Trip to Israel 2016 - Nov. 16-27, 2016
Pastor Tim Phillips and Rabbi Olivier BenHaim are leading a trip to Israel organized by Bet Alef Meditative Synagogue. Here are some pictures and thoughts from our intrepid travelers.
Nov. 27 - On the way home...
Our intrepid travelers sent these pictures of the last couple days of their tour of Israel, and of the trip home. They visited Bethlehem and Jerusalem before boarding their flights home. Thank you to Linda Zaugg and Patrick Green for these photos.
Nov. 25 - Pastor Tim Phillips the day after Thanksgiving
"When he had given thanks, he blessed the bread and broke it and said, 'This is my body broken for you, do this remembering me.'" I Corinthians 11.24
What a Thanksgiving day we had. We spent the morning at the Western Wall, the only remaining structure of Herod's Temple that Jesus would have known. We headed from there to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial, and felt dazed and disoriented. Back on the bus we headed to the home of an Arab Muslim who hosted us for dinner in her home.
In the couple hours between Yad Vashem and dinner, Rabbi Olivier and I tried to figure out how to go from each of these places in some spirit of Thanksgiving. It reminded me of the text we use for Communion and that last meal Jesus shared with his friends as together they faced the nightmare of the human capacity for inhumanity.
Jesus and his friends shared that meal in a borrowed room. Someone had to welcome them just as we were being welcomed. I remembered the stories from the museum about how the commitment to dangerous hospitality meant that some Christians saved the lives of their Jewish neighbors by welcoming them into their homes during the nightmare of Nazi Europe.
I watched as our hosts, with their own stories of pain and brokenness, welcomed us with more food than any of us could eat. Their welcome was effusive and our spirits lifted. Laughter was as abundant as the food - not because we had forgotten those horrible images of earlier in the day but because we knew something more clearly perhaps about the price and the possibility of risking hospitality.
Tomorrow we are off to Bethlehem where a family found themselves in need of some welcome and the story says that there was no room for them in the inn. It's the story we are about to celebrate as the promise of Emmanuel - God with us; God with us in the need for and the extension of welcome.
We missed our families and all of you yesterday. But I'm guessing we will never forget this Thanksgiving and the price and the possibility of risky hospitality.
What a Thanksgiving day we had. We spent the morning at the Western Wall, the only remaining structure of Herod's Temple that Jesus would have known. We headed from there to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial, and felt dazed and disoriented. Back on the bus we headed to the home of an Arab Muslim who hosted us for dinner in her home.
In the couple hours between Yad Vashem and dinner, Rabbi Olivier and I tried to figure out how to go from each of these places in some spirit of Thanksgiving. It reminded me of the text we use for Communion and that last meal Jesus shared with his friends as together they faced the nightmare of the human capacity for inhumanity.
Jesus and his friends shared that meal in a borrowed room. Someone had to welcome them just as we were being welcomed. I remembered the stories from the museum about how the commitment to dangerous hospitality meant that some Christians saved the lives of their Jewish neighbors by welcoming them into their homes during the nightmare of Nazi Europe.
I watched as our hosts, with their own stories of pain and brokenness, welcomed us with more food than any of us could eat. Their welcome was effusive and our spirits lifted. Laughter was as abundant as the food - not because we had forgotten those horrible images of earlier in the day but because we knew something more clearly perhaps about the price and the possibility of risking hospitality.
Tomorrow we are off to Bethlehem where a family found themselves in need of some welcome and the story says that there was no room for them in the inn. It's the story we are about to celebrate as the promise of Emmanuel - God with us; God with us in the need for and the extension of welcome.
We missed our families and all of you yesterday. But I'm guessing we will never forget this Thanksgiving and the price and the possibility of risky hospitality.
Nov. 23 - Photos from Patrick Green and Linda Zaugg
These photos are from the Garden of Gethsemane and Masada.
Nov. 20 - Photos from Linda Zaugg
Linda Zaugg posted these photos on Facebook: Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth, the site of the Sermon on the Mount, a visit to a bilingual school, the intrepid trip leaders.
Nov. 19 - The Messy Spirituality of the Holy Land
By Pastor Tim Phillips
I know that Patrick has written about our trip to the beautiful Baha'i Gardens in Haifa. That was two days ago. Two days? Really?
Since then we have visited the beautiful Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth, had Shabbat dinner at a lovely kibbutz, had breakfast on the banks of the Sea of Galilee (and read the story in John's gospel about Peter being grilled along with the fish: "Peter, do you love me?"), and read the words of the Sermon on the Mount at, well, the Mount of the Beatitudes.
It has been a wonderful whirlwind of sites and sounds, of winding roads and crazy traffic, of international gatherings and clashing nationalities. There will be more of that to come.
So I keep being drawn back to the gardens of the Baha'i - the symmetry, the beauty, the flower beds manicured within an inch of their lives. And I wonder just how much being drawn back to that experience is really an attempt to escape from a world and a world's spirituality that is asymmetrical, sometimes ugly, and messy. With all the great things we have done, nonetheless my senses feel a little assaulted by an overload of complex relationships, ideas, and practices.
Perhaps the Baha'i have it right and spirituality is a respite from all that. It's a garden where we can get our lives and maybe even our world back in some kind of order again. Perhaps the life of the spirit is the harmony of a well-tended garden and the vision of a world at peace.
Perhaps. But the experience of these two days since the visit to Haifa leaves me with the suspicion that we, like Adam and Eve, have left the garden - or been forced out of it - and the best we can do now is to recognize the messes we have made and try to be open to a Spirit that blows things around and turns things upside down.
Don't get me wrong. I loved the garden. I was inspired by it. But I'm also struck by how little it represents the messy, un-manicured way the Spirit seems to show up - like the moment a young man asked me, on a hike to a 4,000 year old ruin why it is that science and religion don't get along. "That's complicated," I said and realized then that an honest response was going to take something more than straight lines and symmetrical arguments. It takes making things messy and leaving the question open to the kind of disorder that can plant the seeds of some new awareness.
I still love the garden and we are headed to another rising out of the desert in a day or so. I'm looking forward to that one too but I'm guessing I will be even more aware by then just how messy the life of the spirit can be.
I know that Patrick has written about our trip to the beautiful Baha'i Gardens in Haifa. That was two days ago. Two days? Really?
Since then we have visited the beautiful Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth, had Shabbat dinner at a lovely kibbutz, had breakfast on the banks of the Sea of Galilee (and read the story in John's gospel about Peter being grilled along with the fish: "Peter, do you love me?"), and read the words of the Sermon on the Mount at, well, the Mount of the Beatitudes.
It has been a wonderful whirlwind of sites and sounds, of winding roads and crazy traffic, of international gatherings and clashing nationalities. There will be more of that to come.
So I keep being drawn back to the gardens of the Baha'i - the symmetry, the beauty, the flower beds manicured within an inch of their lives. And I wonder just how much being drawn back to that experience is really an attempt to escape from a world and a world's spirituality that is asymmetrical, sometimes ugly, and messy. With all the great things we have done, nonetheless my senses feel a little assaulted by an overload of complex relationships, ideas, and practices.
Perhaps the Baha'i have it right and spirituality is a respite from all that. It's a garden where we can get our lives and maybe even our world back in some kind of order again. Perhaps the life of the spirit is the harmony of a well-tended garden and the vision of a world at peace.
Perhaps. But the experience of these two days since the visit to Haifa leaves me with the suspicion that we, like Adam and Eve, have left the garden - or been forced out of it - and the best we can do now is to recognize the messes we have made and try to be open to a Spirit that blows things around and turns things upside down.
Don't get me wrong. I loved the garden. I was inspired by it. But I'm also struck by how little it represents the messy, un-manicured way the Spirit seems to show up - like the moment a young man asked me, on a hike to a 4,000 year old ruin why it is that science and religion don't get along. "That's complicated," I said and realized then that an honest response was going to take something more than straight lines and symmetrical arguments. It takes making things messy and leaving the question open to the kind of disorder that can plant the seeds of some new awareness.
I still love the garden and we are headed to another rising out of the desert in a day or so. I'm looking forward to that one too but I'm guessing I will be even more aware by then just how messy the life of the spirit can be.
Nov. 18 - A Garden of Peace
Bahá’i World Centre, Haifa, Israel
By Patrick Green - in Haifa, Israel
I borrowed a camera for the trip from Jim Segaar, mine is lost, lent or hiding away in the last place I will look. It was very kind of him and a great gift. The perfect gift because if I am going to really see Israel and Palestine I may need a new lens and a new point of view.
In the past week, like many of us, I cannot seem to help looking at everything through the lens of the election results and my mind and heart are spinning.
Today I found a bit of peace and an oasis from some of the noise, not because it was shut out or ignored, but because it was replaced with a different message and a different lens with which to see the possibilities. This morning we visited the Terraces of the Bahá'í Faith, also known as the Hanging Gardens of Haifa, around the Shrine of the Báb on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel.
It is a beautiful and peaceful place. I knew little of the Baha'i faith and a quick Wiki-lesson should not be the grounds for interfaith understanding, but from our guide and some readings I caught a glimpse.
In 1985 there was a letter released by the Universal House of Justice of the Baha'i to the world in general that stated:
The Great Peace towards which people of goodwill throughout the centuries have inclined their hearts, of which seers and poets for countless generations have expressed their vision, and for which from age to age the sacred scriptures of mankind have constantly held the promise, is now at long last within the reach of the nations. For the first time in history it is possible for everyone to view the entire planet, with all its myriad diversified peoples, in one perspective. World peace is not only possible but inevitable.
There are social principles with which this peace is associated like equality of men and women; the abolition of the extremes of wealth and poverty and all forms of prejudice. The list is much longer but these alone make me wonder about the backlash we are experiencing: a rejection of Peace because there is power and wealth to be had in a world without it.
Even with this stark and terrifying conclusion I see a glimmer of hope in the last line of the Peace statement, "World peace is not only possible but inevitable."
I remember a line from one of my late 70's self help books that said "what you resist you become". It is the idea that the simple act of resisting acknowledges that you are moving closer to that thing.
Today, through the lens borrowed from the Baha'i faith tradition I allowed myself to wonder, is the reaction to change and fear that some are exploiting signaling the inevitability of peace? Perhaps it is ironic to be seeking an understanding of the long arch of justice in a land that has witnessed so much unrest but walking these gardens gave me hope.
I borrowed a camera for the trip from Jim Segaar, mine is lost, lent or hiding away in the last place I will look. It was very kind of him and a great gift. The perfect gift because if I am going to really see Israel and Palestine I may need a new lens and a new point of view.
In the past week, like many of us, I cannot seem to help looking at everything through the lens of the election results and my mind and heart are spinning.
Today I found a bit of peace and an oasis from some of the noise, not because it was shut out or ignored, but because it was replaced with a different message and a different lens with which to see the possibilities. This morning we visited the Terraces of the Bahá'í Faith, also known as the Hanging Gardens of Haifa, around the Shrine of the Báb on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel.
It is a beautiful and peaceful place. I knew little of the Baha'i faith and a quick Wiki-lesson should not be the grounds for interfaith understanding, but from our guide and some readings I caught a glimpse.
In 1985 there was a letter released by the Universal House of Justice of the Baha'i to the world in general that stated:
The Great Peace towards which people of goodwill throughout the centuries have inclined their hearts, of which seers and poets for countless generations have expressed their vision, and for which from age to age the sacred scriptures of mankind have constantly held the promise, is now at long last within the reach of the nations. For the first time in history it is possible for everyone to view the entire planet, with all its myriad diversified peoples, in one perspective. World peace is not only possible but inevitable.
There are social principles with which this peace is associated like equality of men and women; the abolition of the extremes of wealth and poverty and all forms of prejudice. The list is much longer but these alone make me wonder about the backlash we are experiencing: a rejection of Peace because there is power and wealth to be had in a world without it.
Even with this stark and terrifying conclusion I see a glimmer of hope in the last line of the Peace statement, "World peace is not only possible but inevitable."
I remember a line from one of my late 70's self help books that said "what you resist you become". It is the idea that the simple act of resisting acknowledges that you are moving closer to that thing.
Today, through the lens borrowed from the Baha'i faith tradition I allowed myself to wonder, is the reaction to change and fear that some are exploiting signaling the inevitability of peace? Perhaps it is ironic to be seeking an understanding of the long arch of justice in a land that has witnessed so much unrest but walking these gardens gave me hope.
Nov. 16
Patrick Green shared these photos and the following thoughts:
Packing for our trip to Israel was a bit of an ordeal. We wanted to pack light and make that part of the trip easy. This is a foreign concept to me, more foreign than the shekel exchange rate or the rental SIM card for my phone. Usually packing light means just four pair of shoes and no hat box so this does not come easy. But after much sorting and many bold decisions it all fit into one very small carry on bag. There is even some space to fill with treasures from my journey. We are on our way.
The airport is a lot of hurry up and wait. In the down moments I'm scrolling through Facebook and checking out news apps and I become aware that amidst the feelings of excitement and anticipation there are other feelings: dread, disbelief, anger and fear. The post election tightness in my chest is heavy. I am still carrying a lot of baggage.
I can't just get rid of it, it is in me and there's no denying that I'm feeling a lot right now. The good news is that with some attention I believe it is possible to sort and decide what I need as we go along on this journey. The anger will be there when I need it, there will be times when anger and outrage are what is called for, but for now I am storing it with the shoes and hat box. It's just too heavy to carry all of this at once.
I also decided to pack light on social media and limit my access, It will be there when I get home. For now I just need a little extra space to fill with treasures from my journey.
Packing for our trip to Israel was a bit of an ordeal. We wanted to pack light and make that part of the trip easy. This is a foreign concept to me, more foreign than the shekel exchange rate or the rental SIM card for my phone. Usually packing light means just four pair of shoes and no hat box so this does not come easy. But after much sorting and many bold decisions it all fit into one very small carry on bag. There is even some space to fill with treasures from my journey. We are on our way.
The airport is a lot of hurry up and wait. In the down moments I'm scrolling through Facebook and checking out news apps and I become aware that amidst the feelings of excitement and anticipation there are other feelings: dread, disbelief, anger and fear. The post election tightness in my chest is heavy. I am still carrying a lot of baggage.
I can't just get rid of it, it is in me and there's no denying that I'm feeling a lot right now. The good news is that with some attention I believe it is possible to sort and decide what I need as we go along on this journey. The anger will be there when I need it, there will be times when anger and outrage are what is called for, but for now I am storing it with the shoes and hat box. It's just too heavy to carry all of this at once.
I also decided to pack light on social media and limit my access, It will be there when I get home. For now I just need a little extra space to fill with treasures from my journey.
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From Linda Zaugg:
This from a tour photos of a tour of new Chemnitz soccer stadium. "Very modern and impressive." |
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