I have been tasked with writing a number of devotionals. This is rather difficult.  It’s been a good experience to try to write some of my stories.

This one is too long, dealing with John 20:19-31 as a text. So, I’ll put the full length here and chop it for the publication.  This is from my experience protesting the Free Trade Area of the Americas meetings in Miami Florida in the Fall of 2000.

“We tried that already and we lost Rashon!” Jamie’s pained voice bounced off the scattered picket signs on the floor, as the fluorescent lights dangled and buzzed above in the small warehouse. The movement leaders of the nonviolent protestors huddled in the humid Florida evening, swatting flies and desperately trying to decide how to proceed.

Earlier that day Jamie’s Atlanta-based affinity group led the hundreds of other affinity groups, unions, families, and others in the economic justice march.  Thousands rallied in Florida as part of a plan to amplify the voices of Latin American small-scale farmers (campesinos) who were most affected by the economic deals happening at closed-door meeting at the 5-Star hotel in downtown Miami.  The campesinos were not invited by the lawmakers to share their perspectives on how these deals deeply impoverished their families and communities. With the voices of those most affected by changes in economic policies absent, the pattern of “the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer” would continue.

Everything was going well for the protestors until the police decided to disperse them by shooting rubber bullets directly into the gathered, peaceful crowd. A number of the movement leaders at the meeting in the eerie warehouse were nursing bruises on their legs and welts on their arms from the police weapons. Rashon, a shorter member of Jamie’s affinity group, was hit in the head by a policeman’s rubber bullet. He was emergency evacuated and currently in critical condition.

The affinity groups were made up of US American people who saw the impacts of unjust economic policies on campesinos, and were sent by them to represent their voices…if not allowed in the meetings, then shouting out on the streets in hopes of reaching the suites and the general public with the good news that there are many alternative ways to organize our economic societies so it reduces the gap between rich and poor.

The activists caught the vision and sought to heal society by raising their voices to speak on behalf of Latin America’s most vulnerable people. It was clear their quest put them in harm’s way.  The police protected the powerful at the meeting and did not want the shouting of the advocates or the cries of the poor to be heard.

Not only Rashon, but many were getting wounded. Even in their wounded state however, the movement leaders’ desire to be agents of peace, inspired them to return to the streets the next day to continue their efforts to heal. They made some adjusts to the methodology, but continued their efforts to witness to another way: of peace, of inspiration, of power-together rather than power-over-others.

In the Scripture reading of John 20:19-31, Jesus joins the scared disciples, the movement leaders who were huddled and trying to figure out what to do. What is powerful about his appearance to them is that Jesus does not hide his wounds. He does not hide that what he went through hurt and has forever changed him.  Yet he still breathes a clear message to the disciples: Deep peace, inspiration, and power.  Just as he was sent to share good news, so he sends them to continue witnessing, knowing they will be wounded, but providing an example to them as their wounded healer.

Well, after a series of morning runs on a trail lined by fields of grain on the left and sunflowers on the right, my body has recuperated.

My mind on the other hand, is on fire. More like a wildfire. Spirit ignited, perhaps.  The situation is aggravated by a willingness to engage anyone and everyone no matter what topic in no matter what language.  I’ve had a broader range of conversations (and stilted attempted-conversations) in the last 120 hours than I ever thought possible.

Hee hee. Whoa.  It’s great though.

It’s been 4.5 countries in 4.5 days (Palestine/Israel, Switzerland, Netherlands and Spain) in addition to the stimulating scenes and interactions at the airports of Tel Aviv, Zürich, Amsterdam, and Madrid. I enjoy people-watching like some people enjoy bird-watching.  I especially enjoy being watched by birds.  They get so embarrassed when you catch them watching you…they usually get all flustered and fly away.

There is a lot to see in Spain, apparently it is the number 2 tourist destination in the world after the United States. I had no idea. Probably because no me solía viajar como turísta.  But here I am in the number 2 destination!

Spain seems to enjoy a number 2 ranking in many areas:
No 2. in average height of people in Europe after the Netherlands
No 2. in sports overall in the world
No 2. in consumption of seafood after Japan
No. 2 in important European bike races after the Tour de France.

So yeah, I will tour around a bit.  Yet, at the place where I am staying there is a world of books to tour  as well, and this is why my mind has not rested yet.  I’m brushing up on my Enneagram knowledge, skimming The Shock Doctrine, a translation of the Qur’an given to me by an Imam of Omar’s Mosque in Bethlehem, and I just picked up one more book called “Seven Things Children Need.” It’s hard to read these books–and this one in particular–without trippin’ on past experiences, questions, and my own psychological ‘stuff’. The list is:

1. Significance
2. Security
3. Acceptance
4. Love
5. Praise
6. Discipline
7. Spirituality

As I read I am reflecting on how my intersectional analysis of ecology, equity, and education shows itself in the way I express any of these seven things to the children I am around.  How the life of my mind interacts with the life of their minds.

For the birds. Watch out! More mind-enlivening data here.

Greetings from Yurich, Swityerland, where the ys and the zs are switched on the kezboard.

I am beginning the slow movement north and west from Palestine and Israel back toward beloved Elkhart. It’ll take me a whole month to get there; decompressing with everz step.
öüäääèàéäüö A Swiss rendering of Marz and Jesus.

I don’t feel a need to decompress from the trip though, but just get some more rest, perhaps.  I don’t feel compressed. On the contrarz, the time guiding the group in the Land of the Holz One was energiying, breathable, instructive. I felt affirmed in mz calling to teach and lead people into grappling with the complicated realities of this world, aided bz a faith based analzsis of szstemic oppression and wholeness.

A number of people in the group reflected back to me their excitement about how the trip events and mz facilitation of group process encouaged them to become more aware of the power dzamics at plaz as we encountered ourselves, our group, and the larger context.  Illhumdulillah!!

I feel so blessed to be able to have a chance to invite people into often confounding areas of life together…to notice and enhance our abilitz to hold tension, act carefullz, reflect criticallz, and love fearlesslz. (however the zs and ys fall)

The last two dazs of the trip were some of the most epic dazs of mz life too!  Though sleep deprived, it was so clear to me that as I held healthz tension and unhealhtz conflict that I sensed around me, I was also being held and cared for bz the Animat(or/ing/ion) of the universe.  Ahhhh!

There were the manz connections that happened between capoeirstas, anarchists, scholar-entreprenuers and postgrads…there was the integration I felt in mz soul…there sense of abilitz to breath deeplz no matter where I am…Halleluzah+++

And I now move through Swityerland with a new curiousitz. I am 1/2 of Swiss-German descent, though mz mommäs people left here long ago. I am going to walk around wondering how this place–it’s culture, language, landscape, and status–shape how I move and be in the world.

The storz continues. How are zou?

More pics: 1. Limmat River drowning of Anabaptists, 2. Limmat River todaz (Stop the Prawer Plan!) and 3. Police break up meeting of Anabaptists in the woods.
               

Here in the Bethlehem area, a Palestinian area fully surrounded by Israeli military infrastructure, there are often protests on Friday afternoon that emerge as a result of the energy generated by the prayers and worship services at local mosques.  These protests are about systemic injustice that privilege Israeli Jews over Palestinians living in the West Bank and Israel. This systemic injustice shows up in issues like water allocation, infrastructure development, and human rights abuses such as prison detention without trial for up to six months-renewable.

This week, at least one of the Friday protests featured hooded sweatshirts.  Not because it was cold, but because the people of Palestine were standing in solidarity with Trayvon Martin, and saw their struggle for recognition and dignity as bound up with everyone else who moved to the streets to challenge the injustice of the system that produced the verdict. Many Palestinian young men face the same fate as Trayvon at the hands of Israeli military personnel and/or police.

Just like the communities of Bethlehem and others in Palestine, may the energy generated by worship in whatever faith or consciousness-raising community you may be a part of inspire you to public action for the common good. We are our brother’s and sister’s keepers, and they our keepers. Not to “stand our ground” against one another, but to extend and receive a hand of friendship, restorative justice, and solidarity.  I recommend reading this article to generate ongoing discussion, and the poem by Langston Hughes about Kids Who Die.

Rahiel Tesfamariam speaks clearly on the issue this week on the Beatitudes Society blog and Urban Cusp: ““Believe me when I say that Trayvon did not die in vain. His death will birth more than we could have ever imagined. His name will be etched in history for having resurrected our community/ our country from any possible slumber we may have been in. We are awake. And ready. Are we not? To start, please sign this petition created by the NAACP calling on the Department of Justice to launch a civil rights investigation.””

Whether our feelings are moral outrage at the continual inequality and slaughter of our children’s future, or if the feeling is simply sadness or compassion, let us continue to act in pursuit of justice and peace.  I believe that people of faith are desperately needed at this critical moment. Faith and values compel us to speak out against the violation of fundamental human and civil rights.

As Auburn Seminary Vice President John V. and Groundswell Founder Valarie K. wrote recently, “together as people of many traditions — Christians and Jews, Muslims and Buddhists, Hindus and Humanists, and other faith traditions — we can make a moral case for action, stepping past tired partisan rhetoric…the bloodshed in our communities again and again shows that we must work louder and stronger to channel our moral outrage into action.”
Kids and young adults from the group I’m leading interacting in Dheisheh Refugee Camp. Nearby political graffiti that shows a reversal of power imbalance between the soldier and the young girl.

Riding in from the airport, it only felt like I’d been gone a few months. Actually, it has been a year. The memories don’t come flooding back, but work themselves from the back of my brain forward to consciousness in a steady trickle (like the Jordan River in the summer).

 The words however—both Arabic and Hebrew—rush back into my head as fast as they come out of the mouth of the person in front on me. I left in July 2012 thinking I didn’t understand much, often nearly drowning in confusing conversation by this time last year. But, upon return, I am pleasantly surprised by the accessibility of vocabulary, verb conjugation, and the ease at which this area’s long list of emphatic idioms roll off my tongue. Illhumdulillah! Yani, mis mishkula…

Omar, Moshiko, Shireen, Tawfiq, Atalya, Nadine, Moriel and I pick up right where we left off… I try not to assume that we’ll still in the same place though. We’ve all collected another year’s worth of stories. Noam is the only one who looks older; he’s been totally consumed by architectural school all year. And there is Ryan and Ingrid’s new baby who I hope to meet yet this month. Daisy went to India!

A number of my friends have made close relationships their “projects” for this past year.  Building interpersonal relationships was an important part of my life in Jerusalem.  The relationships that transgressed lines of deep difference were some of the most instructive for me.  I realize again how much I learned my year in Palestine and Israel…on the political level, yes, but also the personal.

By the time I left, I thought I’d heard all the stories that could make me cry. But I’ve been here for only 39 hours so far and I’m already accumulating stories that move me to that all-to-familiar place where the tears well-up behind the eyes and just sit there, on edge. Stories of elongated commutes and wasted petrol, of tired bodies, of humor, of bureaucratic ridiculousness, of masculinity profoundly shaped by realities of desert and destruction.

We lost all our baggage too, which as group leader it was my task to retrieve.  But I got it! That was a confidence booster, both in myself as a delegation leader and in the way this society can care for people and their baggage (physical, emotional, or otherwise).

I am here because I brought a group affiliated with Christian Peacemaker Teams to the Moving Mountains Sabeel conference. They are volunteering at the Tent of Nations today.  Everyone’s excited and agitated, exposed to all these realities for the first time.  But I feel a heaviness. It took me awhile to figure out why, but then I realized what it was.

It was the residue of a familiar Sadness…a Sadness that I carried most of the year last year.  A Sadness I learned to stuff down in order to get other tasks done. A Sadness that manifested in the US after my return from this region as a silent weeping when the Biblical text was read aloud in church. I didn’t realize the Sadness would resurface so quickly. It is not as consuming or instructive as it was last year, but the residue of the emotional impact the brokenness and visible injustice is undeniable.

Patience. Subur. May the Sadness, the confidence, the stories, and the reunions all increase my compassion for life on earth, here and everywhere the cactus bloom.

There is something in my eye now that appears to be a small gnat.  It is a floater, a tiny dark spot that sometimes crosses right in front of my pupil and I can see it. It is not static, but “floats” slowly across different parts of the cornea.

My eye-doctor uncle told me that the body responds to this speck in two different ways. 1. it gets re-absorbed by the body, or 2. it is there for the rest of my life and there is nothing I can do about it.

As it turns out, what I am seeing is not the speck itself, it is actually the shadow of the speck (which is debris that is caught in the eye somewhere and the light I am perceiving elsewhere reflects on it).  Fascinating.

My uncle and I agreed, “at least it’s not a log!” I smiled and said the log is in my right eye!  This is from the Biblical passage about the ease of judging others when introspection of one’s self is what is needed. In the Jesus’ ethics manifesto (the Sermon on the Mount) at Matthew 7:3 he mentions the ridiculousness of trying to get a speck out of your neighbor’s eye before recognizing that there is a log in your own eye.

So, now when I see my friend the floater I think two things. 1. that my shadow side is out there with my bright side, and it is important to be attentive to both, and 2. that when this gnat-speck blocks my direct vision (which most often happens when I am reading something important on a computer screen or printed sheet) that I have the opportunity to notice the importance of seeing what i want to see from another angle…taking a moment to wait for the gnat’s shadow to pass.

It’s an opportunity for a deep breath, a recognition that I’m getting older and my vessel is mortal, and the invitation to be present with all that is going on in my body as I am externally focused.

This may be the first of many floaters (one of my sheroes Laura has quite a few in her left eye) or it may be the only one that ever exists.  Either way, I’m yet again grateful for this moment of life and little reminders to be introspective, and the eternal dance of light and shadow in this universe.

What I love about May 1st is that it reminds me that I have friends all over the world. Here is a video from Rabbis for Human Rights about the Fiddler with No Roof; a beautiful, gentle exposeé that mourns cycles of violence and invites you to help break the cycle: . One of my friends recently attended a CPT delegation to this area to see “the Bedouin experience of being pushed off 90% of their traditional lands. The Israeli government has put a US Army base on their land and there is intense pressure for the residents of small villages (which closely resemble a Native American reservations) to be further consolidated into Bedouin towns without jobs, infrastructure or room for farming or grazing their sheep and goats.” The delegation visited just outside Be’er Sheva, “a location oft visited by Abraham and his family in the Bible…Abraham was himself a Bedouin [wandering Aramean] who would have a tough time these days in the Naqab,” my friend noted.

and here is a video of one of Watershed Discipleship based activists protecting land and life that they love from destruction. This is worship at it’s best, attentive context and attentive to the life of the world–extending the invitation to live free from petroleum addiction: . Neither of these two videos speak directly to the solidarity among workers worldwide required for deep change in the ways the global population produces and consumes, but both point to the interconnectedness of worker’s struggles with the movements for pluralistic, multi-ethnic societies AND healthy environments in which to live.

As I depart for China, I look at my future with glee and wonder and the bright streamers across my left eye that signal the onset of a low-grade migraine.  I’ll go lay down soon. But, the good news: Doing what I love to do, I will be in approximately one place for approximately one month for the next one year, approximately. What do I love to do? Build partnerships that transform violence and oppression.

I am sure the schedule will shift some, it always does.  I love the changes and the challenges. Sometimes my body feels extra strong during travels. Other times the liver qi stagnation causes a headache and/or stomachache.  When those times happen, I bring to bear wisdom learned in Oakland, California:

Miriam Greenspan writes on the Awakin Oakland blog, “surrendering is the spiritual part of this process” of living deeply. Surrendering to physical pain or suffering is usually the last thing we want to do, but surrender is what brings the unexpected gifts of wisdom, compassion, and courage. Surrendering is about saying yes when we want to say no — the yes of acceptance. This is what really allows the alchemy to happen. We don’t “let go” of emotions; we let go of ego, and the emotions then let go themselves. This is “emotional flow.” When we let the dark emotions flow, something unexpected and unpredictable often occurs. Consciously experienced, the energy of these emotions flows toward healing and harmony. I’ve found that unimpeded grief transforms itself into heightened gratitude; that consciously experiencing fear expands our ability to feel joy; and that being mindful of despair — really entering into the dark night of the soul with the light of awareness — renews and deepens our faith.”

Carry on.                                                                                                                                             

Schedule, you ask?:
April-Canada/China; May-California, USA; June-Chicago, USA; July-Palestine/Israel; August-Spain; September-Virginia; October-South Korea; November-Georgia, USA; December-Midwest, USA; January-Indonesia; February-Aotearoa (New Zealand); March-New York, USA; April-Colombia