Dear John and Mike,
I've been thinking enviously of your new jacuzzi. I know it's been a special boon to you this particular summer. I was thinking especially about you when a group of us ajaaneb (foreigners) went last Saturday to the Jifna Dream Pool.
Jifna is a village in the West Bank outside Ramallah and there is a wonderful community pool there that was a great oasis in this August's heat.
Nine of us went and when we arrived there were only a couple families with kids. We were the only foreigners. The pool is half-Olympic size, sparkling clean. It's surrounded by a wall with some lovely paintings of town and country scenes. Look at the photos in the slideshow at left.
We swam a little, ate a great lunch of bar-b-q chicken and lamb kebabs, and "salads". Every meal here begins with salads, but we would probably call them appetizers. Small plates of a variety of dishes. I'm not sure what some of them are, but they're unfailingly delicious. When you first come here, you have to learn not to make a meal of them because there will be LOTS more food coming.
We lounged and lingered a few hours as others families arrived, then headed back home, refreshed and relaxed.
There are as many levels of engagement in what's going on here (aka, brutal oppression of 4 million people) as there are people who come. I've always tried to see what's here; why else would I be here?? But there is a price to pay for that and Saturday was a rare opportunity to just enjoy, relax, and refresh.
Jifna Dream Pool, what a perfect name.
Keep the jacuzzi bubbling till the winter when I get back. It will be a nice place to while away a winter evening.
Harry
Friday, August 14, 2009
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Have A Nice Day
Dear Sandy,
Thank you for continuing to send the articles from the Washington Post and NY Times. I usually know about the events - they're happening outside the front door, after all - but I appreciate reading what's being said about them abroad. Or not being said, which is sometimes more informative.
I have to comment on one of the articles you sent recently because I think it tells much more than it was meant to. Or more accurately, reveals more and in a way that holds a world of meaning for what's happening here.
The article, from the NY Times, reports on 3 recent occurrences here. One is possible corruption charges against a key figure in Netanyahu's new government. But what caught my attention more was the 2 other occurrences.
The reporter described the eviction last Sunday of two Palestinian families from their homes in an Arab neighborhood around the corner from me. This has been going on for months here, the relentless insidious extension of the Occupation into East Jerusalem. Many homes and buildings are being taken and occupied by "Israeli nationalists" every day.
But this one seems to have caught the attention of the media perhaps because the occupants of the homes have been there for decades, 53 years in one case, and despite the title of ownership still being considered in the courts, an eviction notice was issued anyway.
So on Sunday, two families were out on the street and new occupants had moved in within minutes. All enabled and enforced by Israeli police.
Then, the third part of the story was a brief mention of the recent killings inside a gay club in Tel Aviv. The story contained this sentence:
"...shock over the attack jolted a society that largely values tolerance and has hardly been exposed to the specter of hate crimes."
Oh my goodness. OH MY GOODNESS!! One hardly knows where to start.
So within sentences of describing tossing two families out on the street from their homes of 50 years - without evidence to do so - and letting in new occupants who have no claim to ownership, the reporter describes a society that "largely values tolerance". Umm, which kind of tolerance would that be?? And if illegally occupying and oppressing 4 million people and periodically bombing the crap out of them isn't a hate crime, exactly what is?
But this is what I think is so revealing here. My guess is that the reporter either 1) does not consider home evictions and demolitions of Arab homes to be intolerant or hateful; or 2) does not even realize what she did.
I suspect the latter. Like much of the world, her image of Israel is so entrenched, so ingrained, so reinforced by her Judeo-Christian environment (and really, really effective media management) that she cannot even recognize when it is refuted by reality.
It's too simple to say that's the only problem here, but it is certainly a large part of it. As it must be in all cases where there are some people who are different and therefore, scary.
There is too much in our relationships with each other that is hidden. Unspoken. Unacknowledged. Buried in our fear and guilt. Too many dirty little secrets.
So we all go along with policies that enable hateful treatment of a people by calling them something else. "Security" for example. Denying it is what it is because we don't want someone calling us the "Anti-..." name. And after all, the society is so tolerant and naive of hate. Surely a people who were the victims of hate crimes cannot themselves perpetrate the same? Surely.
Easier that way, isn't it? We don't have to get all mixed up and confused by our dark sides. The trouble is that what makes some of us really comfortable with ourselves is causing a world of hurt for others.
About the same time I was reading this little slice of Disney-mania, I also saw a notice that the internet was "abuzz" because two actors had been left off People Magazine's photo of the reunion of the ancient TV sitcom, Saved by the Bell.
Really? Abuzz? About this? This is what gets attention?
ok.
Have a nice day.
Harry
Thank you for continuing to send the articles from the Washington Post and NY Times. I usually know about the events - they're happening outside the front door, after all - but I appreciate reading what's being said about them abroad. Or not being said, which is sometimes more informative.
I have to comment on one of the articles you sent recently because I think it tells much more than it was meant to. Or more accurately, reveals more and in a way that holds a world of meaning for what's happening here.
The article, from the NY Times, reports on 3 recent occurrences here. One is possible corruption charges against a key figure in Netanyahu's new government. But what caught my attention more was the 2 other occurrences.
The reporter described the eviction last Sunday of two Palestinian families from their homes in an Arab neighborhood around the corner from me. This has been going on for months here, the relentless insidious extension of the Occupation into East Jerusalem. Many homes and buildings are being taken and occupied by "Israeli nationalists" every day.
But this one seems to have caught the attention of the media perhaps because the occupants of the homes have been there for decades, 53 years in one case, and despite the title of ownership still being considered in the courts, an eviction notice was issued anyway.
So on Sunday, two families were out on the street and new occupants had moved in within minutes. All enabled and enforced by Israeli police.
Then, the third part of the story was a brief mention of the recent killings inside a gay club in Tel Aviv. The story contained this sentence:
"...shock over the attack jolted a society that largely values tolerance and has hardly been exposed to the specter of hate crimes."
Oh my goodness. OH MY GOODNESS!! One hardly knows where to start.
So within sentences of describing tossing two families out on the street from their homes of 50 years - without evidence to do so - and letting in new occupants who have no claim to ownership, the reporter describes a society that "largely values tolerance". Umm, which kind of tolerance would that be?? And if illegally occupying and oppressing 4 million people and periodically bombing the crap out of them isn't a hate crime, exactly what is?
But this is what I think is so revealing here. My guess is that the reporter either 1) does not consider home evictions and demolitions of Arab homes to be intolerant or hateful; or 2) does not even realize what she did.
I suspect the latter. Like much of the world, her image of Israel is so entrenched, so ingrained, so reinforced by her Judeo-Christian environment (and really, really effective media management) that she cannot even recognize when it is refuted by reality.
It's too simple to say that's the only problem here, but it is certainly a large part of it. As it must be in all cases where there are some people who are different and therefore, scary.
There is too much in our relationships with each other that is hidden. Unspoken. Unacknowledged. Buried in our fear and guilt. Too many dirty little secrets.
So we all go along with policies that enable hateful treatment of a people by calling them something else. "Security" for example. Denying it is what it is because we don't want someone calling us the "Anti-..." name. And after all, the society is so tolerant and naive of hate. Surely a people who were the victims of hate crimes cannot themselves perpetrate the same? Surely.
Easier that way, isn't it? We don't have to get all mixed up and confused by our dark sides. The trouble is that what makes some of us really comfortable with ourselves is causing a world of hurt for others.
About the same time I was reading this little slice of Disney-mania, I also saw a notice that the internet was "abuzz" because two actors had been left off People Magazine's photo of the reunion of the ancient TV sitcom, Saved by the Bell.
Really? Abuzz? About this? This is what gets attention?
ok.
Have a nice day.
Harry
Monday, August 3, 2009
Alien
This letter is for all those who have found themselves living in a foreign place. Or anyone who is thinking of doing that.
We all do it for different reasons. But for many of us, it's because we think there is something "wrong" somewhere and we go to try to help. To "do something". Or maybe we just can't stand watching it from afar and want to get closer and see better what's really happening.
So we go. And pretty soon, we figure out that it's not like we thought it was. It's worse, or more complicated, or more enormous. At this point, some of us realize there's little or nothing for us to "do". And if we stay on, we begin to shift our awareness and focus from doing to being. As my friend Jesse recently wrote so wisely, it dawns on us why we're called human beings and not human doings.
So we begin to think and talk and write alot about "Presence". The importance and significance of just being with people who are in hardship.
And that's where many continue to live while they're there.
But I think we have to be careful with this Presence thing. It doesn't necessarily mean relationship; in fact I would argue that it rarely does. It can have a deux ex machina quality about it. Dropping in to just "be with you." I think we can move through presence and come to realize how it is different from making relationship.
We are forever alien in these new places we inhabit. No matter how much we want not to be alien. That's what all of us wanted when we came - to not be alien. We wanted to learn the language and every nuance of the culture and "belong".
I'm not sure we can ever belong. Which can leave us in an isolated place, especially if we came alone. But if we're really, really fortunate we can learn to abide in this alien state without deluding ourselves, and on occasion live in moments that show us the real reason we came.........
I live in a flat in a GuestHouse. There is a beautiful courtyard garden which I can look down on from my windows. A few days ago, there was an engagement party in the garden. It was beautiful. From time to time during the evening I watched in a kind of cultural voyeurism, seeking to know better how to "belong". As I watched during the evening, two friends who work at the GuestHouse and were serving that night weaved through the crowd, looking movie-star handsome in their black slacks, white shirts, and black bowties.
'Round about 10 pm, the party had broken up and the clean-up was just about finished. There was a knock at my door. It was one of the two guys who had worked that evening. His wife had been taken to the hospital and he asked if I would drive him there and go with him. So the three of us went.
His wife was in the emergency room, thankfully doing fine. She had fallen and had some bumps and bruises. The hospital is a large one in East Jerusalem whose staff and patients are just about exclusively Arab. Late at night like that, I was the only foreign face for miles around. I stood with my friends, waited for and talked with the doctors to find out what the situation was, watched all the people coming and going.
I realized with a suddenness that startled me that I wasn't alien to my two friends that evening in the ER. I was just with them. Not in a Presence way - I wasn't there to "support" or do anything. I was just there because they knew I would go with them and they weren't afraid to ask me. The cultural prohibitions against that - and there are many - were no longer operating with us. We were there together just because we know each other.......
Just steps from where I'm sitting right now occurred some of the most momentous events in all of human history. Some believe God incarnated and walked here. Died and rose from the dead. Some believe that a people here in ancient times were chosen by God to be an example of devotion for all future generations. Some believe a great Prophet came here one night in a miraculous mystical journey.
Millions of people come here to see where these things happened. To hear stories about them, pray about them, wonder about them, be transformed by them.
When I leave here someday and think back on this time, it won't be those events or places that I remember. It will be an evening that I spent in an ER with some friends.
We all do it for different reasons. But for many of us, it's because we think there is something "wrong" somewhere and we go to try to help. To "do something". Or maybe we just can't stand watching it from afar and want to get closer and see better what's really happening.
So we go. And pretty soon, we figure out that it's not like we thought it was. It's worse, or more complicated, or more enormous. At this point, some of us realize there's little or nothing for us to "do". And if we stay on, we begin to shift our awareness and focus from doing to being. As my friend Jesse recently wrote so wisely, it dawns on us why we're called human beings and not human doings.
So we begin to think and talk and write alot about "Presence". The importance and significance of just being with people who are in hardship.
And that's where many continue to live while they're there.
But I think we have to be careful with this Presence thing. It doesn't necessarily mean relationship; in fact I would argue that it rarely does. It can have a deux ex machina quality about it. Dropping in to just "be with you." I think we can move through presence and come to realize how it is different from making relationship.
We are forever alien in these new places we inhabit. No matter how much we want not to be alien. That's what all of us wanted when we came - to not be alien. We wanted to learn the language and every nuance of the culture and "belong".
I'm not sure we can ever belong. Which can leave us in an isolated place, especially if we came alone. But if we're really, really fortunate we can learn to abide in this alien state without deluding ourselves, and on occasion live in moments that show us the real reason we came.........
I live in a flat in a GuestHouse. There is a beautiful courtyard garden which I can look down on from my windows. A few days ago, there was an engagement party in the garden. It was beautiful. From time to time during the evening I watched in a kind of cultural voyeurism, seeking to know better how to "belong". As I watched during the evening, two friends who work at the GuestHouse and were serving that night weaved through the crowd, looking movie-star handsome in their black slacks, white shirts, and black bowties.
'Round about 10 pm, the party had broken up and the clean-up was just about finished. There was a knock at my door. It was one of the two guys who had worked that evening. His wife had been taken to the hospital and he asked if I would drive him there and go with him. So the three of us went.
His wife was in the emergency room, thankfully doing fine. She had fallen and had some bumps and bruises. The hospital is a large one in East Jerusalem whose staff and patients are just about exclusively Arab. Late at night like that, I was the only foreign face for miles around. I stood with my friends, waited for and talked with the doctors to find out what the situation was, watched all the people coming and going.
I realized with a suddenness that startled me that I wasn't alien to my two friends that evening in the ER. I was just with them. Not in a Presence way - I wasn't there to "support" or do anything. I was just there because they knew I would go with them and they weren't afraid to ask me. The cultural prohibitions against that - and there are many - were no longer operating with us. We were there together just because we know each other.......
Just steps from where I'm sitting right now occurred some of the most momentous events in all of human history. Some believe God incarnated and walked here. Died and rose from the dead. Some believe that a people here in ancient times were chosen by God to be an example of devotion for all future generations. Some believe a great Prophet came here one night in a miraculous mystical journey.
Millions of people come here to see where these things happened. To hear stories about them, pray about them, wonder about them, be transformed by them.
When I leave here someday and think back on this time, it won't be those events or places that I remember. It will be an evening that I spent in an ER with some friends.
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