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.