The Tenth Prayer

The First Prayer for the Tenth Chapter

I am unsure where to begin because I have been homeless for years. As the text for today suggests, I need to come home to myself. However, my culture and branch of religious tradition have under-equipped me. There is a prevailing emphasis on striving, which unsurprisingly leads to strife. There is an insistence that I be tied into a great tradition of Promised Lands, longed-for places that can never be reached and ultimately never could exist. People pressure me to acknowledge a first covenant and then a second, to either be a follower or a replacement in the tradition of grasping; I refuse. Today, I want to take Christ as the starting point, not the resolution. There is no dead-Jesus in my tomb and the living Jesus will be my first guide. “Love the Lord God with all your mind, heart, and spirit and love your neighbor as yourself – on this hangs all the law and the prophets.” There is my mantra.

Make the spot of Earth I sit upon to be Holy and Home to me, all-touching God. Bookend my struggles of ten years gone by – sequester them and grant me the freedom to move on toward a new home. Help me to see the beauty left in this fading planet and perhaps, from the peace You grant, give me a portion to pour out into the world. First, take me up onto the metaphorical mountain to be instructed. Replace my striving for achievement with a diligent practice. My fondest wish is that I can be separated from my history at last and move into the further reaches of my life with a renewed sense of childhood. Every time I take a deep breath to push away something bitter, I see the joy of living in defiance of existing so wretchedly. Give me no promise but your Presence, even if I feel a deficit at first. I feel that I also have a passionate side, that this is natural for me, that I have fires to be kindled, but take me instead into my snows. Take me first into my rest and make me at home so that I quit my pushing and pulling. I have not transcended my feelings yet so I pray you would sit with me and teach me that meditation is more than suppression – that meditation is always the opposite of suppression. It is a vacuum that draws in – first the terrible stenches and then the fresh-air. It draws in my dust, first, and then flower petals.

I digress. Bring me home,

In All Your Powerful, Serene Names, please...

-Daniel Xavier

He Wept

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.

The Third Lie

To be excellent is definitive evidence that I am of worth, whether my achievement is superlative in degree or precision. I must be remarkable at all times. LIE

When I attended Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, a unit director (head-counselor) once told me that "we always remember the good ones -- and *sigh* the bad ones." I replied, "Wow, it sucks to be mediocre!" He chuckled but I wish he had not. That was typical of my attitude from third-grade upward.

I have given this lie the classification of "Root/ Time & Achievement" in my mini taxonomy of lies. In the first two days of Lent, God revealed that my compulsion to play catch-up and be product oriented were stumbling blocks. That still left the question of why I was so motivated to do those things in the first place. Excellence, of course. The feeling of excellence was ubiquitous to me in my school days and fleeting ever since. It is, indeed, a long story and an old old lie in my life...

The judge-form of this demon is at work all the time, either directly or by delegation. The judge says there is something wrong if I lack aptitude, especially at anything central to my identity. The inherent worth of my every component is measured by its excellence for being noteworthy, preferably superlative. To make a long story short, my activities of late should have quenched the judge. My boss is a great man and, though he doesn't praise me daily, he has said nice things. BISHOPS love me. My family is unbelievably proud. Old friends send me encouragement. It appears that I crawled out of the hole I was in during my AmeriCorps service.

None of that had any effect because the VICTIM form of the demon had a gangster-style grip on my situation. It's pretty twisted. I am not superlative enough in my OWN MIND and I am just begging for the world to see my shame. I've failed and I'm looking for the causes. In fact, as long as I am failing at being excellent I might as well be VILE, says the victim. If I am going to constantly berate myself I might as well berate myself for something truly dark. Above all, the victim embraces the ubiquitous sense of SUCKING. This smoothes the cognitive dissonance between the compliments and my actual sense of deficit.

If all this sounds crazy that would be because *checks his notes* it is INSANE. I became a maelstrom -- I could not close my eyes without the room spinning around me. My drive to be supreme fed into all the other lies, too -- and more of them promise to surface. Yet, this is the big one: fresh-squeezed fruit-juice from Eden, ladies and gentlemen. Supremacy or bust. Recipe for the Fall.

How perfect is the rise of Christ? How appropriate is it that I ran into this lie on Ash Wednesday? From ashes I came and to ashes I will go. That does not mean I am worthless. Ashes are made of Carbon. Think of all the things God can do with something as simple as a carbon molecule. Yet, I was really brought full-circle when I stumbled across Luke Chapter 4. The temptation on the mountain has always been a favorite of mine but it took on a new lustre in light of this morning's revelation.

Jesus is tempted with three things. None of them are decadent or blood-thirsty sins. Those sins of action are derivative from the sins that hold us prisoner in our hearts. Christ is tempted first to gratify himself, last to become invincible, but in the middle to become supreme. Everyone with a high-chrisology, say it together "Jesus IS supreme".

...now He is but he did not do it with empire, as his tempter suggested. After his time on the mountain, he goes into the process of ministry -- which is not always gratifying, is a serious threat to his mortal life, and is a far-cry from the royal-line from which everyone expected their Messiah to emerge.

To bring a long-thought to a short conclusion, I believe that Jesus comes from the prophetic-line. When he was transfigured, David and Solomon were noticeably absent: it was Moses and Elijah who appeared to him.

Again, to bring long thoughts to short conclusions, I made a confession to my colleague today:
"I believe that I am for my mission and my mission is for me." I am not the 'best' missionary. It is not the 'best' mission. It is the right mission for the right missionary. As I am healed, I offer more. Symbiosis.

...and my thoughts go on and on... which is another topic. I seem to be gaining Wisdom!

Discuss: Jesus as Palestinian

I have been wrangling with complex thoughts about the reality of Palestinians as opposed to deficient ideas about the middle-East in the United States. In the midst of all that, I wanted to share a succinct thought I had Monday. I am just shooting this one from the hip:

It makes more sense to think of Jesus as being Palestinian rather than Jewish. I am not talking about "right & wrong" but about "accuracy". He was born into a Judaic tradition, of course. However, the current Jewish tradition is enriched by roughly two-thousand years of history and culture apart from this land. Modern Jewish people, contrary to popular misconception, are partly/mostly/entirely descended from converts in various parts of the world or long-isolated members of an uncertain diaspora. They have pieces of other cultures in their traditions and habit -- which is fine.

Just the same, Jesus lived here in historic Palestine. He probably dressed in robes and sandals like the old-guys I see walking through the sook, not in a black suit and broad-brimmed hat. There are passages that talk about him reclining when he eats, breaking his bread and dipping it in things, and feeding large crowds; freshly raised from the dead, he asked the disciples for food. Take it from me: that's a Palestinian attitude about food. Skipping other, mundane similarities, I will get right to the point: Jesus was living under occupation. He was not welcome among the ruling elite in Jerusalem. He was way too active on the Sabbath. He was tired of seeing his people starving and manipulated. He was confused with a violent extremist, even ranked below one during his final days ("send us Barabbas!").

They said he was lying about who He was and doubted his importance. He who had so much to offer was sacrificed for the sake of political interests -- the interests of those in power and their foreign collaborators. His accusers engineered all types of allegations, whatever they could cook-up to get their own way. They knew just how to work the system. In the end, though, Jesus was willing to go into death rather than flee. Unlike them, He knew who He was.

That sounds like a Palestinian narrative to me.

Atlas Effect

I refer to it as the Atlas Effect, though I am not always quite sure what I am talking about. It touches on that tension between the individual and the collective, as if those two were the only dimensions.

The idea was born out of Steve Jobs’ death, when over half the internet blossomed with heart-felt tributes and the remainder plucked-up their bows and slings, since there is something fundamentally unbalanced about mourning so fervently for a wealthy white-American when children in the third world suffer and die daily. I live in a third world country territory—so do many of my favorite people.

I appreciate Steve Jobs’ work with Apple. I played “Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?” on an Apple II in the early-nineties and listen to iTunes daily. Still, I contended that we were mistaken to think Steve Jobs was the genesis of his own success. ‘He is only the locus of those achievements’, I said, ‘an intersection of other peoples contributions. He had a mother...’ and so on. At the same time, I watched the level of conflicts in Bethlehem rise just as Zoughbi Zoughbi and his mediators rose to the occasion. I saw what he means to Bethlehem (and peace activists worldwide), not to mention his family, and wondered what it would be like if he were in a car accident. What would happen to me if he were gone? Pull the key-stone out of an arch. You cannot just replace him.

I started to cook an entry in my head. It started to get lengthy and I miscarried it. That’s just as well: I can talk about my dead grandfather and the shadow he cast over my Dad some other time. Forget it: the Atlas Effect is our tendency to gravitate toward the magnitude of impact located in one person, forgetting its genesis is elsewhere – in God, in other people, in good fortune. Steve Jobs is the key-stone but we make him the entire arch. Adolf Hitler is a detonator but we make him the whole bomb and all its fall-out.

Meanwhile, I find myself screaming for Palestine, afraid to be a silent German: nothing left to say because I watched it happen and under-estimated my impact. On the deepest level, we are not just an intersection of phenomena. We have an essence: each, a manitou of our own. The Atlas Effect becomes dangerous when the line between manitou and all that someone does is lost. The greater the achievement, or failure, the more weight is placed on that fragile set of endemic attributes. The full radiance of the sun belongs to that person but also the weight of the planets because they matter that much, in their entirety. They become something to be measured with scales instead of painted on the canvas.

At worst, a person could become consumed with the facts of their self as an entity—a narcissist. The whisper of original sin lives in this thought—when a person becomes a god and must answer for every action as if it were intrinsic. Everyone’s manitou is dragging a train of acquired pieces in its wake. I believe that is why Jesus was somewhat evasive about being the Son of God; he shed that train on the mountain (Luke 4) when the devil tempted him. As demons cried-out his name, he shut them up. When the disciples discovered, he asked them to keep it quiet. On trial, according to my understanding, when they asked him whether or not he was the Son of God he said something akin to “You say I am.” He never rebuked them for saying so, because it was true (we’ll talk about Christology later...), but he allowed them to recognize it. Jesus was not keen on publicists... and my thoughts go on, not yet complete...

“And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul/self? Is anything worth more than your soul?” (Matthew 16:26)

The Atlas-effect is about me, too. Three months ago I felt as if I had to tug with great strength against all the anchor-ropes lashed to my essence. Other young adult missionaries sat with me in the depths and loosened my knots; we found buoys.

If I have missed my optimum windows it is because I needed to be who I am now: Catch-22. I did not realize that only I still saw myself as sitting in a bathtub, reading David Sedaris. Only I saw myself for the list of selfish or stupid things I did when my world was smaller. Nobody sees that, now. They see me standing in front of the West Michigan Annual conference defending alternate sexualities. They see me flashing a cheesy grin at the IDF during a protest at Al-Waleja. They say things like “amazing”, “admirable”, “adorable”, “unique”. I’ve heard each more than once, from more than one person. What saves me from Atlas-effect is being able to say, every time, “you and God made me this way. You built the house that sits on my manitou – and it is not a mansion imposed on the landscape. It is a Frank Lloyd Wright house, beautiful for how it blends with what was already there.” One word from the right person might fundamentally change how I see myself – so much that I composed this.

I walked through the front door of Wi'am with a cup of zata yesterday. I wanted to swell to thirty meters tall to give the Apartheid Wall a titanic kick and punch-out the gate blocking the Jerusalem-Hebron Road; I could see Rachel’s Tomb, at last. Then what? More problems. It reminded me of the difference between WILL and CAN—because I CAN go through check-points and see Rachel’s Tomb the long way, with patience. The lesson I learned in Tel Aviv is germinating.

I arrived during the worst possible window: in the middle of the night. They did not let me just pass. Sitting in limbo before my interrogation, I knew there was no story that would guarantee I WOULD reach Bethlehem. I acknowledged that God might have another plan. Still, I considered my doubts without fusing with them because I believed I COULD. Inshallah, I have the capacity to leave and do it again. Circumstances may spite or delay my hopes, because I cannot control other people, but I CAN fuse with my Faith and gain herculean perseverance. Forget the optimum window—give me any window.

So, do not tell me that I WILL because that would be disingenuous. Remind me that I CAN.

Balance this...

One of these days, I might make an entry that is a to-did list or a simple narrative about what happened to me during the week. One e-mail has the power to divert me. A well meaning pastor from the mid-West sent the mission personnel a cold e-mail for prayer for requests. I answered honestly, asking for prayer because... well, I said it myself:

Please be in prayer for me as I accompany the staff at Wi'am, especially now: settlement activities are becoming more aggressive in response to the bid for statehood. There's a growing campaign of terror and destruction (settlers are allowed to uproot Palestinian olive trees and carry automatic weapons) and I fear it will not only cause deeper suffering and despair but trigger a counter-campaign on the part of extremists who do not represent the will of the people.

Looking back at my e-mail, I never said “Israel” or “Jews” once. This surprised even me. I managed to write an e-mail that emphasized the positive attributes of Palestinians, insisted they deserve a good life and condemned any and all violence. The reply I received irked me. It was not a burst of Christian Zionism, nothing scary and heart-breaking. It was something annoying: the balancing game. This balancing game makes me pissy, rather than zealously angry. Rather than go into details about his particular e-mail, I’ll just highlight typical ‘balancing’ components. 1) I was in the West Bank once and talked to Palestinians, too. 2) There are really nice Jewish people who exist 3) This conflict is complicated and old 4) Both sides deserve some blame.

Let me address these, briefly.

1) Have a cookie, I already know they’re nice. That was the main component of MY e-mail.

2) I just spent half of my day with a Rabbi who holds Israel 100% responsible for the injustices being committed. To say “there are nice Jewish people” is fallacy of false thesis. The nicest Jewish people are in solidarity with Palestinians. This has less to do with religion than resources...

3a) “It’s complicated.” We have patience and great coffee at Wi’am—why don’t you join us?

3b) “It’s old” –it’s only a hundred years old. This is not Isaac versus Ishmael versus... no, that’s convenient storybook fluff. This goes back to when the British thought it would be a good idea to allocate Palestine’s land without consulting the Palestinians. The problem is colonialism*.

4) Who are the two sides that are both deserving blame? I thought this was a complicated conflict! To reduce the occupation to two sides and say they are equally to blame is the very simplification you rejected—and rightly so.

The problem with trying to correct the ‘balancing’ attitude is that it runs deeper than ignorance and misinformation, tracing to the most pivotal moment of the Gospel. Jesus explained to a lawyer that “all the law and the prophets” hinge on the commandment to love God with all-we-got and love our neighbor like our own self. Jesus challenged him with an active command rather than a prohibition. The lawyer knew the law, quite well, and my translation says he wanted to “justify his actions.” He asks Jesus to define neighbor, to set the parameters of when he has to take action. A prohibition allows us to remain oriented however we like, as long as sin is absent, but the Greatest Commandment demands a change in orientation~ it demands love, not non-hate.

I am a Jesus fan for a reason. Christ launched into the parable of the Good Samaritan, where a man is beaten and left for dead, then by-passed by religious leaders and finally helped by someone of another ethnic group. We should be careful of gushing about the Samaritan’s kindness, as if generosity is something super-human. I believe the parable is about excuses, not kindness between people of different ethnicities. The priest and Levite cross to the other side of the street so they can pretend as if they do not see their country-man. I imagine they were not evil, nasty people but very average people with busy days ahead of them. How many times have you seen a car with its flashers on in your rear-view mirror? It is not a sin to pass by on the other side but it must be recognized as failing to be Christian. Jesus may have picked the Samaritan as the hero because he had an excuse to opt-out but, instead, shows compassion.

When I say shows compassion, I don’t mean empathy. The Samaritan puts some cash down for the beaten man at the inn. Compassion is empathy actualized.

I do have many things to say about blame and responsibility: between the Israeli government, the settlers and their sympathizers, Hamas and their sympathizers, the Palestinian Authority, the diaspora and the international community—but that misses the point. The “beaten man” is not just the Palestinian people, in this case, but the entire situation. As much as I cannot wrap my mind around it, someone needs to save the settlers from themselves. It occurred to me last night that there is something fundamentally wrong with an understanding of Hell as a place of punishment that people deserve rather than something terrible that could happen to people in our human family. Whether hell exists or not, these settlers are sick people—people who level olive plantations and teach their kids how to use automatic weapons. Playing blame games costs Palestinians their lives and these Israelis their souls, so to speak. This tendency to say “I didn’t do anything wrong—I’m not the bigot!” is not useful.

Balance has nothing to do with it. Our involvement is needed; mission WITH. I feel like these attempts to be ‘fair’ are only ways to cross the street and keep walking. Nothing about this context is ever going to be ‘fair’. No one said the beaten man was the greatest person in the world or even completely innocent. He was a neighbor in need not just of being known but of being loved. In fact, who ever said that it was worse to help the wrong person than it is to be habitually unwilling to help beyond the vague promise of prayer? Let’s commit mistakes long before we omit love.

I know this won’t be the last time I have these thoughts.

*This is also not simple; the Ottoman Empire previously controlled the region but following World War 1 the British found opportunities to exploit its position. Political autonomy is usually absent for the inhabitants of this area -- Biblical and historical accounts indicate that this geo-political trend is old but there are never just 'two sides' at play.