loneliness is a first sign of the waning of a dream. Are Americans lonely?
I'm lucky not to feel loneliness much, in part because I'm an introvert, and in part because I have a spouse I like. We convene the day and the evening together. And my dream of getting a memoir published, though dim, isn't extinguished.
Also I have a church community, a bunch of people who come together weekly to pray, sing, learn, and gather around a table to eat blessed food, after which they gratefully move to another no less sacred space to drink coffee or lemonade and eat "tapas."
The Christian church has a dream, of a God whose spaciousness knows no bounds. We learned it from Jesus. We try to practice the vision, yet sometimes we are too isolated in our own ways and community that, just like the nation, we forget to dream beyond ourselves. To complicate matters the church has gotten allergic to much if any mention of sin, awareness of the dreams of others.
Israel, like America, had, still has, a dream. Call it a home of your own. It's less about ownership than it is about identity, meaning, self-governance, and healing a long history of displacement, persecution, execution, and being scapegoats. I asked a young rabbi once why Jews kept getting blamed, almost no matter what happens. “It’s because we’re exclusive, think we’re special,” he said. Well, my God, listen to the braying of some Christians! And some Americans!
But once Jews got their homeland in 1948 their homeland security politics have run wildly beyond security. Palestinian land has been seized; refugee camps are established with curfews and locked gates; moving from place to place requires going through checkpoints, some of them now “flying” (you don’t know where they will pop up); mountaintop surveillance station feeling like”big daddy;” Palestinians who dream of a return to their land, elected a terrorist regime Hamas: and worst of all a Wall of Separation, the amen to mutual loneliness. I saw it and wept.
I asked a local politician, a liberal one, about U.S. Israel/Palestine policy. I received a firm reiteration of our alliance to Israel and a justification of military power tactics as "maintaining a qualitative military edge."
Are we as appallingly ignorant of the spaciousness of our own dreams as we are of Israel/Palestine's?
The feeling of threat, whether real or imagined, kills the soul and with it the land. Sin is as organic as love; it multiplies.
Israelis are, once again and understandably, afraid. So are Americans. So are Palestinians. So am I. I pray daily that God, who created land and leased it to humanity as blessing, will transform the hearts and minds of leaders and people ( it doesn’t matter which comes first) from fear to humility.
***
Either dreams are not a good idea at all, except in sleep, or we need help to listen to and respect the dreams of our neighbors, far and near.
Our Jewish next-door neighbor, the one who is a beautiful singer and who has never been to Israel, came over to sing a Christian liturgical chant she’d prepared for us as a send off on our Israel pilgrimage.
Yes! Dream on.
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