Forgive me for my silence. It's been a busy few months, and for some reason, the act of blogging has seemed too great of a commitment for me to pile atop of the already considerable stack. A needle too much threatens to topple the whole works, or so it feels.
So, what has changed? What brings me here, now?
Bethlehem. I found out last Tuesday that I will be spending the majority of Summer '010 in the little town Bethlehem, Palestine. Shocking, and exciting, this will surely be an adventure unprecedented in my life. Bethlehem! Palestine! Both words, loaded with meanings and connotations, almost contradictory.
Peace, hope, Christmas, Wise-Men, swaddling clothes, Jesus.
Terror, struggle, dismay, contention, oppressed, Islam.
Through the INN's summer missions program, I will be entering into this. This whirling and struggling to find direction and an equilibrium. (Isn't that what we're all trying to find, afterall?) An Identity crisis of sorts. And I'm not sure where I stand.
My Christian upbringing would suggest that I wholeheartedly support Israel. Kick the Palestinians out, they have to stake. They aren't God's chosen people. Who are they to lay claim to this land.
-- aaaaand, these notions led to the Crusades. Great. Wonderful.
My university education would suggest that I'm compelled to support equality and civil rights and to oppose oppression. That if "the world" can dictate whether a nation has a state or not (as we did with the Jews in 1948), why can't the Palestinians be extended this offer, particularly if we set matters of Religious bias aside in terms of the Government?
Regardless, I've begun learning Arabic.
I can only pray that God prepares my heart for the challenges of mind and heart I'll most certainly encounter.
That God has in store plans for me to experience that which I need to through friends and circumstance that my perspectives may be adequate to enable me to truly see the Arab world for what He sees it as.
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