Peace on Earth….

Previous posts this month: 1st, 5th and 7th.

I have been thinking of how I can most constructively approach this distinctly unpeaceful season of peace.  What follows is a small attempt.  Sunday we were at a magnificent Christmas program at a large suburban church, St. Andrews Lutheran in Mahtomedi: “How Great Our Joy!”  There had to be at least 1,000 of us in attendance, for the first of two performances.  My mind wandered to a less pleasant scene in today’s Israel….

Earlier, Friday evening, daughter Lauri and two of the grandkids, Kelly and Lucy, came over to help decorate the Christmas tree – an annual tradition.  Saturday morning I noticed a bedraggled box by the television.

The box is very familiar to me.  It was delivered in early 1996 from Israel. It’s contents are 18 carved olive wood figures of a typical nativity scene.  I had purchased it in Jerusalem at a Palestinian shop which I think catered to Christian visitors to Israel.  A group of us had gone to the shop one evening.  The box, my purchase, was cleared for shipping by the Israel Postal Authority.

The set was expensive, and worth it.  Every year since,  the contents of the box are on display during the Christmas season.  Then it goes back into the same box till next year.

This year the box takes on particular significance to me: there is no peace in Israel; and no indication that sanity will return any time soon.  Hostilities are being ratcheted up, rather than tamped down.

Our trip to Israel in 1996 was about 11 days.  The January 11 itinerary included.Bethlehem, about 6 miles from Jerusalem. Among other visits was Yad Vashem. There was not yet a separation wall.  That was to come beginning in 2002.  The visit to the shop was after the visit to Bethlehem.

I have noted previously that 1996 was not a time of palpable tension in Israel, at least not felt by this visitor.  Yitzhak Rabin had been assassinated by a radical Jew in Jerusalem a couple of months before we arrived, but there seemed general calm.  We were allowed into the Golden Dome on Temple Mount.

Fast forward. I am very discouraged by the events of the past months.  Nonetheless, I hang onto the tenuous thread of hope, though punishing a group for the sins of a few, what seems to be the case now, is not and has never been constructive.  It does not work.

Which brings me back to the box….

The Nativity set, 1996.

I wish us all peace.  That 1996 Nativity set, photo above, in a sense melds Muslim, Christian and Jewish in Israel in a cooperative way.  I think it was Palestinians who carved the pieces, and sold me the product; Israel Postal Authority delivered the product to me, a Christian, in the U.S.

Maybe the box and its contents are something of a metaphor for the not always pretty reality of our own lives.  Maybe, the external box reflects how we feel about the tattered state of our country and world, but may not reflect the reality of who we really are – the people in that church sanctuary on Sunday.

More than ever, that set reminds me that we are all in this together.

Whatever your belief of tradition, don’t give up.  Work for Peace.

COMMENTS:

from Sharon: I especially liked the sentence of the Palestinians carving, sent from israel and arriving to a Minnesota christian. I, too, have an olive wood nativity set. My brother, Dallas, was a tour guide in Israel back in l962 and purchased it for my parents. Through the years, Mary got lost. I  have taken one of the shepherds and placed her behind Baby Jesus in the manger. Great article today. Merry Christmas. We must keep the faith.

from Florence: Thanks, Dick. Without a doubt we’re challenged these days to remember that “Christianity” is just a small part of the faithful in a world that too often overlooks others, including animals (land and water) that are much larger to much smaller than we are, but are equally a part of creation.