The Desert

The desert.

Dry. Empty. Hostile.

Or is it?

When most people think of the Middle East, I think they picture sand dunes, camels and turbans. And don’t get me wrong, those are there!

But the desert struck me in a new way while I was on cross cultural. Through Jordan, Palestine, Israel, Turkey, Greece and Italy, over four months and countless cups of tea, here are some things that I took with me:

The desert.

Parched. Scorched. Vast.

So much bigger than anything I feel. A chunk of perspective plopping into the mumbo jumbo soup of inflated emotions that is a cross cultural experience. Everything is heightened when you are out of your comfort zone, and even more so when you stay outside it for four months.

As I stared out the window of the bus on a particularly trying day, the blur of sand and rocks staring back at me became a soothing thought: I am small. Infinitesimal, in the grand scheme of the universe. And that means that my problems – my discomfort, my questions, my wrestling – are all even tinier. Sigh. It’s good to be small sometimes.

The desert.

Harsh. Immense. Challenging.

A place which the Israelites called home for 40 years. They journeyed - growing, learning, straying, returning. Not a stroll through sand dunes, as I had always pictured, but struggling over rocks and brambles, heads bent against the fierce wind, each ragged breath another silent wish for water.

         A place to which Hagar was banished, alone, with her son. Sent away for doing as she was told, evicted by jealousy. A place where she was resigned to die, until the Lord’s angel saved her. Hagar, who’s very name means migration.

         A place where the Bible came alive before me, and I could finally see with my own eyes what the words couldn’t convey.

The desert.

Uninhabited. Barren. Desolate.

Free of buildings, free of walls. Walls are plentiful in the Holy Land. You’d think this would be the place where grace extends and we forget our differences in the light of the Holy of Holies. Nope. We use religion to build walls: between the Muslims, Christians, Armenians, and Jews. Between the Palestinians and Israelis. Between men and women. There are walls everywhere.

But the desert is free of walls. Here I am reminded of the grace of God, and how it surrounds and carries us, regardless of, well, anything.

My time abroad made me realize just how unique this grace is. I see it nowhere but in my God. Everywhere I look, redemption, re-humanization and return are all left behind in favor of rules and laws and condemnation. But all of those fall so short, or rather, we fall short. But grace is there to hold us, carry us.

I am nothing without grace. And walls are nothing in the face of grace.

The desert.

Lonely. Uninhabited. Empty.

So unlike the many holy sites we visited. The Church of the Nativity, the tombs of Abraham and Sarah, the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Garden Tomb – we went to all of them. And they were all packed full of people, taking pictures, kneeling, pushing against each other as they reached for the holy square foot of bedrock that is said to have been touched by Jesus.

These are the places that people ask about and are amazed that we visited, but they are also the places I tended to connect with the least. No, the gold covered buildings filled with candles and tourists were not where I felt the spirit. I spent more time trying not to get separated from the group or trampled than I did in reverence or prayer.

I connected with God while playing Frisbee in the Sea of Galilee. I heard His voice in the long conversations with fellow students as we hiked the coast of Turkey. I learned to know my God sitting alone, watching the sun set across the miles of empty sand.

The desert.

Hopeless. Dismal. Bleak.

         How it can feel when you spend four months hearing story after heartbreaking story of fellow people ripping each other apart.

         But there is hope. We also heard stories of love, of trust, of choosing to see humans before labels. Stories of relationship.

         Because that’s what Jesus was about, in the end. He didn’t sit down at the well and tell the Samaritan woman how to fix her life. He asked. He listened. He learned to know her story. That is the gospel in action: relationship.

         And against all odds, in spite of religion and nationality and walls, people are pushing for something different than what is in front of them. There are groups bringing together Palestinian and Israeli kids to play Ultimate Frisbee. There are Israeli activists protesting the destruction of Palestinian homes. There are college kids in Bethlehem, who look around and think “there must be a better way”.

         There are hands reaching across the wall, building relationships, building hope.

        

The desert.

What I longed for upon my return.

Well, to be honest, I longed to be back in pretty much any one of the places we visited, but the emptiness of the desert was quite enticing. Coming back is hard.

Coming back to isolation after spending literally every moment of the past four months with some portion of a group of 26 college kids going through same experiences. Coming back to people who have never been to the part of the world I have just been submerged in. Coming back to opinions based on inflated news stories and good intentions, but not on the kind of relationships that I have built with the people living in these countries. Coming back to a home that feels much less like home. Coming back to “How was your trip?!”

I’m slowly learning to answer the questions that those around me don’t have the words to ask. Learning how to hold on to an experience. Learning how to carry stories.

The desert.

A new place in my journey, the beginning of new questions and ideas, where I too grew, learned, strayed and returned. While I spent just a fraction of time there, its transformational powers have reached me just the same, and I still feel a nudging to not shrink away, but step towards the uncomfortable places.

The desert.

This piece is a transcript of what I shared about cross-cultural during a recent service at my church.

Fancy That!

Other people like my writing too! Check out my recent post for Mennonite Church USA's #WeAreMenno blog:

<http://mennoniteusa.org/menno-snapshots/wearemenno-i-wrestle-with-empathy/>

I just did that.

- spent almost four months traveling and learning in Jordan, Palestine, Israel, Turkey, Greece and Italy

- navigated Istanbul for a week with four other ladies and no supervision

- spent a weekend in Italy with no pre-made travel plans except a train ticket

- saw 3 of the Seven Wonders of the World

- hiked 35 miles with a 50lbs pack in 3 1/2 days

- went 3 nights and 2 days with no food or people

- went 7 days without a shower

- overcame claustrophobia

- climbed a 5.8 route

- ran 7 miles (no, not a landmark distance, but the farthest I've ever run)

- went 15 days without any technology

The Return

"Are you excited to be home?!" you ask, eyes lit up at the prospect of my return.

The obvious "Yes!" leaps to my lips, but it only hovers there, never escaping, mired down in complication.

Your eyes turn from excitement to confusion, as you await an answer you thought was easy. I wish I could give you that answer, it would make travel much easier. Or at least that I could explain it to you, this mixture of joy and loss.

But when I'm in transit, I am the only one who can see both my coming and my leaving. I see the relationships, experiences, laughter, tears, growth - all of it stretched out in my wake.

You see only me, in front of you.

So I smile, say "It's good to see you!", while holding my journey in my open palms.

You won't ever see it like I do, you can't get behind my eyes. But slowly, gradually, you will understand pieces. You will hear it in my stories, see it in my walk, feel it when you hug me.

Only I can hold my journey, but I will do my best to share what I can.

Then some day, when you step off the bus, or boat, or plane, I will step forward to hug you and feel the journey in your bones. I promise to give you time. I promise to ask and to listen. I promise to sit side by side in silence when the words fail you, because I can't get behind your eyes.

Yes, we will sit together and hold our journeys, sharing in the parts that overlap and intertwine, and let them pull us past the distance behind our eyes.

Ghost Town

What are you left with
when the people dissipate
and leave you alone,
where they once was a crowd?

What are you left with
at the end of a debate,
when voices trail off
and the silence is loud?

Are you left exhausted,
emptied of your light,
drained of your lifeblood,
solitude your respite?

Are you left full to bursting,
ready to explode?
Is your heart made to pump
by the love that was shown?

Are you left in a dark place
with the parts of your soul
that seem ready to drown you
if you slip and let go?

Are you left with just stillness -
no joy, no regret?
Is your mind left at ease?
Is isolation no threat?

My prayer for you
when you sit without company,
in the silence and stillness
and quiet cacophony,

is that love is what fills you
and peace calms your soul,
and even when solitary,
you're never alone.

Bath Time

I think God's female form is an old, lovingly round, Turkish lady. And she is likely scrubbing the skin off your soul.

The moment this image came to me, I was laying in a sauna full of air so warm and humid I wasn't sure how I was breathing it. I was somewhere on the European side of Istanbul, in a Turkish bath house, freshly soaked, scrubbed, bubble-bathed, and massaged. And I felt incredibly human, and completely whole.

If you've never been to a Turkish bath, it may seem confusing that one would pay to strip down and have someone the age of your grandma bathe you so vigorously your skin rubs off - which it literally does, in gray clumps that make you think you aught to use a wash cloth more often. However, I can tell you that it is an experience I now believe everyone should have at some point during their lifetime.

I felt like a child, taken back to the days when staying clean wasn't something I could do on my own. This feeling was probably augmented by the language barrier, which gave my Turkish grandma no choice but to simply reach out and take whichever arm or leg she was going to wash next, with me limply going along. In a warm room filled with women, she rubbed off my dead skin, soaped up my newly pink body and massaged it, and washed my hair. Between each stage, I was motioned over to faucet where I sat down and was doused with warm water before returning to the slab of heated marble. By the end, I was CLEAN.

Did I mention I was nearly naked this entire time? Yep. Everything's gotta be scrubbed. What started out feeling uncertain and uncomfortable soon became natural and healing, because I realized that I had never felt so un-sexualized in my life. I had to get naked to stop caring about my body.

Now, I'm not terribly insecure. In fact, I think I have pretty good self esteem. But none of us can live in this culture and not be touched by the ads, movies, and stereotypes swirling around us. No one. Even subconsciously, we become so concerned about our bodies and everyone else's.

Laying in that sauna, I felt God reach in and touch my soul:

Look at your body. It's a miracle of tiny cells, coming together to make you into My image. Yes, it sweats, cries, and bleeds, but all of those things make you more like Me.

It also gets dirty. There is the dust of my earth, proof that you fit into the beauty of creation. Then there is the coating of mud that is not from me, that is thrown at you by the world and distorts your image to something very unlike Me.

But it's just a body, and it can be cleaned. All of my children's bodies can be cleaned, so that their curves and edges once again point to Me. After all, you were created in My image, so being completely human is as close as you can get to Me.

This is just a body, it is not you. So don't be so concerned with it, child. Because just as she has scrubbed your body clean, so will I scrub your soul, and that's a bath that can never be soiled.

And with that, I found the most amazing peace, for myself and the world. I know it won't stick around nearly as long as I want it to. I know that all too soon, I'll be once again worried about things like pimples and leg hair and a thigh gap. But hopefully I will be able to catch myself, and hear once again the simplicity I found in that Turkish bath.

In the meantime, I will hug tightly the image of God as an old, lovingly round, Turkish lady, scrubbing my soul clean. 

The Little Man of the Eye

Biblically, this is the Hebrew translation of "apple of his eye" in Deuteronomy 32:

"10 In a desert land he found him,
in a barren and howling waste.
He shielded him and cared for him;
he guarded him as the apple of his eye,
11 like an eagle that stirs up its nest
and hovers over its young,
that spreads its wings to catch them
and carries them aloft."

Literally, this "little man" is the tiny reflection of yourself in the glassy surface another person's eyes.

Amidst a flurry of Old Testament stories, this phrase caught my attention and stuck in a way that few things do. Because it makes so. much. sense.

When you recognize the little man in the eye, you are seeing a piece if yourself in the other - friend or enemy. In other words, their humanity is as evident as your own, and you become equals.

This level viewpoint allows a whole new window to open: empathy. You can see the shortcomings of being human. You can see the pain that inevitably comes from living in a fallen world, the times when someone broke their trust, the simple things that they have had to fight tooth and nail for. But you can also see the honest attempt at a good life and the need to be loved. How do you see these things in their eyes? Because they are in you too.

One crucial part of the phrase is the eyes themselves, because in order for you see them, you must look. Well duh. Think about it, though. Eye contact cannot happen when you look down on someone lower than you. It cannot happen when you are miles away from each other. It cannot happen through walls. In the same way, you cannot see the little man of the eye if you are overpowering someone, emotionally separated, or ignoring them.

In order to see some one's eyes, you must be on the same level as them, face to face, and you have to choose to look - literally and metaphorically.

So what does this mean? Well, for one, if you take the time to realize that we are all just dust and spit, you will see the value in every person, and you will see the narrative of humanity in their eyes - just as they can see it in yours. If we all did this, the world might be a more peaceful, loving place.

When God sees the little man in our eyes, He sees His image in us, just as He created. He feels the pain and doubt and joy of every one of His children as though it were fully His own, and protects us as such.

The kicker? This is how He always sees us: with a tiny image of Him in our eyes.