Walls and Prayers

Clemence is a 65 year old widow who lives on a hill in the north part of Bethlehem in an apartment in the family compound of her deceased husband.  Three other families also live in the family dwelling.  She taught for years at the Lutheran School in Beit Sahour, just outside of Bethlehem.  Today she is retired and teaches from her home.

When she looks out of her windows to the south, she sees the house of her brother-in-law.  And, she used to look out to the North and the West and see the family olive groves and almond trees and vineyards on what had been family land for generations.  Today she only sees The Wall.  One day at her kitchen table she told me, “Our land was our security, we took care of the land and the land took care of us.  But now we have nothing.  I used to never have to turn the lights on in the day, but now because of The Wall, we have to use the lights.”

Part of the land that was supposed to take care of Clemence and offer security in her old age was confiscated to build the Separation Wall.  The Wall is many kilometers from the Green line, but separates the Gillo Settlement (which is illegal according to International Humanitarian Law) from Bethlehem.  The Wall in this area is also used to annex the area around Rachel’s Tomb into Israel.  The family land that was not used for the building of The Wall is now on the Jerusalem side and Clemence and the family can no longer access the land. And because of this they will lose it.  They can not even go to see what is happening to it.

This story is repeated over and over and over all over the West Bank.  The exact details vary, but the story is the same—access is denied; land is lost.  Then the land is annexed into a Settlement.  The Settlements grow, and grow and the land left to the Palestinians shrinks and shrinks.

And widows like Clemence struggle to keep body and soul together—teaching Arabic lessons to people like me.



Sometimes when I would walk up towards the wall to go to Clemence’s house for my lesson, the soldier at the car checkpoint would start shouting at me to go away and wave his gun at me. I would wave my arms around to indicate where I was going.  And while he shouted at me, I would turn into her gate.

On Friday evenings several of the Sisters from the Caritas Hospital and the Brothers from the Bethlehem University would join Clemence for a prayer vigil at The Wall and many of the Ecumenical Accompaniers in Bethlehem would join them.  On these days sometimes the soldiers were nice and said nothing.  Other times they would shout and threaten, but we would go and walk along The Wall while the rosary was said in Arabic and English.

But, it is going to take more than a few people repeating the rosary to end the injustice being done to Clemence and so many other people on the West Bank.  Please do what you can to stop the Settlement expansions like those just announced for Gillo.  Increasing Settlements is not the Road Map to Peace.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

The Green Gate on the right hand side of the street is the gate to Clemence's house.
The big gray gate in the wall was usually open with a soldier standing guard.







The view to the North from Clemence's front door.



The Friday Night Prayer Vigil along The Wall.

The Prayers would end at this painting of the Virgin Mary.

A view of The Wall at Rachels's Tomb.

   



Why is she crying?

This morning at the crack of dawn my colleague, Sofie, and I left the house to meet a group of journalist from Sweden to tell them about the work of the EAPPI at the Bethlehem 300 Check Point.  They were coming through from Jerusalem to meet us and as is often the case, it took them longer than expected.  While we were waiting, a young man named Mohamed started talking to us.  As we were just standing there, he thought  maybe we might need a tour guide and he offered his services. 

We did not need a guide, but we talked with him about the check point and the size of the line at 6am.  Most mornings we are inside and do not know what the line looks like outside, so we talked about whether it was a “usual” morning and this and that until the Swedish journalist finally exited the check point to meet us.  Then Sofie took them off to the side for her presentation in Swedish. 

The Lutheran pastor from the states serving in the Bishop’s Office in Jerusalem happened to be with the group.  And, like me, she does not speak Swedish, so we were talking.  When all of a sudden I heard Mohamed saying, “Why is she crying?”  He sounded very concerned and I looked at Sofie to see what was wrong, and told him, “No, she is not crying.” 

But I was not really sure if she was crying or not.  Sofie was standing talking to the group who had their backs towards the men in the line for the check point.  I turned so I would see what she was looking at, perhaps there was something wrong.  What I saw was that Sofie was looking straight onto the men in that long, long line going up the hill to the check point.  I looked back again to see if perhaps she was crying—we have all been brought to tears by that sight.  But if she was crying it was like the woman I met on a Friday morning at the check point.

On Friday Mornings we only do a spot check at Bethlehem 300 checkpoint since the men are not going to work.  This is usually a nice little post breakfast stroll—takes 10 minutes to go through the check point.  But not this one morning—there was a line of about 10-15 people when I got there about 8:30am.  Before the soldier let us in, the line was much longer. 

One of the people up near the turnstile was a Muslim woman with one of the most serene, beautiful smiles I have seen.  Just her presence; made the place more pleasant.  And nothing seemed to ruffle her.  Not even when two men whose verbal frustration with the situation got pretty excited.  She just smiled as to say, “Men will be men”

There was also a man who had lived in Minnesota and spoke English who talked to me and to the men who were upset.  He showed me what permits looked like and explained many things to me.  After about an hour the soldier opened the first turnstile and let us through.  The woman with the smile had sort of taken me under her wing to be sure I got through the turnstile with her.

Then at the metal detectors she also made sure the men did not cut in line on me, all with the beautiful smile.  Then when they began to open a second metal detector and people were back and forth trying to decide which one really was going to work, the two of us stayed put.  But after awhile she decided the new one was best and went over there and motioned for me to come too.

When I did she began to just speak and speak and speak to me in Arabic.  Up until that point the only language was non-verbal.  The man who had been to Minnesota had also decided to try his luck with this metal detector so he started at me in English. “You don’t understand her do you?  Why don’t you speak Arabic?” 

I told him, "Because my mother did not teach me!  But your mother did teach you, so now you will tell me what she said.” 

He replied, “Everyday here I cry inside.”  And while he was saying this, she smiled her beautiful smile at me, a smile of kindness, compassion and a generous and good heart— while she cried inside.

The tears we do not shed while standing in the Check Point do spill out at other times.  But, I am not asking you to shed tears for the sadness and injustice of the institutions and barriers we can create to make life more difficult for others.  I am asking you to search your heart to see if there are Check Points of judgment, hurt feelings or anything that makes a barrier between you and those around you that make life harder for others.  If there are, please consider opening your hearts and tearing down the barriers.

The words the prophet Micah said to the people of Israel many years ago are as true today as when the Lord first spoke to him:

                        He has told you, O mortal, what is good,

                                    and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice,

                                    and to love kindness,

                                    and to walk humbly with your God.      

                                                Micah  6:8  

--Tears are optional, but justice is not.---



Sofie speaking to Swedish Journalist at Bethlehem Check Point 300





Men lined up to go through the Check Point to go to work in Jerusalem.



Muslim woman going up the line to the Check Point entrance.



From Check Points to Olive Trees

From Check Points to Olive Trees

I have talked a lot about Check Points.  Living in the shadow of the Separation Barrier (The Wall) between Israelis and Palestinians in the occupied territories and visiting the Checkpoint on a regular basis, makes Check Points loom big in one’s mind.  But being an Ecumenical Accompanier is not all about checkpoints.   It is about visiting with the many people who have stories similar to the story in an earlier post about Siham and her family.  The details vary, but the story is surprisingly and sadly way too similar from person to person.

Another one of the villages we visit is al Walaja.  It is one of the many villages around Bethlehem that is being negatively impacted by the Separation Barrier and surrounded by illegal settlements.  When we arrived at the end of June, al Walaja was a quiet place.  There was a court case pending concerning The Wall and the path it would take.  In the past there had been many demonstrations, but it was quiet when we first went to visit.  We sat under pine trees while plans were being made for a Summer Camp program and an Israeli soldier in a watch tower on the other side of The Wall looked on.

But, it was not long before the bulldozers were moving and the road the EU had built was being torn up to make way for The Wall to enclose more of this quiet village.  The plan is to completely surround this village so that all entry is limited to those now living in the village and it can only be accessed through a military gate. 

What will this do to the life of the village?  Everyone is doing their best to be prepared for the very long period of siege that is coming as The Wall marches relentlessly around to complete its circle.  And, for right now, it is causing a building boom as people are preparing for the time when they will not be able to get building supplies.    But in the long run, it will stifle all growth and development and eventually snuff out the life of this once prosperous farming community.  That is if nothing is done to stop this process and even to reverse it.

So, this quiet village has become the site of many demonstrations, with soldiers chasing people up very steep hills, throwing concussion bombs at little old ladies like me, and even tear gas and rubber bullets and an occasional live bullet.  And now, the court case has been lost.  What the next step is I do not know. 

But what I want to tell you about is one man and his olive trees.  It turns out that not only does the IDF guard the cutting of the trees, but they will not allow the owner of the demolished trees to have even the use of the wood.  It is taken away from them at gun point and taken somewhere for someone else to use or to simply be burnt.

Imagine a picture of your grandfather or one of his brothers, looking on as bulldozers came and put a wall through his pasture, uprooting the coastal hay he had been fertilizing and nurturing and destroying the pastures he had so carefully tended.  They will not let him have the hay to use or to sell.  Then, when they come back to take all the bales of hay he has in the field, they see your grandfather sitting on the hay, refusing to get down.   

This is the picture I saw.  Only it was a white haired Palestinian grandfather who had used his walking cane to help himself climb up on the pile of bulldozed stumps of his once living olive trees.  The front end loader nudged the pile, but he did not move.  The soldiers and private security came with their M-16s pointed at him and tried to make him see the error of his ways.  Many voices were raised, the machine operator backed up and came from a different angle to nudge the pile of stumps again to shake the old man loose.  But he was staying put.  Eventually the man was moved and his tree stumps taken away.

Last time I was at al Walaja, the pile drivers and bulldozers were out of sight around the bend on the back side of the mountain side.  All that is left where the soldiers, horses, dogs and a white haired man had tried to protect his olive trees and then to rescue the broken stumps is the leveled off road bed where The Wall will snake its away around the ridges until it meets its tail at the entrance to the village and eventually snuffs the life out of a once prosperous farming village. 

It is easy to say, “Yes, this is the way things work in this world.”  But, isn’t there a better way for the Children of Abraham to get along?

                                            In his letter to the Ephesians St. Paul thought so:

                                                For he is our peace

                                                    in his flesh he has made both groups into one

                                                    and has broken down the dividing wall,

                                                    that is, the hostility between us. 

                                                                      Ephesians 2:14

             

Why is it so much easier to break things down with pile drivers and bulldozers than it is to break down the hostility between people with love?

Planning a Summer Day Camp









The Soldier watching Camp planning





Walking along the Wall that will
very soon snake its way around
the village and cut them off.





After the Olive Trees were removed construction moves
quickly around to the far side of the hill.



Check Points and Prayers--Part Two

Check Points and Prayers—Part Two

The Fourth Friday of Ramadan and Beyond

After the third Friday of Ramadan and the problems that the pilgrims going to al Aqsa encountered, there were many questions about what the last Friday would bring.  Would the rules be changed again at the last minute?  Would the soldiers stop the women again and make their crossing difficult?  Would the men who had gone to the time, trouble and expense of getting special permits to go to the Mosque be allowed to pass through the check point or would they all, without exception, be denied entry?  Or, would some be allowed to pass through and others, for no apparent reason, be denied entry to pray on the most holy day of Ramadan?

The crowds approaching the check point at 3am had no idea what reception they would receive, but all came prepared to spend the day and the night at the Mosque in prayer and meditation.  And, when they got there at 3am the checkpoint was almost deserted.  The pilgrims, at this time mostly women, streamed up the vacant lanes and through the terminal. 

About 3:30am Israeli soldiers started arriving, and they came through the check point and searched the area very thoroughly—just to be sure there were no surprises that would cause harm to the pilgrims, or to them.  Then the Palestinian Authority arrived and set up the temporary barricades in a pattern to help keep order when the crowds of people began arriving. 

And the crowds did arrive and order was kept and people were allowed through the check point with a minimum of trouble and delays.  Instead of an Israeli Army Officer standing at the turnstile holding it shut while the women were crowded into a crush in the humanitarian lane, the turnstile was not turning because the gate beside it was standing open and a single, young solder was crying out, “Hurry, come through” and the women were quickly clearing the check point to continue on their way to Jerusalem where all the gates to the city were open.  And, some of the festive mood of the first two weeks returned.

While everyone was there watching the pilgrims stream through the checkpoint.  I was summoned by one of the Red Crescent Ambulance drivers.  He wanted to know exactly what it was that I was doing there.  He patiently listened to my explanation and finally said, “I do not want to insult you,” and he hesitated before going on, “but you are wasting your time!”

Well there have been many a moment when I have agreed with him.  But, after some discussion, he said, “Okay you pray to your God and I will pray to my God and maybe…” his voice sort of trailed off.  Then he said, “Okay, sister, you better get back to work.”

            And maybe….one day …..  it will be as Isaiah says…

                                                The wolf shall live with the lamb,

                                                            the leopard shall lie down with the kid,

                                                the calf and the lion and the fatling together,

                                                            and a little child shall lead them.  (11:6)

                                                They will not hurt or destroy

                                                            On all my holy mountain;

                                                For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord

                                                            as the waters cover the sea.  (11:9)

and when we are reading about the Peaceable Kingdom Isaiah describes in chapter 11, we need also to look at how Isaiah begins with warnings about ceasing to do evil, learning to do good, seeking justice, and rescuing the oppressed. (1:16-17ff)

which leads us right to:

                                                …they shall beat their swords into plowshares,

                                                            and their spears into pruning hooks;

                                                nation shall not lift up sword against nation,       

                                                            neither shall they learn war any more.  (2:4)

Saturday morning, about 5:30am when I decided to look to see what all the honking of car horns was about on the street that is in front of the house and leads to the car check point, I saw a sign of the peaceable kingdom.

 Men, women and children filled the street, the honking was of taxis picking some up and then trying to get though the people.  When the wide stream of people began, I don’t know, but it continued for another hour or more.  All the people who had rushed and crowded through the check point and past all the soldiers and guns and searches and turnstiles to get to the mosque for prayer the morning before were quietly returning from a day and night of prayer. 

As they streamed silently through the huge gaping car gate, some carried prayer rugs, some had bags with things they would need or that the children would need, one man had a pillow.  And one small, little boy lead a tiger by a thin string tied around its neck.

...and a child shall lead them.

Okay, so maybe it was just a Mylar balloon that a grandmother had bought for her grandson.  But maybe it was also a sign.  Which gets us back to what the ambulance driver said:  “Okay sister [and brother], you better get back to work.”  

And a place to start might be:    

           The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel;

                   The Lord our God is one Lord:
                             And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,

                                     and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength:

                   this is the first commandment.  And the second is like, namely this,

                              Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

             There is none other commandment greater than these.  Mark 12:28-31

                               (useful link:          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Commandment )

As the month long fasting and prayer of Ramadan comes to an end and the Jewish people around the world begin to prepare for Rosh Hashanah  and the Ten Days of Awe, perhaps we too should contemplate these words of Jesus.

How can we love the Lord our God with all of our hearts, our souls, our minds and our strength and our neighbors as ourselves?  And when we do, how can we turn our swords, guns, tear gas, check points, sound bombs into plowshares, fertilizer, open doors and sounds of welcome?

                                                                           Sharon Wiggins, EA 

                                                                           Grandmother  and Pastor

                                                                                                                                                                                                           

CHECK POINTS and PRAYERS

Check Points and Prayers

During the month long fast of Ramadan, Muslim men and women like to go to the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem for Friday Prayers.  (To understand this, think what it might be like for people in Italy to be at the Vatican for the Pope’s Christmas Eve Mass.)  Because of the special significance of this tradition, the Israeli government, the Palestinian Authority and UN and other nongovernmental organizations, including EAPPI, all work together to facilitate movement through the Check Points.  There is a hopeful, festive feeling in the air as tens of thousands of people descend on Jerusalem for the Friday Prayers.  It is like being with the 30,000 thousand young Lutherans in the streets of New Orleans at the National Youth Gathering.

And, for the first two Fridays of Ramadan that is exactly what happened.  It was a beautiful sight. The Israeli soldiers welcomed the Palestinians with traditional Ramadan greetings as they checked their papers and allowed them to pass through the gate.  The men went up their lane and the women went up their lane and everything flowed smoothly as the families were reunited at the bus loading area on the Jerusalem side of the Check Point and whisked off to Al Aqsa Mosque in plenty of time for the noontime Prayers.    

Then, on the third Friday of Ramadan—an especially holy day during Ramadan when the crowds are even larger, everything changed.

The Israelis made the Check Points very difficult.  Instead of Ramadan greetings, there was a soldier standing above the crowd with his finger on the trigger pointing his automatic rifle into the crowd, targeting first one person than another.  The Israeli woman from Machsom Watch did not like this.  She made a call and he was replaced by a Border Policeman who did not put his finger on the trigger and did not randomly take aim on anyone.

And the rules had changed during the night.  Now women as well as the men had to be 50 or older to pass.  All children 12 or under were still allowed go with a parent or grandparent.  All special Ramadan permits and most work permits were suspended.  So, suddenly many people who had come to the Check Point with every reason in the world to think they would be going to Al Aqsa to pray, were denied access to the Check Point.  And men trying to get to work were also turned back except those going to two of the Israeli Settlements.                     

For the lucky ones who made it into the Check Point, the men were to go up the main lane.  The women were to go up the special

Humanitarian Lane

.  The men went up their lane and were allowed to go through the turnstile at the top.  The women who went up the men’s lane were also  allowed through. But, when women followed the soldier’s instruction they ended up being stopped and not allowed to go through the turnstile at the top of their lane.  As the women over 50 were directed into the

Humanitarian Lane

, the small area became more and more crowded until it became a crush between the seven foot tall metal bars that enclose the lane. 

The men, enclosed by bars in their own lane, looked on, unable to help their wives caught up in the crush.  At the top of the lane, an Israeli Army Officer was holding the turnstile and allowing one person through and then holding it closed for a time.  The Private Security guard opened the gate used for people in wheel chairs beside the turnstile and a few women would be pushed through by the crowd before several soldiers forced the gate closed again.

Starting at 4am, it took an hour and a half and several bruises from the metal bars to go a couple hundred feet.  After being allowed through the turnstile by the Army Officer or pushed through the gate by the crowd, four lanes with soldiers at the end of each one had been set up to search the women before they went to the buses.  These lanes stood empty while the women were crushed together behind the turnstile.        

On the way out of the Check Point, going down to the buses waiting to take her to Jerusalem, one woman was heard to say, “Now we have peace.”  One can only pray.

Why am I telling you this story?

…because tomorrow is the last Friday of Ramadan and also the 27^th day of Ramadan which is called Lailet al kadr.  And again on this day many, many people will try to go to Al Aqsa Mosque and still violent incidents are occurring in the south of Israel and tensions are high.

Please pray for the peace that passes all understanding to be with those going through the Check Points and for those manning the Check Points and for all those monitoring the Check Points.

                        Let me hear what God the Lord will speak,

                                                for he will speak peace to his people…

                        Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;

                                                righteousness and peace will kiss each other.

                        Faithfulness will spring up from the ground,

                                                and righteousness will look down from the sky.

                                                                                    Psalm 85:8, 10-11

One can only pray for the time when all people leave vengeance to the Lord and in the meantime, we can look to our own hearts.

Sharon Wiggins, EA

Bethlehem

 

Life in An Nu’man

Life in An Nu’man

West Bank Village Annexed into Israel

I would like to introduce you to Siham.  She lives in the village of An Nu’man just north east of Bethlehem with her husband and three children.  From the hill top where they are living in a converted barn, you can see across to the village where she grew up.  Siham can go to visit her mother, but her mother can not come to visit her or to help if the children are sick.  Because a fence has been built up around An Nu’man and no one is allowed in except the ones who live in the village and people with international passports. 

Between Siham’s home and her childhood home there is an Israeli Settlement and a nice road that takes one quickly to Bethlehem and Jerusalem and if someone in the Settlement becomes ill, an ambulance has no trouble to go to the house and offer aid.  If Siham were to need an ambulance, the ambulance must wait at the gate with the soldier at the bottom of two long, steep hills for Siham to come to the ambulance.  Siham and her husband are young and their children are healthy, so we pray that they do not ever need an ambulance.

But why must they live in a converted barn?

In the states sometimes people find old stone barns, spend a lot of money and turn them into lovely homes because they want to do it.  But that is not why Siham lives in a barn.  She lives with her family in a barn because the Israeli Army demolished her perfectly good house.  There was only time to get the furniture out from one room before the demolition began.  Some things however, were rescued and are stored under a tent in hopes of having a house again.  In the meantime, they rent a barn to live in.

Buildings in existence before 1967 are supposed to be exempt from these demolition orders, but there seems to be some exceptions even to this safe haven.

           

How does all this come to be?

1.  After 1967 Israel annexed the land of the village into Israel but did not make the inhabitants citizens of Israel.  They can continue to reside there, but they are illegal residents in their own homes living in isolation from their friends, neighbors and families—behind a fence with a guard to keep everyone out.

2.  As a practical matter, Palestinians cannot receive building permits for homes or home improvements.  But any building done without a permit is subject to demolition.  There are many demolition orders pending that can be implemented at any time.  The current practice is to give people a window of time in which to remove their belongings and demolish their own home.  If they do not, they are charged the cost of demolition and will probably not be able to remove many of their belongings.

So, in conclusion…

Anything Siham and her family build to live in will be subject to demolition because they will not be given a building permit.  But even so, EAPPI and other international and Israeli groups are looking for ways to help build a new house for this family.

What to can one say about a system that reaches out and annexes the land of a village into its own country, but tells the 200 people living in the village that they are just not part of the deal.  We want your land, but not you!!  And, then builds a fence around them and sets soldiers to guard the gate so no one, except foreigners, can visit without special permits—not even an ambulance or a grandmother.  Surely this action has to do with something other than National Security.

And when one Israeli group demolishes a house in a small village because there was no building permit and another Israeli group looks for ways to build the house gain—still without a building permit so the house will be subject to demolition again, but probably not for 5 or 10 years.  How does this benefit “National Security” for the State of Israel?  If there is any benefit to anyone, it is to those who produce and sell building supplies.

Please contact your Senators and Representatives and ask them to use their influence to get Israel to refrain from these practices that do not increase Israeli National Security, but only bring grief to families.

                                                From an EA who is also a mother and grandmother

                                                Sharon, Group 40

A Land Called Holy

The State of Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories are situated on a piece of land that many call Holy and some call Home.  For Christians in the US, a trip to this area is a trip to the birth place of Jesus.  The first thing that comes to mind for some is visions of angels speaking to shepherds in the field, or, a star guiding the Wisemen from the East to the spot where Jesus was born in a stable in Bethlehem; or, Mary sitting beside the manger watching Jesus sleep while the cattle are lowing.

For others, there is Jesus being baptized in the Jordan River and the hillsides, dusty roads and villages where he taught his disciples and healed the sick, cured the lame, gave sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf.  And many think of the Places where Jesus was betrayed, crucified, died and was buried only to rise again on the third day.

Christians come to the Holy Land from every part of the world to visit these most sacred sites that have been made holy by the prayers of Pilgrims over the years.  For others, Muslims and Jews, the holy sites differ but all three faiths have many holy sites in this area.

Of course, as we pack our bags and look forward to the sights, sounds and tastes of the Holy Land and prepare to walk where Jesus walked, breathe the air Jesus breathed and eat the food Jesus ate, we all know things have changed a bit.  We will not walk the dusty roads of Galilee as Jesus and his disciples did so many years ago.  Our hotel will have AC and we will travel by jet planes and comfortable air conditioned tour buses.

One thing that today's Pilgrim will encounter that Jesus and his discipes never saw is The Wall and Check Points.  Even today, many people in Israel manage to live their lives without ever encountering The Wall or giving Check Points a second thought.  For others--Palestinians--Check Points loom like a dark cloud that affects every aspect of their lives.  Living in this shadow becomes a way of life that seeps into the soul.

I already knew somethng about Check Points and The Wall or Separation Barrier, but before I had only gone through with a Tour Group during the middle of the day.  The Check Points were sometimes a mild inconveniece but, if they were necessary for the security of the State Of Israel, they were a small price to pay.

But in the early morning hours, long before sunrise, when men are linng up to go to work, the Check Points take on a completely different tone.  They are no longer just a mild inconvenience so a group of people can feel secure, they are something all together different.

Let me tell you about what I saw on July 11, 2011 at Check Point 300.

I am taking part in the EAPPI program sponsored by the World Council of Churches and as a part of the program, we are privileged to observe the workings of the Check Points.  As we approached Check Point 300 between Bethlehem and Jerusalem at 3:30am, my colleague and I visited with some of the vendors a moment and joined the lines with our cup of tea in hand.

My colleague went up the exit lane to stand just inside the door where he could see the area of the soldier's booth and the opening and closing of the turnstile which allows peple to approach and show their papers to the first soldier.

I joined the main line to go through the check point.  The first turnstile began opening at 4:00am.  By 4:30am I was at the line for the second turnstile where I stopped to observe as people lined up to go through the metal detectors.  Unfortunately only one of the three metal detectors was opened before 5:30am when the lines had become quite backed up.

Even with the glitches and stopping of the lines for no apparent reason, and the false starts and delays with opening the additional metal detectors and with only half of the magnetic card and finger print stations open, the morning went pretty much as well as it ever does.  In the 3 hours about 2700 people had passed through.

While I was observing the lines at the metal detectors, I saw many men lining up for prayers as they got to that area.  And I saw much kindness between the men as they tried to make an unpleasant situation better for each other.

But above all this there is a catwalk like in prisons with armed private security passing by, stopping at a platform and looking down with guns pointed at the people below.  Mostly the men on their way to work try to ignore them.  But the cloud over the check points darkens as the gun is trained on everyone from high above our heads.

I saw both kindness and the best in people and intimidation and some of the worse in people all at Check Point 300 on Monday, July 11, 2011.

There will be more on this.
Sharon, EA, Group 40

What's in a name?

Have you ever eaten Oysters on the Half Shell?  Back in my CPA days, we were taken to one of the fancy restaurants in one of the tall buildings in Houston.  One of the items on the buffet was oysters on the half shell.  Well, all the others in their expensive suits were eating them, so I tried one and it was not really all that bad--especially if you put the right hot sauce on it.  The second and third ones went down pretty smoothly.

But, when I got home that evening, on the front page of the Houston Chronicle the headline was something like "Beware eating raw oysters" and there was an article about the problems that had just been discovered in oysters being served in Houston.  Oysters on the Half Shell never went down quite so easily after that.

And several years ago at a Festival of Homeletics where ministers from all denominations spent 5 days listening to some of the most impressive preachers in the country while they taught us to be better preachers.  One of these teacher/preachers introduced us to a poem by Emily Dickinson.  It began: Tell all the Truth, but tell it on the slant... 

What's in a name?  Eating raw oysters and listening to a preacher reading poetry is what is in the name of this Blog--Truth on the Half Shell. 

People say that sometimes the truth is hard to swallow.  Some people have no trouble swallowing the truth, but many of us like to doctor it up a little like the oyster on a half shell.  We add a little grain of salt, or some really spicy hot sauce and it goes not a little easier.  But in any case, just like the oyster on the half shell, it goes down a whole lot easier, if we slant the shell up a little before we swallow.

So, What's in a name?  Sometimes not much, and sometimes a lot.  It is my hope that this is a time when there is a lot in a name and as time goes forward we will share much truth. 

And It Begins

Selecting a name for a Blog is a very interesting process.  It is kind of like naming a child.  You can plan, anticipate, research, dream and then suddenly there is a moment of truth and the die is cast--a name is attached to something that you created but that you have no idea how it will turn out.

Welcome to Peace on a Half Shell.  Stay tuned as we explore what is in a name.