Relationships: Meat and potatoes of my return

An Armenian cross stands witness at the Catolicos outside Beirut

THINGS ARE GOING WELL HERE FOR ME. Summer is beginning to dawn on Beirut, with balmy heat and a renewed energy among others and myself. I visited my friends in Bourj Al-Barajne refugee camp last night, who served me this really delicious Palestinian spicy meat and potatoes dish. It was simple but really tasty.

Plus, one of the reasons I decided to return to Beirut, after leaving my old internship, was to spend more quality time building relationships with people here.

I've been so busy since I came back, it was actually the first time I'd visited Kholoud and her family in the camp. But I really want to set that intention, and to be there more often. I'm actually exploring the possibility of moving into one of the camps for the summer, hopefully finding some way of being helpful there. I think it would give me a larger perspective of what it's like to live in those conditions, and be more part of the daily life of friends and family there.

• [ see my recent article published in the United Church Observer ]

Really, it brought me such great joy to be navigating through the winding alleyways, over mud and past some now-familiar stares. I got completely lost twice, because everything looks kind of the same, but it's like I'd never seen it before. So I turned off my brain and just walked with my motor-memory (did you know that rats only have muscle-memory? If you removed the walls of a city, the rats would still follow the remembered path to their food-source, even following the angles of former walls).

My intuition served me well. Or at least, I associated Kholoud with a very tasty food-source!

I don't feel at all scared there any more. Sure, it seemed bleaker in the winter. But I think I now have the assurance that someone is looking out for me at all moments. I mean, some people are looking out for me, because I know, from feeling it, that God is present in those camps strongly. I know God's prejudice for the poor and destitute, and the way in which the very-loud call-to-prayer from the Mosque has a calming influence that sustains a lot of people despite deplorable conditions.

It's not a matter of preserving their poverty, as some accuse religion of. Because, really, they have no choice in the matter. Yes, many people are working in Palestinian NGOs, trying to make a change in their living conditions and in the government's hard-hearted policies. Others are putting all their energy into preserving and celebrating the Palestinian culture, all with the view to one day returning to their homeland.

It seems a more and more remote end-result. Yesterday was the 58th anniversary of al-naqb'a, 'the Catastrophe' as it is known in Arabic - the commemoration of the displacement of millions and millions of Palestinians from what became Israel in 1948. When we talk about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Canada, this fact is seldom mentioned (in fact, I wrote a letter for the United Church which mentioned this and they got hate mail, just for saying people were pushed out).

How do a people survive without a homeland, in a culture where the land of your ancestors is as vital as oxygen? It's in your blood. In the end, I don't think the Jewish need for homeland and the Palestinians' same need have to be exclusive.

Either way, the holiday reminds us of the incredible suffering of this modern era, of exoduses and broken dreams. Forcible displacement... On Sunday, I visited a memorial to the 1918 genocide of Armenians in Turkey; I'll post my photos soon, of a chapel with skulls and femurs and other bones of those butchered. But ultimately, although I cried with the weight of history, I felt at peace. The chapel was not grotesque, in-your-face, and it did not victimize the Armenians as I had expected (though they are probably entitled to be).

Central was not the bones, which were partially concealled behind tinted glass; it was the cross and Gospel on the altar, a reminder that the Armenians were one of the earliest churches in the first century AD, and have managed to preserve their culture, their sense of self-respect, and ultimately, their hope and their faith, in spite of everything.

For faith that strong, I pray.

Return to Lebanon

I AM IN LEBANON AGAIN. I'm wiped out from my travels, not to mention being up late visiting my friends here. But it is great to be back. This place is so familiar and comforting to me.

Walking in the street, I get waves and marhaba's (hello) from the Palestinian shopkeeper, friends walking their dog, the cigarette vendor who I drink coffee with from time to time… It feels like this neighbourhood is a small town. I feel at home here, and very glad I chose to come back, even if I am unemployed and unsure of the future.

Here is a story from my airplane flight to Lebanon:

I was on the airplane and had just finished my morning prayers. I discovered on the internet earlier that week that Ched Myers teaches occasionally at an Anglican education centre in Canada. I am working my way through his book Who Will Roll the Stone Away (2004) as a personal study in my coming months in Lebanon.

I've been thinking so much about Ched's (and it seems, an older Anabaptist Christian) idea of 'radical discipleship' – giving all of ourselves to follow God and to learn God's way, even though it calls us to dismantle our own privilege in society, and re-situate ourselves with the oppressed.

I was sitting next to the coolest 29-year old Muslim woman named Rania (the name means 'to grow nearer' in Arabic, she told me). Finishing her Masters in biochemistry, Rania's real passion is for daawa, religious instruction, to youth. She emphasized that proper teaching of the scriptures to youth necessarily means understanding issues and challenges of youth today – from sex to drugs and suicide (I would add racism and injustice, since Arab youth certainly face those) – and meeting them in their lives with compassion and support.

Daawa is not coercive, but rather an invitation to a life sustained by faith. In fact, for Rania, the Qu'ran is not a closed book, but an open one – she chose her mosque because the sheikh (priest) was not 'stuck with his head in a book' but engaged in his community, knew the social and political environment, and lived a life of faith. Yes, in Islam, the book must be the norm and centre of that life, that it does not end at the book but starts there.

What I thought was really amazing was how ready Rania was to discuss our different faiths with openness, respect and authenticity. The subject was raised because by coincidence we both happened to be doing morning prayers at the same time (well, it was morning – so not much of a coincidence, really).

Me, from my Anglican book of daily prayer, her from a Sunni prayer book (when comparing them, we saw they shared specific prayers for traveling and eating, and many occasions). Then we both whipped out our prayer and rosary beads at the same time. It was like synchronized interfaith.

One thing we discussed was grace. We both agreed (to my surprise) that in both of our faiths very strongly emphasized God's grace, such that our own efforts are not enough to earn or lose God's love for all of us. And that our efforts for justice and peace can then become love-offerings as opposed to desperate attempts to earn the love of others or God. I guess I had thought that Islam was much more rules-based, and therefore one needed to do x-y-z to earn salvation and paradise. But in fact, religious moderates emphasize that God is so much more than us that we cannot know who God will save.

By this line of thinking, we do need to live more ethical and just lives, but not as a prerequisite for love; to fight, when necessary, to defend the poor and oppressed (jihad); but ultimately, to know that Divine Love is infinite, unmeasurable and available to anyone God chooses, even if they are not devout or perfect or pure.

Turning towards God, repenting ('turning around'), and seeking forgiveness – these are sacred, especially after a life of oppressing others. What is gained is greater than being so scared to oppress that one hides in one's home and doesn't risk being in the world. Repenting for our part in injustice is more holy than living perfectly by being overly pious.

Anyway, another commonality between Rania and I is that we both feel drawn into intentional community. In fact, I had just left the Catholic Worker, where about 40 people live in a block of housing; the Workers have meetings, share their earnings to maintain the community, and try to live in prayer and solidarity.

An angel watches over the Toronto Catholic Workers newly sprouted plants for their community garden [photo: David Ball]

Rania had just left a community of seven young Muslim women in Toronto, each from a different country and culture (Indonesia, Lebanon, Pakistan, U.S.A./Mexico, Morocco, and others). They share food, prayer and support each other as they live. They live in accountability to each other, so that they can keep strong in their faith as they live in what Rania described as a materialist and objectifying culture.

I was excited to share community house stories, to be praying with her, and to remember just how important community and dialogue is in transforming our culture(s) and living lives of radical discipleship.

[a new prayer request:

Who: David and Hye-Ran Kim-Craig; and Korean students injured on Good Friday

Where: South Korea

I heard this from David and Hye-Ran Kim-Craig, serving the church in South Korea: On Good Friday a car killed a student and seriously injured others on their campus, where they teach. The driver had no license, and the car rolled into an amphiteatre outside where a whole class was studying in the sun, plowing through the class. Please pray for the seriously injured (& traumatized) students; for the families of the one young woman killed; and for the Kim-Craig's as they cope with witnessing this tragedy and supporting those suffering.]