quarters

Today we went to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial. And once again, I heard the story of Janusz Korczak. It's a story worth telling over and over, so here are my thoughts from the first time I visited Israel:

I woke up last night at 2:45, and for some reason, there in the darkness, I thought of Janusz Korczak. You're wondering: who is Janusz Korczak? Well, in my opinion he's about as close to a hero as you're ever going to find, humanly speaking. Janusz was a champion of children, an educator and writer, and the director of an orphanage in the Warsaw ghetto in Nazi Germany. During that horrendous period, thousands of Jews were forced to live in unimaginable conditions in the walled and guarded ghetto; when they realized they were being rounded up and sent to their deaths, they hid their children. Janusz took in as many of them as he could find and cared for them until the Nazis caught wind of his rescue. They paid a visit to the orphanage and demanded that Janusz hand over all those Jewish children; when he refused, they barreled past him and grabbed the children anyway. As the soldiers marched the startled group out of the orphanage, Janusz joined them.

It's possible the children never knew they were headed to their deaths. Witnesses said that Janusz led them in songs, played games with them and kept them happy all during the long train ride. And when they arrived at the Treblinka death camp, and stood in line to the gas chamber, they held hands and walked with dignity. And Janusz perished with them.

I learned of this hero while visiting Yad Vashem, the Jewish Holocaust Memorial, in Israel this past October. After I took this picture of his statue, I stared at those wide, embracing arms and the look of pained and patient compassion, and I thought, I want to be like Janusz Korczak.

I think most of us would like to be like Janusz. Deep at heart, we all wish we could face a moment like that--a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to pour ourselves out on one last grand act; to make our life count toward something profound and weighty.

I once heard a story in which God gives a man ten thousand dollars and asks him to use it for His glory. The man accepts the money and says, "Yes, Lord! I'll find some spectacular way to use what You've entrusted to me--I'll spend it all at once, in one stunning, dramatic display that will make people look up at You in awe and wonder." But God stops the man. "I don't want one act from you," He says. "I want a lifetime of service. I want you to spend that money one quarter at a time."

The one glorious act would be far, far easier. Because I don't like--we don't like--to spend our quarters in secret places. Nor do we like to spend our quarters on people we don't deem worthy--people like the woman who rushes to take the parking space you waited for, pretending to not see your blinker. People like rude neighbors, and crabby relatives, and ungrateful strangers who don't seem to notice you slowed down so they could shove their cart in front of yours. We want to horde our quarters, then, and wait for a worthy spending spree. But God asks something different of us.

Oh, God, if it's true that the Christian life is lived one quarter at a time, I need Your help. Teach me to spend in a way that pleases You, and help me hold my quarters with an open hand. Give me the grace to spend freely. And if it's Your will, let me have enough left at the end of my life that I might still give You one last, spectacular gift.

one

I fell in love with Israel during our first trip in 2004. If you've been, you understand. If you haven't, I don't have words to get you there, and I'm sorry about that. The tears came as I glanced across the aisle and out one of those impossibly small windows, and caught a glimpse of land. When the door opened and I drew in my first lungful of Holy Land air, I wondered if I'd been holding my breath my entire life. My soul felt that I'd brought it home, and fought with me every step of the trip, knowing I planned to wrench it away soon.

Maybe that's why the side trip to Jordan felt painful. We would only be gone two days, but I wasn't ready to leave Israel. And Jordan itself seemed a dark place. It's 95% Muslim, and the remaining 5% who are Christians understand that to share their good news would mean losing their life.

Fear is the only thing you're permitted to bring across the border with you. Eventually you're reunited with your passport, luggage, and tour bus--along with a strange (to you) driver and guide. But for a short span, it's just you and your fear walking through customs.

We stopped at a "restroom" just inside the Jordanian border, and I saw the only native woman I would see over the next four hours. She squatted in a corner of the room, watching those of us who had come in to use the "facilities" (barely a hole in the ground ... and no paper) and motioning toward a can on the floor for us to drop our shekels into. Her eyes were sad, and guarded.

As we drove through the border town toward a highway, we passed hundreds of men on the streets. Some sat in chairs in front of shops. Many worked on cars in what seemed an endless offering of auto shops. And interspersed between these mechanics were, oddly, men tossing pitas in the air. In fact, if there was a rhythm to the view outside my bus window, it was, Mechanic, mechanic, mechanic, pita man. Mechanic, mechanic, mechanic, pita man . . .

Our destination was Petra. I'll write about that another time. For now, let me say that it's one of the most beautiful, awe-inspiring places you could hope to see. It's filled with color and texture and noise, and a wide cast of characters for whom Petra is their backyard. I suspect those Jordanian bedouins see no romance there--only the foreigners whose pockets conceal shekels and dollars. I loved Petra, perhaps as much for its future possibilities (as refuge for the Jews during the Great Tribulation) as for its current beauty.

But I didn't know any of that as our bus took us farther and farther from Israel. I didn't know anything at all except that I'd left a place where I felt at home and ventured into a place where I felt unwelcome. As the sun set and lights began to appear in the Muslim homes we passed, a dark sky crept over our bus. The moon rose, but it seemed a foreign moon. And though my husband sat next to me, and my friend Denise sat across the aisle, my heart felt disconnected and alone.

Right in the middle of those thoughts, God brought music. The human hands that strummed those guitars belonged to two men from Calvary Chapel Oceanside, but I know who inspired the worship. We sang, and the darkness overhead felt less foreign, less stifling. Outside my window, I saw the beauty of the moon as it bathed those roadside roofs.

Song after song, we worshiped. God walked the aisle of the bus, and we felt His touch. But even in that pocket of adoration, I still found room for a melancholy thought. My heart turned toward home, and all those I loved who were so far away--and feeling further away with every mile. But God again intervened. Look at the time, He suggested. And I did. And then I did the math, and drew in a startled breath.

"Dave!" I whispered. "It's 9:30 back home ... on Sunday morning."

He smiled. And as we continued singing praises to God on a strange road in Jordan, our hearts felt the rise and swell of worship across the world as our church family in Marysville stood together, looked up, and entered into God's presence ... with us.

longing

Cora didn't want to go to Israel at first. She didn't quite see what all the fuss was about. I told her, "Cora, Chris is going ... and if he goes without you, you're going to miss out on sharing something wonderful. He'll try, but he'll never be able to fully describe what it means to him." In the end, she relented, but I could tell her heart wasn't in it.

And then it was. Somewhere between, "All right. I'll go." and the morning we piled our bags in the church van and headed to Sea Tac airport, Cora's heart began to burn for a land she'd never seen. Her excitement grew during the trip from Seattle to Atlanta, and during the short layover there, and all through the long flight to Tel Aviv. In the darkest hour of our flight, when our legs ached from inactivity and we found ourselves rising and stretching and congregating back in the steward's section (where we met a believing, Messianic attendant named Marwin), Cora's desire fought its way past her exhaustion and shone in her eyes.

She told me later that the tears first came when she saw on the screen that we'd crossed the Mediterranean, and she looked out her window and caught her first glimpse of the Holy Land.

She didn't stop there. Cora cried at nearly every stop along our trip. She became my blessing. My friend, who had been so reluctant, so unconvinced, so complacent about this journey, now drew it in as though it were breath.

Sometimes, now, Cora and I will look at each other across the room, and smile. And I can see in her eyes that she's thinking of Israel. She can see I'm right there with her.

I long for that land. As our friend, Dave Perkins, says, "Once you get that sand in your sandals, you can never get it out." I can feel the sand even now, and I'm counting the days until our next trip.

I've a longing for another place, too. In unlooked-for moments, my heart responds to a sound my ears miss. I turn and look up past the clouds, and I know where I belong. And someday, I'll leave this place, where all is weight and worry and regret. Someday, I'll cross that wide sea and catch my first glimpse of the One I long for most. And though I've read there's no crying there, I've a feeling that when I hold those hands for the first time and I see for myself the love written in His wounds, I'll wash them in my tears.

home again

We've been home for a week now. I realize that makes me late in posting, but I've spent this week trying to convince my body that we've swapped time zones. I can now say that I'm an expert at recognizing the difference between 2 a.m. moonlight and 4 a.m. moonlight, and the shadows each casts on my backyard landscape. When morning comes, I'm lucky if I can match my socks. During daylight hours, I feel successful if I can string appropriate sentence parts in the correct order, or remember my full name, or keep my car between the lines on my way into town. So blogging has had to wait.

I came home with a pocketful of shekels and a head full of memories. There's much to share. So much, in fact, that it's daunting. With all those memories clamoring for release, how do you choose? I want to tell you about our dinner with our friends, and about the children we saw in the Old City, and about the beauty of Caesarea. I want to tell you what it feels like to wade in the Mediterranean, and the Jordan, and Gideon's Spring. I want to tell you dozens and dozens of things, but I'm so rich with material that I feel paralyzed.

I think I'll start by comparing this trip with our last. The first time we went to this amazing country, we (we being Dave, me, and Denise, a close friend from church who had gone through a devastating loss and needed to put her thoughts on something beautiful) joined a group from Calvary Chapel Oceanside. We were three in a sea of 45 strangers. They didn't stay strangers long, mind you, but there at the beginning, we were a quiet threesome. Everything we saw was brand new to our collective six eyes, so there was no "Oh, you're going to love this!" or "Just wait till we get to such and such!"

This trip, however, was littered with those phrases. For me, the joy of this trip was standing at the doorway to the hippodome at Caesarea and watching as one by one, my beloved church family turned the corner and stared at the long row of beach-hugging ruins. Their gasps filled me with delight, for I knew the emotions accelerating their heartbeats. I couldn't help but clap with anticipation when we pulled down the driveway of our first kibbutz, and I knew they'd soon be standing on the shores of the Galilee. When they waded into the Jordan for their baptisms, I could feel the coolness of the water from my perch on the rocks above, where I waited with a collection of cameras. When I cried at the garden tomb this time, it was because of their tears.

There's something wonderful about having traversed a path and then getting to watch others maneuver the same trail. It's one of the great joys of aging, actually. I don't know why our culture fights it so. To look back and remember, and spur on those who come after you, is a reward, a bonus, a satisfaction that can't be earned any other way. You have to walk those steps first to understand how they feel under another's foot. You have to climb that mountain to remember the ache in another's body. And you have to scan the valley yourself to really know the awe another climber experiences when he or she drinks in their first glimpse.

What an adventure we're all on ... and how good it is to turn to one another now and then, and grin in shared delight.

* * *
Photo taken at En Gedi. Shown: Dave, me, and my sister, Tarri

netanya

The word--when it happens to cross my mind--always conjures the face of our friends, Hananya and Devorah, and the notion of hospitality. That's because Netanya was the first stop on our tour of Israel, and the first thing we saw, upon opening the double doors of our hotel, was an offering of juice: a half dozen trays of orange, grapefruit, and pineapple juice. I chose grapefruit (I always do), and as I sipped the slightly foreign concoction, I tried to make myself believe I was really standing in an Israeli hotel.

Hananya and Devorah live in Netanya. We met them in line at LAX and formed an instant connection, one that deepened during our conversations in Toronto and at Ben Gurien airport, and bloomed altogether at the end of our trip, when they drove from Netanya to our hotel in Jerusalem and swooped us up for a dinner of falafel and hummus in their favorite restaurant in the Arab section of town. Over that meal, we shared Jesus with them. If I live to be a hundred, I will never experience a higher privilege than what I was given during those three hours--the chance to tell my Jewish friends how much they are loved by my Jewish Savior.

This morning, I am grieving the violence that occurred in a market in Netanya. For three weeks now, I've been feeling an urgency to pray for Hananya and Devorah, and every time I stop to pray, I find myself praying for their safety. I am praying this morning that they were elsewhere when that young, smiling Palestinian blew himself up. I am praying that Devorah found no need to visit the market at that hour; that Hananya was safe in his office; that their son Yonathan was ensconsed in a classroom.

And I am wishing for peace for my friends--and the land that I love like my own.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: "May they prosper who love you. Peace be within your walls, prosperity within your palaces." For the sake of my brethren and companions, I will now say, "Peace be within you." Because of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good. --Psalm 122:6-9

prodigal

During our trip to Israel last year, we went twice to visit the Western Wall. Sometimes, I'm there still--standing among a sea of faithful Jewish women, watching them read and mouth noiseless verses from the small books in their hands and bow to the wall and search for crevices between the stones in which to tuck their secret prayers. I can feel the still-potent heat of the dwindling sun and hear the chants of the men on the other side of the dividing wall. Where the women whisper, the men exclaim. I feel the swing of my body as I step on an empty chair and raise myself to peek over that divider; can feel again the weight of devotion as those kippah-wearing men pray and bob and dance in exuberant, hand-on-shoulder circles.

I love Israel. I left part of myself there.

The heat, at times, was overwhelming to this Pacific Northwest girl. Though I obeyed the strict dress code and draped a shawl over my tank top (no bare arms in the holy places), on one occasion I let the edges slip about two inches to allow the heat from my shoulders to dissipate. In less than a minute, an Israeli policewoman approached me and, in a tone that was polite but unwavering, instructed that I raise my shawl again. I complied ... and baked.

Though we were permitted to wear dresses or capris past our knees, the men were forbidden to show even an inch of their legs. No shorts for them.

That trip broadened my understanding of the Scriptures like nothing else could. Now, when I read, I can see Jesus resting and talking with His disciples in Caesarea Phillipi. I can taste the water Gideon scooped from the stream. I can feel the stones beneath the feet of the onlookers as they wait on the Via Delarosa for a glimpse of the condemned Man and His cross.

But this thing about the Jewish aversion to the bare male leg captured my attention and opened my eyes to the story of the Prodigal son in a vivid, powerful way.

I'm sure you know the story. A son, growing impatient with the crawl of time, tried to hurry the inevitable. "Give me my inheritance now," he insisted to his father. I've actually read that to the Jewish mind, the unmistakeable meaning behind this request was, "I wish you were already dead, Father." The pain began here. Or perhaps it began much earlier, as the father watched his son's growing restlessness and realized he'd soon lose him.

Though he could have denied the request, he didn't. Instead, he gave his child the asked-for portion and then watched as his son disappeared over the hill. He didn't know of the wild living that happened around that blind corner. He didn't know of the speed with which his son spent his inheritance. But his thoughts were never far from his boy, and his eyes kept a vigil on the spot where he last saw his prodigal.

When the boy hit rock bottom and found himself hungry, broke, and salivating over pig slop, he woke from his self-focused trance. "What am I doing here?" he asked himself. His thoughts drifted home. He longed for the security he'd once known and he realized, in a moment of clarity, that his father was a good and loving man. "Even my father's servants live better than I'm living. Maybe ... maybe he'll let me come home and be his servant."

He turned and took that first step. There must always be a first step, but that's the hardest. The next comes easier, and the next, and like the tumbling of a rock down a mountainside, momentum soon takes over. I don't believe the Prodigal stopped running until he mounted that final hill before home. I think he hesitated for a moment there, practicing one last time the plea he'd make to his father: "I know I've lost the right to be your son. Let me serve you instead."

But something happened as he stood on that hill: he was seen. He was seen by the eyes that had watched for him every day since his departure. And when his father saw the one his heart ached for, he did something no decent Jewish man would ever do. He hiked up his robe, tossed dignity to the side, and ran. He ran bare-legged, not caring that the neighbors could see. Not caring that his passion was on display. Not caring that the whole of his world--who all knew the injury he'd suffered at the hands of his uncaring son--could now see forgiveness in motion. He didn't care about anything at all except getting his arms around his lost child. And when he reached his son, and grabbed him and wept on his neck, he ignored the boy's practiced plea. Instead, he raised his head and he raised a cry, "My son, who was dead, is home!" And the feasting began.

I always knew that a big part of the humiliation of crucifixion was that the condemned were naked, or nearly so. But after understanding the story of the Prodigal, I think of those bare legs of Jesus differently. To me, now, those are the legs of my Brother-Savior-Father, who willingly hiked his robe and ran to embrace me. And He runs still. Still today, when I've wandered from home and gone my own way, He watches the hill called repentence, and at the first sign of my head, He hikes those robes again.

My friend just disappeared over that hill. He left everything he'd built with a girl who loves him desperately; left his children, his home, his church family--all for a quest to go out and "be happy."

I can't stop watching the hill. I have no idea what darkness he'll find on the other side. I can't imagine how battle-scarred and soul-weary he'll be when I next see his face, but I do know one thing for certain. When I see him coming, I'm going to run.

Painting, The Prodigal, by Ron DiCianni

empty

Last October, Dave and I went to Israel. I can't even express how much that trip affected me. When I've had sufficient time to process all that I saw and heard and experienced, I'll no doubt write more about it. But today, I'm thinking of the tomb.

Two sites claim to be the burial site of Jesus. The one we didn't see is the source of much conflict. Six or seven churches have established shrines there and each will tell you, vehemently, that their little corner is the exact spot where Jesus died.

We went, instead, to a garden just to one side of a small hill, a hill on which you can see the indentations of a skull if you squint just right. It's not the enormous hill you picture when you imagine those three crosses. It's short enough that hecklers below could easily call up insults. It's short enough that a man nailed and dying could easily look down and see his mother's devastated eyes.

"We think this is Golgotha," our guide said. "Skull Hill." Whether it got that name because of the eye socket-, nose- and mouth-indentations on the side or whether it was because criminals were tossed over the side of that cliff and their bones left in a rotting heap, he didn't know. I shuddered to imagine the fear a condemned man would feel as he looked down on that pile of untouchable shame, knowing his bones would soon join the skeletons of those other sinners below.

When the group ahead of us had finished, we took our turn at the tomb. It felt surreal to walk up to the exact spot (I'm convinced) where they laid Jesus' lifeless body--the same spot where, three days later, the breath came back in his lungs and his fingers twitched and his eyes opened again. I'm still not over the wonder of it.

Our guide gave us some background about this particular tomb. "We know whoever owned this tomb had money. First, the cave contains two slabs. This meant that if there were two deaths in the family, they'd be prepared for both bodies." He told us that when we went inside, we'd notice that one slab had an area carved out for feet; the other did not. That indicated that only one slab had ever been used, and for whatever reason, after that one body had lain inside, they never finished the second slab.

From outside, he pointed to a small window above and to the right of the door. "That's a soul window," he explained, "and that's the second reason we know this tomb belonged to someone wealthy." Bodies were kept in tombs until the flesh rotted away and only bones remained. Those who could afford to do so often had small ventilation windows cut out so the odor of decay could escape.

The window, to me, is proof that this spot is the authentic burial site of Jesus. For we read this in John 20:4-5:

"So they both ran together, and the other disciple outran Peter and came to the tomb first. And he, stooping down and looking in, saw the linen cloths lying there; yet he did not go in."

John outran Peter. He reached the tomb but did not go in. And somehow, filling that small doorway--and blocking the light from outside--he was able to see Jesus' burial cloths lying on the slab.

The door to that tomb has been enlarged over the years. But if it were small enough then for John to have to stoop down to look through, he would have blocked the light from outside. That meant in order to see the slab, there had to be another light source.

When you stand in the doorway of this particular garden tomb, a shaft of light from the "soul window" pierces the darkness of that room and shines directly on that one finished slab.

I didn't cry when I entered that small room and stood and stared down at the empty slab. Instead, I thought, You're not here.

The bones of every prophet, every great teacher, every king and emperor and religious leader throughout history can be found right where they were laid.

But this room is empty. He lives.