In some ways, it was fitting that I began this journey to Israel on Father’s Day. Today is 2 years to the day that my dad died. There are so many things I would have loved to show him. But what’s more, there are so many people I wish could have met him. I wish Luke got to meet him. I think they both would have gotten a kick out of each other. I wish I had my own family that got to meet him. And if none of that would happen, I just wish he was here.
Anyone who has lost someone they’ve loved wishes they were here. I am not alone in that. I am not very good at handling it. I feel I can be gracious and helpful when other people suffer loss, but I am a terrible chaplain to myself. I neglect my own wounds and cope in awful ways. I hope to get better, to heal and to live in light and love and hope to see myself in the mirror and remember who I am in Christ.
So much will be different after this trip. It will be the first time I will be back in New Jersey, since the house sold, the seeming last vestige of childhood, a place. Being in Jerusalem I have been both impressed by how much value people place on places. I have seemingly walked streets Jesus walked, gone to historic sites mostly empty of visitors. I’ve stood in the garden tomb on 3 separate occasions alone. I spent an hour in the church at Gethsemane with less than a handful of people the entire time.
As I walk, I recognize how special it is to be here at a strange time. (Everything I do feels like it is at a strange time). I also recognize that my goal of being here was to learn Biblical Hebrew in Jerusalem and that has been a delight. I had a friend tell me I would feel like I am at home here. I can unashamedly say, I do not. I am less impressed by walking in the places that Jesus walked and am exponentially more encouraged and inspired by people I know who walk as Jesus walked, people who live as Christ, free from a multitude of other agendas, walking humbly, acknowledging sin and imperfection, but sincerely trying to love and reconcile. That feels more like home. That is the place I want to be. Those are the steps I want to walk in.
If I have that and don’t get to visit historical sites or sit in the place Jesus raised from the dead I’d be okay. To live a resurrected life is far better than a visit. I yearn for that, I yearn for eternal life with the ones I love.
Today, I prayed for a one eyed kitten (the only kitten of its mother’s litter)as I cried that it had only one eye. I’ve walked and wept over feeling like I don’t know what the answers are to the worlds problems and conflicts as I continue to sort out my own conflicts with the Church and my own enemies. Jerusalem feels like a place where people have enemies.
There are different psychological theories on what makes someone an enemy. Some say we have enemies because of our differences, others that we hate in others what we dislike in ourselves, that the greater the enemy the closer the proximity. The truth is that to develop hatred or anger towards someone does mean we have to interact with them or have interacted with them. Humans are indifferent to those they can avoid or not concern themselves with. It is those who are presences in or around our lives that give us reason for dislike, disruption or outright hate.
I wish I would have spent more time with my dad parsing out his rationale of making light of and inappropriate jokes about everything. I wish I could press him on the question of if he ever felt like he had enemies. I wish I would have asked more philosophical questions of him. I think I wish I could ask those questions of a lot of people. I think I have a lot of deep questions that need time to be massaged and worked out.
How do you deal with having an enemy? How do you let go of hurt and rejection that attaches itself to your identity? How do you move on after failing at work or vocation or calling? How do you let your heart heal when it’s broken? Can you move on in love quickly without repercussions? What is the right way to release people from your life that have proven they care nothing about you? How do you genuinely pray to bless those who curse you or ignore you? I don’t think my dad would have answers to some of these questions.
I don’t know if most people do honestly. I do think these questions are hard wrestles and lots of folks feel better about pushing them to the side. I don’t really allow myself that luxury because I have a harsh memory. I have to reconcile or make sense of things to move on. And when I don’t get an answer forgiveness feels like warfare, a more appropriate kind. Imagine if people fought as hard as they could to forgive as they do to cause harm to others.
I think a lot of those questions need to be asked in Israel but also everywhere. What is keeping us from love? What keeps us remembering? What keeps us from forgetting. I hope it ends up being love.
The Reconstructed 
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