Palestine, Really?

In just over 2 weeks, I begin my trek to the West Bank where I will be living in Bethlehem for the 3+months of my sabbatical. Some people have suggested that I'm being a bit reckless. After all, the tensions between the Palestinians, Israel and the other hot spots in the Middle East are often in the press and it is not an understatement to say the news is rarely pleasant! My human-rights oriented daughters have expressed concern about my safety should Israel's conflict with Iran escalate. More than one of my friends have wondered how I will navigate as a single, American Christian woman who doesn't know a lick of Arabic in a predominately Muslim environment. What will you do? Who do you know? Aren't you afraid? More often than I care to admit, their concerns fuel my pre-dawn anxieties. I wonder if I'm not only reckless but a bit crazy too.

But when my thoughts race wildly like a dog chasing its tail, one face comes to mind that helps me stop and trust that all will be well. On the last Holy Land pilgrimage I led 18 months ago, our group spent one week of the Jerusalem portion under the care of Iyad Shreydeh, our Arab Catholic Christian guide. Iyad parented us through military checkpoints and stations of the cross. He laughed at our jokes, answered innumerable questions, and communed with us at the empty tomb. He unexpectedly and graciously invited us into his Bethlehem apartment where his wife and three children gave us a glimpse of Palestinian hospitality and family life. It may have been because I was the pastor-leader of the group or simply because I'm nosy and ask too many questions, but Iyad became more than a guide. He became a treasured friend. I was grateful for this deep but temporary friendship born out of a shared experience that can never be replicated. It was no surprise that I would feel affection for him. He assisted in the spiritual re-birth that all of us experienced on the trip. What astonished me was that he seemed for feel the same affection for us, for me.

When I wrote Iyad six months post-pilgrimage, I wasn't even sure he would remember me.  He leads 45+groups like ours a year. Nonetheless, I boldly asked him if he could help me figure out the practical challenges of moving to Bethlehem for my sabbatical. Not only did he help me find a place to live (in the same apartment building no less) but he and his wife, Cloudette, have already welcomed me into their community. In an email several months ago when I was still wondering about the merit of this idea, I asked Iyad about safety issues and how I might be perceived as an American woman on my own. He immediately wrote back and told me that I wouldn't be alone, that he was a brother to me and that we were family.

And that is what this Palestinian sabbatical seems to be about. The invitation is not to focus on the challenges but to attend to the God-given deep roots of land, people and history. To live into what it means to be a sojourner in a strange land.  To trust that God's people are family. To know that I belong to them and they to me because we all belong to Christ.

It may be reckless and it may be crazy but it is where I'm supposed to be.