running a tempest

In this moment
the subtle fever breaks-

oh,

clarity!

The revolting unity
between
this congenial illusion
and
this congenital self-doubt
has at long last

been
severed,

and like the storm that brews for days

threatening

with its oppressive humidity

and weight, and then

laughing at its childish power trip

sends relief cascading down from the blackened skies
this

crystal reflection of my reality

has graciously, powerfully unleashed itself upon

my insecure ocular nerve

and the yearning is

to dwell in this

to stain my walls with this bright red awareness-

but

the cutting,

blissfully melancholic truth is what follows:

this moment is

the mere, aching, brief glimpse

through the glass not so darkly

past which we will live looking

once culmination moves into that abandoned house down the block

and opens a friendly neighbourhood barbershop.

dyn-o-mite

Okay seriously, why didn't one of you mention that I haven't blogged in nearly a month? Inexcusable.

So, I've been rather busy.
I heard you laugh just then!
No, for actual.
I finally got myself a job, and I love everything about it. I'm learning so much that I get the same unbearable hunger pangs after an hour of work that I used to get during lit crit lectures. It's dynamite. Heyo, Galileo.
And when I have nothing to do at work (which, granted, is infrequently), I feel inspiration bubbling forth so forcefully from my soul to my fingertips that I am compelled to grab my graceful green pen and write. (I'm trying to say "green" in every entry. No, I'm not. But it's happening by accident, which is much better; nobody likes a try-hard.)

Impromptu transcription exercise! My verdant, ripped Hilroy pages are no Cristabel notebook, but I'm a-gonna Jerwood Centre this blog up anyway.



My co-workers must think I'm detoxing.

The accidental eyeline kills me every time
and I know I couldn't have made this more coincidental if I'd written it myself.
This is the true sadness of my existence:
a rich landscape of impossible happenstance
made commonplace.
You get sick of reading into it, trust me-
if I didn't, I'd never be able to finish a single book
(let alone that lit degree)

but I digress as I digest-

I've decided that your gaze,
the one that brings on these shakes that know no Demerol,
is more than male:
it is loaded but fleeting
and it has agency
and I'm beginning to think
that it's not crazy to think
that it can see without

looking
(and I thought I was a sneak).

it's about time I mentioned burkas

Good morrow, fair humans and sentient Internets,

While I was perusing through my Summer School in the Holy Land documents a few days ago, I stumbled across a couple of poetical journal entries that I wrote during the trip's early days in Syria and Jordan. Since returning, I've been pretty much obsessed with Israel, and so I've not given too much thought to our first two destinations. But upon reading these entries, I was powerfully reminded of the emotional and mental state I was in for the first eight days or so of travel, before I fell so powerfully in love with the Hashemite Kingdom that I couldn't bear to think or feel anything negative towards it or its neighbour anymore. My own words brought me back to the overwhelming discomfort I experienced when I witnessed the strange and numerous double standards of Arab Muslim culture, a discomfort that all the mental preparedness in the world could not rid me of. I felt a great deal of animosity most of the time. Now when I speak of Arab culture, I do so with a heavy dose of nostalgia and a beaming smile. (In fact, as I write this, I'm wearing an Arab kaftan.) But it would be naive and short-sighted of me to ignore my initial strong feelings, because even though they were influenced by my ignorance, they had their origins in reality and experience. So now I share with you a nice feminist musing on Syria, written the day we visited the crusader fortress Krak des Chevaliers. I hope the Syrian government doesn't read my blog...

this cavalier's crack

hides kids with elephantitis

while drive-by hair salons lurk in the shadow

of the ever-present, all-seeing, ever-phallic minaret

and don't get me started on those domes, my brothers,

that float atop your halls of prayer

serene in pastoral green

while you disguise the real ones behind reams of cloth

in an attempt to stifle their owners

with the necessities of meticulous propriety

if you really wish to own them

to sport their bits as well as yours on your edifice of patriarchy

in a proud display of biological divisiveness

consider the implications of your real estate desires

since there's no such category as trannie adjacent

you scholars of man and God

who rage your voices to the heavens

(whether or not the heavens listen)

you know nothing of woman, your constant listener

hide her eyes behind a veil

and her thoughts-

which are wont

to edify your unfinished polemic

of a life-

will be veiled from you

I'm beginning to understand your disaster

Sitting in the Ambrose library today, I felt my emotional state slip back to where it idled during my years as a university student. It struck me that my defining characteristic was jealousy, and that that jealousy usually sprang from that which I had no power to know: relationships I couldn't categorize, personal histories I couldn't read, those things left unsaid that tantalized me with their endless unrealized possibilities... I had just been reading essays on the formation of Israel, the first Arab-Israeli war, propagandistic early Israeli history, and the class struggles between Ashkenazim and Sephardim/Mizrahim, and everything synthesized under the green glow of my experientially remembered consuming jealousy. This came to me, and since I've been such a delinquent in my blogging of late (big surprise), I decided to share it with you, my dear Internet and friends.

Folklore is tenderizing my brain

with the incessancy of envy

Eretz

you are and have ever been

a beautiful, mysterious woman

the Levantine Helen of Troy-

and imperishable

The possessive man is consumed

obsessed

driven mad when he considers

who had you first

and so your twin lovers

your conqueror, your conquered

rally armies in the night

in the name of monopoly

since

first love is the only poetic choice, after all

I have been cognizant of their struggles

illuminated the points

where their arguments from entitlement fell apart

I was your dispassionate reporter

but now I feel it

feel the pull

as green as Jezreel

I wrestle with Iago and feel myself renamed

as

Israel the primeval wrestler

beckons to me from shared identity

and I insinuate myself

into the split

personalities of your sinful

suitors

my jealousy brings clarity

You are the righteous temptress

the siren song that pulls

these thousand ships

from every direction

to a shared shipwreck

at the altar of paradise

by way of distraction

Hello, my textual life's companions,

The last two days have been difficult; I had a very promising job interview on Friday (the only promising thing to crop up on the job-hunt-front in the last month) and was told that I would be contacted with a verdict by Tuesday afternoon at the latest. I've been trying to do things that will keep me distracted but still within hearing range of my phone. I went to the bank, got groceries, made a hearty lunch, and watched a few choice episodes of Six Feet Under (showing more restraint than is typical for me, I might add), but nothing took away that nervous jittery feeling from my lungs. Each passing minute only served to convince me further that I had come up the loser yet again, having been led into false hope by the God I just learned to trust again.

But narcissism is transfixing. I find it the most effective of all those bittersweet distractors. It was only when I retired to my study and opened up Tink (my laptop) that I was able to vanquish my squirrelly anxiety for more than five minutes. As I write, it has returned, but I look forward to it dissipating again for a while when I return to the activity that first served to alleviate my feelings of powerlessness in face of uncertainty. The activity in question: reading over all my old top-secret creative writing. All my experiments with stream-of-consciousness and free association. All my nauseatingly self-obsessed contemplations of pain and past and friends and men and boys. I like proofreading my literary spontaneity. I like amending my effusiveness. But most of all, I like being surprised by words I forgot I ever wrote, even if they're not in the greatest combinations and most inspired arrangements imaginable. It's not often that I open a document that is absolutely unfamiliar; I frequently find myself surprised by my forgotten writings, yes, but usually they feel at home in my mind once I've read two thirds of the content. I found a short piece today that I still can't remember writing. None of it sounds familiar, even though its tone and style is unmistakably my own. Even the characters it addresses eluded my recollection for about fifteen minutes. Eventually I had to check the document's info to see when I wrote it so I could put it in the emotional context of my calendar.

It's basically just the weirdness of this memory situation that has compelled me to share it with all y'all. That, and sometimes I just feel the need to put very personal sentiments in very public places. I suppose it's a way of pushing myself out of the reclusive pattern that I find so flattering to my complexion.

So play on, player...

the days are so long when you don't look at me like you used to. the wise man says I don't want to hear your voice, but as everyone knows I am fortune's fool. you know this but you pretend not to for reasons beyond me. if you loved me when I'm sad like I wish you would it would all be better, but you only love me when you laugh. you only look at me then, only write to me when we feel the sadness making waves across the space between us. and every moment I think without thinking of the endless possibilities of my life, what would have been if his family didn't have a history of alcoholism so I could've seduced the experienced older brother. would I feel shame or disillusionment or confusion or confidence or anything at all. would I be able to look you in the face and know you want me. would I be able to look myself in the mirror. I'd go without makeup for the rest of my life if you would still turn your face to face me. I can't stand another sedentary day with grey over my shoulder in every direction.

Horchata, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Fall

Poverty blows.

As much as I appreciate the way that my lack of financial resources has strengthened my character over the years, at the end of the day I can't help but admit that "insufficient funds" is an embarrassing phrase. Moreover, it is a cause of huge stress. That stress is what has been bringing me down for the past month- no, wait, in all honesty, the summer as a whole was rife with nothing but insufficiency. Life looks pretty bleak when you're worried about making rent and can't eat any of the groceries in your pantry because your recovery from (two words:) oral surgery makes consuming non-puddingified foods painful at best.

This money-stress-hunger-sadness that's been weighing on me was made worse this morning while I was reading newspaper articles about the current Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. The magnitude of the Middle East's volatility hit me in a wave of despair. I considered- surprisingly for the first time- that if the violence that extremist groups are threatening should these talks produce an unfavourable outcome for them actually comes to pass, I might not get back into the land where I left my heart. I realized that most of the factors that will determine the possibility of my return are absolutely beyond my control. That probably sounds silly. It was heartbreaking.

So there I was, silly sad hungry Nans despairing on her olive ultrasuede couch. I decided I had to do something to yank me out of the groove I had made in my mind and my living room seating. I gathered up all my overdue documentaries, got dressed, and set off down the road to the library. And waddayaknow, it was gorgeous outside. After days of dreary grey and the rain I love to romanticize but hate to walk through, the golden leaves were glistening in the sun and crackling with the crisp autumn wind. For the first time in a long time, I noticed a bounce in my step. My feet in their hot pink shoes kept pace with the beats of Vampire Weekend as I turned the corner and let my eyes catch up with the view in front of me: happily stout white clouds rounding their way down to the peaks of half-frosted mountains seemingly vaulted up by a base of gold-and-green-speckled hills. There in front of me, a portrait of what I love best in the world. A free joy: an autumn landscape. A death necessary for new life, a stop on a never-ending cycle. And I remembered other joys. I remembered dancing to music in my head. I remembered the many autumns that never died in my mind's eye. I remembered the immensity of feeling that summer's end always brings. And I looked forward to future falls in new places that I can only envision with the help of my desperate imagination.

This is autumn for me: the beauty of the unknown that is to come, and the heartache of that same unimagined world. A whole sea of deserts and baptisms that are impossible to predict. Such poverty, such wealth. Such unmapped possibility.

(Here comes a feeling you thought you'd forgotten

Chairs to sit and sidewalks to walk on

Oh you had it but oh no you lost it

Looking back you shouldn't have fought it)

Life is still sufficient when it is lived with insufficient funds. It's just not enough to know that in theory.

too much 'burban calls for self-assertion

Good morrow m'darlings,

I haven't written in such a grievously long time because I've been consumed with all the little tasks and concerns that go along with relocating. I've moved into a house with two of my friends, and we're slowly but surely settling into life in the straight-up 'burbs.

My internal compass has been slow to adjust to my new northwestern orientation, and sometimes I feel as though my personality is also taking its merry time catching up with me; it's hard to write when you don't feel like yourself. I sit and look around my room and wonder when its rightful owner will show up to oust me from my roost on her eggplant-and-robin's-egg bed. My essence has been supplanted somehow; I feel young, aimless, naive, boring... these are not good things to feel when in truth you are a passionate, interesting person who has recently celebrated a birthday. The worst thing is that I am unable to pinpoint the cause of this feeling. Even decor-wise, I can't solve the mystery of my missing person. Is she hiding in a different colour scheme? Would she feel more comfortable in a messy, haphazard living space? Has all my uncharacteristic laundering and organizing and cleaning caused her to fear that she too might be scrubbed away or hidden at the bottom of a deep drawer? I'm thinking yes to all of the above.

I've been watching a lot of Ally McBeal lately, and let me just say, I wish they still made shows like it. Fantastic! But here's my point: in an episode I watched this morning, Ally turns 29 and delivers a great closing argument in court that revolves around her recurring birthday sentiment of being an underachiever, and how her hopes for life and the actual life she is living never quite reach alignment. Maybe this is what I'm feeling. Maybe I have the extended birthday blues. After all, here I am sitting alone in a big house, wondering why I haven't yet found a job or love or friends who stick around or the strength of will to shed all the things I find embarrassing about myself. For the majority of the past year, I have been blessed to feel like my soul has got it together; that makes it all the more unfortunate that the rest of me hasn't caught up.

Just because I think this entry could benefit from further disjointedness, I'm going to transition to another topic right now. Thanks for your cooperation.

It was exactly a year ago that my life changed. I still can't quite assemble the proper words to describe what happened in any way that doesn't sound like a wheel of cheese, but I will say that when my heart and priorities got all shook up by the Almighty, I took hold of a magnitude of freedom that had previously been unattainable to me. Sometimes it's hard to remember that I am free, hard to accept that I have accepted myself. Sometimes kicking at the darkness takes more energy than I think I can spare. But it's been a year. A year. As the world remembers the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 that brought destruction and grief and terror, I simultaneously remember the first anniversary of the 9/11 that brought repair and joy and hope, albeit to but one person. So when I think of my birthday blues, of my rejection from the world of the outwardly admirable, of my rejection by the male population, of my restlessness in face of the future, of my unadorned walls, of my well-made bed, of my recently-laundered wardrobe, and all the numerous unnamed things that make me feel not at all like I am used to feeling, and not at all like I would hope to feel, I find I must also think of of the baptism and temptation of Christ. One year ago I was baptised by the Spirit. In February the Spirit sent me out to wander in the wilderness to be tempted with hatred and disgust and fear and faithlessness and lack of compassion. In May I felt the renewed presence of the firey Spirit at Pentecost on Mount Zion. And now, in September, I look around me and find that I am in the wilderness again, although I am painfully far from Judea. But what is necessary in the wild is to remember the water and the flame. To be reminded of fulfillment's reality. To be reminded that fulfillment is always beneath the surface, waiting to be claimed like an inheritance.

And so, there could be no better time for me to reach down, take hold of what is still mine, and fling it across my bare walls with reckless abandon. A Jackson Pollock painted instead by asserted freedom.

To quote Anne Sexton,
"Darling, the composer has stepped into fire"-
again.

ode on a nostalgic turn

G'day, my precious interwebs and gentle readers,

I realize that of late I have been inordinately focused on the future; I can't write a single entry without somehow mentioning Jerusalem (whoops!) or my lofty goals (here we go again) or how things will get better for me soon (sometimes I just have to say it). This is pretty hilarious to me, because although I've always been one to dream and plan and hope, however misguidedly, I've also always hated people whose every action is aimed at the distant future. I am always aware of the the many factors in life that are beyond my control, like the timing of my death or the deaths of those whom I love, natural disasters, world wars, the premature explosion of the sun, blah blah blah, and so in truth I am loath to live only for a far-flung future that is uncertain at best.

Moving right along to the actual point...

Today I lived in the past. Not recent past, not Jerusalem, Jordan, etc. I mean high school. I mean elementary school. I would even mean junior high if I had gone to junior high; thank goodness for small mercies.

I have been gradually packing up my bedroom over the past few days, strategically avoiding any items that would require me to make qualifying decisions based on sentimental value. I've been throwing letters and cards into boxes without the slightest glance at return addresses. I've been consolidating all my lotions and makeup and contact lens cases and Pez dispensers and shampoos. I've kept the washer and dryer in constant use. I've done everything that's simple and surface-level. But today I went into my room armed with a green garbage bag and a huge cardboard box (from some cheesecake company that apparently makes white chocolate peanut butter cheesecake- uhmmmm, yes please!) and went all soullessly cut-throat on my earthly possessions. I found boxes that hadn't been emptied since I moved back home from the Renfrew house with Nik and Mads. I found roughly 4,000 bank statements, still sealed. I found all of my Jason Lang scholarship letters and certificates. I found my high school diploma. I found souvenirs I bought in Italy. I found concert recordings from three summers of SCF Choir Camp. I found shoes that I forgot I owned. I found journal entries written on scrap pieces of paper, wedged between empty cd cases. I pretty much felt like Lara Croft by the time I left for work.

But the important thing is, all this home base tomb raiding gave me the momentum and sheer force of will necessary to face the ultimate nostalgic catalyst: the yearbook. Now, I only have yearbooks from grades 11 and 12, and it's not like I feature prominently in them or think that they adequately reflect what my CMHS PVA/FI experience was all about, but they were a poignant read nonetheless. I read every comment, looked at every page. I tried very hard to remember people's names. I recalled a landslide of inside jokes. I remembered plot lines to numerous terrible plays I wish I could forget now. I recognized faces and marvelled at how easy it is for people to move from obscurity to prime importance to insignificance in my life.

And then I found the Thom Collegiate yearbook from 2001-2002. I had flipped through half of it before I realized that I wasn't actually in it, and that all the comments written therein were addressed to my brother. Good one, Nans. Way to do math. You were in grade eight when this high school yearbook was bound. The funny thing was, I had almost memorized the layout of those pages. I had kept that yearbook in my room since before we moved to Calgary. This is because in my grade nine year at Thom, I used it as a reference guide for all the hotties in the grades ahead of me. Looking through it this morning, my eyes knew exactly where to look on every page for the face of a guy worth lusting over. Their names even sounded familiar, and I know I never talked to these boys. I realized two things: 1) adolescent girls are THE LAMEST THING EVER and I am their queen, and 2) wait, I'm still awesome regardless.

Beside the Thom yearbook were three binders: one from high school film class (featuring a cut-out from a Gap men's undershirt ad with the word "boyfriend" scrawled across it in my handwriting), one containing my grade four creative writing, and one full of Pokemon cards. [I kept two of the three, and you get to guess which ones. Turn this blog upside down to reveal the correct answer.]

I spent approximately an hour reading through the stories I wrote as a nine-year-old. One was told from the perspective of a muskrat musician. Another was a pre-teen poli-drama about the daughter of a fictional US president. What I love most about young writers is that they think a page and a half of hand-written, double-spaced material constitutes a complete chapter. Oh wait, no, scratch that. I love most the names they give their characters. For instance, I named a character in one of my opuses Jeroldine. Yes. Actually.

Well, I'm going to head to bed now. More on this later.

You know you love me.

xo xo -

Jeroldine

rainy days and pens and paper

I am

standing here in my disaster zone

of a bedroom

reading Coleridge out loud

to the mirror on my wall

I was

packing up novels, anthologies, Bibles

into wine and vodka boxes salvaged from the Co-op liquor store

boxing up academia

as if it were the remains of

a frat party

or

a pretentious hors d'oeuvres-laden meeting of the undergrad minds

my Harbrace, my Nortons, my Gilbert 'n Gubar

are now just the makings of some wicked upper body strength

and an increasingly defeatist attitude toward relocation

my precious findings from the poetry bookshop in Hay-on-Wye

are now just decisions to be made

(can I really not take it with me?)

but this Golden Book of Coleridge that I'm holding is so small

and delicate as a robin's egg

I can't not take it everywhere

(I hear my Kantian self whisper chidingly,

"my dear, this is your duty")

so as I look in the mirror now

I see myself not dimly

but in future tense

laden with tattoos inspired by Ondaatje, family, and the Romantics I count as bedfellows

reading odes to solitude on the Mount of Olives overlooking the Temple Mount

recalling generations of others' forebears-

wanting anything but solitude-

offering up precious sacrifices in hopes of reconciling

with a god who would know them

I see myself recalling Wordsworth on the terrace

overlooking Gai-Hinnom

a terrace mottled with countless gunshot wounds

an everyday monument to the six-day sacrifice

of a breathing ancestry finding its footing again

rebuilding a future from the rubble of history

binding bricks with the bloody mortar of controversy

and I hope I will not have cause to wonder then

whither the visionary gleam has fled

but why is the rum gone?

Good day, my lovelies.

Of late I have been rather numbed to reality; my lack of interaction with friends and lack of interest in the tasks I am forced to complete has rendered me rather apathetic to myself. But the other day I experienced a little bit of much-needed ecstasy in the shower- wait, why would you think that? go wash your brain. I mean ecstasy in the sense of clarity achieved by viewing oneself from beyond the confines of subjective embodiment, obviously.

I felt like I had been transported back to the Ben Hinnom valley and was looking up at the walls of the old city of Jerusalem, waiting for the no. 124 bus with a crowd of Palestinians. I could simultaneously almost hear Daniel Rossing's calming voice speaking about Israeli identity. The warm water falling on me became the dry desert heat of Wadi Rum. The nauseating cacophony of my pointless anxious thoughts transmuted into the steady hum of my exuberant imagination. My hunger for my typical morning bagel with cream cheese became redirected towards cucumber and tomato and goat cheese and something, anything, with olive oil.

It's always surprising when I find myself in a state of holistic remembrance; it always catches me off guard. It's like the triggers are hidden beneath layers of meaning and preoccupation and self-analysis, and the more you try to locate them, the more they evade you, until you can only hit one entirely by accident. The only consistent trigger for me is the smell of thyme, all the others are basically one-use, untraceable, disposable cell phones. Excuse me, that's my life calling and other 90s whatnots. But for actual.

Every time I wake up to the reality of my trip-self, that more contented, more alive, more compassionate, more intelligent, more fulfilled me, I have to do something to make her happy. I have to do something that will make the girl who sat in the back of a rusted old Toyota and smiled like a dementoid at the red sand and monoliths of Wadi Rum feel proud to know me, or at least not ashamed to have made my acquaintance. I have to crack open my copy of To Jerusalem and Back or cue up one of my Mount Herzl lectures or peruse a Musalaha update to realign me with the self I hope to consistently be some day. And I have to start living as though I enjoy the people who surround me, because in truth I absolutely do. I have to do something to remind me that life can be full and beautiful here, too. Something to make me refrain from apathy and apostasy. To see the glass as full to the brim.

If I'm not surrounded by Rum, I can still buy some Fuller's London Porter to tide me over.

what's in your crock pot?

I am exhausted; sleep has been playing its coy, evasive game with me for the past week, and I don't find it very sexy. Nobody likes a tease.

Because I feel so monumentally useless in my exhaustion, I thought I would attempt to write something important that would realign me with myself and make me feel good for something. And I realize that while I've spent a good deal of time writing about my overseas adventure and how much I achingly miss what I experienced during it, I haven't done a good job of explaining how I intend to change my life because of it. I've shared my new dream with a few people, in a rather haphazard manner, but I would like to state it for the record. I have a history of losing faith in my ability to achieve dreams, but I don't want that to happen this time. So by stating this for the record, my hope is that my faithful readers will hold me accountable to my dreams. Imagine that this is a wedding between me and my future, and you are the best man or maid of honour. Help me keep my promise.

When we were in Jerusalem, we were greatly privileged to hear from a wide variety scholars, pastors, and activists. I know that we were all very grateful for the opportunity to appraise prevalent Israeli issues from so many perspectives, but it was an intensely confusing time for all of us. For example, one night we could hear a passionate lecture from a Zionist and think that Zionism made perfect, righteous sense, and then the next day we could hear testimony from a Palestinian Christian about how the IDF had killed his non-combatant family and stolen his livelihood. I felt stuck in ideological limbo for most of the time I was there. But when we welcomed Salim J. Munayer into our classroom at Tantur, my mind found a little peace. Salim is the founder and director of Musalaha, an organization whose sole purpose is to bring about reconciliation between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. I don't need to explain everything about it here; if you like, you can visit their website or read their Wikipedia page. I don't think it's possible to visit Israel and the Palestinian Territories without feeling an overwhelming sense of your own helplessness and therefore the region's hopelessness. But suffice it to say that in hearing from Salim, I finally felt that there was hope for humanity's survival in that hotbed of hateful controversy.

I felt broadly inspired when I heard Salim speak, but I didn't instantly know what I know now about my calling. As with most of my dreams, the dream to work for Musalaha developed slowly on a near-subconscious level; "slow-burnin' love" is what I have come to call it. It's the same process I went through in September: a clear catalyst starts the process of deep internal realignment, and after a brief gestation period, a new life concept is born in my mind that re-lights the fire under my soul. Add to this dream crock pot a few divine brain interventions, and you've got yourself a life calling.

So what is it that I hear calling? A new way to promote healing in a broken land that brings together my soul's yearning for reconciliation, my heart's desire to be back in that land, and my musical gifts that I couldn't bear to let go to waste. I have never been so excited for anything, and I have never felt more like myself in this excitement. But waiting is hard. Being uncertain of when this dream will begin to influence my reality is almost physically painful for me at this stage. But if I can earn enough money in this next year, then grad school in Jerusalem will be within reach. And once I have my degree in Middle Eastern Cultures and Religions, then I can begin to work the way I want to work. But I'm not just excited for grad school because it is a means to an end; I have never been so excited to just learn and study and fully devote myself to an academic task, because my learning will have direct implications for my life's work. Anyway. What's this life's work I keep teasing about? Creating an Israeli-Palestinian children's choir.

I plan to start with a choir camp that branches off from Musalaha's already existent children's camp program, and then to build that short-term choir into a long-term project. The culmination of the dream would be a choral festival that brings youth from all over the world and unites them in song. If you've never experienced anything like that firsthand, the idea seems cheesy and naive and romantic. Let me assure you that in reality it is not. Music is a gift; it is a glimpse into the beauty and power of God. And therefore, music has the power to reconcile people through their differences, the power to bring joy, the power to open the heart so that it truly feels and moves in ways it never did before. Reconciliation, joy, love...these are the roots of hope. And hope is obviously a particular obsession of mine.

So there you have it. I hope it doesn't sound like my crock pot is full of crack.

essay on whoa, man

I'm taking disciplinary action against myself.

I've realized in the past couple of years that as much as I love spontaneity in my life, I can't enjoy it unless my days are otherwise regimented. Seeing as I am sparsely employed these days, slothfulness is my natural go-to mode of being during the stretches of nothingness that seem to never end, and apparently sitting on the couch indulging my new addiction to Privileged is not the way to create a regimen. I'm becoming more and more useless with every day I mentally tick off my mental calendar. However, as I was recently chastised for not keeping up with my blog since returning home in June, and because I openly admit to having an over-active superego and therefore choreograph my life in such a way that will paint pretty pictures of me in other people's minds, I feel compelled to throw myself back into the writing ring and call it productivity. I will attempt to prove myself as the 21st century female reincarnation of Alexander Pope- I will write out of discipline and a sense of duty to my so-called art.

(This is the part where you nod your head encouragingly at the computer screen as though you believe me capable of such simultaneous change and consistency.)

Now, on to the task at hand.

On Sunday I attended a lovely little reunion with some fellow travellers from SSHL. It's amazing to me how bonds forged in a peculiar context can survive being transplanted into everyday life; what a welcome gift it was to again feel the ease of being with these women whom I came to think of as my little band of wandering sisters and adoptive mothers. What a surprise to realize that we did not need the excitement and constant activity of an overseas adventure going on around us in order to make us a community. What a work of the Spirit: awakening the heart from its ancient sleep (thank you, Hildie of Bingen).

Being awakened to the fact that there were other people on that trip with me made it easier for me to stop procrastinating introspection. On Monday, I took Angelo for a walk in Edworthy Park, where we used to go all the time in the first few years that we lived here. It was cold and overcast, just the way I like it. On days like that, the warm green of the leaves makes the most beautiful contrast with the grey and forbidding sky; everything from a building to a leaf looks delicate and fixed in place, which makes the wind a near-visible apparition. Days like that turn my city into something I can love, an opponent with whom I have been reconciled. Musalaha is always something to embrace, even in such pedestrian circumstances.

And this particular embrace led me down a path flooded with memories. I think about the past constantly, but I invariably become fixated on certain elements and thus ignore the bulk of my memory's contents. But on Monday afternoon I was taken right back to the beginning of my life in Calgary, when I would walk through the aspens on a narrow, windy trail that I wished no one had ever taken before. I would try to get lost. I would let my confused expectations play around with my imagination to see what kind of world they would create. I would sit on a bench overlooking the river and the railway and the stalagmites of downtown and fancy myself to be a daintily-clad Jane Austen heroine standing on the edge of a windy promontory. I would stare at the city until I found something I liked about it, then emotionally flagellate myself for betraying my allegiance to my home town. Often when I recall those transitional teenage years, I get lost in a fog that makes it seem as though I never really felt or saw or understood anything in those days. But I looked through my own innocent eyes again during that pensive walk, and I knew myself again with clarity.

Here's hoping that the clarity continues; after all, I wouldn't want y'all to resort to books for daily reading material.

mastering the art of french loneliness

I spent the entire day entirely alone. I didn't want to, which made it less enjoyable than it would have been had I planned it based on one of my not uncommon introvert time cravings. However, I think I made the best of it. I did laundry, vacuumed, cut fresh herbs from the garden to put in my lunchtime soup, read Herzl in the sun, played some Bach and Brahms and Rimsky-Korsakov, and watched Julie & Julia (on an actual tv, I should add, not on my laptop- extra points!).

These days, I'm proud of myself when I do anything that isn't lamely habitual. I'm in the process of preparing for a new direction, but I have no idea how long I will be kept in this holding area, this prep school of the soul and bank account. I'm not very adept at waiting, and absolutely inept at waiting patiently, so it's a miracle when I can do more than lull myself into a state of near-unconsciousness on a day like today that is all about patience.

Maybe this miracle is due to the fantastic few hours I spent with a semi-estranged friend on Thursday. I think that time really helped me come face to face with all the issues I've been suppressing since coming back. I talk about the Middle East and my new direction every chance I get, I'm well aware of that. But rarely do I get to talk right down to the core of the trip, to those ideas and inklings and experiences and observations that burrowed under my skin like happy, soulful parasites. Smoking white grape shisha and making hummus and re-opening an old connection made my hidden heart feel real again, and I was grateful for that today as I acknowledged the new stage of separation that I am beginning. It is the stage during which the experience begins to feel like a dream in the way its big images fade away and all that is left is the emotional residue of its many small moments. Memories now become memories of memories, cousins of memories, but their fragmentation allows them access to the numerous tiny recesses of my mind that manage to touch every thought eventually. Then the memories are like cousins not in the Western sense of the word (don't marry these unless you're royalty, but cultivate awkward, ill-defined friendships with them instead), but in its Middle Eastern sense (these can be found anywhere, in anyone you grow to love in any way).

And so that is how I explain why I cried today while watching what critics called "the feel-good movie of the year". Everything, absolutely everything, comes back to my desperate yearning for that something I cannot possibly name in that place that bears so many names.

I would fire me if I were you

Over a month ago, as I sat on a rock that formed the foundation of a tiny Franciscan church and looked out over the waters of the Galilee, I shed some heavy tears at the realization that life back in Canada would most likely choke the life out of me. I wanted to think the best of my home country and my community, but I had an inkling that the extreme presence of mind, compassion, and determination that I was experiencing in the Holy Land would come under fire once I re-entered the Land of the Meaningless.

It turns out I was right.

The difficulty I face now is in living in a world that is full-blown obsessed with the inconsequential. It's not that I'm now so much wiser and holier than this kind of world and can no longer understand why other people participate in it; it's that I still find myself caught up in it, still find myself waging petty battles within it, and still can't escape it no matter how hard I try. I thought that imagining where I was and who I was in those places would ease the pain of these ridiculous workplace arguments and pointless relational struggles. I thought that organizing my mental notes on age-old world conflicts would realign my priorities. I thought that reading Potok and Herzl would restore my peace of mind and eradicate my social anxiety.

It turns out I was wrong.

I'm sick of worrying, and yet I worry.

I'm sick of arguing, and yet I argue.

I am frustrated with frustration,

confused by confusion,

and finally- disarmingly-

disheartened by hope.

The hope remains, but it has found some new opponents. The dreams have yet to die, but pettiness threatens to consume them; it scratches at the door to be let in.

But now I see raindrops on my screened window and hear the wind howl in the strategically planted trees of my neighbourhood. I feel the wilderness within my heart and the borders within my brain. I know the ease with which I could step into the current of the inconsequential and be swept along by the momentum of self-satisfied dissatisfaction. We are called to be in the world but not of it; we cannot give ourselves over to a thing which would consume us. But I cannot give myself over fully to a hope that would take away my 'livelihood', nor can I surrender myself to a lifestyle that would make a mockery of my dreams. Needless to say, I've become a shit employee.

Oh, the tension: theoretically satisfying, but practically flummoxing, and no Magic Bag in the world will loosen it.

regardless repetition

Those of you who like to fb-stalk me will already be familiar with this, but since I've been so delinquent in my bloggenation since returning home, I thought I would recycle this little tidbit for my followers' delight. The following is a little article I was asked to write for the Ambrose email update/website regarding SSHL 2010. Enjoy!




I have already written quite a bit about my experiences on this year's Summer School in the Holy Land travel venture, but I have the feeling that it will be a long time before I run out of material to process on the page. As far as my internal clock is concerned, one week in Syria, another in Jordan, and three more in Israel might as well have comprised a complete and separate lifetime; the me who explored Petra and Damascus, swam in the Sea of Galilee, and wandered the crowded streets of Old Jerusalem might as well be a different me than the one who walked the stage at Ambrose's graduation ceremony just days before departing down the ancient paths. I am still attempting to figure out how such a seeming vastness of time could be contained within five short weeks and why such an immensity of change should occur within one tall girl, but I suppose I could at least start by saying that this was not your average travel tour.

Charles Nienkirchen, the man behind the Down Ancient Paths travel study program, planned our itinerary very intentionally. His goal was not only to have us see the famous holy sites and walk where Jesus walked; he wanted us to understand the timeline of Christian presence in the greater Holy Land, the purpose behind pilgrimage, the role of the land in the identity of its inhabitants, the essence of desert spirituality and monasticism, the ongoing conflicts between and within the three monotheistic religions, and the controversies that date back centuries before the formation of the State of Israel. So, we followed guides from every cultural and religious background imaginable. We attempted—somewhat unsuccessfully—to dialogue with the mufti of Damascus and other Islamic scholars. We heard about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from all the major perspectives, as well as some minor ones. We learned about Islamic, Jewish, and Christian theology and history both in the classroom and out in the land. Despite our misgivings and physical setbacks, we embarked on long, sweaty treks to visit monasteries that did not want to be visited. We frequently crossed from Jerusalem into Bethlehem by way of the checkpoint in the looming security wall that keeps the West Bank out of Israel, and (supposedly) vice versa. We did all these things so that we would see that the place we call the Holy Land is as rife with the unholiness of conflict, double standards, and hypocrisy as it is infused with history and beauty.

On a few occasions during the five weeks, our scraggly band of sojourners got together for the sole purpose of sharing our impressions from the journey. Although we were a diverse group whose members ranged from ages nineteen to seventy-nine, our common ground was surprisingly expansive. We were able to discuss difficult things with one another even though we had been perfect strangers when we gathered at the airport. I think this is because we were faced with both extremely painful and truly awe-inspiring things within a context that necessitated our holistic reliance on each other. So we could sip Bedouin tea in the Jordanian desert, watch the moon rise over the Galilee, and look out over Bethlehem from our classroom at Tantur Ecumenical Institute while safely sharing our very personal epiphanies with one another.

Summer School in the Holy Land was a watershed in both my walk of faith and my academic journey; my brain is still buzzing as I attempt to apply my transformative realizations to my worldview, my plans for the future, and my understanding of God, and so I am sure that the trip is not anywhere near finished for me. Although technically and simplistically speaking I went to the Middle East to explore the ancient roots of modern religions, I would not use any of those words to sum up what I have taken away from the trip. Instead I would say that Summer School in the Holy Land has made me desire to continue experiencing the pangs of the heart as it births new loves, the desperation of the soul as it thirsts for justice, and the eagerness of the mind to dispel its ignorance. And I will remain thankful that this venture re-fueled me in my search to find God in every land, every people group, and every controversy, and to see him more clearly when I do.

The Law Of Return, or I Promise To Go Wandering

This is difficult.

I'm sitting on my bed at the Ron Beach Hotel in Tiberias, Israel, watching the light fade over the Sea of Galilee. I'm listening to Bob Dylan. I've just finished packing-- more efficiently than I ever have before, so that I can put everything back in place after Israeli airport security folk rummage through my belongings and interrogate me as they will no doubt do-- to go back home. We leave in two hours to take the trek to Tel Aviv for our 5 am flight out of Ben Gurion.

I have absolutely no desire to leave, and that's a predicament I have never before faced when setting home from an adventure. Last year at the end of the England trip, I thought I would go insane if I didn't get back to my bed and my routine and my friends, and that trip only lasted two weeks. Now I've been gone for five weeks, travelling through countries whose cultures are so very different from mine, whose languages don't even share my language's alphabet, and whose inhabitants stare at me as though my walking down the street is nude and/or heretical performance art.

But I love it here. I love the sound of strangers in the street arguing in Arabic. I love living in the tension between hope and despair. I love not thinking about myself. I love sharing food between six people. I love putting za'atar on everything. I love thinking about how much water I'm using and where it comes from. I love it so much here that I find it hard to remember anything that I love about Canada, and I don't know what to do with that feeling.

I have never been one to miss people when I go away. I get pangs of remembrance from time to time, but I've grown so accustomed to lacking the people I love even when I'm at home that lacking more people when I'm not at home is really no problem. Listening to the people in my group talk about going home makes me wonder what's wrong with me. They are all sad to be leaving, but just a little bit more excited to get back home to their loved ones and a sense of normalcy. I envy them that. My desire to be here is outweighing my every other impulse.

But I think I can probably trace my reticence back to my fear of returning home and falling into exhausted ambivalence. I have done that so many times in the past, and I have always hated myself for it eventually. But what makes my desire to come back and study in Jerusalem different from my other dreams is that I don't think it would be just for me. I think that I would become a better person, a person who plumbs the depths of the world's troubles and lives for something greater than herself, if I were to follow the path that I am seeing in my mind now. I think there's something to that.

Maybe being gone for longer than ever and in more foreign conditions than ever has simply made me forget what it's like to have a home and a family (and a refrigerator, and a washing machine, and my own bathroom, and crackers, and movie nights, and nice footwear, and men who aren't named Hannah, and people who obey traffic laws, and, and...). But whatever the reason for my current inner state, I hope that it will not hinder me but propel me forward into the unknown, into the unimagined future, into the expanse of possibility that I can feel at the tips of my fingers when I consider how many paths are continuously converging in this world and how little I know about them.

What I want is to be anchored, yet nomadic; I have seen that life is as possible in Be'er Sheva as it is in Dan, that hope still flows abundantly in the dry and desolate places, and, moreover, that the wanderer is always welcome in this land where nothing is ever certain, where even the stones compete one with another, and where history can't repeat itself because it never finished a single phrase.

It is easier to accept the life of the purposeful wanderer when Bedouins and their tea are in the picture, that I know for sure.

welcome to Pentecost

I find that it's good to live with no expectations. Today was a case in point. 

I had not given this day a single thought before I woke up and faced it. I've had my itinerary for a couple months, and I knew what was going to happen on this day, but for some out of character reason I didn't let my imagination tell me what it would be like. I could not have imagined a better day. 

After breakfast this morning I fell into a panic; I had yet to decide which church I would attend, and convoys of my fellow travellers were already beginning to set out in taxis and buses to their various religious destinations around the city and across the wall. To make matters infinitely worse, I couldn't decide what to wear. In a fit of exasperation I threw together an outfit and forced myself to leave the room and decide my destination based on which group I would find in the lobby when I arrived there. The group in question was just about to head off to Christ Church Anglican, the first Protestant church ever built in Jerusalem. I thought I was probably in need of some choir and liturgy, so I took it as a sign. All the way to the old city I tried to imagine a nice high Anglican service. I pictured myself at the Cathedral Church of the Redeemer back home.

What I found when I arrived was quite a different picture. The setting was undeniably beautiful and serene; we walked through a verdant courtyard and into the neo-Gothic Victorian church. It was much smaller than any of the churches we had visited, and much, much simpler in its decoration- although I guess even Westminster is simple compared to the most insignificant of Greek Orthodox shrines. We arrived early, so we had a chance to sit and soak it all in. 

Things I then noticed: 

a man wearing a clerical collar, checking mics at the front 

a piano, a keyboard, and a guitar set up off to one side

a projector screen

stained glass windows without any human subjects

an extremely attractive boy at the end of our row

Hebrew inscriptions on the altar 

I was surprised by all of these things, but not disappointed. In yet another atypical Nans moment I decided that I was okay with not worrying what kind of gong show congregation I had walked into. 

I somehow managed to forget that it was Pentecost Sunday. I have no idea how that happened. But that made it all the better when the service began and I was reminded. 

I think it was when I realized it was Pentecost that things started to take on a whole new level of meaning. Before the service, my lovely trip friend Carol had struck up a conversation with the cutie at the end of the row, and it turned out that he was from Germany, but his father was Kenyan (shabbam!), and he had just arrived in town from Tel Aviv and had stumbled upon the church almost by accident. I could hear that half the people sitting behind us were American (southeeern draaaawl) and the other half were Swedish. One of the priests was Australian, another American, and the third Canadian. There were of course Brits all over the place, too. As we read Acts 2, I was struck by the synchronicity between the story of Pentecost and the story I was living out. Not only that, it hit me that the event described in the New Testament had occurred about a five minute walk from where I was sitting. And, by a small miracle of scheduling, I had witnessed the festival of Shavuot, the day on which Pentecost occurred, at the Western Wall a few days previously. The whole story took on layer after layer of new meaning. I could have cried. 

By another strange coincidence, I knew absolutely every song that was sung during the service, from the awkward opening hymn to the 90s power choruses to the contemporary songs to the time-signature-less offertory hymn (although, to be fair, I learned it in Latin and thus had difficulty singing the English words). Even though no one else in the congregation seemed to know the songs like I did, that didn't stop them from completely givin' 'er vocally all the time. By the end of the service, people were shouting out for joy, and I was sending up a prayer of thanksgiving for my waterproof mascara. We ended with a song I hadn't heard for probably eight years but remembered word for word. There's nothing like spiritual nostalgia. 

But the thing that I realized towards the end that almost brought me to my knees was that this was the first Pentecost since my September Transformation, which is when I would contend that I felt filled with the Spirit for the very first time. And the more I thought about it, the less I could ignore how God must have intended to have me in Jerusalem on this day. 

I realized and experienced a whole lot of things during that service, most of which I will keep to myself until I can't anymore. 

I fully remember, not just cognitively, exactly how I felt in September. I am overwhelmed by God's faithfulness in bringing me back to that place after all the shit that hit in February and March and April. I am vindicated in having looked at this adventure through those almost unbearable times as the light at the end of the tunnel. And I am furthermore overjoyed to think that this is just the beginning of the life I will make for myself as I constantly rely on my steadfast Provider. 

reconciling with board games

Hello strangers,

I know it's been a while since I last posted something. At this point, it's getting difficult to write about isolated experiences and single striking thoughts; all the elements of our travels are beginning to fuse together, and the ideas and opinions from my brain and the many fine brains we have picked over the last four weeks have been diffused into an emotional foundation that is hard to describe.
Nevertheless, I feel that I should attempt to share some of the ideas that have been funneling down into my heart.

It was only a few days ago that I started to think about this trip within the context of my September awakening that compelled me to embark on this five-week adventure. I now find it strange that I was able to go three and a half weeks without thinking about why God would lead me here. I pretty much always think about the 'why'. But I only started to think about it when I realized that I could do more here than visit and try to learn.
I know it's pretty common to fall in love with a travel destination. I know that everyone at some point gets tempted to say, "Screw it, I'm moving to Cleveland". People start to wonder if they can make their vacation into a life. I've done that before. I'm still doing that with Britain. But the thing with the Middle East is that I didn't really want to come here. I was more than willing to, but it wasn't my idea. This idea of this trip wasn't born out of a personal dream or a long-standing longing. It basically came out of nowhere. And because of that, I am starting to think that the things I am feeling for this land and these people have practical significance for my life and my future. I feel different here. I feel like I am free to care about the people around me and the issues that permeate their lives. I feel less self-obsessed (but apparently not enough to quit blogging, the ultimate self indulgence). I feel like I can focus on the gifts within my person that have nothing to do with talent. I feel like I can actually see the search for God on the streets here. I feel like I don't have to deal with the questions that are ubiquitous in North American Christianity, the questions that nauseate me and keep me from wanting to practice my faith and associate myself with the people in my religion.
I don't think it's a stretch to say that I'm feeling called to live in this part of the world, maybe not permanently, but at least for a little while. I hesitate to say that definitively because I know it's easy to fall in love with places that you visit and throw meaning onto that temporary love. But God called me to go on this trip, of that I am certain, and I am also certain that God doesn't interfere with people's lives and point them in a new direction for no reason. This is why I have been looking into intensive Arabic language programs in Morocco and the Middle East and graduate programs in Jerusalem. The way I've come to see it, if God will bless me with a decently long life, I will fill it with as much learning about as many and various subjects as I can. I will try to understand this world and its joys and sorrows in order to find my place in it.
A couple months ago a friend of mine spoke into my life in a most unexpected way. She shared what she felt God was telling her to say, and it bowled me over. This prophetic word acknowledged the frantic-ness within me. I sometimes feel like a have a city inside me, with so many streets leading in so many directions that I can't choose which to take. I feel like I am many people sometimes. But God acknowledged this in me, and basically said that I could look at each and every person within my personality and choose to embrace her. I don't have to feel limited, or bound by the necessity of choice. I have always felt this way, so I suppose it is who I am; perhaps I am a twelve-sided die, and Middle East Hannah is but one side of many.

Rabinowitz FTW

Hello my lovelies!

I just returned, exhausted, from my third day of exploring the Old City of Jerusalem. Today was very interesting because we began not in the currently-walled Old City, but in an area outside of it that would have been inside the city walls in the time of David. We saw some ruins that quite possibly belong to David's palace, as well as some other interesting things, but there was one definite highlight that lifted my spirits and lit my imagination and just made me feel so wonderfully alive. That thing was wading through Hezekiah's Tunnel. 

This tunnel was carved into bedrock some 2700 years ago when Hezekiah learned that the Assyrians were going to besiege Jerusalem. Its purpose was to contain the Spring of Gihon, the only water source near the city, so that the people of Jerusalem would continue to have safe water access during the siege, and the Assyrians would have to find their own inconvenient water source somewhere far away. The average height of the tunnel is about my height, and it runs for 533 meters. There are so many things about it that are amazing, starting with how people actually created it using chisels by lamp light, but it's all its mysteries that get to me, the ways and means and purposes and discoveries that we don't fully understand yet. 

It took us 45 minutes to walk through, and at the beginning the water hit us mid-thigh. It is obviously pitch black in there, and even with flashlights scattered throughout our convoy it was impossible to see the ceiling and the floor simultaneously. Some sections were only about five feet high, while during the last stretch towards the Pool of Siloam the ceiling reached heights of twelve feet and more. We had no concept of how long we'd been wading or how much further we had to go. The tunnel had a strange echo, and after a while we each began humming to ourselves, creating a pleasingly discordant sonorous wave that followed us until our guide, Allan Rabinowitz, asked us to stop walking, turn off our flashlights, and be silent. The darkness and the silence were complete. Hello, sensory deprivation therapy. Rabinowitz had told me to start singing Amazing Grace once the silence was full, so I did as I was instructed. We all sang, and after a few notes we began wading again. Once we got to "'tis grace hath brought me safe thus far," we turned a corner and saw the light from outside streaming in. As I stepped out onto dry ground, I heard the warm and muddy echo of the tunnel diffuse into individual voices singing out confidently that grace would lead them home. 

That un-embellished experience would have been enough for me. The tunnel would have even been enough without the song. But the fact that a Jewish man who is unapologetic about his religious and political beliefs (and disbeliefs) led a group of Christians in the singing of a hymn was a beautiful gift to me. It was in itself a glimpse of grace, a refraction of the hope that still shines out in dark places. It was what I needed. 

Israeli impressions cont'd

As anticipated, new impressions and opinions of Israel/Jerusalem have bubbled up in my noggin since last I wrote. Last night I had a facebook chat with my oldest friend and expressed some of the things I was feeling when I came home while they were still fresh. I copied some of those ideas here and expanded on them. When thoughts are whirling about inside my head and kicking up emotions every which way, I find it impossible to edit content and make it neat, so here you go, the raw blog diet: 

I think it might feel easier if I'd had an opinion on the conflict before coming here

I am just so monumentally saddened by how evident it is that there is no solution, no compromise possible

anything anyone does or could do is just salt in someone's wound

but tonight I witnessed Jerusalem Day celebrations at the Western Wall

they're commemorating the capture of the Wall by Israel from Jordan during the Six-Day War

the Hasidic men were dancing and singing at the tops of their voices

and I remembered the longing I felt all throughout my childhood for a tradition that went back as far as Judaism, a tradition that hadn't changed

I remembered all those years of reading nothing but Potok

I remembered yearning, gut-wrenching yearning to have been born into an identity

and I saw the joy in their faces as they celebrated having reclaimed the epicentre of their homeland, even though that epicentre is still incomplete; it is the closest they can come today to what was once the temple, but it is not the temple

and I saw the policemen

and I saw the army

guns and guns and guns

and I walked through the security gates

and I thought of Isaiah and Lamentations

and the words of Jesus to the women of Jerusalem

and Revelation

and Weep No More

and And God Shall Wipe Away All Tears

and how the Zionists obviously hope to bring about the healing of the land and the restoration of the land, to fulfill the ultimate purpose of the land, by bringing Judaism back home to Jerusalem

but that with all that has happened since 1948, I cannot believe the establishment of Israel to be the fulfillment of biblical prophecy; I don't think that those prophecies will be fulfilled until the day when heaven and earth are finally renewed, because something like that can't be forced 

and I was overcome with the hopelessness of the situation, the sense that the killing and fear will never end

that two groups of people not just in Israel and the Palestinian Territories but all over the world seem incapable of achieving peace, and that every act from one party will always result in retaliation and payback from the other party. 

and I hope it gets easier to deal with, but at the same time I think that that would make it seem less important somehow. I don't want to feel less strongly, even though what I'm feeling is changeable at best and ambiguous at worst. 

Israeli impressions

May 10, 2010

Hello habibi, 

Today was my first full day in Jerusalem (we arrived yesterday after a long drive from the seaside resort town of Eilat), so I thought that I would spit out a few ideas in your direction before they start to overwhelm me. I intend to expand on them as more information and more various opinions enter my malleable brain, so by no means should you take these impressions as the final word on Israel from the Nansean perspective! 

Call me a tired postmodernist if you will, but I love a good juxtaposition. If I had the energy, I'm sure I could keep a separate blog just for listing every hilarious, surprising, or poignant juxtaposition that I have observed in the Middle East. Lazy as I am, I will only share one with you today. Imagine this: you approach a security gate in the Old City of Jerusalem that you know will lead you to the Western Wall. There are signs in a variety of languages warning you that you will not be admitted if you are not dressed with appropriate modesty. There are more signs alerting you to the sanctity of the space you are about to enter, about the holy presence that still resides in the stones of the ancient wall, about the proper attitude of respect with which you should enter the sacred space. You subconsciously formulate a set of expectations based on these many signs. You pass through the metal detector and proceed past the guards. You descend the steps, mesmerized by the huge wall that now faces you and the frenzy of activity at its base. The word 'fervor' bubbles up in your brain. But as you reach the base of the stairs, you look to your left, and out of an old stone archway process three teenage boys in tan uniforms and tall black army boots, around whose shoulders are slung large automatic rifles. Their pants are hanging so low that were their shirts not tucked in, you would be seeing more than you bargained for. But ah, the finishing touch is this: they are each eating an ice cream treat.  

I'm pretty sure that you're all capable of reading into that. 

Another funny thing that in reality wasn't at all funny struck me when I was returning to Tantur from the Old City on the bus (one of the Israeli buses, mind you, because the Palestinian buses are too full in the early evenings what with all the Palestinian workers leaving Jerusalem at the end of the workday). A rotund ginger boy of about fourteen stepped onto the bus wearing a t-shirt that read "BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD." Although he was not named on the t-shirt, I'm sure that we all remember that the author of that quotable phrase is Gandhi, the pioneer of non-violent resistance.  I might not have thought anything of it had it not been for the Introduction to Islam lecture with which we began our day. 

While answering the last question posed by the class, our lecturer Mustafa Abu Sway made mention of a Palestinian Christian man whose teachings he had followed in the 1980s. This man's name is Mubarak Awad, and he attempted to apply the principles of non-violent resistance to the situation facing Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories. He was deported. 

I realized that I was sitting on a bus in the most confusing city in the world. My mind has vertigo, and I won't count on it abating any time soon. 

we interrupt this rant with another rant

May 6, 2010

This evening the most wonderful thing happened.

I arrived back at the hotel after an exhilarating cab ride from the souk in downtown Amman. I had been shopping in the souk for about three hours with Bill, Laurie, and Nathan. While there, I discovered many interesting things, including numerous brightly embroidered kaftans (one of which I purchased pour moi), pungent halal meats, baby-and/or travel-sized hookah pipes, and that Jordanian men are in fact no better behaved than Syrian men. I grew quite appalled at the openness with which they gawked at me, and also began to deeply regret opting for walking shorts that exposed my knees. This time, instead of only openly staring at my face and hair, they gave me intensely un-subtle once-overs that featured sometimes-prolonged forays into the Hannah's Legs Appreciation Society. The thing that keeps on alternately amusing and astounding me is that these men don't seem to realize that I can see them looking at me. ANYWAY. One of the foundational points of the story is the contrast that this scenario makes with the scenario to come.

So, I returned to the hotel from the souk. After I had freshened up a bit and tried on my kaftan (hilarious!), I returned to the lobby in order to find myself some delicious Western-Jordanian fusion buffet. But when the elevator door opened, my ears were greeted by the most delightful cacophony of drumming, clapping, and joyful singing. My curiosity was piqued and there was only one cure! I easily discerned that the source of the jamboree was the grand staircase descending from the lobby to the basement; every step was covered with Arab men, women, and babies who were watching the ruckus below. Now, gentle readers, I know that you are wondering, What ruckus, Nans? Well, gentle readers, you are in luck since I am about to assuage your curiosity. 

At the bottom stair a woman was standing in a white dress and white hooded cape- obviously, she was a bride. But she was standing alone. In front of her there was a crazy mess of jubilation: four men dressed in pin-striped bedouin kaftans and headdresses who were dancing and singing in response to two other bedouin-clad young men; all the young men present dancing with their arms up, clasping each other's hands, letting loose to an insane degree; two men playing complicated rhythms on hand drums; four young members of the bridal party standing still, holding tall candles and wearing sleeveless white over-embellished dresses. The song went on for about fifteen minutes, without a sign of boredom or exhaustion from any of its participants. I have seen celebrations on tv, but I have never been in the same room as one. I have never celebrated like that. I have never seen honest, exuberant, ecstatic happiness like that up close. The people standing next to me were intrigued; I was choking back tears. 

Later that night I started thinking about hospitality. I don't think that's too far a leap from the idea of celebration. I raised the topic with my meal partner, and it spurred on the greatest conversation I've had in a very long time. We exchanged numerous stories from our lives until we landed on altogether different topics, but yet somehow managed to retain a foundational layer that united all our thoughts. I think that most people who spend any consequential amount of time with people who suffer in extreme poverty will come back home with stories of these people's overwhelming generosity and hospitality. I doubt that I will forget the story this friend of mine told me about her time in India seven years ago. She was with a group of college students who were going door to door in isolated villages and talking about their lives as Christians. Obviously throughout this venture they came face to face with the many facets of destitution. Many of the people they met invited the group in for chai, but one of the families actually invited them to have dinner in their home. My friend tells me that this family had absolutely nothing save one chicken that provided them with eggs, and this chicken they killed and cooked in order to feed these Canadian students they had just met. That is hospitality, a kind of hospitality I have never heard of or encountered myself in North America. I think we have come to misunderstand the definition of hospitality; we have stripped it down to the point of rendering it synonymous with welcome or hosting. To be a host takes no spiritual fortitude; it requires no faith whatsoever. Hospitality on the other hand depends entirely on unwavering faith in a good Provider. It also requires the giver to be free of concern for material goods, and yet to be simultaneously aware of those goods' value to another person. It requires perceptiveness and selflessness. The bedouin people of the Middle East are known for their hospitality. They live a nomadic existence in the desert, in the wild, or in the outskirts of society, and because of this lifestyle they have few possessions. But if a traveller stumbles upon a bedouin tent, the owners of that tent will without fail welcome the traveller into their midst and offer her tea, food, and a place to spend the night. Only after she has spent three nights among them will the bedouins ask the traveller where she came from or where she is going. The need, not the reasons for it, are the bedouins' concern. 

Hospitable acceptance such as this requires a great deal of grace; grace requires freedom, and freedom calls for celebration. It is no mystery and no surprise that the contemporary West is content without grace. We are pretty content with ourselves and attribute our every success to our own intelligence, skill, and effort. We think that we are beyond grace, but as I have stated, we can only receive freedom once we have opened ourselves, even relinquished our selves, to the grace of God. 

Leaning on that bannister at the Geneva Hotel, I was overcome with the hope that my culture will one day be able to celebrate in a similarly unabashed way. I was struck by the wedding as a microcosmic example of Eastern and Western culture. Our weddings are often contrived, micromanaged, straight-laced, and artificial, and as a result they tend to come across as boring, awkward, and meaningless. They are so controlled that they belie the truth behind it all: it is the continual grace of God that will keep a couple together until death. Without God, all the hard work in the world will eventually come to nothing. 

Yeah, not quite the same as chauvinism and hummus.