coffee mugs and good wine

There were times yesterday I felt alone. One moment was clear to me, I saw a
coffee mug with an outline of modern Israel drawn from the Golan to Gaza to Eilat with one word written across the land. PALESTINE. A statement of hope to erase the Jewish people from the land. As I pondered what this meant to person standing in the shadow of a mosque built by a man who reached peace with Israel the shop owner offers to make us coffee as we wait for the woman to properly prepare themselves for the mosque. I wonder if this man who jokes with us in broken English about buying trinkets to take to our wives would really think if he could read my mind. My mind troubled by the idea that a kitchy coffee mug could have such a powerful political statement. Would he really care? I wonder if this isn't for the foreigners, sometimes ignorant of the complexities of the politics, religion and ancient tribal biases that are reduced to the photos of funerals or forced smiles at summits. I wonder if this isn't for the man I met on the plane, who's guitar case screamed No War and who's politics felt like a conversation in Kindergarten. Or maybe the free lance journalist who was looking for conflict in West Bank. Flying into Jordan to cross into Israel that afternoon he kept wondering if he would be harassed at the border. His Jordanian seat mate tried to calm his nerves but for him, his mind was made up. He was looking to expose the "evil Israelis" and again, the so-called journalist didn't seem to have a clue of what he spoke.

I am tired at times of how we reduce our understanding of the world to nine words or fewer. How we spend a great deal of our energy looking for the the simple in the complex. What I love about this trip is that we want the complex. We want to walk into the uncomfortable and come out the other side with a better understanding of self and others.

Conversations develop in an incubated environment that we are creating. Why it is important to me to spend the bulk of my gift shopping in Israel and why someone else feels more compelled to do it here. A conversation that was comfortable and helpful for both of us.

At dinner there was concern about how I would celebrate the Shabbat. I was amazed by the question having felt religiously alone at times during the day. I was asked to lead a small Shabbat service at dinner on Friday. I don't think I can express what that meant to me.

But later, after opening and discussing the level of fruit in the various Jordanian wines we purchased talks turned to the Finnish immigration policy, Reba MacIntyre and the parking lot at a Dead show. The group is coming together...today I don't feel quite so alone.