Khalil, my Khalil. I take a taxi to St. George’s College on Monday morning. The driver doesn’t know where it is and by some miracle I am able to tell him. I arrive and hurry through the gates – my white privilege ensures that no one questions my being there – and ask at the desk for Khalil. I wait for a while and when I turn and he is there coming off of the elevator. I hug him and see that his face, his smile, has not changed a bit. We embrace and I cry then get coffee and go to the roof.
His life is no easier than when I last saw him four years ago. In fact it is harder – now he has to check out with the border guards at the end of his day before he boards the bus near the Damascus gates. But he joyfully shows me pictures of his daughter’s wedding – a lovely beaming bride who on that special day does not have to be fully covered, so her arms show and her hair is elaborate. She married a baker and they have two lovely daughters now. He speaks of his sons still living it home. “But I will always take care of them, as long as they need” says Khalil. There is much love in this family that still lives so close together in Bethany.
It is like no time has passes as he shares his cigarettes with me and insists on lighting them even though the wind is blowing fiercely on the roof. He echoes the sentiment of Yakir Englander from the day before – we do not want peace, we just want a life; to live. Time passes quickly and suddenly a whole hour is gone. He must get back to work but we make plans to see each other when I pass through Jerusalem in a few weeks – on my 40th birthday to be exact. I will see my friend again.
I then go to the Dean’s residence and visit with Jill. Again, it is like no time has passed. We catch up on each other’s lives, lament the state of Israel and try to solve all of the problems of the Middle East over lunch. She mentions something that I had not considered before. Some of the new settlers who come to Israel with promises of subsidized mortgages, good schooling and health care, are horrified to find out that the property that they live in was confiscated from the Palestinians. They will never meet the family from whom the house was taken but once they know this they try to sell it – only no one is buying anymore. Times are changing, people are changing. May be there is hope.
Jill walks me to the Garden of Gethsemane then takes her leave. I catch up with the group in this place, the place where Jesus asked his disciples to stay awake and pray. Can you not do this one thing for me, he asks? It puts me to thinking that I myself have been so busied with the tasks that seem to demand my attention that I, too, tire and fall asleep. In this place, in this garden, I can hear Jesus ask me, can you not do this one thing for me? I am humbled.
On Tuesday we go to the desert – the wilderness – where Jesus surely walked from the Jordan River, near the Dead Sea and up to Jerusalem. And it really is up – the Dead Sea is 400 metres below sea level and Jerusalem is 800 metres above. We sit at the top of Wadi Qelt and just sit in the silence. Even with the sound of military manoeuvres happening out of our sight the silence envelopes you. It is at once peaceful and terrifying, full and lonely. I can see the spot where we celebrated Eucharist the last time I was here – the moment that God came and met me in the desert – and I remember that God comes to find you in unexpected places. If is not in the Churches – the Nativity or Holy Seplecure – where the Eastern orthodoxy slightly offends my Western sensibilities. It is here, in this place, in the silence of the true wilderness, that I feel the presence of God.
God cannot be contained in an Arc, or in a Temple, or in a Church. God’s presence is surely there but it is not the only place where you can find Him. God is in the wilderness, a gentle hand reaching out and guiding you. God is in the people, the people who live hard lives and who want only to live a life. God is in the beauty that amazes and overwhelms you. I hope that God is also somehow working in the wall – the real wall in Israel that snakes through the desert and steals the sky – so that we might be reminded of our responsibility to see God in ALL of those people around us. I pray that God is in the wall.
Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem.
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