Israel (11/12/04-12/18/04)
11/12
Thought: The same sea that my feet are in laps upon the shores of Africa, Italy, and Greece just across the way, and variously floated Odysseus, Paul, and Napoleon.
Quote: “…in this age of the lost self, lost in the desert of theory and consumption, nothing of significance remains but signs. And only two signs are of significance where all theoretical cats are grey. One is oneself. And the other is the Jews. But for the self that finds itself lost in the desert of theory and consumption, there is nothing to do but set out as a pilgrim in the desert in search of a sign. In this desert, that of theory and consumption, there remains only one sign, the Jews. By “the Jews” I mean not only Israel, the exclusive people of God, but the worldwide ecclesia instituted by one of them, God-became-man, a Jew.
_____It is for this reason that the present age is better than Christendom. In the old Christendom, everyone was a Christian and hardly anyone thought twice about it. But in the present age the survivor of theory and consumption becomes a wayfarer in the desert, like St. Anthony; which is to say, open to signs.”
--Walker Percy, “Why Are You A Catholic?”
11/13
Thought: Man, I wish I had my camera. These beach and water caves are gorgeous!
Quote: “You’re talking like you’re thirty-four.”
--Guy Lachmann, my most gracious Tel Aviv host, after a bit of my rambling about my concerns for the future.
11/14
(I traveled from the Lachmann’s place in Tel Aviv to a youth hostel in Jerusalem)
Thought: Gabby and Guy were really generous to house, wine, and dine me like they did. Israelis generally look pretty happy. I think it’s because they have a cohesive society. They stand closer to each other, look each other in the eyes in passing, and smile a lot. They do all of this despite, or maybe because of, the fact that everything is blowing up around them. (Note: I later came to realize that very little of this is true. I eventually met Israelis who weren’t very happy, and came to a more balanced view of the place. Same goes for the cohesive society bit. There are many sections of the society that aren’t very united with others, and really have nothing in common.)
Quote: “In such peculiar times it is perhaps one function of the novelist to mention these peculiarities—like an obnoxious little boy calling attention to the Emperor’s state of undress. In this case, the Emperor is the German doctor who loves Mozart best of all and plays in a quartet as a relaxation from his experiments in the death camps—or the decent middle-class Englishman who flies the lead Lancaster bomber which marks out an undefended Dresden for the forestorm. Both are following orders, and both of them are good Germans and Englishmen, love their dachsunds and corgis and detest cruelty to animals. Is it an accident that the century of terror is also the century of sentimentality? What the novelist notices is not how awful the happenings are but how peculiar it is that people don’t seem to notice how awful the happenings are…
_____The deeper we get into this century, the more sense people make, but they are making different kinds of senses which don’t compute with each other. Carl Sagan explains everything without God, from the most distant galaxies to our own individual nastiness, which is caused by our reptilian brains. Radio and TV preachers explain everything by God, man’s happiness with God, man’s unhappiness without God. Humanists explain everything by coming out for the freedom and dignity of the individual. One hundred million books have been written by psychotherapists on how to be creative and self-fulfilling. And here’s this nice ordinary American who works hard all day and is watching his six hours of TV and his wife is reading The National Enquirer and is more likely to set store by astrology and psychics than by science or God. The slaughter and terror of the century continues. And people are, by and large, nicer than ever.”
--Walker Percy, from Signposts in a Strange Land.
11/15
Pictures: Old City Wall, Wailing Wall w/ me.
Thought: My sense of attachment to physical locations is weak, but among the people here it is fierce. The regular habit of those who arrive in this land is to set up camp and slaughter everyone in sight. The Christians were the worst. I like certain places, and have nostalgic reminiscences about others. But I wouldn’t go back and spill the blood of their incredulous inhabitants.
_____My religious attachments are to an invisible church, and this informs my other attachments, to places, houses, and people. I often think of things in a physically detached and spiritually engaged sort of way. The Jews, Turks, and Crusaders had a different idea.
Loveliest Part: When I drank a beer, reading Faulkner, thinking about the Old City and Staring at it from my balcony.
11/16
(Moved to Petra Hostel, right inside Jaffa gate, in the Old City)
Pictures: 3 x bed w/Dome @Petra Hostel, $4.50 a night, one-time quarters of both Hemingway and Melville.
Thought: The Cross is somehow the answer to the Israel/Palestine conflict. But I don’t know why or how.
Quote: “You are all I am not. Oh oh oh You are all that I am (Jesus). Break down these walls, fill all my brokenness, rebuild me to shelter your name.”(try to make into a link to this audio clip)
--from my head, courtesy of Danielle rose, courtesy of Jesus.
11/17
Pics: Petra roof crew, Golgotha, Garden Tomb
Events: Talked for hours on the roof of Petra Hostel with John (Canadian/Israeli/Jew), Christian (Haitian/Christian), Grady (American/Christian), and Shmuel (German/Jew). Went to the Garden Tomb and Golgotha (maybe) with Grady.
Thought: Most of the monuments, tour areas, and gift shops would be a lot nicer if they didn’t exist.
Quote: “He is not here. He is risen.”
--door of a supposed tomb of Christ.
11/18
(Moved to Fr. Naim Ateek’s place in East Jerusalem, and was again fed and accommodated royally)
Pictures: Bethlehem, Arabic graffiti on the wall: “whole Palestine.”
Events: Went to Bethlehem with Grady and Shmuel, my only West Bank incursion. Saw Church of the Nativity. Met up with Tim Ateek (a friend fresh from Dallas), Dr. Ateek (Tim’s dad), and Father Naim Ateek (Tim’s uncle), and went to Fr. Ateek’s house.
Thought: What is Old Testament Prophecy? The voice of God? Jingoism? I can’t tell sometimes. It’s too violently nationalistic to come from the God of Jesus Christ. “Go into the land and slaughter everyone, man, woman, and child.” What!?! I don’t get it.
_____This is at the very core of the Israel/Palestine conflict. As Naim Stifan Ateek, whose couch I’m sitting on, writes in his book Justice and Only Justice, “…theologically speaking, what is at stake today in the political conflict over the land of the West Bank and Gaza, is nothing less than the way we understand the nature of God…” If God wants Israel to be nationalistic first, last, and always, then they should be even more aggressive. If He wants peace on Earth, and Love thy Neighbor, then something is awry.
Quote: “Do not think Palestinians are terrorists… They are trying to find their way. It’s not easy to find the way… What I am trying to find, a way to live—my children with Israeli children… The problem is I am forty years old. I want to see that day. I want to see that for my children.”
--Robert, a very peaceful and friendly father of two extremely cute children (whom I played hide and seek with), who runs a tourist store just outside of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem (Taken from a much longer conversation about the whole situation).
11/19
(Slept at Tim’s aunt’s house)
Pictures: Jerusalem from Mt. of Olives w/ Tim, The Wall w/ me underneath.
Note: Isn’t it gigantic?! Israel plopped it down right across this street, at an arbitrary point on Palestinian land. The family workshop, the neighborhood 7-11, and your aunt down the block are all of a sudden two hours and a checkpoint away. The people around here are bitter, and I can see why. It would be like a thirty foot wall going up along Purdue, along with a declaration that Schneider Plaza, S.M.U., Park Cities Presbyterian Church, Mustang Doughnuts, and your neighbors-across-the-street are now in a different country which we might let you access through the nearest checkpoint thirty minutes away.
Note II: If you pay taxes in America, you helped pay for it.
Events: Woke up at Fr. Naim’s, went to Haifa for Tim’s aunt’s birthday party at her nephew’s restaurant. A good part of Dr. Ateek’s nine siblings were in attendance. Slept in Nazareth at Tim’s aunt’s house.
Thought: Prayer is simply putting yourself in the presence of God (courtesy of Fr. Brian Daley).
Thought: I like medicine because it’s a losing battle.
Quote: “‘No battle is ever won,’ he said. ‘They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.’”
--Quentin Compson’s father in William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury.
Quotes (paraphrased):
Question from me to Dr. Ateek, a counseling psychologist for thirty years: When people are dissatisfied with their work, is it usually because a) they don’t make enough money, b) they are not satisfied with what they are doing, or c) because of a moral/religious qualms?
Dr. Ateek (again, paraphrased): It’s usually not because of the money. It’s usually frustration with the people or environment that they’re working with/in. Religious and moral issues are likely to come into play in the governmental or religious sectors, where idealogy is an issue. Most other jobs require specializations in which people are usually pretty well settled, but the other people are the problem.
Question to Fr. Naim Ateek, a Palestinian Episcopal Priest, Nobel Peace Prize Nominee, and director of Sabeel, an ecumenical organization for peace and justice in Palestine: How can the God of the Old Testament who orders the wholesale slaughter of the rightful possessors of the land also be the God of Jesus Christ? Could it be that some of the prophecies and commandments are propaganda?
Fr. Naim Ateek (paraphrased): Yes.
Note: He didn’t seem to want to talk about it very much, probably because it’s very close to him and frustrating. What is a casual and interesting topic of conversation to me is probably very close and heavy to Fr. Naim, and he just wanted to enjoy his family.
11/20
Picture: Desk and bed at Sisters of Nazareth.
Thought: Can one forgive an offense that someone committed against him without that person admitting his fault? Can Palestinians and Jews forgive each other without the other people confessing their trespass? Can I forgive someone for hurting me without his apology? I hope so. It seems like Jesus did when he said “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.” But actually this implies that they would be harder to forgive if they knew what they were doing, and that maybe they would need to confess their sin, if they knew about it, in order for God to forgive.
_____Does God forgive us before we confess our sins? Does he forgive the sins that we don’t confess? I really hope so. He must. And if he does, I think that we can forgive each other our trespasses, even when we don’t confess them.
Quote: “I had a rock thrown at me before you did. I landed at 2:35 pm on Friday the twelfth. Within twenty-four hours I had a rock thrown at me by a Palestinian. And from then on, I used a human shield. The best was a one-and-a-half year old.”
--Matt Bryant
11/21
Quote: “Thus says the Lord: Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches; but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth; for in these things I delight.”
--The Bible, Jeremiah 9:23-24, from Naim Stifan Ateek's Justice and Only Justice
"I didn't know that! We are committing an injustice."
--Max Nordan, one of the most famous German personalities of the Zionist movement in the 19th century, upon hearing for the first time that Palestine was inhabited by Arabs. This anecdote was shared by Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, and repeated by Ateek.
Thought: Create an Israel/Palestine section of website. At beginning: "The following is my attempt to express what little I understand about the situation in Israel and the Paelstinian Territories. Please help me by refuting, correcting, or sharpening my argument." Before doing it, read A Case for Israel, after finishing Ateek.
Another website section title: "Some things that we should think about more often":
Sudanese people are being murdered like crazy.
_______ babies are being killed each day.
Israel
The works of mercy (homelessness, quote Tolstoy, Day)
Go back to D-town and live with the Mexicans.
Preface: I've studied these issues far less than I should have, and worked on them even less. I mention them because I want to learn more, and my favorite way of learning is through dialogue. So please, I beg you, refute my ideas, correct them, sharpen my arguments, and please, please help me understand these crises, and any others that come to mind:
Abortion
The "Genocide" in Sudan
Homelessness/Poverty in America
The Israeli/Palestinian Conflict (do a timeline a la Ateek)
Christians Killing Each Other (The War in Iraq) (Yeah, it happens. Can you believe it?!?)
Title quote: "But what to make of times such as these about which autonymous adjectives, best and worst, desparate and hopeful, signify equally? It is a peculiar century which sees the greatest advances in science and in the social betterment of man, yet which has been called by Raymond Aaron the century of terror. It is a time notable not so much for its series of world catastrophes, the millions who have been slaughtered, the Holocaust, but for the banality with which these atrocities are committed and taken note of. In such peculiar times it is perhaps one function of the novelist to mention these peculiarities- like an obnoxious little boy calling attention to the Emperor's state of undress."
--Walker Percy, from Signposts in a Strange Land.
11/22
Quote: "For many Americans, the problem of 'Peace in the Middle East' is seen primarily as a problem of 'terrorists' and of the refusal of Arabs to live peacefully with Israel. The hidden story of Palestinian farmers presents a different perspective, of an Israel that does not wish to live in the same land with its Arab neighbors and that has steadily deprived villagers of their houses and lands."
--Rosemary Radford Reuther, "Middle East Peace Means Restoring an Old Arab's Farm."
Thought: America did all of this to the Native Americans. I'm just as guilty as the Israeli Jews.
Picture: Pastries and bedside book.
11/23
Schedule for 11/22/04-11/27/04
11/23
Nazareth
7:00am- wake, push, shower
8:00- tour of church
9:00 - Egged bus stop - bus - Afula - Mt. Tabor (LG23a)
2:00pm - Egged bus - Tiberias (LG 235)
3:00- Tiberias hostel Aviv (LG244) - Belvoir (LG 249) or The Tel (LG 248)
or
2:00 Egged bus - Megiddo (LG240)
6:00 Egged bus - Tiberias
7:00 - Tiberias hostel Aviv
11/24
8:00- wake, push, shower, eat
9:00- bike around the lake (ask for lock) - Ginnasaur Beach and Museum (LG253)
Mt. or Beatitudes - (small path across from St. Pete's in Tabghe
the Church of the bread and fish (Tabghe) (LG252)
Capernaum (LG253) - Ateek: See the synagogue
Kirsi- demons - pigs (LG253)
The Jordan @ Yardenit (LG254)
11/25
8:00- wake, push, shower, eat
9:00- revisit Galilee faves: take time, pray, contemplate the divine
11/26
8:00- w, p, s, e
9:00- check weather, prepare to swim, head to Henion Yehudiyya (LG275)
ask for bus or hitchhike
take Nahal Yehudiyya trail
11/27
8:00- w, p, s, e
9:00 - Kiryat Shmona (LG281) (@1:30pm) - Banyas (Cesarea Philipi)
Nimrod's Fortress (great view)
(be sure I can get back)
Thought: Furthermore, America, like Jews in Israel, had experienced unjust oppression (albiet to a much, much lesser extent than European Jews) before it became the oppressor.
Quote: "Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience."
--Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton on Peace. Quoted by Ateek.
Picture: Panoramic vista from Tel Megiddo of ARMAGEDDON (style this like a rock anthem).
Quote II: "Where there is a deep, simple, all embracing love of man, of the created world of living and inanimate things, then there will be respect for life, for freedom, for truth, for justice, and there will be humble love of God. But where there is not love of man, no love of life, then make all the laws you want, all the edicts and treaties, issues all the anathemas, set up all the safeguards and inspections, fill the air with spying satellites, and hang cameras on the moon. As long as you see your fellowman as a being essentially to be feared, mistrusted, hated, and destroyed, there cannot be peace on earth."
--Thomas Merton, Pacem in Terris. Quoted by Ateek.
WOW! (Put in big quote collection)
Bumper sticker: Middle East Peace Means Restoring an Old Arab's Farm. -Rosemary Radford Reuther
Another sticker: And not driving this gas hog.
Another sticker: Sorry.
Love Movies to See (Note: I forget who suggested them):
American Gigolo
Indecent Proposal
Roman Holiday
Barefoot in the Park
Love Story
The Butcher's Wife
Funny face
An Officer and a Gentleman
11/25
Thought: I wonder if Jesus ever fell in love.
Picture: Galilee Panorama
Note (made on 2/25/06, while typing journal for website): I met up with a group of Messianic Jews for a Thanksgiving celebration at a kibbutz on the southern part of the Sea of Galilee. There were many very nice families. Most of them were American. I met some dudes, one about my age, and his little high school brother, who welcomed me to stay in their apartment. I did.
11/26
Picture: Moon shots
Thought: Maybe 0 is a good starting point.
I didn't talk to anyone that I wasn't buying something from.
11/27
Congregation and Shabbat with the Mills - Benjamin and Celeste
Note (on 2/25/06): I spent the day with these Messianic Jews, first going to congregation (too many unfavorable associations with the word "Church"), and then spending the day eating, talking, and otherwise not working at their house with their family. What a delightful time. We came home, sat together as a family, and ate until the sun went down.
11/28
Tour of Beit Shean and Megiddo with Paul, Ben, Don, Michael, Drew, J.J., and two others.
11/29
Nada. Stayed in apartment, got sick.
Note (on 2/25/06): This is the apartment of the two protestant American dudes who I met on Thanksgiving. They were very accomodating, allowing me to stay with them for about a week, during which I had a convalescence, probably from just wearing my body out. I watched the movie Sabrina about five times. That's embarassing.
Thought: William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury is the most depressing book I've ever read. It think it is why I've been getting sick over the last two days.
11/30
To Eilat.
Picture: View of the TV on which I watched Sabrina three times in two days.
12/1
Picture: I didn't take a photo, because it was way beyond the camera to capture, and I had run out of film. But it's the most beautiful thing that I've ever seen. I've deliberated extensively about this, and it stands. I wish that I had the poetry to do it justice.
It was a sunset over the Mediterranean at Akko to break the heart. Absolutely every color in the spectrum was pulsing through the most heavenly clouds over the emerald water. The unfolding drama was more astounding than any firework show, more powerful than an atomic bomb, and more elegant than Mozart. It brought me to dancing, laughter, and almost tears. Alleluia!
Quote:
It's rigged - everything in your favor.
So there's nothing to worry about.
Is there some position you want,
some office, some acclaim, some award, some car, some lover
maybe two maybe three, maybe four - all at once,
maybe a relationship
with
God?
I know there is a gold mine in you, when you find it
the wonderment of the earth's gifts you will lay
aside as naturally as does
a child a
doll.
But, dear, how sweet you look to me kissing the unreal;
comfort, fulfill yourself in any way possible - do that until
you ache, until you ache,
then come to me
again.
--Rumi
12/2
Picture: Hazy sunset over Mediterranean from Akko (my favorite place on earth, maybe). Crusader Castle Pics.
Thought: God is not who you think he is.
Quote:
I felt in need of a great pilgrimmage
so I sat still for three
days
and God came to me.
--Kabir
12/3
Guy and friends (?)
12/4
Picture: B.B.Q. with the Lachmans.
12/5
Picture: Moonrise over the Dead Sea (from a field school in En Gedi).
Note (on 2/25/06): After sneaking past the expensive youth hostel and up into the field school, I found some tremendously friendly kibbutzers who welcomed me into their community. I passed a delightful couple of days gathering around the fire for stew-making, getting beaten very badly at Backgammon, contemplating the moon over the Dead Sea, and hiking up and down the park trails coming up from the Sea to the plateau above. En Gedi is a spring that gives birth to rich vegetation in an otherwise completely dead area. Lush plantlife crowds around the only fresh water river in the area. The kibbutzers, all around 15-20, work in the park as tour guides, preservationists, researchers, and maintenance, among other things. It's a very communal, friendly, interesting, and delightful crowd. I'm very thankful for their welcome and my time there.
12/6
Picture: Sunrise over Dead Sea and trail pics
Thought: I've spent most of my life in outer space.
12/7
Thought: How do I eat my hot dogs? With relish.
Quote: "Shalom n*gga."
--An Israeli youth to me in passing on the trail up to Masada.
Thought II: If you think you own something, it probably owns you. I think that goes for people too.
Thought III: Learn Santa Monica by Everclear on the guitar.
Plan: Eilat an Petra (2 days) - Rasasath (?) or Cairo (5 days) - Jerusalem (4 days) - Tel Aviv and Cesarea (1 day) - home
or Jericho - Jordan River - Amman w/ Flowers (3 days)
12/8
Quote: "When in doubt, break a face."
--John, one really crazy Brit who I hung out with in Eilat for a few days. He told me a few stories of his life as a high rolling, high stakes con man in London. He even gave me the learning experience of trying to con me a few times, and then explaining afterwards what he was doing. He almost took my head off in an empty dark parking lot when I refused to do a drug deal for him. What a crazy cat!
Thought: Isreal is made up of rejects. --Crazy John.
Thought II: There are two ways to go: over or under. You can go over, be big, power your way through with money, influence, and a powerful defence. Or you can go under, be little, be humble to get places. --Martin, a truly peaceable man whom I befriended in Eilat at the Chai Shop, a most worthy hostel for paying and no-paying customers alike. Martin, an artist, made ends meet as a cab driver. He came to Israel early on, and spoke of the free and pleasant days when he sold his art on the beach among an idyllic community. I hung out on the same beach for an evening with the remnant of the crew, a homeless bunch, around a fire. It was great fun.
Thought III: It's best to travel humbly, because then you can get into people's lives. I've seen people's underbellies, their weapons, their drugs lying around their house because I wasn't judging, was just a humble observer. It's best.
12/9
The I Ching
the Richard Willhelm translation, 1951.
published by: Routledge and Kegan Paul, London. Melbourne, and Hinley (?).
12/10
Movement: from Eilat to Jordan, city close to Petra.
Picture: My name in Hebrew (Kliyf) on back of page 13 of journal, and United States on front of journal.
Quote: Love Poems from God, p 144.
Thought: I think that I want to go under the Radar.
12/11
Event: Tour of Petra.
Thought: I have never felt threatened or endagered once since I've been here. People should fear less and travel more.
Pictures: Petra.
12/12
Pitures: Chai House, Red Sea, bus ride.
Movement: Petra to Cairo, via Eilat.
Event: Bomb threat at border crossing between Jordan and Israel at Eilat. Most afraid that I've ever been in my life. Panic ran through the crowd like an animal instinct. It gripped everyone, including me, and threatened to rob us of our reason.
12/13
First day in Egypt. Went to museum.
Thought: My own defences are isolating me.
Idea: February- Hong Kong to Egypt via Shanghai, Beijing, Europe and Turkey on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Get Footprints book Turkey to Cairo.
12/14
Pictures: Pyramids
Thought: I've experienced less time than most people my age.
Remember: pyramid on horseback, Czech girl, love letter, good Arabs, talking with Dorse, Nick.
12/15
Thought (writen backwards): It would be good to know Arabic.
Thought II: I am really good looking. (Just kidding) (?)
Quote: (Teresa of Avila quote from "Clarity is Freedom."
Picture: Me in Mirror.
Address:
Zeenat and Max Baer
13, The Crestway
Brighton,
E. Sussex.
BN1 7BX.
zeenat49_81@hotmail.com
Pictures: A collection of drawings that the amazing, six-year-old Max Bear drew in my pad, after visiting the aquarium, of fishes, eels, and eyeballs of all sorts.
12/18
Include: (under 12/18): Quotes I-IV from Love Poems in Pad II.
Include: List of people to send Christmas cards to from Bethlehem. Never happened.
Include: Various lists of places to visit from Cavadini, Mrs. Geyer.
Include: Prayer of St. Patrick that I wrote before leaving.