What I'm Reading and What I'm Writing

Oftentimes what we write follows something we have read. A style grips us or a topic begs our response. Lauren Winner's candid honesty in her book, "Girl Meets God," inspires me to grab ahold of my thoughts and make them more honest! To further inspire me, a trusted professor a few weeks ago advised me to sit down and write.... write... write.... Clearly, a lot still needs to get worked through because I continue to unlock treasures from my memories of the almost 5 months I spent in the West Bank this year. Whether I will publish an article from these musings(again something my professor enourages), or they will purely alleviate some "emotional constipation" (a term I coined in South Africa in the discipleship group I led), it is a beneficial process. In addition to my full journal from there, I now have 5 pages, single-spaced, and counting. Most of these begin in the present and then flash-back to days in Birzeit or other locales in the West Bank and Israel.

Here are some excerpts:

• (Arrival) I arrived there with little to no expectations. In fact, I was more excited to come to this place than I ever have anywhere.. I remember when I arrived in Africa.. I had this huge, romantic feeling that it was going to be “different”. It wasn’t. It was just like California, with a lot of black people, and gates.
  This time though, I didn’t really like it. I hated the white buildings, I hated the congestion, I hated how it looked nothing like I wanted it to. I wanted it to be barren, just like in my imagination or in childhood Bible storybooks. Nothing like it. Even though the mountain I looked across was Samuel’s and we were riding UP to Jerusalem. It didn’t make much difference. But I wanted to take it in slowly.

• (Arriving at Living Stones) We arrived at Living Stones and did a cultural taboo. We didn’t eat everything. Whoops. We were tired, and just badly wanted to call home. Boy were we happy to – and we were just happy to say we’d made it – maybe in a prideful way, but kind of in a happy way too.

• (Action) I remember my first night there – Chris and I were whisked to Living Stones and we knew that this was another world. What were we doing there? We could only wait. It turns out, we spent most of those early days sitting around our apartment, watching the Office, trying to rent films that worked, trying to figure out how the internet worked, getting ahead on our homework, and cooking whenever we felt hungry. It was laid back, but it was lonely. And isolating, and not really inviting at all. We saw kids playing with toy guns, and that was disturbing. I somehow had trained myself to expect that, so it didn’t seem quite as traumatizing, however I felt moved to action. Within a couple days, I had Chris and me over to the Catholic school in town to talk to the school principal about something active we could do with the kids. They signed us up for their gym classes with the 10 and 11 year-olds because they had gone through this routine more or less when Steven Bush was there (I think). The gym teacher was used to and was eager to work with volunteers. And he loved that idea. I don’t know if Chris was keen on it, and it might have been an area of tension for us, however we needed to work together on something and get our minds off of whatever was (or wasn’t) going on. It turned out to be hilarious. More of a burden than a joy towards the end – but definitely something that we look back on as a positive contribution to our days, and another good way to get to know the situation there.

• (Gaza) Then we met a neighbor on the way back in the elevator who said she would invite us over for coffee sometime. Wow, this sounds normal! We were getting ready to go out and hike around the town, when I think we received a call that we should meet over at our friends' house because two of our friends there wanted to talk to us. We promptly went and were served coffee – all light-hearted and cheery, like it was a normal Sunday afternoon where we are from.
  Then he entered the room and his face looked ashen. He always looks a little ashen and despondent when he has a migraine or something has happened to the car… but we realized this went a lot deeper than that.
  In his broken English, and in his hopeful tone, he told us that something had happened in Gaza to a member of the Bible Society. That Rami, the guy that ran the bookshop in Gaza was killed, taken from outside the shop as he was closing, held captive, tortured, and was killed. His wife has two little boys and another baby on the way. This was real life. This was the real Christian life coming up from the pages of the books and the Bible. They recommended that Chris and I not go out today on our own, or ever after night, but overall they were saying to just “Take Care.”
  
  Instead that afternoon, we went to Ramallah with Imad, his wife Sahhar, and their little son Saleh (she was also 7 months pregnant with their daughter). It was a great trip, however the ride over there was marred with chilling memories. I think this was our first time in a taxi and it seemed like one great adventure. The road twirls and winds its way down to Ramallah. Peering out the dusty, dirty windows at the people and the markets and small apartment buildings that dotted the landscape was cool.
  
  However we stopped abruptly about halfway on our way to Ramallah. An accident had happened, not blocking the road, but causing quite a ruckus like I’d never seen before. People were swarming everywhere over the yellow taxis that had crashed on their sides like toy cars. People were still coming out of them, and I think I saw a woman wailing, with blood coming out of her forehead.