Same Old Story

Issa is 40-something.  He has two grown children living in the States and one younger child living here with him and his wife.  The little girl’s name is Miriam (Mary) and Miriam is three.  Issa (Jesus) is a Palestinian Christian living in Bet Hanina, a community just outside of Jerusalem.  Issa works in Jerusalem.  He is a hotel manager.

Every day Issa drives to work.  Every day Issa brings his three-year-old daughter Miriam to the Sisters of Rosary daycare in Jerusalem near where he works.  Every day Issa has to drive through a checkpoint to get to his work, and to get Miriam to daycare.  Every day Miriam watches as soldiers check her father’s “permit” to determine whether or not he is allowed to go from Bet Hanina to Jerusalem, both cities in the country of his birth.  Every day Issa bites his tongue as the young soldiers impassively ask him questions, the same questions they asked him yesterday and the day before and the day before that – every day.  They stand staring at his everything-in-order papers as if pondering whether or not to let him go through and on to work.  They do this every day.  And then, with the all powerful wag of the head, almost imperceptible unless you know the game – this, the ultimate insult, the flaunting of absolute power – these 18 and 19-year-old Israeli youth, either send father and daughter on to Jerusalem, or over to the side of the road for further questioning.

One day, after they had passed through the checkpoint, little three-year-old Miriam said to her father, “Daddy, when do I get my permit?”

“And,” said Issa, “I pulled over to the side of the road and I wept.”

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who were sent to you.  How I long to gather you under my wings like a mother hen gathers her chicks, but you would not!”

In 1948, Issa’s mother was driven from her home.  She was five years old.  Once a week, her 90-year-old father, Issa’s grandfather, drives by this home in Ramla, near Tel Aviv, and he waves the house keys out the window of his car.  Nobody sees him do this, and if they did they would not care, but he does it anyway as a way of reminding God in heaven that this is his home and that he has not forgotten this mostly forgotten fact, and that, by God, he doesn’t think God should forget it either.

I said, “You should let your three-year-old daughter go along with him some day.”

He blinked his eyes at me as he processed this, and then said, “Yeah, maybe I should, maybe I should.  It’s hard to know when to hang on and when to let go.”

I nod my head as if I know what is so hard to know, and maybe I do, and maybe you do too.  Maybe we all know how hard it is to let go, or more to the point, how hard it is to know when to let go and when to hang on for the sake of your children and their children after them.  “Do not forget,” God often told the children of Israel.  “Do not forget that once you were aliens in the land.”

The lunch Sally and I are sharing with Issa is a business lunch at his expense, so when he moves into the business end of it, we move along with him.  Now it is the next day and I’ve just spent a restless night thinking about the players in this ongoing drama of conflict and pain, especially the anguished father and his soon to be anguished daughter.  Oh yes, that’s what’s next for Miriam.  She’ll one day realize what is being done to her father and what this means for her and the children she’ll have and try to raise here.  This day will come and sooner than any of us anticipate.  She’ll have that epiphany moment and she’ll weep then, just as her father weeps now, just as her grandmother wept and her great-grandfather too.

And then what?  What will Miriam do with her pain and disillusion?  Maybe she’ll fight back.  If she did, then what would she be?  Would she be a terrorist?  Maybe she’ll leave the country?  If she did, then what would she be?  Would she be a coward, a traitor, a quitter, an opportunist – like my grandparents from the Netherlands?  Maybe she’ll swallow the hurt and the pain and the disgrace that is every day heaped upon her and those like her.  If she did, then what would she be?  Would she be a loser, a slave, someone a little less than human?

Miriam is a child of God, and no matter what other labels will be stuck to her, or embraced by her, this is her true identity.  If Miriam knows this, then Miriam will do what any child of God does who knows who she/he is: she will survive!  More than that, she will thrive.  Yes, she will.  She will do more than endure, she will transcend.  She will rise above the attempts to belittle her, subjugate her, and humiliate her – even when these attempts are not intentional.  Miriam will be victorious.  In the end, she and others like her, others who know their true identity and who live out of this knowledge, will be the victors in this struggle.  They will know peace, joy, and all the other fruits that grow on trees that are planted in fertile ground and then well watered by careful stewards like Issa for Miriam.

As trite as all of this sounds; it is the deepest of all truth.  Miriam is a child of God, and therefore she deserves to be treated as such, especially by those who call themselves children of God, those charged by God not to forget their own suffering so as not to forget to be a champion for others who suffer.  However, and here is where the truth gets deepest, I think, no matter how Miriam is treated, and no matter how others see her, Miriam is still a child of God.  The truth does not change just because others do not see this truth as true.  This truth is the truth, and what we stewards of young trees are called to do is not forget this truth about ourselves, and then not forget to teach this truth to our children and our children’s children, no matter what the circumstances around us.  Miriam is a child of God.  Issa is a child of God.  The soldiers at the checkpoint are children of God.  Does God favor one child over the other?  Wrong question.  And why are we asking that question at all?  What does God expect from those whom God has graciously invited to join him in the ongoing task of redeeming the world?  Answer this question and all other questions either fall in line or fall away.

“He has showed you, O man, what is good.
       And what does the LORD require of you?
       To act justly and to love mercy
       and to walk humbly with your God”  Micah 6:8.

In this early morning hour, it is the “with your God” phrase that strikes me most fiercely, almost as if God is reaching out a hand and tapping me on the chest.  “With me, son, with me.”  “Pick up your cross and follow,” is what Jesus said.  “Follow!”  I can do that today.  For Miriam’s sake and all the others like her, I can do that today.  I can follow Jesus in truth-telling, and hope-giving acts, and hopefully, I can follow with humility and love.  I can do that, today.  Today.  Just today.  This one day at a time day.  I can.  You can too.  You can.