Lightening Speed

Sign outside the Church of the Nativity

Bethlehem

It feels like weeks since I last wrote here. We have been to Bethlehem and Beit Sahor for overnight stays on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday we had a long day visiting the Daher farm and today we had a full day as well. I wanted everyone to know that I am well and tomorrow I am taking the day to catch up before I head for Rome on Saturday. I wanted to write about one event that happened today before I head for bed. Tomorrow morning I will catch you up a bit on the last few days.

At the end of today we went to Tel Aviv and the old city of Joppa. I remember being in Joppa 20 years ago and standing on a roof top looking out over the Mediterranean Sea while someone told the story of St. Peter praying on a roof top in Joppa. While he was praying a sheet was lowered from heaven with animals of all sorts on it - both clean and unclean. A voice from heaven said, "Get up Peter, kill and eat." Peter protested that, as a Jew, he had never eaten anything unclean. The voice said, "What God has made clean, you must not profane." This happened three times and Peter went forth a changed man. The Christian mission and message of God's love to all went forth from that moment to all humankind both Jew and Gentile.

Today I had a different experience in Joppa, which might not be that far from Peter's. We met with Eitan Bronstein with an organization called Zochrot. Zochrot is an organization of Israelis (Both Jew and Arab) who are seeking to raise awareness about the Nakba. Nakba is the Arabic word for "catastrophe." It refers to the mass destruction abnd depopulation of Palestine in 1984, during the war that led to the founding of the state of Israel. Zochrot (this is the Hebrew word for "remembering") was organized in 1994. It seeks to find a just and workable resolution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Their working philosophy is that any resolution must be founded on the pursuit of equality for all people of the region, including the right of the refugees to return. The form and substance of this right of return will need to be worked out carefully and no doubt take many different forms. Eitan was clear that the understanding of how this might happen is not as clear as the need to work towards reconciliation. Achieving reconciliation will only be possible when people begin to recognize and talk about the Nakba. So hearing about this work reminded me of Peter's experience. "...What God has made clean, do not profane."

Tomorrow I will write more...I promise.