"Faith is nothing if it's just a label"

Jean Zaru is an amazing woman (see her book, Occupied with Nonviolence: A Palestinian Christian Woman Speaks). She is a woman living and leading in a man’s environment (as head of the Friends’ Meeting, she is the only woman who is a leader of a church, in all of Palestine; and she is a co-VP of Sabeel, with Father Elias Chacour). She is Palestinian, living under but resisting and working against Israeli occupation ("what do you do with problems and inequalities? do you sit and do nothing? faith is nothing if it's just a label - it should lead to resistance - to resist is to be human"). She is a Christian who engages in interfaith relationship, in a predominantly Muslim setting (and acts on the convictions that “All humanity are my brothers and sisters, created in God’s image” and that “The indwelling presence of God is in all people, not just Christians”). And she is a Quaker, one of the smallest groups of Christians in Palestine.

She is living in a context in which women are known in relation – “mother of … (oldest son),” “wife of…,” and now for her, “widow of…”; a context in which women are told not to question, and not to confront men. Her vision is for women and men to be “equal partners” in the work, and for young women to be empowered to know their value and equality in the society.

From her perspective, women need to be “liberated from the inside”; in her experience, “no one call tell me I’m not equal – I feel empowered.” Her life demonstrates that she has experienced this liberation and empowerment, and is working on the basis of an inwardly experienced “equality,” regardless of whether others (e.g., the men around her) acknowledge it.

Her family context seems to have given root to her ability to think and act “outside the box” as she has followed her convictions over the years. In a land in which people hold very tightly to their family religious heritage, and may “disown” those who change religious affiliations (even from one Christian group to another), her family is startling different (does one call this “open-minded”? or are there other dynamics at work?).  Her family background is Orthodox, but things began to change with her parents’ generation.  Her parents became Quaker, she has an Uncle who is Baptist, two Uncles who are Anglican, and two Aunts who became Catholic Nuns). As she puts it, her family is (has become) “very ecumenical.” Her father and her husband both “empowered” her, encouraging her to follow her passions, and to believe that she could do anything. When her husband was dying, he called the family together and encouraged them to support Jean in continuing to follow her convictions.

She is often the only woman present in Muslim-Christian or Christian-Jewish dialogue. She has repeatedly been asked by men over the years, “why do you bother with all these issues? Go home and take care of your children.” But she carries on, energized by her confidence in her identity and calling.

One thing which struck me, as she shared with us, is that she challenges the status quo – be it the pressures against women in leadership in public life, or the injustices of the Israeli occupation – but that she also works within the cultural context that she finds herself in. She shared various ways in which, as a woman, she has to act, to comport herself, so as to have a place at the table, an ability to speak and act and influence others.

Jean Zaru is a person who works for peace on many fronts at once: as a woman, she works to change the prevailing culture surrounding the freedom of women to participate fully in various aspects of life outside the home; as a Christian, she is active in interfaith relationships with Muslims; and as a Palestinian, she relentlessly challenges the Israeli occupation of her people.

“Religion,” Jean said, “can be a problem or a potential for transformation,” and "faith is nothing if it's just a label" (and does not lead to action). It is clear that in her case, faith is a powerful force for personal and social change, and for transformational relationship with others.



(Image: the peace and reconciliation quilt at the Friends Meeting House, Ramallah)

Gandhi and the Dialectic Process of Nonviolence

"I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill. I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent."
-Mohandas Gandhi

I was reading something recently that discussed different ways of knowing truth, or coming to an understanding/decision about what one will believe to be true. The article looked at several different "truth finding" techniques or mediums. One such technique was rhetoric—not the art of rhetoric, but the setting/environment. The idea being that when rhetoric clashes with different rhetoric (in a courtroom, for instance) the truth comes into focus (at least to a greater degree): "skilled adversaries trying to be persuasive will generate powerful light on the truth." This process is, of course, an example of dialectic discourse: a thesis opposed by an antithesis, merging into synthesis (which, hopefully, is closer to truth than either the thesis or antithesis on its own).

The reason I bring this up here (as random as it seems) is that the author used Gandhi as an example of this technique. He argued that Gandhi was a proponent of active nonviolence because he viewed reconciliation as a way to achieve synthesis between the two sides of a conflict. In other words, it was the most "truthful" way to resolve difference — a path that would actually lead humanity forward into greater reality: "Gandhi advocated nonviolence in large part to avoid succumbing to the temptation to destroy one's opponents and thus remove the creative tension so crucial to the dialectic process."

I find this interesting, for though I'm incredibly committed to nonviolent resistance for multiple ethical reasons (and believe that Gandhi was too), I like the idea that it's also the path for those of us seeking intellectual integrity. Those of us searching for the truth amidst the madness.

(The article, which was part of a larger work, was "Knowing the Truth: Rhetoric" by Ron Mock)

A Quaker Professor's Poetry

"Here are two poems, published by one of my writing and literature professors at George Fox University. You can also find them on Poets Against War.

Epistemology
It’s always about loss,
this kind of epistemology
philosophers regard with dread.
And we can fool ourselves with thinking.
Like the grandfather
I read about recently
who picked up his four-year-old grandson
in two pieces on a Baghdad market street,
after a sudden car bomb there.
And then just yesterday grocery shopping,
concentrating on which broccoli florets to buy,
out of the corner of my eye
a little blond four-year-old girl
is running to the side of my leg
yelling grandpa, grandpa, we saw your car
in the parking lot and knew it was you.
And my son and his beautiful wife
are smiling an aisle away,
near the potatoes and sweet onions,
she holding their year-old daughter
on her hip the way mothers do.
And I’m so happy to see them all there
in one piece that I begin to cry,
like a foolish, foolish old man.

-Ed Higgins

In Baghdad
Silent beneath the women’s wailing
the boxed dead lie like wrapped gifts
to the god grief waiting there
beside open unmarked graves.

Caught in their sorrow sound
these photographed women
sway their silent voices slowly,
like bent minarets of black.

Their eyes sad as charred craters
in the market street. Mothers, wives,
and daughters their naked hands
raised in skeins of grief.

They twist and mourn their war
consumed husbands, sisters,
brothers and children.

So many counted and uncounted
dead they blur a tear-drained land
against a another daylight bomb’s
killing darkness.

In noon’s blood-stained heat
and smoke-lingering light,
graves that keep on filling.

-Ed Higgins

If you're interested in reading more of his poetry, just hit Google. He's everywhere. :)

Peace Studies

I was recently awarded the Hazel Steinfeldt Peace Studies Scholarship at George Fox University. This is the essay I wrote for the application:

Peace and Justice
1 February 2008

Peace. It’s a simple word. Five letters, one syllable. And yet, it’s probably the most complex concept I’ve ever encountered. And one of the most controversial.

I’ve been a pacifist for as long as I can remember. Why, exactly, I’m not sure. None of my family members share this conviction, and I was not raised to be a Quaker. And yet, the aggressive pursuit of non-violent justice has always made sense to me—always seemed an intricate part of being a Christian, and following Christ. From the time I was a child I have not been able to read the Sermon on the Mount without believing that Christ was, and is, calling us to a different way of living—a different form of existence. Calling us to selfless sacrifice, and costly, uncalculating, love. And no matter how hard I’ve tried, I have never been able to reconcile these values with war, violence, or force. I believed, and still do, that Christ was giving us the right (and perhaps the imperative) to lay down our own lives for others, but never to take their lives from them.

In tenth grade I was faced with the challenge, and privilege, of grappling with the pursuit of peace and justice in the context of a very specific conflict: the Palestinian-Israeli issue. My parents are anthropologists, and my whole pre-college life was spent in the Arab world, from North Africa (Tunisia) to the Middle East (Egypt and Lebanon). Because of this, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has always loomed very close on the horizon, casting its shadow over much of life. However, it was not until the middle of high school that I truly encountered the issue head on. That year, my father, a professor at Bethel University, created a curriculum for me to study the conflict in depth. And I did, reading books from every perspective imaginable: Christian and non-Christian Zionists, liberal and conservative Jews, Muslim and Christian Palestinians, and Arab Israelis. I was thoroughly confused, thoroughly frustrated, and thoroughly ready to grant apathy my soul.

But then I met the children. I went to Lebanon to volunteer in a refugee camp for two weeks, and I found my passion. I looked into the face of Palestinian children—children who would not cry or laugh or dance or be children—and I saw Christ looking back. By the end of my time there my heart was utterly broken—torn for a people most of the world, and most of Christianity, seemed to have rejected. My family moved to Lebanon the next year, in part so I would have greater access to the camps, and I spent most of my time working with the Inma Center—an NGO created to help restore hope to a desperate people. I returned to my studies, but this time with purpose, seeking to understand the people behind the conflict, and through understanding to somehow restore justice to a broken land. I wrote papers about Christ’s love for Palestinians, and chose to attend George Fox University because of its Peace Studies minor, Quaker heritage, and heart for the oppressed—a heart that I passionately believed mirrored God’s.

And that is why I am here, studying writing and literature, and preparing to return to the Middle East to pursue reconciliation and peace. It is the calling I have felt on my life since I was fifteen-years-old—a calling I do not believe God has released me from. I have no expectations that it will be easy, and I know it will not be simple. But I do believe that love is powerful, and that sacrifice is God’s calling on the lives of believers. And so I go forward in faith, to seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with my God. My life is Christ’s, may He do with it as He pleases.

Hope, in the ocean of darkness and death

Well, this is probably the only poem of mine that will ever make it up here, so enjoy.

This was written on a hard day, during a hard week, in an even harder month. A day when all of the ugliness of the world seemed to gather and press down, threatening to block out all light, all hope, all beauty. It was written in response to violence—specifically, the rape of a friend's younger sister. How does one live in a world where people hurt each other, and tear themselves apart? How does one find God?

This was part of my answer. My testimony of hope.

In the words of George Fox, the 17th century founder of Quakerism: "I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death, but an infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness. In that also I saw the infinite love of God."

And we pray, come Lord Jesus. Come.

A day for hope, October 3, 2007
For Kohleun, my fairy bright

Dust lavender brush bright
Fairy wings touch skin

Flutters, fights
Breathes she
asthma black breath in
dull, dark world

Two inches
Touch glory

Undone fly
All we are
Free

Quaker Perspectives on Palestine

Want to know more about what's going on in Palestine? Visit the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) website. It's an organization started by Quakers in 1917, and is involved in peace and social justice work throughout the world.

They have several sections devoted to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, including Profiles of Peace ("celebrating 40 Israeli and Palestinian peace builders"), comments on current political activity, and reflections written by AFSC delegation members who are helping with the Palestinian olive harvest.

What Christian Peacemaker Teams Are All About

CPTers are dedicated to establishing peace through non-violence. They make their homes in countries experiencing conflict, and offer themselves as third party mediators. The hope is that their presence will be enough to force those involved (particularly the oppressors) to rethink the situation and their tactics. To recognize the humanity of their victims, and to protect their own humanity by not implementing violence.

In Palestine (or the Occupied Territories), CPTers work in at-Tuwani and Hebron. Among other activities, they act as human shields when needed and walk children to school.

Here's some info gleaned from their website:

• Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) was started in 1984.
  
• It arose from a call for Christians to devote the same discipline and self-sacrifice to nonviolent peacemaking that armies devote to war.
  
• It began out of Mennonite, Brethren, and Quaker roots.
• It's "Biblically-based and spiritually-centered."
  
• It believes in risking injury and death in unarmed attempts to transform lethal conflict by the power of God’s truth and love.