When I was but a young lad, back in 1970, I embarked on a journey to see the world. I was untraveled but ready for adventure and whatever came my way. We gathered our resources, me and my buddy, bought our backpacks, a lightweight tent, cooking stove, sleeping bags, collected some extra clothes and all of our available cash — in my case about $300, and headed out. Youthful naiveté can sometimes substitute for common sense and aspirational intentions for money.
Being young and untraveled and in search of adventure I decided my destination was to be the ‘Holy Land’. I had spent so much of my impressionable youth sitting in the third pew of the church, glancing at the brightly colored maps at the back of the Bible as a distraction from the boring service, that it was stuck in my brain. Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem and the Sea of Galilee and the Jordon River somehow represented a mythical land and a worthy quest.
My buddy bailed after we got to New York. He didn’t share the same aspiration. I went on alone, got robbed along the way, traveled by train and boat, discovered strange foreign countries (which was my intention) and eventually found myself in Israel, the home of the Holy Land.
I lived on a kibbutz for awhile because it was free room and board, in exchange for day labor of course. I went to Jerusalem to see the holy city and visited ancient ruins, some still being dug out of the ground and visited the old city with its open air market. The smells and sights of old Jerusalem are still with me in some deep part of my brain.
I had a tourist map that showed a road thru the West Bank all the way from the southern end where Jerusalem is to the northern end and beyond to where my kibbutz was. So I decided to walk it, me and my neon orange backpack with tent attached. I remember walking thru a small Arab village and all the kids coming out to laugh at me and see the strange sight — a single, tall, obviously foreign person walking through their village with a neon orange backpack. They thought it was hilarious.
They found the only person in the village who could speak English, the school teacher, and he came and they offered me food - olives and olive oil and pita bread and goat cheese. I still retain the memory of tasting that food. I still retain the memory of the feeling I had of being welcomed, accommodated even honored by people that were no kin to me. And in that far away and foreign culture I felt more accommodation and acceptance than I do in my own. They offered me what they had to offer, what they had grown and farmed themselves in that rocky soil with an ox driven plow.
Now as I recall this story and calibrate the effect it had on me, I wonder how much those small acts of kindness change the world. I’m still naive about some things. I still think peace is possible. I still want to save the world and I think I know the key. That would not only be naive but arrogant of course but I don’t care. Maybe just trying to be kind to each other would save the world.
Those people in the little Arab village didn’t know that I would be talking about this 50 years later to an audience of people they had never seen, never heard of and couldn’t imagine, but it happened. Imagine that.
A ripple in still water. Grateful Dead. A great metaphor.
And neither did that guy in the JFK international terminal who conned me out of my cash as I was just beginning my journey. That was an experience. He was so smooth I didn’t even know I was robbed until my flight was boarding. Oh gees, what do I do now? was my first thought. Abort or board? I got no money. There was a strange wild freedom feeling in getting on that plane and flying to Europe with no money. I knew something was going to happen, I just didn’t know what.
The strange and wild feeling of freedom I guess is what I was after. Come to think of it. That’s what I’m still after. Come to think of it. Now that I remember what I’m doing here.
thanks to Kayam for the great music - Lately (Mose Remix)
love your neighbor / love your enemy