It’s election season in Baltimore so that means incumbents are making their rounds attempting to remind people how good life is with them in office and hopeful newbies are hitting the pavement making the case as to why they should be catapulted to political office. Admittedly, I am a bit disenchanted with electoral politics these days. I understand voting to be ONE tool which can be used in the empowerment of my people, but the tool is quite rusty. American Afrikans in Baltimore vote and vote and vote and still our communities drown in a toxic mix of divestment, occupation, and hopelessness.

I don’t give much weight to politicians speeches anymore. As Jesus recommends by way of scripture, I examine their fruit. (You shall know a tree by the fruit it bears.) Sadly, there are orchards of corrupt and corroding trees in the political landscape of Baltimore City.

However, every now and then I see a glimmer of hope in someone whose fruit suggests that they won’t genuflect to the political establishment, but will stand firm and advocate for the uplift of their community.

Currently, I see this glimmer in Mr. Rodney Burris, candidate for State Delegate in the 43rd District. Mr. Burris is charismatic, grounded in the community in which he lives, and active in local organizations. There’s good fruit on the tree. And while we have a personal relationship, I don’t extend my support based on that. (This isn’t high school!) I extend my support to Mr. Burris because of his alignment with a political agenda that I embrace. While I sense that he is still developing a rootedness in self-determination for American Afrikans in Baltimore (the clear majority people in this city); I’ve heard enough as it relates to his publicly expressed support of agenda items to pull the lever for him in the voting booth.

Currently, State Delegate Jill Carter (D-41) is the only Baltimore politician who has proven year in and year out to be committed to the uplift of the Black community without reservation, but if Rodney Burris stays on the path, remains committed to his community, and draws near to the example of Carter, he just might march into a comparable legacy of his own.

I support Mr. Rodney Burris for State Delegate in Baltimore’s 43rd District.

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And probably most of all, we owe a collective debt of gratitude to Ms. Ella Baker. She was the engine behind so many of the fascinating groups who organized and put their necks on the line fighting U.S. apartheid. Barbara Ransby in her book, Ella Baker & the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision, paints the picture of a woman who was small in stature, but a giant among women and men.

Ransby, in tremendous detail, introduces the world to Ella Baker in ways that mainstream education wholly ignores. From her well-guarded personal life to her very public organizing, we meet a woman who gave her everything to an awe-inspiring vision of a more just and democratic society. Baker was propelled by what she saw we could be while at the same time giving equal energy to the path that would help us get there. For her the means was just as important as the end and you couldn’t fight for equality in the public sphere and sanction discrimination and ill-treatment behind closed doors. Her willingness to speak up and challenge the “men of the movement” didn’t make her a favorite in certain circles. She had her run-ins with the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and other groups because she did not go along with the prescribed gender role for women during that day and would not just “stay in her place”.

She created her own place – not in the narrow confines of a “civil rights” activist, but Ransby’s brilliant book reveals Baker as an irreplaceable figure in the larger Black Freedom Movement. While the NAACP and SCLC placed the legislature and judiciary as the preferred target for social change, Baker’s life was dedicated to organizing and empowering “everyday people” to be the change. Ms. Baker believed that the principal issue was bigger than new and different laws in the existing governing structure. She fought for self-determination for the poor and people of color. She didn’t chase after the politicians. She sat on country porches and rode down dusty roads with the people – listening to them articulate, define, and direct where the movement could or should go.

While she could have rightly demanded the spotlight and allowed her oratorical skills to shine, she seemed to prefer the less visible, but immensely critical roles behind the curtain. She helped empower others, drew connections to parallel movements, and practiced the art of asking the right questions. In addition, she mentored and nurtured many who grew to become defining figures in the Human Rights Struggle. As you turn each page, you’ll likely bump into a name you know or a name you need to know and read how Ella Baker touched their lives.

All 374 pages of Ransby’s book are packed with the finer, lesser-known stories and details of this pivotal figure and the movement she helped create. The many awards conferred upon this book is clear evidence of the literary skill of the author and her meticulous research in providing this important biography. Those who read this book – no doubt are better human beings by the time they turn the last page.

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“All the problems started when they took prayer out of the schools!”

Perhaps you have heard people voice this statement when trying to explain the problems of public education within the Afrikan in America context. Perhaps it’s a statement that you have expressed or believe yourself. While it’s debatable that the prohibition against prayer was the downfall of public schools, it’s a certainty that the Supreme Court’s ruling against coercive public school-prayer and Bible reading was a turning point in American public education.

And that turning point took place in Baltimore City, Maryland. More specifically, it took place at Woodbourne Jr. High School which eventually became Chinquapin Middle School. The historical record reveals the following:

In 1960, another law suit was filed against the city school system which also would be nationally historic. Madalyn Murray filed a lawsuit in which she asserted that it was unconstitutional for her son William to be required to participate in Bible readings at Baltimore public schools. In this litigation, she claimed that her son’s refusal to partake in the Bible readings, at the Woodbourne Jr. High School (now Chinquapin Middle school), had resulted in violence being directed against him by classmates, and that administrators overlooked it (after his conversion to Christianity, William publicly stated that these were fraudulent assertions). In 1963, this suit (amalgamated with the similar “Abington School District v. Schempp”) reached the United States Supreme Court, which voted 8-1 in her favor, effectively banning coercive public school prayer and Bible-reading at public schools in Baltimore and the United States.[SOURCE]

This school not only holds importance in the historical sense, but in the culture of the people of Baltimore it had a special place as well. For many, Chinquapin Middle School was probably best known for its dramatic presentations, performances, and musical concerts; a tradition that continued even up until last year.

However, with today being the first day of school in Baltimore City, the first revelation of the academic year is that historic Chinquapin Middle School is no more. Dr. Andres Alonso, CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools, along with the School Board decided earlier this year to close the school and give the building to an operator from Anne Arundel County. Despite little significant input from the community and a decision characterized by a school CEO described as “overbearingly authoritarian” by a national report, the move to close Chinquapin was championed by the power brokers of Baltimore over the objections of the people who live in the neighborhood of the school. (Just another example of how we don’t control the institutions in our own communities!)

It will likely be a halting site for some to walk past the building and still see the outline of the word “Chinquapin” above the door. With time the outline will likely wear away, but the new name won’t. Baltimore IT Academy has a new operator from a different county, new staff, new administrators, and a new culture which Alonso and his board believe will improve the educational outcomes for the students. That is yet to be seen.

Though they’ve scrubbed the name and scrapped the history of this school’s place in the ethos of Baltimore (Chinquapin Middle has even been deleted from Wikipedia already!); may the People’s History of Baltimore City record in one of its chapters the courageous actions of everyday people who stood up when their schools were being closed down and demanded that their voice be heard – even if not heeded.

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From my view, the Healthy Food Revolution must be concerned with a new social arrangement as it relates to healthy food and people of color and the poor. I believe it would be a disservice to the movement to seek to remove agri-business as the overseer of food production/delivery in under-served communities only to replace them with benevolent, White, urban farmers who will assume the role of the indispensable bridge to healthy food.

This approach will help produce a new social arrangement that will not only provide vitality to the healthy food movement, but will also give it greater credibility as a true revolution and not just a re-formation of an old social arrangement of control.

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I still remember sitting in social studies classes of my youth and learning about Christopher Columbus – the “discoverer” of America, George Washington who “never told a lie”, Thomas Jefferson with his Declaration of Independence which conveniently excluded Africans from its purview, and Abraham Lincoln who “freed” the slaves because of his “commitment to social equity”.

The heroes of European Americans are being introduced to African American youth as standard knowledge for academic advancement. Conversely, the enemies of European Americans are cast in notorious light or altogether ignored. African students learn little to nothing about Gabriel Prosser, Nat Turner, David Walker, Touissant L’ouverture, Prince Hall, Queen Mother Moore, The Honorable Marcus Garvey, Ella Baker, Steve Biko, Assata Shakur, and so many more! Those Afrikan Ancestors that our children are introduced to (i.e. Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin L. King, Jr., Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, etc.) are made into harmless caricatures whose words and actions are reduced to decontextualized soundbytes that don’t threaten existing popular sensibilities or power structures.

The seeds of self-hate are planted in the minds of African American youth as they sit in the European-American classroom. The overriding message of this indoctrination is that everyone great, remarkable, and worthy to be remembered is “White”. People of Color are at best footnotes who only have made marginal imprint on the pages of human history. Is it any wonder that many African American youth choose to “check out” of this system in various ways? While they may not be able to articulate it, many of them instinctively know that they are being exposed to a system that has the goal of miseducating them. For at least 12 years they are sitting under the tutelage of a foreign education system that left unchallenged will keep them psychologically, spiritually, and academically enslaved for their entire lives. Those who do not “check out” of this alien system can go on to gain “good grades,” but they’ll graduate with greater allegiance to the core beliefs, goals, and activities of the European-American community over anything that they might feel toward their own community.

African Americans in Baltimore (and many other cities around this country) surrender our greatest gift – our children – to a system that wasn’t designed for them and to people – many of them – who only view the students as a means to their next paycheck.

We send them off to the schoolhouse and leave it to chance that they’ll make it out alright.

With many other communities; they don’t take a chance when it comes to their children. It’s probably a negligible number of Jewish students in the Baltimore City Public School System (BCPS). Why? Because they know that the BCPS won’t shape their students into persons who possess confident knowledge of self and allegiance to their community standards and goals.

Take for instance Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School which runs from pre-school to 12th grade. This school proudly states that “its responsibility to the Jewish community is to educate generations of American Jews who are committed to Jewish practices and beliefs, knowledgeable about their heritage, and devoted to the Jewish community and the State of Israel.”

(Do me a favor. Read the above mission statement again, but this time where it says “Jewish” or “Jews” change the word to “African American” and where it says “State of Israel” change that to “the continent of Africa”.)

Or you can look at another school for 16-18 year old Jewish boys called Lev Shlomo. The school is for Jewish boys who have had difficulty in traditional school settings. It’s stated mission is to “assist teenagers to become productive, healthy, balanced, successful members of the Jewish community and society.”

Another example is the Shoshana S. Cardin High School. This independent high school describes its academic character by saying, “the overarching vision of The Cardin School is clearly unique for we enable our students to gain an integrated perspective between the traditional disciplines, and especially between Jewish Studies and General Studies. In many ways, this means learning to see the world through educated Jewish eyes“. It goes on to say, “we foster not only a broad intellectual perspective, but a deep and lasting sense of identity“.

And that is what is lacking in the Baltimore City Public School System – an educational setting that is both academically rigorous and equally concerned with instilling a sense of identity within the more than 70,000 African American students who are enrolled. This is why Black People should control the city school system…but not just any kind of “Black People” for the truth be told we have Black people on the City School Board and in City Hall, but many of those Black People are the kind that have already ingratiated themselves to Baltimore’s White Power Structure and have gone to great lengths to prove to the Power Structure that they will never say what need be said or do what need be done to stand in solidarity with their own community. They are appreciative puppets who’ve “gone along to get along” and feel they have too much to lose now by rocking the boat.

The Jews have their own schools in Baltimore to teach their children how to be good Jews. The Catholics have their own schools in Baltimore to teach their students how to be good Catholics. The Quakers have their own schools in Baltimore to instill in their students the values of Quakers.

WHERE ARE THE SCHOOLS IN BALTIMORE CONTROLLED BY BLACK PEOPLE THAT TEACH BLACK CHILDREN HOW TO BE HONORABLE AFRICANS?!

In a city that is nearly 65% African American and a school system that is nearly 90% African American:

Baltimore’s African American community and true allies need to read, study, organize, and execute an educational agenda that is worthy of our children.

The Great Ancestors and Elders of our community have already laid the groundwork. We just must familiarize ourselves with their analysis, critique, and contextualize for our times. Black People should control the Baltimore City Public School System. To suggest any other arrangement is to suggest that White People and their Power Structure know best as it relates to educating Black Children.

Black People who are unapologetically Black with a profound sense of self, have a demonstrated commitment to Black Children, an allegiance to the uplift of the Black Community, a global understanding of our place in the world as Africans, and possessive of communal credibility should control the school system that currently just warehouses Black bodies prepping them for prison, uninspired living, or an early grave.

This should not be an optional goal for our community. It is a fixture for every self-respecting group of people and we – people of African descent in Baltimore – should be no different in embracing the education of our children as one of our highest aims.

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Anne Rice

“Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else. I’m out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.”

I couldn’t help, but be fascinated by the fact that religious identities and pronouncements on social networking sites now catch the eye of traditional news outfits. Anne logged into her facebook account and because of a status update was on television in a few days….a remarkable sign of our times.

And though I was disappointed that she allowed others (whom she characterizes as the “anti” crowd) to define her religious experience; I am thankful that she gave articulation to the reasons why she left. To be sure, people leave Christianity and the church (and other Faiths) all the time. But we aren’t always privy to the concerns that lead to departures. That’s not always articulated and especially as a pastor, it is important for me to regularly hear the unfiltered and sincere criticisms of those who are a part of Christian community and those who are not.

I’m thankful that Anne quit Christianity so publicly. I believe that the issues that she raised need to be seriously engaged by clergy and lay people alike. Initially, my approach to engaging it in the sphere in which I have influence, was to help people understand that there are many different expressions of Christianity. Based on one’s context, one’s personal experiences, and any number of other factors, people embrace and express their Christianity in remarkably different ways – even if they’re sitting side by side on the same pew! There is not total uniformity of belief in any church in the world. While there are shared beliefs there are boatloads of largely unspoken differing beliefs within any one congregation. That does not necessarily make the congregation any less a family of Faith much like differing opinions in your blood-family does not negate your familial status. Helping people become sensitive to that was something I attempted to do this past Sunday in worship.

Moreover, in future settings, I look forward to exploring this notion of Christ minus community. Rice was clear that she was quitting Christianity, but not Jesus Christ. I’m wrestling with that and hopefully can wrestle with others about it. Is it possible to fully experience Christ outside of community? That’s the question. Given the perspective that I have about Jesus; it is difficult for me to understand him detached from community. One of the ways that Holy Scripture characterizes him is as the Great Reconciler. Jesus was the catalyst for the calling together of radically diverse individuals who then shared in a certain connectedness because of the Christ. I’ll continue to try to understand Anne Rice and many others who see it possible to dislodge the Lord from the populace.

However the greatest assignment that Anne Rice’s defection from the Faith delivered to me was a responsibility to revisit the Baptist ministerial ordination process. In order for a baptist minister to become ordained, they must be examined by a council of pastors which vets them as it relates to their beliefs. In my experience, the bulk of the ordination process involves candidates being quizzed on doctrine and scripture memorization. The council expects to hear the candidate repeat accepted positions on baptist polity and then recite supporting scriptures from memory. While I hear of a time when these examinations were more engaging; the process today is considerably lax. So much so that a candidate need only memorize and regurgitate the “right” answers and they are pretty much guaranteed a passing score. The pressure to pass the aspirant is compounded by the planning of celebratory services scheduled immediately after the council’s examination. (What council of pastors wants to tell a waiting crowd, “Sorry, no party tonight. She failed.”)

However, Anne Rice’s comments remind those responsible for ordination today about the changing landscape of society and the pressing issues that any ordained Christian minister must be sensitive to. It should no longer be acceptable for aspiring ordinands to just recite John 3:16 and parrot accepted positions on theology. Ordained ministers today must be sensitive and skilled in thoroughly engaging issues such as homosexuality, religious plurality, post-modern thought, the social thrust of the gospel, and the regular controversies which surround our Faith. I’m not sure if Ordination Councils can just look for “right answers” from candidates anymore. Today, the candidate should have to show evidence of their ability to think critically and respond carefully to any number of issues that they are sure to encounter on any given Sunday (or any other day of the week). They should be pressed to articulate and defend what they believe as it relates to God, Christ, and Community. We don’t need “Reverend Robots” who regurgitate religiously accepted responses to the questions of yesterday. We need prophetic preachers who can rightly divide the Word of Truth today and carry themselves in this world with Christ-like conviction. And those of us who are ordained and especially those of us who are pastoring need to revisit the positions of our forebearers to ensure that they still have credible currency in our context. And if they don’t, we must have the courage to be led of God’s Spirit to sing unto the Lord -and the community- a new song.

Thank you, Anne Rice for quitting Christianity. I’ll be praying for your sojourn with God’s Spirit as you have helped me greatly on mine.

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Our second home-stay was in the Palestinian town of Bil’in. This was a little different experience because when we arrived in Bil’in, we were taken to the path where villagers and international supporters (including Nobel Peace Prize Winners) have engaged in nonviolent marches every Friday for the past 5 years! The path leads to what the Israeli Government calls a Separation Fence, but what Bil’in residents call an “apartheid wall”. Members of the town march every week with creative and courageous flair as an act of defiance to the Israeli occupation. On the other side of the apartheid wall lies the fields of Bil’in’s farmers – their olive trees and arable land. It is their main source of economic viability – stolen by the Israeli Government and guarded by Israeli Occupation Forces.

Our host family in Bil’in showed us the evidence of the Israeli soldier’s response to their nonviolent march. The path was littered with tear gas canisters and bullet casings. These unarmed people bravely march every Friday for freedom despite the reality of violent reprisal by their armed oppressors.

The latest act of retaliation by the Israeli Occupation Forces came this week when one of the children of my host family in Bil’in was arrested along with two of his friends. Fourteen-year-old, Majde Burnat, is an energetic and mature boy who helped welcome my delegation to his town. He assisted his father, Iyad, in showing us around and making sure we had what we needed. I really took to Majde because he and I had digital SLR cameras and were documenting this historic visit. At 14-years-old, little Majde took his photography responsibility seriously! He was stooping down and climbing pillars to get just the right shot of these visitors from America who came to stand in solidarity with his people.

Majde Burnat

Additionally, he courageously documents and participates in his community’s nonviolent resistance against Israeli Apartheid. Instead of playing on playgrounds, kicking the football around, and chasing little girls, one of the main preoccupations of this 14-year-old’s childhood centers on the Israeli Government’s oppression of his people. Last Friday, during the freedom march to the Apartheid Wall, Majde passed out from tear gas that was shot into an unarmed Palestinian crowd by Israeli Soldiers. Majde was there as he usually is to take a stand for freedom and human rights. As soon as I heard about him being injured, I contacted his father, Iyad, to check on him.

This week I have learned that little Majde has been arrested along with two of his friends by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). Just like African American students in the Jim Crow South were some of this country’s martyrs (Emmett Till, The Four Little Girls killed in the Birmingham Church bombing, etc.); Palestinian children are not exempt from vicious and cruel attacks of Israel’s Apartheid. The IOF arrested Majde and his friends, questioned them for three hours, and took them away for imprisonment with their parents and families not knowing what will happen to their little boys.

14-year-old, Majde Burnat and his friends are in prison right now because of the “sin” of their ethnicity. Nothing more. They are Palestinians and in Israel that’s crime enough.

Click here to learn more about occupation and the nonviolent resistance in the indomitable village of Bil’in.

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As Lincoln and Mamiya point out, for Black Christians it was (and is) in the context of oppression that there was “greater weight given to the biblical views of the importance of human personality and human equality implicit in the ‘children of God” (SOURCE: The Black Church in the African American Experience) He goes on to describe how the Black Church’s understanding of Christianity is “premised on the rock of antiracial discrimination” – a feature that is not central to the White Church.

Pastor John Hagee

The doors of the Black Church should be closed to Pastor John Hagee not because of his race or personality, but he should not be welcome in the Black Church because of his message.

Not necessarily his theological justification and insensitivity of the nearly 2,000 people killed during the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina…though that would be issue enough. Not necessarily because of his advertised “slave auction” at his San Antonio, Texas church as a fundraiser…though that certainly would be enough.

But the doors of the Black Church should be closed in Hagee’s direction because of his racist and discriminatory theology as it relates to Palestine/Israel. Hagee is founder and director of Christians United for Israel and is one of the country’s most vocal Christian Zionist. Christian Zionism is an exclusive form of theology which views the modern state of Israel as the fulfillment of God’s covenant with biblical Israel. It promotes exclusive Jewish ownership of the land of Israel, views Jews as God’s “Chosen People,” expresses hostility and hatred for Arabs and Palestinians, and believes that the gathering of Jews in modern Israel will usher in the end of history and the return of Jesus Christ. (even if that gathering of Jews in Israel includes the theft, oppression, and occupation of Palestinian people and land.)

Christian Zionism is founded on an ultraliteral and uncritical interpretation of the Bible which has mutated into a vile political agenda. In the name of obedience to scripture, Christian Zionism promotes intolerance, occupation of Palestinian people, discrimination, and sacredly sanctioned human rights abuses by the Israeli Government and Military.

What Pastor John Hagee is doing in the name of Christian Zionism is akin to what American slave masters did in the name of justifying the enslavement of my ancestors in this country. They used a perverse reading of the Holy Bible to provide divine sanction for the dehumanization and oppression of my forebearers. Hagee shares kinship with a long line of ministerial miscreants who misinterpret scripture for personal gain. To be clear: John Hagee is to Arabs, Palestinians, and Muslims in general, what the supporters of slavery where to Africans in America.

The doors of the Black Church should be closed to Pastor John Hagee, but unfortunately they are not. With a nod to the high level of biblical illiteracy and uncritical acceptance of any preacher that has a television platform, I have encountered an alarming number of African American Christians who embrace John Hagee’s message. Not just laity, but in fact, local Bishops of the Baltimore Metropolitan area have opened their pulpits to a man who could care less about their congregation or community and who simply wants to pimp Black pulpits for personal and political gain.

Bishop Harry Jackson of Hope Christian Church in Beltsville is hosting Hagee on Sunday, July 11, 2010 7PM. Jackson, a conservative and political right-leaning African American clergyman, characterizes Hagee as having a “timely message for our community and nation.” It’s very explicitly communicated on the website that Hagee will be representing Christians United for Israel during the event.

John Hagee flyer on Hope Christian Church Website

Bishop Clifford Johnson of Mt. Pleasant Ministries in Baltimore is also promoting a breakfast with Hagee slated for Monday, July 12, 2010 9AM – 11AM. Though it cannot be found on his church website, Bishop Johnson has mailed out this invitation inviting clergy to share in a breakfast where Hagee will be talking about “Evangelism, Church Growth, and Bible Prophecy Concerning Israel.”

Bishop Clifford Johnson's Hagee Breakfast Letter

Additionally, Hagee will be at Evangel Cathedral in Upper Marlboro, Maryland where Bishop Don Meares, a White pastor leads a congregation with a significant African American and Hispanic population. This CUFI event, “Unidos por Israel“, is specifically targeting Hispanics on Sunday, July 18, 2010 11AM.

These events are clearly Hagee’s attempt to garner support and no doubt, funds from African American and Hispanic Christians as he makes his way to the 2010 Legislative Summit for Christians United for Israel in D.C. from July 20 – 22, 2010. Unsuspecting and ill-informed Christians, with the permission of their Bishops, will be exposed to a message of intolerance, racial discrimination, and theological perversion in the name of Jesus Christ. They will hear about a God who has a perpetual preference for Jews over all other people and has divinely sanctioned the slaughter of Palestinians in the Middle East.

Therefore it is time for Christians of conscience… Christians who remember God’s heart for the marginalized and Jesus’ commitment to the disinherited to stand up and publicly rebuke Hagee’s message of hate, ethnic discrimination, and intolerance. Of all people, Black folks know the pain of being persecuted by the perverse theology of White pastors. We should identify in very intimate ways with Hagee’s assault on Palestinian humanity and his support of Israeli Apartheid. The Zionist message should not find sanctuary in the Christian Church and most certainly not the Black Church! The doors of the church should be closed!

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Toward that end, I’m pumped about this group called JASecon – Just Alternatives for a Sustainable Economy. In September 2009, they hosted a grassroots, bottom-up economy festival. More than 450 people and 50 organizations participated in a celebration for the emerging economy for the people and the planet. This is the type of activity that feeds my soul these days. Check out the video from the festival.

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As I type this, I’m sitting on the roof of a hostel in the breeze of a cool Jerusalem night. My group has recently retired for the evening after a long two days of travel. I’m here in East Jerusalem with a delegation from Interfaith Peace Builders - an organization that focuses on education advocacy for the Middle East. The purpose of this group is to learn more about the occupation from people who are directly impacted by it. When I say the occupation – I’m referencing the systemic oppression of Palestinian people by the Israeli government. Palestinians have been forcefully removed from their land, piled up in refugee camps, and are generally harassed every day as official policy of the state.

I joined this group, with the support of so many, because I was tired of being a sympathetic, yet inactive observer to the unrest here in the Middle East. I felt that I had to do something more than just sympathize. I had to do something more than just write blog articles about what’s going on here. I had to do more than just repeat that catchy, but all too easily stated phrase:”Peace in the Middle East.”

I believe that peace does not just happen. Peace is born by those who work to nurture and establish it. The “more” that I felt God calling me to was to actually come here and learn. This was by no means an easy decision. It actually was an “inconvenient call” from God. By most logical accounts, this was not the right time to be here. Family considerations, financial issues, church obligations, and other concerns were at the forefront of my discussion with God about why the timing wasn’t right. But if the invitation by God to this type of service wasn’t convenient, I’d doubt that you could call it discipleship. I believe that a part of walking with Jesus along The Way involves an embrace of sacrifice.

For that and many other reasons, I truly feel that it was providence for me to be here right now. After meeting amazing people in the last year like David Hosey and Na’im Ateek; I felt a special kinship to Palestinians and Israelis working for a just peace. I knew that at some point I would be here in the land that is called “holy” to bear witness to the unholiness of occupation and to meet people who are living and standing up courageously in its shadow daring to declare that there is another Way.

While, I think I’m going to deposit the bulk of my Palestine/Israel experience in another medium, I will be blogging as I have opportunity during my short sojourn here. Internet connection isn’t always reliable so forgive me if I’m not able to promptly respond to your comments.

I solicit your prayers for my family, myself, and to the fellow pilgrims on this journey with me. I already feel it in my bones that this experience is going to change me forever. I thank God for the blessing of this opportunity which I know has nothing to do with vacation and everything to do with vocation.

Until I return – Salaam

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