It is amazing to me how, in the process of writing a narrative, one discovers meaning. Let me tell you the story of how I have processed the Mamilla experience so to identify the violence that most moved me that evening.
Yesterday, for the first time since I've been here, I awoke without hope. Neither my readings and prayers nor a delicious Middle Eastern breakfast helped. Seeing what hatred looks like had drastically disoriented me.
A filmmaker friend of mine asked me for ten minutes. Thinking he wanted to have a cup of coffee and sit outside, I silently nodded and followed him out of the room. Instead of seeing coffee, I saw that he had his camera set up. We sat down and he said this:
"You look noticeably different today...as though something very dark and heavy shadows your soul. Can you tell me about it?"
He pressed record and I started to tell the story of Mamilla.
As an experiential storyteller, I choose to relive the story as I tell it. I felt the sweat on my forehead from the long walk, I smelled the soil of Mamilla, and I saw the eyes of the Israeli kids with guns.
Military service is mandatory here. Immediately following high school graduation, boys and girls must serve in the Israeli defense. Their boot camp experience involves a deep understanding of their narrative which, sadly, is not the ancient narrative of the Hebrew Scriptures. Rather, it is the very contemporary narrative of their demise in the Holocaust, the International reparation in the giving of the land of Palestine to Israel in 1948, and their military conquests of 1967 and beyond. "Never again" is the national slogan: indoctrinated kids with guns is their solution.
It was in the storytelling and seeing their eyes again that I recognized why I was so disoriented and why "something very dark and heavy" shadowed my soul: my heart didn't break for these kids. Violence, I discovered during my interview, was being done to my perspective of me.
Ethicist, Theologian, and Provocateur Stanley Hauerwas calls himself a pacifist because he knows what a "violent son of bitch" he is. I resonate more deeply with his sentiment now, yet I long for my language to be something like this: I am a peacemaker because I am moved by my Rabbi into the way of creative love.
There is pain in the experience of living between who I am and who I want to become. Grace accompanies the pain.
3 comments:
"There is pain in the experience of living between who I am and who I want to become. Grace accompanies the pain." This is so true Jer, for each one of us. It is also true of creation as a whole. It really captures the essence of this passage:
"For I consider that our present sufferings cannot even be compared to the glory that will be revealed to us. For the creation eagerly waits for the revelation of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility – not willingly but because of God who subjected it – in hope that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers together until now. Not only this, but we ourselves also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we eagerly await our adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with endurance."
I know that the world does violence to my kingdom-of-heaven-perspective. I need Grace in the form of help from God and help from my friends to keep from being squeezed to death and molded into the world's ways. We need to keep reminding each other to keep our eyes on Jesus and not on the violent sea. We need to put our ultimate hope on the redemption that is coming when Jesus returns, not on the redemption that we can work today in Christ's power. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it is only as we put our ultimate hope on Christ's return that we can eagerly endure while God works redemption in and through us today in Christ's power.
"See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise,redeeming the time, because the days are evil."
To be a peacemaker is to be like God:
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God."
But how can we be peacemakers by bringing the kingdom of God (the presence and reign of God) into a situation unless that peace is already present and reigning in our hearts:
"These things I have spoken to you, while I am still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid."
I'm afraid I am too often troubled and afraid. I know I have Jesus' peace, Jesus help me to remember and trust you. Let your peace reign in my heart.
Jeremy, throughout your posts there has been a theme of seeing the violence and damage that can accompany language and storytelling. This includes indoctrination, propaganda, minimization, and other forms of injustice. As a storyteller, you walk in some dangerous territory and I pray wisdom for you.
Today I started thinking about the concept of gleaning. Spent a little time looking for a word for the practice from the farmer's point of view (un-harvesting?). The wall symbolizes to me a lack of faith in God as protector and provider. Allowing gleaning is very much the opposite. It's a beautiful practice.
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