What's going on this Fall

It's pretty incredible to think that I'm beyond the half way point of my master's already. My schedule will be quite a bit different this year, though, unfortunately, probably no less challenging. I'll be taking two languages, German and Syriac. Each of these classes is a year long. I've never attempted two languages at once before, so I'm pretty nervous about it. I've never considered myself to be a person that's good at languages, but I realized recently that I've learned a few languages since I've been saying this. German and Syriac couldn't be further apart either, so hopefully that will make it easier to do both at once.

You may be asking, "why take German, and what the heck is Syriac?" German is one of the three standard languages of scholarship, alongside English and French. In order to be competitive for PhD programs I will need to have two done by matriculation (normally in addition to most or all of the required ancient languages). I'm still trying to decide between "German for reading in religious studies," which should be easier, and a regular German class which will actually be useful for studying in German (one option I'm considering).

Syriac is a Semitic language of the Christian East until Arabic became the [i]lingua franca[/i], though it is still in use today by several Christian communities. It's related most closely to Aramaic thought it has some similarity to Hebrew and the script is reminiscent of Arabic in its cursive style.

The Lord's Prayer in Syriac
Syriac is important because most studies on early Christianity in general, and Jewish-Christian interaction in particular, focus on the Christian West, written in Latin and Greek. There has been a push in recent scholarship to recover these voices from the East. Learning Syriac is ideal for my goal of studying material that is useful for contemporary Christian-Jewish-Muslim dialogue. As it turns out, the people behind this Syriac literature often maintained a much greater affinity with what we call Judaism today. The affinity was so great in fact that discerning a distinction between Judaism and Christianity is often difficult and in many ways artificial. The writing of groups deemed heretics by the Church for being "Judaizers" (that is, too "Jewish") is also largely preserved in Syriac (and a couple even more obscure languages). That's the Jewish-Christian part, so how does it pertain to Christian-Muslim interaction? As I said, Syriac was widespread in the East until Arabic gradually, but not entirely, took over because of the Muslim conquest in the 600's or so. Syriac preserves the very earliest literary encounters between Christians and Muslim, especially what they argued about and how they argued. Cool right?!

Apart from the two languages I'll be taking two regular classes each semester. The one I'm looking forward to most is History of Ancient Christianity with the indefatigable juggernaut of a scholar, Helmut Koester. The other Fall course I'm not 100% sold on yet, since the course offerings in the Jewish studies concentration are somewhat sparse this Fall. In all likelihood it will be "Rewriting Scripture in Jewish Antiquity" which will examine how Second Temple communities, and I presume communities shortly afterward, used and interpreted the Bible in various ways. It could be a valuable course for me because, obviously, the religions of Christianity and Judaism emerged from this process.

Finally, in addition to my normal work at the library, I've landed a research assistant position. I'll be sorting through scores of Greek papyri in the bellows of Widener library to help Dr. Giovanni Bazzana prepare a commentary on the New Testament and a monograph on Q.

A thought or two on the media coverage of the latest violence between Israel and Palestine

What a mess. In Hebrew: בלגן. In Arabic (had to look this one up): فوضى. I've expressed my feelings about the reasons for this kind of violence, the pervasive problems and how they might be addressed--I've said it in this blog, or to you publicly, or spoken with you privately. I don't need to repeat any of that, but I do feel like I need to comment on the only way most of us hear about these things, namely, three American news organizations. They typically do a very poor job covering these sorts of things, either because they have a strong bias (there's plenty to go around when it comes to Israel/Palestine), or because reporters simply seem ignorant about what they are reporting on--they take details that their sources collect and add hype words to make things more dramatic, more offensive, or more palatable. Barns become "bunkers" and 15-year-old boys become "militants." Here are a couple stories from this week that I think are pretty significant which I have not seen reported by the big three American news channels:
Five Egyptian Police Killed in Israel Border Clash
81 House Members Enjoy All Expenses Paid Hiatus in Israel

So, what to do? My suggestion, which may require a bit more work and may cause you to be a little more confused, will at least make you better informed. For your news on this stuff, go elsewhere. Here are four (relatively) reputable news outlets, two Israeli (1) (2), one Palestinian, and one more generally Arab. You will be better informed about the events and, by observing how the same stories are treated differently between the sources, see nuances of the opinions and biases of each, perhaps your own.

Random thought during the flight

I always take the window seat of flights during daylight hours, even if I hardly ever peer out. I don't understand how anyone would not want to be close to the window, it's a religious experience for me sometimes when I look out. On my last flight from Germany to Boston at about 40,000 feet we were just above the highest clouds. The view of the clouds from above with the sun hitting them just right was simply stunning to witness. It was a powerful reminder to me of God's majesty in creation. Even when there isn't a soul around to see it, creation can be beautiful for no reason other than just to be. It was only by chance that I happened to be up there to see this beautiful cloudscape and I'm sure all over the planet there is beauty in motion when noone is around. Sometimes it's good to feel small, like humankind isn't the center of everything. Creation at 40,000 feet is a great place for perspective.

The trip home, and the difference a kippah makes?

When I flew back from Israel earlier this month my journey was a gauntlet as usual; long layover, long flights, however one part was much easier than normal--the security. Whenever I've explained what the Tel Aviv airport security is like to an Israeli they always respond with looks of disbelief, because they aren't treated the same when they leave. One of my instructors this summer was herself a security worker at the airport during her military service. She said that part of her job was explicitly to profile people by their race and religion, and she disliked her job a great deal for this reason. People that have read my older blogs will recall that I've had some pretty rough encounters at Israel's airport security in the past. So this time I thought I would try an experiment. This time when I left I decided I would do exactly as I had in the past, pack the same way, and answer the questions in the security interview with same candor that in the past resulted in this. This time however, I put on a kippah (yarmulke in America), nothing flashy, just a little doily size piece of cloth. In America it's common for religious Jews not to wear one, but in Israel it serves as a strong indicator of whether or not someone is a religious Jew. There are actually not a few Christian orders that also wear a skullcap, called a pileolus or a zucchetto. I also like to wear strange objects as hats as a matter of habit. At any rate, when I came to the security interview I answered the same questions with complete honesty, regarding why I was in Israel, who I knew, how much Hebrew I knew, etc. and after about sixty seconds I was waved through every line. I didn't so much as have to open a single bag or send my checked bags through the x-ray. Exiting customs was equally fast, and the security officer behind the desk, rather than the usual stern attitude was, frankly, flirtatious. I get searched leaving the Harvard libraries more thoroughly than I experienced this time around at the airport. The airport security which had taken two to three hours in the past, took me all of twenty minutes from the first interview to sitting at my gate. Though I know this is but one experience, and only anecdotal evidence, I can't help but presume that I was treated so differently and presumed to be nonthreatening because I wore a piece of fabric on my head which served as a symbol of Jewishness. I'm not sure which part I find more interesting, that Israel's famously extreme security measures which take advantage of the most advanced technology available can be thwarted by a three inch diameter piece of knitted yarn, or that Justin the religious Jew would, because of that religion, be waved through, while Justin the Christian would be held and searched from top to bottom and interrogated.

Summer Time in Israel, Archaeology Fun, and Not Quite Arrested!

My summer program finished at the beginning of the month, but I've been so tired since I've been back that it's been hard to write much of anything. I certainly have some interesting stories from the program though. Overall it was a very satisfying experience, and I did indeed get to see so much of the country I hadn't when last I lived there. In addition to the main course on Jewish-Christian encounters and the Mishnaic Hebrew course I was pleasantly surprised to find the archaeology portion more in depth than I expected. It was led by one of the head archaeologists at Sepphoris, a very important archaeological site that many people miss when they visit Israel (seriously go).

Just a couple examples of the incredible mosaics at Sepphoris.
We saw nearly all of the ancient churches and synagogues in the Galilee whether they were open to the public or not (lots of fascinating epigraphy). We also got to dig at Khirbeit Wadi Hamam, a relatively new site just north of Tiberius where they’ve found a 2nd century synagogue. I happened to make “the discovery of the season” when I found a piece of a Corinthian capital from said synagogue! Most interestingly, the fact that it is rather homely suggests it was locally produced.

I made sure to have a few adventures. I took a small group to Palestine to show them the sites there and let them be exposed to a bit of the situation the Palestinians are in. While there, we visiting the Herodian, one of King Herod's palaces, where he was buried and later where rebels fighting against the Romans hid out. I went around to the back side of the site and spelunked around in the ancient caves where the rebels lived. Many of them were only a few feet high from floor to ceiling and were pretty steep and slick because they had not been fully excavated. I felt very claustrophobic and I'm sure it was pretty dangerous, but when I emerged covered in that ancient dust back on the tourist side of the cave I felt very accomplished in my little adventure.

Looking rather pale on the tourist side of the Herodian
The other big adventure was at Tel Dan in the far north of Israel, a First Temple era ruin. When the group I was with arrived, the gates were locked and the park was closed. We had driven pretty far to get there so I had the bright idea to jump the ten foot fence. As soon as I landed on the other side, a park ranger emerged from a nearby bush and confronted me, and he showed me that he had taken photos of me climbing over the fence. His English wasn't terrific, and my Hebrew is horrible, but he promptly got on his walky talky and said "police" a few times to whoever was on the other end. Needless to say, I was not looking forward to an encounter with Israeli police. He asked for me to hand over my passport, and I did my best to avoid doing so. Of course by this point I was trying to appear as naive as possible about the rules and as much of an expert about Tel Dan as I could to win him over and not end up arrested (which would not have been a pleasant situation for my three traveling companions either). Well, as it turns out, my finagling had already paid off by the time he asked for my passport. He wasn't asking for it for the police, he was asking for it as collateral so that I could go run around the park! After I realized this is what he meant, I brought the three others in with me. The ranger saw that all of us were innocuous foreigners and said we could come in for a quick look around. After we were in the gate, I asked him enthusiastically in Hebrew where a few things I wanted to see were. As it turns out, Tel Dan is pretty spread out, so he invited us to ride in his 4x4 for a private tour of the site. For the next half hour or so he drove us around the park showing us all the archaeological goodness. All in all, a pretty different outcome than I was expecting.

Sitting on the kings throne at the gate to Tel Dan doing the gesture of judgement

Oh, also, there were a lot of mine fields in the Golan Heights area, fun! Only slightly tempting to blithely jump out into them.

A Year in Review

Almost exactly one year ago I left Israel and Palestine in order to begin my master's degree. When people asked me if I would ever return, I would always reply, "I hope, at least someday." Today, certainly sooner than I expected, I find myself in Israel once again. Returning here once more has brought me to reflect on my where I've come this past year. So much has changed in this short time, and the surprises and twists have not slowed down. The general progress in my life which seems unremarkable as I busy myself in undertaking these various tasks and goals takes on a new light when I remind myself where I was just one year ago today. On the academic side of things, since I last left Israel, I've completed half of a master's degree at Harvard, finished two years worth of biblical Hebrew, published my first scholarly works (along with a volume of papers I never thought feasible to produce in this short time), and earned the award which provided me the funding to come here to Israel once again. I have come a long way it seems. My personal life has been equally eventful, though most of these changes I wish not to recount here. I have coped with the reality of returning to an environment largely numb to the issues of peace in the Middle East and its immediate relevance to our society. Because of my past experiences here I have had to face more challenges reintegrating into American life, the social world, and especially the Academy. I also survived a Boston winter, certainly that’s worth something.

Spiritually I am a work in progress, as always, and I take it as a good sign. The pressing fear of detachment from the things I study and what I practice as my faith has not diminished. I’ve been feeling as though I have less and less in common with the people that fill the pews on Sunday. I know the reason for most of this feeling is because I’ve been so privileged to have the education I have had, but I know that this doesn’t account for everything. During my recent visit with family and friends in California I was able to visit Foothill Community Church, where a great deal of my spiritual formation and ministry training took place. All of my friends there were familiar and I felt at home, but to think that just a few years ago I was the youth ministry intern, and even more recently as one of their missionaries, it feels like a lifetime ago. To put a positive spin on it, my service to the Church has been transforming as quickly as I have, but not diminished. I did come all the way to Israel after all. And I’m here to understand, if only a little better, the relationship between Jews and Christians in Antiquity, something I believe is crucial for interfaith dialogue today.

Going back to Israel

I was granted a very generous fellowship from the Harvard Center for Jewish studies through the Anne B. Malloy Memorial Fund to return to Israel this summer to do some exciting research!  I will be attending a program at Tel Aviv University entitled “Jewish-Christian Encounters in the First Centuries CE,” a topic which has been the focus of much of my studies here at Harvard.

The focal course will compare early Jewish and Christian literature in how they approach certain topics like gender, ethnicity, and the Bible, and also how these literatures interacted with one another. We’ll also be visiting locations in the Galilee and Jerusalem and various archeological digs. One of my few regrets about my previous time in Israel was that I didn’t do enough of this kind of travel because I had no time to. The program also includes an advanced course in Hebrew during the early-Rabbinic period which will flesh out my Biblical Hebrew skills. I hadn’t taken any Hebrew before I started here at Harvard, and this course will make five full semesters before I start the second year of my Master’s! I’ve come a long way since then. There will also a lecture serious, on “Talmud and Theology,” which will discuss the Talmud’s relationship to modern Jewish thought and practice, and provide me with the practical context for better understanding modern Jewish theology. I’ve dug myself into the beliefs of the ancient world so much it will be helpful to engage in the modern world a bit.

Being at Tel Aviv University will also place me just a short distance from the Wolfson Medical Center, the main hospital I worked in during my first sojourn in Israel in 2009. Hopefully this summer study will allow me to pay a visit or two.

I’m still finishing up my papers for my spring semester here at Harvard, which has kept me from writing much here, but I hope I will be able to follow up with plenty of updates during this summer program.

MTS or MDiv?

A brief update in the midst of my furious paper writing pace this semester. I am considering switching from the Master of Theological Studies program to the Master of Divinity program. The difference is the latter would allow me to flesh out the theological and ministerial aspects of my education which, as I said in my last blog, I have found lacking in my current degree which is catered specifically to academia. It would also make the possibility of ordination easier and might reflect the balance I have tried to strike between academia and serving in the Church. The Master of Divinity (MDiv) is three years as opposed to the two years of the Master of Theological Studies (MTS). Academically speaking this may also be beneficial by giving me an additional year to fit in more classes, languages and get more acquainted with professors for PhD applications. One difficulty is that, because my focus has been Jewish Studies, I may have a hard time filling the degree requirements for an MDiv in Christianity. The other more looming concern is, of course, finances. I would need to find a way to pay for a third year of grad school here at Harvard. In order to manage that I can do nothing but throw my hands up to God. I hope you will join me and pray for me in sorting this out, and that if it is God’s will, a source of provision will make itself apparent. I will likely need to make a decision in the coming weeks, and as things stand right now, I will certainly be staying an MTS.

Sneaking a blog in a snow storm

So much has happened since my last blog, far too much to include in a biographical entry. It's a shame really, I know how important these years are. I have certainly had much to write about in my typical fields of interest, but graduate school at Harvard has a way of keeping one busy. I write now because it is early enough in the semester to not be aware of how swamped I am, classes are canceled tomorrow due to a snow storm, and my mood is just somber enough for me to pen my thoughts with the genuine recklessness of candor I think makes the energy worthwhile and memorably for me.

My spiritual life has largely been disconnected from my coursework. I no longer feel like any kind of aspiring theologian, rather I feel simply like a historian of religion, the kind of scholarliness purged of the motivational bias that generated the love of the field to begin with. It's not bad, but the questions I began with have been long obscured by the esoteric stratigraphy of academia. Spirituality is something I encounter listening to the five minute childrens' sermon on Sunday, or on my staircase. Staircases make good altars. They go someplace familiar; steps too, in good Wesleyan fashion, offer a vehicle to represent struggling for holiness. Crawling up stairs is a symbolic gesture with no parallel in church furnishings that I'm aware of. Even more an intimate gesture than falling to one's knees, if only slightly more embarrassing. I do see an apologetic aspect to my research this semester, hopefully peeling away some of the falsely perceived distinction between modern Jews and Christians through some insights concerning their relation in Antiquity. Apart from this and the physical realm outside my basement lair, my piety remains expressed by and large through the guilt, feelings of desperation and outcastness, and paranoia of starvation and homelessness that I have come to equate in a twisted way as a sign of intimacy with God. I say "twist" not because I believe it any less, I cannot help that, but because of how bad it sounds when I say it. I have changed so so much in these last few years and I wish there was someone that could remind where I've gone. More than this derelict blog anyway.

Harvard, what’s it like?

I began a Master’s degree at Harvard about a month ago now, and things are well underway. I’m in the Master of Theological Studies program, with a concentration in Jewish Studies. Watch our convocation here. My impressions of everything so far…

Student Body

The Divinity School at Harvard is certainly a one of a kind place. While there certainly are a lot of very smart people, there’s something characteristically “misfit” about the div school. Harvard, in its attempt to pull people in from the fringes to bring new voices to the foreground , and certainly to be seen as a place of diversity, has crafted what I would see as a Kingdom community. These are the sort of people that are at once interesting and peculiar, people I imagine Jesus hanging around with. They are of course all brilliant in their own right, and I am not without my own quirks. I seldom encounter a person who has not been on a journey as peculiar as my own. On the other hand, however, I do think the div school has overreached in certain areas without reaching far enough into others. The sheer number of people that identify themselves as non-heterosexual was not something I expected, and I’m still growing accustomed to it, especially having just arrived from my work in the Middle East where this issue simply has not been on my radar. Queer Theology and Women’s Studies in Religion is the focus of a very large percentage of the student body. The issues presented by these disciplines are inevitably something I will confront and dialogue with during my time here. The other issue which I had hoped would be more focal has been the interfaith integration and diversity of religious backgrounds. There certainly are students doing Islamic Studies, Jewish Studies (like myself), and so forth, though they are dwarfed by the Christian and Unitarian communities, and they also seem to largely hail from America, rather than the Middle East. I still feel as though I am not fulfilling certain opportunities to truly connect with these students on a personal level, though perhaps this will change in time as I discover more opportunities. My work study job as a circulation librarian has made me something of a div school bartender—as I check peoples’ books in and out I get to hear everyone’s passions and (more often) woes, and meet people I wouldn’t have otherwise. I hope, in due time, this will be a means of making some of the connections I have been seeking. 

One other unforeseen consequence of having this diverse student body has been that the level of academic familiarity with the more esoteric Biblical Studies disciplines is not as high as it would have been if I went to a different school. For example, a class on Jesus and the Gospels at the Vanderbilt Divinity School would certainly have consisted of students with a background in Biblical Studies, probably familiar with ideas of text criticism, and a number would have had some Greek. Here at Harvard however, because of the diversity of religious backgrounds, my class on Jesus and the Gospels has a number of students that are reading the New Testament for the first time in this class. This has its pluses and minuses of course, because it allows me, with my background, to stand head and shoulders above much of the class, but it also means that the level of depth in our conversations about the topics at hand is stunted in many ways. This is compensated for in many classes with pre-requisites of certain languages and so forth, though this is often not the case.

Regardless of the goals, orientations, and background of the students, they are nearly all very friendly and strike me as nothing less than genuinely good folks. The few students that fit the Harvard snob stereotype are truly the exception that proves the contrary.  

Grounds

The Harvard campus itself is famous, and deservedly so with a history reaching further back than this country by more than a century. It’s nearly a daily happening that walking to class I have to avoid getting in the frame of someone’s photo of the buildings. The first div school building itself goes back to the early 1800’s.

The most recent addition to the div school is the Center for the Study of World Religions, not all that impressive architecturally, but books and covers and so forth.

Andover Hall is an immense building housing classrooms, the adjoining Andover-Harvard Theology Library, chapels, and various other fancy Harvard type things. It turned 100 this year.

The original div school building, the eponymous Divinity Hall is the first building Harvard constructed outside the Yard, and the oldest div school building, going back to 1826. It has an incredible history of its own, including a chapel that has been host to the theological giants of the last few hundred years, and more than its share of controversy from the pulpit.

The Semitic Museum houses div school courses and exhibits along with stuff for the related Arts and Sciences department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. It’s pretty cool to say that I have a class in an actual museum.

Memorial Church and Memorial Hall are over in the Yard, but too immense and beautiful to not include. Each is a memorial to the concurrent war, WWI and the Civil War respectively.

Finally, the Widener Library, which depending on how you count, houses somewhere between the 5^th and 10^th largest collection of books on the planet. Not bad right?

Teachers and Courses

The teachers…they are simply prolific scholars, but this goes without saying. Before arriving I was very anxious about how they would be in person, but so far they are all incredibly gracious, friendly and approachable.  The fact that my advisor is Diana Eck and that I sit in a classroom with Jon Levenson, Michael Coogan, and Helmut Koester on a daily basis really blows my mind, especially when I have had the opportunity to speak with them one on one. It really is surreal. I think so far, this is my favorite thing about the div school.

My courses this term are:

Intermediate Classical Hebrew

So far his second year of Hebrew has been a little disconcerting, students have been dropping the class like flies because it has been very demanding.

Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament with Michael Coogan

As you probably know, I have been acquainted with this material—however, it is being taught by Michael Coogan, a prolific Bible scholar and senior editor of the New Oxford Annotated Bible. I’m taking the class as an audit, just so I can sit in the room and osmote from him.

Jesus of Nazareth and the Gospels with Helmut Koester

Helmut Koester has been a professor at Harvard Divinity School since about 1955…if that doesn’t tell you something I don’t know what will. He was one of Rudolph Bultmann’s protégés, who himself published research quite literally a century ago. As far as I am aware there is no other figure of New Testament scholarship still living that can claim his sheer scope of experience in this field. He reads his lectures from the lectern which aren’t enthralling, but speaking to him person to person in our section, the profound insights he has shared have me leaving every Thursday in awe of his experience and knowledge.

Judaism: The Liturgical Year with Jon Levenson

This course serves as something of an introduction to Judaism by studying Jewish holidays, their origins, how they inform the Jewish faith in history, and how they are practiced today. Jon Levenson is another prolific writer in the field of Biblical and Jewish Studies. His particular niche of using historical critical Biblical research for interreligious dialogue is something I would love to piggy back onto. Recently, for example, his research into ideas about resurrection in Judaism have brought to the attention of modern Jews how significant resurrection was for them in their history, and that it is a part of their tradition they have unfortunately allowed to fade, undoubtedly in the shadow of Christianity. He argues that this is a common theme that both Jews and Christians ought to cherish and in so doing grants us a new avenue of interreligious dialogue.  

Ancient Near Eastern History

Taught through the Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations department, this class will give me the context of what was going on in the rest of the Ancient Near East from pre-history through the time of the Old Testament.

Seminar for Advanced New Testament Studies: The Q Riddle

I needed something to distinguish myself from everyone beginning this Master’s program without substantial background in Biblical Studies. This year-long course, designed for advanced Master’s and PhD students, lets me flex some of my academic background, while hopefully being impressive on my transcript. If you don’t have a clue what the “Q Riddle” is, that ought to give you an idea of how advanced the course is.

Living Situation

Last but not least, my place. I’m renting a basement from a retired minister and his wife out in Arlington. It’s quite a long trek, a 30-40 minute bus ride each way to Harvard, but it’s cheap and I’ve made it my own. I have room for my clothes, my books (for now), and my mementos, which is plenty of room for me. I have my own half bath, and I even have a desk with a window!

Have a Seat and Stay a While

I’m having to make a lot of adjustments to the way I do things. I did the math the other day, and realized that I have picked up and moved thirteen times in less than six years (or fourteen or fifteen times depending on how you count). Save some mementos and books, there is very little I own today that is more than a couple years old, that I didn’t sell or give away. Not that I had so much to sell or give to begin with. I feel like it puts me in a different world, lacking basic needs and confidence in my own security. Even food and sleep are things I have good precedent not to count on. I’ve lived in four completely different cultures in as many years. Even my name itself has changed some three times since it was given to me. I am loath to ask for pity, but I know these facts must strongly impact how I engage with others and my surroundings, how I perceive myself and others, and a host of other facets that make up “who I am.”

It has been brought up a couple times since I’ve been here in Boston that it is odd I don’t have a phone. As big of a tech junkie as I am, I know it isn’t because of some Luddite elitism. Money is always a factor, but thinking about it now, could it be that I have simply just presumed subconsciously that I would never stay somewhere long enough to put down roots to need one? Now that I’m supposed to stay here for a few years, I’ve recognized I’m due for some introspection and reassessment.

The notion that I will live in this same house for the next few years makes me very anxious, like a claustrophobic. I already want to plan my next escape, to be able to run away at the drop of a hat. I have certainly done my share of running away in the past, and have a seemingly unquenchable thirst for independence. Maybe these things are hereditary. Maybe this is why I love the Church so much. While I feel like a stranger wherever I go, like I’m in it alone most of the time, wherever I go and find a good piece of Church, I know I can find a feeling of home there, that I’m a part of something, and that isn’t conditional.

Is it good to be able to just pick up and leave everything behind—family, friends, lovers, possessions, my very name? What does it mean to want to, and feel anxious if I don’t? Is this from fear, an escapist mentality, some extreme method of coping with deep psychological distress? Or could it be quite the opposite, the command of the Lord to give up everything down to my name, becoming my second nature. It is clear to me that this disconnect I sense hasn’t affected my emotional distance from strangers. Maybe this distance, counter intuitively, is what makes it so easy for me to love strangers and want to help them, or at least better identify with them in want. Maybe these alternatives need not be so dichotomized and perhaps one really leads to the other. Maybe I’m rationalizing.

At any rate, even Jesus had a strong group of friends. The notion that Jesus’ ministry with his disciples fit into a niche of contemporary itinerate outcast healers and sophists has been, to my relief, effectively challenged on the grounds of the socioeconomic demography of Galilee in first century CE. To my credit, I certainly have no shortage of outgoingness in certain contexts, and I suppose now would be the time to capitalize on that. I don’t expect these feelings of distance and separation to change quickly, especially having taken place during these most formative years of my life, but I hope that eventually healthy adjustments will be possible. Like I’ve often felt when I pick up to go, the task now becomes discerning what needs forgetting, and what has become too much a part of me to leave behind.

What Took Me So Long...Plus a Great Resource for Biblical Languages!

I neglected to mention why I've been away from my blog in the last post. It was because I was doing a year’s worth of Biblical Hebrew (the language of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible) in 56 days! Along with a few other responsibilities, it kept me very busy. The class was a blast, my classmates were very engaging, the professor was very down to Earth and made the course fun, and of course, like Greek was, it’s thrilling learning the language of the Scriptures! I’ll continue taking more Hebrew during the year, potentially until I finish my Master’s, but I theoretically know all the grammar now, and have already translated the book of Jonah, and other passages.

When the summer term finished I remembered that, at one point, I had a Greek paradigm cheat sheet. Recalling how useful it was for a quick parsing reference, I began to scour the Internet for a Hebrew equivalent to stay fresh. After digging for a bit, I located the perfect resource, and for students of both Greek and Hebrew alike! It turns out Logos Bible Software makes the perfect paradigm charts for quick reference, and you can download and print the PDF version completely free! Grab them here. Pretty nice right?

New Directions

The precursor to this blog began about two years ago now in the form of a support letter for funds, prayers and other help to get me to Israel in order to, in my own small way, reflect to others God’s love for me in the form of a sincere love to those who would otherwise be called my enemies, and in so doing, show that such a radical notion of reconciliation and love is, indeed, “Just Crazy Enough to Work.” I continued to produce updates on my progress toward this end in the form of monthly newsletters, and a gradual transition to sending news, reflections, and needs solely through the medium of this blog. Well, as you hopefully know by this time, I have returned to America and plan to remain here, at the very least, for one school year. So, a few adjustments are in order.

I have given a great deal of thought as to how best continue this blog. Should I begin to attempt attracting a larger audience, or simply write as I feel compelled to? How intimate and personal shall I allow these blogs to become? I have resisted publishing a number of blogs because of how intimate they are in relation to their relevance to what has been, until now, the focus and purpose of this blog. I would not compare myself to Mother Theresa beyond this analogy, but I feel like people can be surprised at the humanity of spiritual figures, including ministers, among whom I humbly tuck myself. The reactions to the diaries of Mother Theresa, released posthumously, and against her wishes, seemed to indicate that people expect such figures to lack vices, rise above a quotidian humanity, eradicate doubt, and purge themselves of despair. As revealed by her diaries, this was not the case for her, and certainly is not for me. Will this blog become a place for that? Should I begin developing and expressing my opinion more? I have only tested these waters in a few recent posts. On the one hand, I fear alienating my few loyal readers or even disappointing people if they find out what I truly believe. While on the other hand I feel there are a number of people expecting me to offer something of an “expert” opinion on certain matters from which I have perhaps withheld voicing an opinion. I know that I certainly wish to convey no opinion in such a way that love is not my primary message, and that as a Christian I hope to demonstrate sincere love to every party across the array of opinions; this could be especially difficult, and all the more if people do not read knowing this is a goal of mine.

Change is in order, what form it takes I hope we can explore together. I certainly have a few more blogs to write about my time in the Middle East and I do expect to return to consistently updating this blog. I hope you will enjoy it and will feel free to engage with me as well.

Living in Jerusalem - Living in Bethlehem

Living on both sides of the wall, in Israel as well as Palestine, is a crucial part of gaining understanding about the differences and dynamics between them. I’ve spent nearly equal times living on each side and, like two sides of a coin, even a detailed portrait of one side still means you’re missing half the picture. The additional context one provides to the other is illuminating to several aspects of the situation, both in obvious ways and equally important nuances.

There’s no way to fully grasp these differences apart from doing it yourself, but I’ll do my best to shed some light on one thing from my own perspective, which I think is both interesting and important to know. The first thing that springs to mind are the different manifestations of the military tension between the two sides of the wall. On the Israeli side, the military action, the police barricades, the violence between Jews and Arabs, and religious Jews and secular Jews for that matter, is very much in your face. The tension in Jerusalem is constant, it’s active, it’s visible, it’s recounted in the international media, and sits constantly like a weight on the chest of the city for all to see. Every mall and McDonald's has armed security, every corridor of the Old City has soldiers posted in it during daylight, and it’s not uncommon for the police to literally divide the city in two during times of high tension and holy days, with blimps mounted with cameras monitoring everything from above.

Five miles away as the crow flies however, it is a different story. Once you are in Palestine and far enough away that you no longer see the wall, the area where the protests normally take place, or the Israeli military, the feeling of tension begins to change, and the further from the wall you get, the greater sense it takes on. The ambiance the tension produces on the Palestinian side is characterized by its passivity, its presence is constant, but crafted and groomed in such a way that at a superficial level it’s easily overlooked by visitors and outsiders. The populations of the Palestinian cities are not integrated with Jews, and merely walking down the street with the unabashed Arab life going on, not seeing any Jews walking the same streets, it’s almost as though a weight is lifted. The tensions can be forgotten, at least for periods of time. Contrary to media portrayals, there is a greater sense of safety in Palestine, particularly where there is no Israeli presence, the air is not thick with tension on every street corner, there is no armed security at every restaurant and no one fears violence from their neighbors. Living in Paidia housing, overlooking a beautiful yellow green wadi lined with homes, there is the same sense of peace as a house in the country in the US. Working at the Paidia center, working with my hands, sharing tea with our neighbors, talking about the weather and exchanging ideas about how best to plant our fruit trees…watching a shepherd pass by with his flock, one escapes to a simpler time, a slower pace of life, before these tensions existed. You are able to forget that just out of sight there is a tremendous barricade and a mechanized army with the latest military technology to defend against the very same people these harmless shepherds and farmers belong to. It’s only the occasional evanescent fighter jet on a training sortie high overhead, with its low deep rumble and the flash of its flares that there is a visible symbol of the occupation.

While in Jerusalem it would be fair to say that the oppression of Palestinians is identifiable by what is done to them and taken from them, in the West Bank it is marked by what is not done for them or given to them. Having lived in both, simply being able to compare the availability of different things is key. As I mentioned in a previous blog, water is an obvious example. It’s no coincidence Israelis have water when Palestinians do not. The water does not run out for those in Jerusalem, and despite it coming from the very same sources, the water runs out regularly for Palestinians. The same issue persists in nearly every area of infrastructure throughout the West Bank. Medicines and medical treatment are another problem since the building of the wall. There are simply just a lot of medications and medical treatments that cannot be had in Palestine. Meanwhile in Jerusalem, any treatment or medicine you could expect to find in the best European country is there. You could die in Bethlehem because you are not allowed to go to a hospital just a couple miles away in Jerusalem where a life saving treatment or medication is available, but you would never know unless you yourself experienced a medical emergency where you could not get treatment, or know of someone with this experience. There is of course the greater problem of travel. Hundreds if not thousands of families have not been able to see each other since the building of the wall because they are either not allowed to cross, or would not be allowed back if they did. These, and numerous other issues which do not reach the high level of publicity like the clashes of violence, form the constant but largely subdermal tension that persists in the daily life in the West Bank.

I feel the less flagrant nature of oppression in the West Bank make the more blatant manifestations of persecution so potent. The Jews throwing their trash from above on Palestinians in Hebron, and of course the wall itself. In this way, the wall is both curse and blessing as it provides a physical manifestation for the otherwise less flagrantly visible abuses in Palestine that are so easily overlooked by those who do not or would not care to see them. No poetic metaphor could do equal justice to convey the gravity of the problem than actually erecting an eight meter wall covered in razorwire wall that literally divides families, imprisons communities, and exiles, dehumanizes, and humiliates an entire people group. It’s undeniable existence demands acknowledgement of the otherwise silent systemic issues for which the wall serves as a much needed exclamation point.

A Confession, a Dream, and a Church

A couple blogs ago I mentioned that I didn’t receive any dreams during the time I was asking God for discernment in deciding what to do about grad school. That wasn’t entirely true. It slipped my mind at the time of writing that blog, and it wasn’t necessarily relevant, but I thought I should confess, especially now because it’s convenient for a blog as I wrap up my time here shortly.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, one of the oldest standing and largest structures in Jerusalem’s Old City, is the site of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial. There is a lot to see there, the last 4 stations of the Via Dolorosa, or ‘Way of the Cross’, several chapels from the various Orthodox and Catholic traditions, beautiful mosaics, paintings, and tremendous columns and ceilings. Perhaps the most important and most highly revered of all the locations in the church is the tomb of Jesus. I have been to the Holy Sepulchre perhaps five or six times now, but despite this, and after living in Jerusalem for a year, I never entered this holiest of holy places until yesterday. There have been various reasons for why this has been the case, most often because there is a mob of tourists standing in line to see it and when there are one, two, three tourist groups of fifty to a hundred tourists each waiting, the line forms a thick coil around the church that seems endless, while on other occasions it has been that one priesthood or another would require the tomb to do a ritual and allow no one else to go in. These are certainly earthly reasons, unsurprising to anyone who is familiar with the milieu of Jerusalem, especially the constant tension between pious reverence and accommodating tourism at holy sites, but I am still inclined to assign some spiritual importance to this as well, which came in a dream.

Sometime during the 1970s an archeological excavation was done in the Holy Sepulchre which revealed an even older sanctuary buried beneath an existing one (which is saying something considering the present one largely survives from the early 300’s AD). On one of the walls the archeologists found some ancient graffiti depicting a merchant ship and “DOMINE IVIMVS” written beneath it, which reads “Lord we shall go,” or less accurately, but what I think the contemporary vernacular would be, “Lord we came.” This graffiti attest to the site's importance for pilgrimage from an extremely early date in the Christian faith.

In my dream, I finally was able to experience the peace and awe of being a pilgrim. I finally entered Jesus’ tomb and sat down inside the small room. Rather than being rushed in an out by a priest, as is normally the case in real life, I was able to sit, relax, and experience the comfort of the Lord’s presence. In my dream there were books for people to draw or write a message celebrating their arrival to the tomb. The recently filled ones remained in the room and fresh empty books were plentiful. I imagined the filled books were occasionally removed and kept somewhere important to represent the collective experience of each Christian soul making this pilgrimage through the ages. I flipped through a few pages of a book, admiring the different colors people used to write, their unique handwriting, their imperfect spacing on the blank pages, and their drawings and adornments. I felt like a part of something greater, part of a beautifully imperfect human dimension, a throng of humanity not writing as people reaching out to God but as people who were sitting in God’s very presence, the writings of people that have reached their destination. And so I felt; ecstatic in the presence of the God with us. I wrote as one that has finally arrived, “Lord I came.” These laconic words encompassed everything I wanted to express to God as though he were before me, both the reason I direly hoped would leverage grace, and my thanks for the journey.

I went to the Holy Sepulchre one last time the other day and discovered the line for the tomb only a few dozen people long. I finally waited my turn, was crowded and hurried in and out. I had enough time to kneel and say a short prayer. But this was only the physical component of the spiritual experience I had weeks earlier. This was the frame not its contents, and I felt at peace. I know I have completed the journey.

Pain is the Theme of the Week

It’s been a rough week. Injury tally for the week in ascending order of pain:

1. Various abrasions
2. Approximately five mosquito bites on my left foot and a couple on my face
3. Sledgehammer vs left shin (it was a glancing blow thank God)
4. Burn on left thumb from setting fires to burn dry brush from our center
5. Burst blister right hand from shoveling, pickaxing, etc
6. Pulled hamstring right leg
7. Pulled quad left leg
8. Pulled hamstring left leg
9. Several slices across my right forearm from an improperly grinded down metal sledgehammer handle
10. Pulled muscle right shoulder from swinging sledgehammer
11. Welding burn left forearm from touching melting hot metal I just welded
12. Bruises on both inner thighs from hanging from a rock wall for 2+ hours
13. Surgery on left big toe. I actually looked at the toe itself today and it’s a grizzly sight. It's still very very painful as well.

With the possible exception of the toe and mosquito bites I’m proud to bear them. When the sting of the bathwater hits the wounds I know, and surprises me with ones I don’t as it cleans them, I am reminded of how I earned each one. The pain is a satisfying token of hard work well done, and the scars will be mementos of the difference I made when I return home.

Surgery with a Story

So, I’m having surgery right now in a Palestinian ER, and I’m writing so I don’t have to look down at it. For at least the last fifteen years I’ve had an ingrown toenail on my big toe. I had surgery on my right big toe to correct this problem when I was in the fourth or fifth grade and I’m now finally having it on the other. It’s been a kind of “thorn in the flesh” for me as it has caused me regular pain for all these years. I’ve had a couple opportunities to have this surgery before but I’ve always backed out of I, nerves bearing their partial contribution. The nerves have certainly not disappeared today; it’s something about the surgery involving my nail and a toe, I’d rather have them cut open my stomach frankly. I’ve had a few shots in my foot now and I feel sick to my stomach. So why now, of all times, and why here, of all places? Well, that’s a question I’m asking myself right now actually. But here are the reasons I came to the hospital in the first place. Randomly enough, I’ve always thought I would enjoy rock climbing, but as long as I can remember wanting to, I’ve never really been able with this toe. One of the primary ministries Paidia is operating is a rock climbing wall that we built at one of the very few nice parks located down the road here in Beit Sahour. I’d love to be able to climb it with no pain. The second reason, probably equally little to do with the problem itself is that I seem to have a, possibly masochistic, affinity for rising to the challenges of my fears and accomplishing the most difficult things I can imagine; if not for purely psychological reasons, this is one of them.

What actually got me to lay down on this table probably has more to do with the hospital experience I had. Our secretary called to schedule an appointment for me, and after speaking with them she wrote down the times the doctors are available, no appointment needed. I went in on a Wednesday during the time the doctor was to be in, but as it turned out the dash between Monday and Thursday was meant to mean Monday or Thursday, not Monday through Thursday. In spite of this, before I could leave, or even sit down to wait, the receptionist told me I could just see the general practice physician, who promptly appeared in the doorway and without spending a moment waiting he invited me into his office. Being the only blonde haired person in the clinic I stuck out a bit (not that I mind the attention), so he asked me if I was a volunteer. I told him the work I was doing, how long I had been in the region, about our center, about the park. He told me that his house was right down the street from the park we are working on, and we talked for another ten minutes or so. He seemed in no rush, nothing like the hospital pace I’m used to. He took a look at it and said that they could do the surgery…that day, or whenever I wanted it, and that the surgeon gets in in about an hour. He told me that the surgery would cost 400 sheqels, or a little over $100, that I could pay however much I wanted whenever I was able to. He probably took notice of my surprise and explained to me that they aren’t concerned about the money, the doctors were there to help regardless of the money. I told him I should probably check with my boss to see when I should get it done. After using the phone at the reception desk I returned to his office where the doctor pulled a framed photo from his drawer. He told me it was a picture of his house, and turned it toward me. The picture showed a heap of rubble. He explained that Israeli tanks destroyed it in the last Intifada and pointed to a sole window in one corner of the building that remained standing, he said “that was my bedroom.” He told me that he and his family made it out alive and fled, and that they returned and rebuilt their home where it was. Sometimes I need reminding that so many people here have these remarkable stories. It's not terrorists and fanatics that are the victims, but the average family man, doing the best he can to help his community.

After we finished talking I went to the waiting room to wait for the surgeon who I met shortly after. He suggested, to my relief, that I wait a few days for the surgery. Not that they wouldn’t do it right then and there, but because he felt I should take a round of antibiotics first. A few days passed and here I am. The price and speed at which this whole process has gone have left me little excuse to go through with it, though I admit I am concerned about the results. Pictures to come…

Signs, Dreams, and Decisions

It was a decision that was more than a year in the making, researching, writing, perfecting…obsessing; but like I often find the case to be, it took the coercion of a deadline (even an extended one) to force me to make my decision. In trying to decide which grad school to attend, I made as much use of my personal relationship with God that I could leverage, praying and asking for signs and dreams. I developed an affinity for the ‘dream’ revelation after a vivid dream that took place little more than 2 years ago now, in the middle of a course on apocalyptic literature, which having forced me to read Daniel about 7 times in a two weeks span, apparently had a profound effect on my subconscious. It was not long after waking, processing, sharing the dream with others, and writing it down that I realized it was not the first dream with profound metaphorical or allegorical implications that could be described as nothing less than ‘revelatory,’ about my current life situation or perhaps even the future. As I train more and more to effectively become a scientist of the Bible and Ancient Near Eastern culture I feel it is important to maintain some grounding in the individual spiritual experience, and dreams are something that provide an outlet for that because they escape the realm of present scientific verification. Granting my very skeptical nature, dreams allow me to circumvent the irresistible desire to discern if they are merely illusory, or genuinely theophanic, they can be neither dismissed nor verified, and I like it that way. I think perhaps it’s someone of a gentleman’s agreement between God and I; I ask for little more certain than a dream, and I suspend my skepticism when they come. From time to time, it works, and it’s really the only somewhat objectively manifest spiritual function that I experience. All that said, I got no dreams…apart from ones without the trappings I expect in the aforementioned ‘revelatory’ sort.

What I got instead were signs. What I forgot to ask for however was the means to interpret them… Doing the manual labor I spend so much of time occupied with, my mind has the freedom to roam and contemplate decisions like this one, and there were a few moments when I felt something was being show (or shouted) to me. The first was the shepherds that daily graze their sheep and goats in the field adjacent to our worksite, the pleasant simplicity and serenity of this daily scene offered me some rest and reassurance that the sun would still rise regardless of what I chose, and I was able to be at rest merely in watching the herds among the other various critters scurrying about the work site. Two other events I interpreted as signs I couldn’t deduce a substantive meaning from despite my feeling that they had one. I believe it was a Saturday that I came to the work site to put in some extra work, hammering away at decades old window sealant that had hardened in the frames of broken out windows. I stepped away for a moment to use the bathroom, and at that very instant a tremendous branch, the size of a large tree itself, simply snapped off and landed on the fence bordering the work site and our neighbors property. Being out of sight, I assumed the loud sound was some children that have vandalized the property in the past, and I thought to myself “at last, an opportunity to confront them and yank them by the ear to their parents.” When I came around the corner and saw this huge branch blocking my path, I was surprised to say the least. As I write this, two things come to mind, the first that the tree falling on the fence was merely to say I was on the fence, a fairly obvious observation…or perhaps it was a reminder of a scene in the originally dream I mentioned earlier which itself contained a large broken tree on its side. The next sign occurred a few days later after I flipped over a brick to discover a scorpion beneath it. Keen to keep it as a pet and show it off to my neighbors I caught it in a water bottle and continued working. As I finished working and reached for my water bottle for a drink I remembered at the last moment to look down to make sure it was the bottle of water and not the bottle of scorpion. It was indeed the bottle of water, but the notion of having the option to drink refreshing water or a scorpion, and my heightened sensitivity to looking for signs meant I took this to be one, though I couldn’t discern which school was the water and which was the scorpion.

The final spiritual contribution to my decision was when, hours before the deadline, I prayed, and grabbed my, by now dusty, Bible to sit down to read it for direction. I opened it at random, like so many middle schoolers seeking divine guidance, but the place to which it opened truly did have meaning for me. It opened to James 1, likely not due to a divine hand, or my own, but because the pages and their binding had grown so accustomed to opening there. This truly was a sign, for as I read the familiar words I was reminded of who I was and received the affirmation that as long as I was true to myself, kept the words of James that I am so passionate about close to my heart and continued to persevere under trial, I would receive the crown of life promised by God.

It was with this divine blessing, some incredible and unexpected financial contributions from my immediate family, and enough planning an calculating for a lifetime on my part, that I’ve decided to attend Harvard.

So now, what does this mean for my ministry in the Middle East? The obvious questions is concerning it’s length. I will start Harvard’s program in mid-June which means that I will be coming back to America as of June, just a month from now. While this puts a hold on ministry here, I sincerely believe the training I receive at Harvard will, in the long run, allow me to be of far greater service to the current situation in Israel-Palestine, and perhaps the entire Middle East and America as well. As I mentioned in a prior blog, one of the reasons Harvard was my number one choice was because of its pluralistic environment. While I understand “pluralistic” is a vulgar word to many conservative Christians, attending Harvard Divinity School will provide me with opportunities like no other seminary in the world to study in precisely the situation I find myself here, with the hope of an outcome that will allow me to serve better here because of it. It also doesn’t hurt that I will have a world class education from the top university and top Biblical Studies and theology scholars on the planet.

I have a lifelong history of pairing ministry with the academic study of the Bible and hope that you too can see attending seminary as a continuation of my ministry rather than an interruption of it. In fact, I hope you see it as the opposite, in my commitment to do Masters level work in theology I hope you can see that in so doing I have made a lifelong commitment to serving God. Because of this, I would also welcome continued financial support through seminary if you feel so called, as there still remains a substantial need to be met, both in the money I have spent ministering here, as well as in what I will need once I begin seminary.

From my past, and future blogs I hope you can see that I truly do love serving here, the life, the culture, the places, the people, I could go on. God willing I will not be gone long.

Water

I took my first warm shower in nearly two weeks today. Life without water is a constant reminder of what life is like under occupation and the things we daily take for granted. We simple ran out of water in our building, it is a regular occurrence here in Palestine once the summer months arrive, though in Jerusalem on the Israel side this was never the case in my experience. We regained running water about a week ago about the time I decided to take a cold shower in our office, but it was not until today that the hot water returned and I was finally able to clean myself off thoroughly. During this period I took a couple sponge baths with hot water heated in a kettle, which was an experience in its own right, burning my scalp and freezing everywhere else.

Below is some stencil graffiti art, which is so popular here in Palestine, and typically doesn’t carry the stigma it would in America. It’s social, political, and religious commentary is something the entire culture groans to publically express in some form, so I’m happy to share it with people who would never see it otherwise.

A Few Words About My Grandfather's Passing

It’s hard to believe it’s been more than a month now since my grandfather passed away. The entire process of his dying is still something I feel I don’t have adequate words for, but still I’ve also felt it long overdue that I write something about it. I am so grateful that I was able to come home when I did and stayed long enough to see things through to the end. I think everyone in my family can see that God played a hand in the timing of it all. I spent a great while unsure about whether to stay or go when I originally planned, and more unsure still of how I should greave afterward. Even seeing children die over here, I have not experienced death so closely and at such a personal level; I didn’t know if I should be angry or happy, if I should mope around or continue life as usual, if I should go back to Palestine or stay. In the end I thought the best way to honor my grandfather would be to handle his death as he would want. To me this meant celebrating his passing as far as I was able, because though he is gone from sight, there is nothing sad in the thought of him at his well earned place among the saints at the heavenly banquet with our Lord. It also meant that I should stay and help my grandmother in all the ways my grandfather expected to himself by having his surgery, until at least I knew at she had the support she needed without me. Finally, it meant most of all that I should not remain idly in America where indeed I was moping around, but continue the work that made him so proud and represented a continuation of our family legacy, and his life in so many ways. Each of these events has come to fruition in a seamless way and having been here in Palestine this long now, I know I’ve made the right decision. Below I have included the slideshow of his life I made for his memorial service and a few words I spoke at his service.



I am so thankful for the example he has been to me. My family has a tremendous history of service to the church, and from his example I am proud to continue that legacy. He has shown me just how much of a servant it is possible to be, and has set a standard that I wouldn’t think was really possible had I not been watching him my whole life. What he accomplished in his lifetime is everything I aspire to. He always tried to do the right thing, the honest thing, no matter the inconvenience or personal cost to him; and he truly lived for others, even unto his death. I hope I can continue living in a way that makes him proud, and that for my sake, from time to time, you might remind me how Grandpa would have done it.