The Process of Processing

Hi Folks,

First, my apologies: Life has intervened and posting to the site has taken the proverbial backseat.

Since I last posted, I have been busy working with photographs from the trip, to be used in presentations that I am making, around the area. This work has taken considerable time, but it has been the quintessential labor of love, refreshing and enlivening the stories.

Also, many people have been asking me about Gaza. I have to preface my response with the fact that the delegation I was on did not journey to Gaza. It was not part of our plans. Still, the news coming out of Gaza over the past month has been hard to carry...

I remember writing and speaking about truth, early on in this exercise - well before actually going on the delegation. Since that time I have found amongst my books (actually, in an Eco-Theology book) a phrase that has been the starting point of my presentations and a point I tend to return again and again too, throughout my conversations: "I cannot tell you the truth, I can only say what I know." I wonder if this is the place where peace might actually begin; where we stop trying to make things something that they are or stop trying to be the authority on solutions for problems that we really only have a superficial understanding of... I wonder...

If you have time, I've posted some new youtube links in the past few weeks... Dido's video reminded me about the stories of house demolitions... Jann Arden's song connects with the Jonah passage in this week's lectionary readings and resonates with the comment our delegation heard when we visited with Breaking the Silence: When the cost of not having peace exceeds the cost of having peace, then peace might become a possibility... The Guess Who's song Share the Land is obvious, I think... The John Denver video of him singing at a protest was the one I chose after hearing Serena Ryder's version and having all sorts of fun with Pete Seeger and the Weavers on youtube... So, go ahead, have a look and listen; enjoy!

Blessings,
Rob.

The photo was taken by my friend Jen, at the abandoned village of Lifta which today, is situated within the boundaries of Jerusalem.