Obstacles to peace in the Middle East
No Land, No Space, No View
I shouldn’t assume that people want to hear about Jesus it’s a thoroughly worn and, all too often, a misinterpreted icon. I get it no one wants to hear about the sensation of the spirit tumbling through your metaphysical or the tingling shiver of a soul-filled reformation of the heart it’s too in-your-face, too touchy-feely, too spiritual. Few things are more offensive than to be subjected to religious mumbo-jumbo like Christian tee shirts preaching: “Jesus saved us with a BIG, UGLY stick,” crucifix dominating the shirt face, bleeding crimson from its twisted wooden anatomy who wants to see that? Not me. So I’ll center upon, just thata far more popular, interesting, and rugged subject-me. And the Holy Land-Jesus’ stomping grounds.
I went to the Holy Land at fifteen years old. When I returned, as an adult, I was a different person all together clear minded, culturally educated, and spiritually emancipated. So for this latest trip, I knew that an eighteen hour flight results in limbs periodically slipping into rubbery oblivion; I knew that the hot weather and numerous bottles of drinking water are inevitably paired; I knew that shorts were generally a bad plan and that trying the food, no matter how full you are, is a good idea. But I didn’t know about the walls-the large Berlin-like monument that snakes across a blameless landscape.
Israel looks a lot like southern California; the landscapes are remarkably similar. The hot, rocky terrain makes for a breathtaking desert scenery-dotted with terracing that has been in place for over 2,000 years and olive trees that have twisted out of the ground and produced for over 1,500 years. Beautiful is appropriate.
In the desert, I couldn’t tell you which was hotter, the waves of auburn heat lifting off the stone littered ground, or the deluge of indurate rays beating down from a faceless sun in a cool cloudless sky. There aren’t many trees in the desert just those that found root in the slim canyon along the old roman road. Everything gleams orange and white under the brilliant blue sky. Nothing could live there. It’s dry. It’s dead. Seemingly a world away from the northern Galilean cities (Nazareth and Tiberius), where the countryside is lush-full of pines, olive trees, and eucalyptus; flowers aren’t unseen, and the scarce gray-green grass pokes-out from under every chapped rock.
You learn to love every piece of it like an especially refined hors d’oeuvre
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