Update, random thoughts...the usual.

things are still very much ok here - no worries really.

you can read in the blog the extent of my personal concerns and the actual situation in J'salem - there was one close call with the bomb found at Jaffa Gate - there will be others eventually: where, when, who...no one knows..and it's all very unlikely to affect me directly. if for some reason it does, well, we have to accept that that's what's meant to be.

i can't say enough what a really eye-opening experience this has been. the language learning has been only superficially central to the whole experience, but the questions raised, the old answers which have been dispatched as irrelevant, and the emotional quandaries that won't submit to prose...all have made this venture phenomenally worth the worry and frustration which preceded it and which to some extent will persist until i am home again

at this point, i am likely returning on the order of days after the program ends rather than remaining until the 15th of august

that is rather disappointing to me for a several reasons but appears to be the most reasonable concession to safety and sanity. i remind myself that the ancient character of this place testifies to the possibility of coming back again sometime. it is - quite literally - not going anywhere.

anyway - your prayers and support are certainly appreciated - though - living here has led me to wonder just who or what in fact any of us are praying to. if i come away with anything it's the hope that there is in fact a God and the belief (contingent on the latter) that if He is, He is one God. Hear, Oh Israel, the Lord Our God is One

Not one of several or many - the. The one, singular God of all of us - not submitting to the economy of a particular people or their creeds and comfortable traditions. And all this bickering and craziness over land which none of us can legitimately claim as our own will at some time yet "future" seem like so much vanity to the shame of many who have dedicated the whole of their lives to making loud assertions to the contrary. For each rightful claim, there is always one to precede it and memory can only go so far back. But as far as memory can go, we apprehend a truth which is bitter to those that make a profession of grabbing sand. Whoever has it now, took it from someone else. Whoever it was taken from, would like it back. And whoever has it now, will not have it forever.

I wear a ring which says in Hebrew "Love your neighbor as yourself." That pretty much sums up all I am willing to take with me after years of sifting through many of the world's faiths.
I want to cry when I consider how those words take on the whimper of a lost child in this city...world.

I contemplate often - again - a future in ministry, but as soon as the thought gathers, it gets the wind knocked out of it in a forecast of futility. I wonder, what could I possibly do, say, or be which has not already been and failed here among mankind? I wonder, how could I help point to what I can't see myself, or speak for the Voice I have no confidence I can actually hear beyond the random clatter of my own mind trying to console its lonely self. Can anything in the name of religion undo the world of harm which has been done in the name of religion? Can even faith, if not religion, be helpful - having been the inspiration and momentum of milenia of religious discord and "loving" injury?

Misinformed and misinforming - mistaken and misunderstood - we have tried in God's name to secure a better world, and in every instance we have had the same effect as the warm-blooded fingertip which aspires to catch a snowflake. Sometimes I wonder if the better ministry - the gift I could give to the world - is not to cool my blood like so many others hoping to catch the glory of a moment with beauty unharmed, but to stay inside - and accept the chasm between me and that dream, admiring the snow from a distance.

I simply don't know. What I do think I know is, that in spite of the wisdom which has taught me not to make promises, I would like to come as close as I can to promising without swearing I won't disappoint that I won't add to all the confusion with opinions and ideas dressed up like Truth, or piously perpetuate others' pain and my own while calculating an eternal reward, and I can't see any logic in destroying creation for the Creator's sake. So, I hope I can craft of these and Micah 6:8 a life which defies religion.

I would rather find myself staring blankly at Him after the fact in all my nakedness and say, "I wasn't really sure, so I kept my mouth shut and tried to make friends with people who could just as easily have been enemies."


"He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God?" Micah 6:8