These are challenging times in my life. At first, I merely mismanaged the stress in my work environment. That, in turn, exposed some identity questions. Just as soon as I pulled back to uproot those exigencies, a fissure opened in my psycho-spiritual foundation. To put it simply, I am dealing with some fundamental issues of Faith itself, not just the practice of my faith, but especially making the jump from being focused on process to being truly oriented to processes in my life. In the midst of that, I began to unearth ‘the lies’ but my mind has been elsewhere the past few days. Let me take you all back to Tuesday...
...at that moment, I turned away from my Arabic in disgust, again feeling the impetus draining from me. I peppered a chuckle into my sighs to disperse the taste of frustration. The irony, I realized, is that my cravings for promises and permanence provide only temporary relief. What a gas! Not about to explode, I opened the door to my balcony and stepped into the sun light. Chin-ups can be a good way to work off angst but I was already in my work slacks. Instead, I paced to the railing and gazed over our corner of Bethlehem. I intentionally did not look at the split hill next to al-Walaje and the Wall trickling through the cleavage.
A ‘why me?’ moment seized on me like a gust of win. Why, God, would I be chosen to come here and learn the meaning of kairos time and being process-oriented? It seemed as if it would be too late for me, raised in a culture of stimulus and outcomes. Somewhere along the way, I developed a taste for resolution. To stay engaged with ambiguities in my work and relationships has felt, at times, like torture and a mistake. I knew I was progressing but that did not explain why someone else was not in my place. “I want to learn – but my heart is aching so terribly.” In the day since, I have oozed back and forth between two poles: one that insists there are things worth wanting and working toward and the other that joy can only be found in practice and the products are just blessings extra.
As I paced the limestone, I muttered to myself, “maybe I just want to settle and be at peace,” but an unexpected voice from within said, “yes, you want peace – for everyone, but not without justice.”
I bit into that thought and chewed. Turning toward Jerusalem I asked again: “why would You choose someone who wants to see resolution... for an issue like THIS!?” Again, the unexpected voice:
“...because you will keep going, as long as this is unfinished...”
I started weeping profusely. I went on bawling for half-an-hour as I retreated inside and paced between my bedroom and living room making connections. All along, I had been a peace activist at my core but all of the other pieces of me were always in the foreground. The cause of the ‘ambient stress levels’ could not be pin-pointed became clear: the Holy Spirit grieves directly inside that deep part of me. Among many other uncanny ties was the way that Wi’am, just as I arrived, was in the midst of a shift in philosophy from “conflict resolution” to “conflict transformation”. After sixteen years, Zoughbi tired of fixing the same problems with the age-old procedures. Rather than throwing Sulha away for new, less tested methods, Wi’am embraced the practice of transformation within the traditional ways. The word Wi’am means “cordial relations”, not ‘instant solutions’. Here I am: making the transition to transformation, myself.
Israel, as much as Palestine, was showing me things about myself. Israel is grabbing and possessing the land and erecting all kinds of structures to guarantee their wishes, only to ruin the land that might have had them willingly. Promises promises – I wondered if God ever intended promises the way the Old Testament understands them. I appreciated my own blindness just a little bit better: there is no measure I can take to assure this long process will mean success. Seeing myself in the Wall, I found some sadness in my heart for our ‘cousins’. That hit hard:
But as He came closer to Jerusalem and saw the city ahead, he began to weep. “How I wish today that you and all people would understand the way of peace. But now it is too late, and peace is hidden from your eyes.”
~Jesus in Luke 19: 41 – 42 NLT
There was even more than this, though it’s difficult to recall in under a thousand words. Later in the day, I paced around the Wi’am grounds. Every time I began to have a happy-thought about the future I smothered it quickly. My heart wanted this so I could be empty for a few hours, not carrying my wishes. I saw flowers, smelled herbs, felt the sun but let my insides remain in a dark state of nirvana. No turning point was coming, I reminded myself. Playing songs on the deck of a Royal Caribbean Liner or of the Titanic, it did not matter: the score would have to be the same for a while.
But it is starting to sink in. Rather than looking for alternatives, things to believe in, I am starting to leave myself a little more empty. I tried to stop asking myself what I had accomplished and started wondering “what am I doing? Where is this going?”
In lieu of what I would have written a few days ago, I have the image of an olive grove. The reason for having an olive grove would appear to be for olives. Of course, one must care for the trees. I had seen being process-focused as caring for the trees and enjoying their other qualities but, metaphorically speaking, I have remained worried about olives. The point of the olive trees is to have olives but NOT the 2012 olives. Not the 2011 or 2013 olives either. These particular olives matter less than the lives of the trees and their ability to keep making olives, as well as shade and wood. All our lives we worry for particular olive crops when it is the trees that deserve our concern – the trees that carry out the process. I am a steward not of olives but of olive trees ~ that’s what I need to get into my mind.
It also finally sank in that I, as a person, am more important to Wi’am than the work I do. That has made a huge difference to me. I am a tree.
