Rev. Karen reflects on her recent trip to the Holy Land (3)
On Day 5 of our trip our bus broke down. Thanks to quick thinking and acting on the part of our guide we are able to join a tour group of evangelical Christians from Florida who are also headed to the top of Mount Carmel in their (fortunately for us) partially-filled bus.
We tour the top of Mount Carmel as planned, taking in the expansive vista and lush beauty of the Jezreel Valley, feeling our ‘otherness’ as we overhear our new bus-mates speaking in hushed tones about the location as the site of the future ‘battle of Armageddon’. We hitch another ride with these Good Samaritans to our lunch spot where we will be able to meet up with the replacement bus our tour company has been able to arrange for us.
As guests, we sit at the back bus and listen politely as the group’s Jewish tour guide speaks to them in their language: pointing out the surrounding vegetation, quoting scripture, and describing how wasteland is returning to lush fertility under Jewish care.
A couple of days later we visit the Golan Heights. As far as the UN is concerned, this is Syrian territory that Israel has been occupying since the 6-Day War (1967). There are still Syrians who live here. Our tour guide takes us to a lookout at the top of a hill where we see both UN & Israeli soldiers keeping watch. Looking down into the valley, we can see Syria and the ‘no man’s land’ in-between and we can hear artillery shots ringing out from a Syrian city seemingly close enough to touch, only 1-2 km away.
On our way back to the bus, pondering the distressing situation in Syria, we overhear another trip leader speaking to a group of Jewish young people from around the world, whose travel costs are covered by the Israeli government, telling them that this land is their birthright; that the land is at risk; that their service in the Israeli army is needed.
Our Muslim-Palestinian tour guide has ensured that we have visited with Israelis, Israeli settlers, Samaritans, & Palestinians on this trip. We have heard a wide variety of perspectives to inform the stories we will tell about our trip to the Holy Land. I am feeling the weight of my responsibility as one among many storytellers … story holders.
Hundreds of buses tour the Holy Land every year. Each of the people on each of these buses goes home to their own country, their own community, their own family with a story about the people, and the joys & concerns of life in the Holy Land. It seems clear, perhaps here more than anywhere else in the world, that the story of what is and what ought to be happening in the Holy Land is held by a worldwide web. The story of the Holy Land is not simply Israel’s story. I am not quite sure what to do with my new sense that I, that we, that the global community has a responsibility in telling a new story that will help bring about peace and justice in this land.