Wednesday, May 30, 2007

The Weather is Beautiful…

I had not expected to need a jacket. Sure, I had been told “it can get cold in the Middle East,” but I figured it was the Middle East, after all. You know, rocks, sand, hot sun, that kind of thing. And yes, I remember reading about the Fertile Crescent, and I had even seen pictures of the landscape in the spring. But still, I had in my mind this preconceived idea of what the weather and the land would be like. I did not expect it to be lush.

I had no idea it would be so comfortable. While walking around Tiberias and parts of Galilee, smelling the wildflowers, walking through the grass, I even wondered why anyone would want to live anywhere else. If I were the Lord, I’d choose to make my home there, too.

Even in the Sinai, or in the Negev, among landscape that looked like the surface of Mars, you can find tiny wildflowers, clumps of succulents pushing between the cracks in the rocks. Birds and lizards scuttle just beyond your reach. I could see Moses watching his father-in-law’s sheep tear at clumps of grass.

The land itself could not be more diverse. If you walk 10 miles you can cross as many different biomes - steppe, desert, wetland, farmland. The lands of the Bible straddle the Great Rift Valley, home of the lowest place on earth (the Dead Sea). Yet at places it rises to 2700 meters (Mt. Catherine, in Sinai). Israel itself is only 85 miles across at its widest point.

I wore my travel vest most of the time. I like to cram the pockets with granola bars, trail mix, paperbacks, binoculars - that kind of thing. When I board an airplane it’s like having an extra carry-on. It gives me a place to stash souvenirs. I like to think that it makes me look advenurous, but most people probably assume I’ve lost my trout stream. Ah well - it keeps me warm. Even Egypt was not quite as hot as I expected, although it can get toasty.

Just being in the weather made certain Bible passages come alive. Exodus 22 says that if you take a cloak as collateral on a loan, you have to return in by sundown so that the owner can stay warm. In extolling the practical advantages of friendship, Proverbs says that two people are stronger than one, and that they can stay warm by sharing body heat. These are such throw-away lines, but in the context of experience they become much more meaningful.

The climate also makes me aware of the full meaning of other passages. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says our Father makes the sun to rise on the righteous and the unrighteous, and sends rain on the evil and the good. Biblical authors marvel at how God sends rain into the desert, making flowers bloom where no human eye can appreciate their beauty. Our guide described how his friend, who ran a boat on the Lake of Galilee, would stand in the first rain of the season, a huge grin on his face, and let himself be drenched.

We also stood in places - like Petra - where flash floods in the past decade or so have killed dozens of people. And I thought to myself, “he who hears these words and does not act on them is like a foolish man who built his house on sand…”

Monday, May 21, 2007

Long Flights and Cold Water

The flight from New York to Amman is long. I knew as I stepped onto the plane that I could expect around eleven hours of sitting. I looked at my ticket stub and saw that I would have a window seat. I’m around 6’4”, so I knew I’d have to fold up like a pretzel.

As I counted rows to my seat, my heart sank. There, in the aisle seat, was a Jordanian woman who must have weighed around 300 pounds. She was obviously uncomofortable. Her seat was fully reclined, but her belly pressed against the seat in front of her. The arm between the seats was raised, and I could see that she took up half of the seat I was supposed to sit in. I came and stood next to her. She looked at me and made a face. I shrugged. She struggled out of her chair to let me in.

I slid into the window seat and sighed. She collapsed into the seat next to me and then fought to press the arm down between us. Whatever illusions we had of preserving personal space disappeared quickly. She was sandwiched into her seat between the arms of the chair, but her body still spilled over and into my seat. I was mashed between her and the bulkhead. We were both miserable.

For eleven hours.

I was afraid that she was going to be unpleasant. She was uncomfortable and embarrassed. The flight attendant told her to put her seat up during takeoff and landing, but it was physically impossible. There was too much of her, and not enough space.

Somewhere during the flight she asked me why I was going to Jordan. I told her I was with a group, and we were going to Jordan, the West Bank, Israel, and Egypt. I told her that we were going to visit places where Jesus and Moses had lived and walked. She said I should also visit Aqaba sometime. She said Jordan was very nice, and that I would enjoy it. She told me that she had been in the U.S. for a month, visiting her daughter and grandchildren in Florida. I showed her pictures of my son, and she told me about her grandchildren. She said that her family had come to Jordan from Palestine in the 1948 war, but that Jordan was her home. She was very proud of being a Jordanian Palestinian.

Every time she got up, I got up. I moved my legs, stood on my toes, and stretched. Toward the end of the trip, she returned down the aisle holding a cup of water. She smiled and said, “welcome to Jordan, David.” She put the cup of water in my hand and I suddenly saw Jesus at the well with the Samaritan woman, I saw Abraham and Sarah welcoming strangers to their home, and I heard Jesus say that whoever offered a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple would not lose their reward. I remembered a line I had read in a book by Charles Page, that offering a cup of water to someone in ancient Middle Eastern culture was understood to be an offer of friendship. I took the cup gratefully. After my experience at the JFK information booth, I felt humbled by her simple gesture of hospitality.

It was the first of many cups of water or tea I was offered during my two-week trip. It made me think differently about hospitality, and how we approach such things in the U.S. Even informal “Southern hospitality” doesn’t approach the kind of respectful stranger/guest dynamic in the Middle East. The poetry of greeting and thanking in Arabic, the subtle competition to bestow honor upon your conversation partner, makes our own “how ya doin?” seem thin and insincere.

Still, I was glad when the flight was over. I felt as if I had been released from prison. But I would not have traded my experience with my traveling companion. She gave me an insight into Jesus’ world that I might not have had otherwise. We were co-sufferers on that flight, and we shared a kind of solidarity that I could not have had if I had sat in a more comfortable seat.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

A New York State of Mind

I arrived at JFK nearly ten hours before my flight departed. I had plenty of time to walk around and find my check-in counter.

I found an elevator to the Air Train and pushed the up button. The doors opened immediately and an elderly woman, struggling with her bags, stepped off. She looked around and said, “Oh, am I on the same floor?” She shuffled back on the elevator while I held the door. I pushed the button to the next level. “Oh, that’s where the buttons are,” she said.
“It can be confusing,” I said.
“Do you know where Czech airlines is?” she asked.
“If it’s an international flight, it’s where I’m going.” She showed me her ticket. “Let’s go together. I’ve got no idea where I’m supposed to check in, either.”
“Thanks for your help,” she said.
“Don’t thank me until we find it,” I said. “This may be like the blind leading the blind.”

We arrived at the international terminal and went to the third floor, where the ticketing counters were. When we stepped off the escalator we both looked at the vast hall, wider than a football field, and laughed. Row upon row of ticketing counters stretched into the distance. We spotted a directory, but after looking at it for a few seconds we realized it was for the duty-free shops. So we began the slow, deliberate search for our respective airlines. We walked down the length of the hall twice, hauling our bags and scanning the screens at the end of the aisles to see which airlines were on which rows. No luck.

“Why don’t we ask someone?” she said. I resisted the manly urge to resist. She talked to a woman at the Saudi Arabia airlines counter, who said, “why don’t you try the information both?”
“Where is that?” I asked.
“On the first floor,” she said.

My companion’s shoulders slumped. “You mean we have to walk all the way down there?”
“I’ll go,” I said, feeling valiant. “I’ll ask about both of our airlines, and then I’ll be back.”

I went down two sets of escalators and found the information booth on the first floor. There was a woman sitting in the booth looking bored.

“Hi,” I said. I’m looking for Czech Airlines and Royal Jordanian. I can’t seem to find either.”
“You’re looking for two airlines?”
“Well, I’m looking for Royal Jordanian. Someone else is looking for Czech. She is too tired too tired to walk anymore.”
“The airlines are on the third floor.”
“Yes, I know. I was just there.”
“Did you look for them?”
I smiled. “Yes. We walked all over the third floor. The only directory there is for the shops. We cannot find the ticketing counter.”
“All the airlines are on the third floor.”
“Yes, I understand that. Except ours are not there.”
“Well did you ask someone?”
I thought, but did not say I’m asking you! I said, “Yes. They sent me down here.”
She replied, “Well I don’t know why they did that!”
I looked above my head at the big sign that said, “Information,” and I thought I’m not sure why they did that, either.
I closed my eyes and breathed.
She looked up the numbers of the airlines and gave them to me. I thanked her and hauled myself and my baggage back to the third floor. By this time the screens had cycled again, and my companion had found her flight. Country bumpkins that we were, neither of us had known that the ticketing counters change, and that they do not leave signs above their desks to indicate where you should wait.
Later on I talked to a man who regularly flies through JFK. He laughed and said, “welcome to New York!”

I have to say I had figured that stereotypes about regional hospitality were just stereotypes. But on our return trip, when we landed in Atlanta, I asked a female airport employee where my gate was. “Just down there and to the right,” she said.
“Thanks!” I said.
“Sure thing, honey,” she replied.
It made me so happy I almost cried.

Saturday, May 12, 2007

“God Wants Us to Love Everybody”

I took my seat on the airplane next to a young man from Libya. He said he was on the flight from Cairo to Amman with some friends, that they would buy a car in Amman and drive it back to Marzuq, where they live.

Most people I met in the Middle East nearly bent over backwards to express to me that they did not hate Americans. Few showed any affection to our president, but all I talked with made sure that I knew that they welcomed me. When his two friends in the row in front of us learned I was from America, the eldest of the friends, who looked to be about 50, turned to me eagerly and said, “Ah! America! America and Libya, we are like this,” he put his two index fingers together. “Good friends! Good friends. Ten years ago, was not good. But now, good friends.” I said I had felt very welcome in the Middle East. “We like America,” he said. “George Bush, we do not like.” He stabbed the air, then began to count on his fingers. “Clinton, we like. George Bush, the father, we like. But George Bush the son, we do not like.” He scooted around in his seat to face me. “Tell me, what do Americans think about Libya?”

I hemmed and hawed, pretended I had a hard time hearing him. “It’s tough to say,” I said. “Libya has not been in the mainstream media until recently.” Lame, I thought to myself. The flight attendant interrupted with lunch, and our conversation was forgotten for awhile. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Later,  the pilot announced that we would land soon. The young man on my right pulled out the same torn sheet of notebook paper he had been reading earlier. I looked over his shoulder at the Arabic scrawls in blue ink. He moved his lips as he read. He caught me staring at him, smiled, and held up the piece of paper. “From the Quran,” he explained. “Ah,” I said, “a good thing to read before takeoff and landing.”
“Yes,” he agreed. He hesitated. “God says we should love everybody,” he said, searching my face.
“I believe that, too,” I said, but I couldn’t meet his eyes. We were both hyperconscious that we were somehow ambassadors, representing our faiths and our countries to one another. I scrambled for something to say that might somehow bridge the gap between us, and seized the first thing my mind touched. “We are all children of Abraham,” I offered, and immediately it sounded stupid. 

He looked puzzled. “we should love everybody,” he said.