When Dying Trees Bloom

Even throughout the decades of turmoil and war, the land here does not appear as worn and weathered as her face does.  She turns 50 this year, but the lines on her face are not from time’s passing alone.  She has walked under the load of occupation and despair.  Her chiseled features are the products of years of hopelessness and toil.  Observing helplessly as the outside world looked apathetically to her situation and, in fact, very existence, she has been given every reason to wallow in the pits of anguish.  Yet, despite all this, she wears a smile every day.  She runs Al-Basma (The Smile) with energy and resolve.  Her burden has become her joy.  In the shadow of mounting obstacles, Basma holds on to hope. 

Each day when I go to Al-Basma to lend a hand, I am greeted by the same sounds: Rushdi joyfully shouting, “Mike!!!”; Nizaar bellowing his random operatic serenades; Sana shuffling in to tell me, “Bahebak, I love you”; Jamla’s voice calling out, “Breakfast!”; the enthusiastic farewells from the clients as they hustle to the bus when its horn sounds at 1:30; and, of course, the ceaseless invitations of “Habibi! My love, my friend!”  These calls are invitations to me.  When I am able to move passed the fatigue and stresses of everyday life here, I experience the paradox of Al-Basma, the paradox of Palestine: peace and struggle.  Al-Basma simultaneously allows my soul to be at peace with life and my part in it, while at the same time creating such a disturbance within me so that I can no longer sit still while the world falls apart.  It is my love of that peace that compels me to act upon the struggle.  My peace paradoxically serves as the invitation to the struggle. 

My family has found this challenging provocation in the words of an old Franciscan prayer:

May God bless you with discomfort
At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships
So that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger
At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people,
So that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.
May God bless you with tears
To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger, and war,
So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and
To turn their pain into joy.
And may God bless you with enough foolishness
To believe that you can make a difference in the world,
So that you can do what others claim cannot be done
To bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.

Even within the words of this prayer, I see the space of redemption.  Discomfort, anger, tears, and foolishness are no longer negative words.  They have been given a new life.  They have been “re-deemed,” given new value, new worth.  This is the reality I see in Al-Basma.  Resurrection is practiced.  Redemption happens. 

When he was born, Issa’s family abandoned him to the solitude of a cave, a consequence due to his being born with what appears to be Down syndrome.  Basma and the founder of Al-Basma, Abu Shadi, discovered him there, helpless and rejected.  They taught him how to speak, to eat, to use the bathroom, to dress himself.  Simply put, they helped him realize his own humanity.  After some time, they realized that Issa was also talented, having the ability to weave beautiful fabrics on the loom.  Through Al-Basma, Issa has been given a place in society, a way to contribute.  His family left him for dead in the darkness of a cave, but Al-Basma gave him life through the light of love.  Issa has now been welcomed back into the home of his family that previously abandoned him.

Redemption to me is about life.  To me, those who believe in the power of Death have not grasped the power of redemption, the power of Life.  In a group conversation with some friends recently, the topic of abortion arose.  One young lady commented that she does not see anything immoral in aborting a pregnancy.  When hearing this, I made reference to Israel’s new law that allows for a pregnancy to be aborted within minutes of the baby’s delivery.  Again she said, “Yeah, I don’t see anything immoral about that.”  Another person carefully commented that maybe if the parents could tell that the child would be born with mental or physical disabilities that it would be best to kill the child so that the child doesn’t have to die everyday to the struggles of the life they would live.  Pausing to discuss the implications of this statement, it became clear that if this line of thought was brought to fruition, none of the students at Al-Basma would have been given the opportunity to experience life.  She was quick to insist that this was not the intention of her statement, and then stepped away in a repentant embarrassment of her misspoken verdict.     

What hope is there for people who hold to the power of Death?  Since the Christian faith itself is rooted in the belief of resurrection, of making Life from Death, I remain amazed at how many Christians believe in Death’s power and place in society.  And yet, abortion is supported, the death penalty is praised, war is deemed noble, and hell is a prison of flames for “sinners unlike me.”  If I abandon those living in Death’s shadow to the cold grip of its fingers, can I, as a Christian, really claim to believe in a resurrected Christ?  When I condemn others to a fate that “I don’t deserve,” can I truly say I believe in the redemptive power of “seventy times seven”?  I echo the words of lyricist Chris Martin when he writes, “I don’t want a battle from beginning to end/ I don’t want a cycle of recycled revenge/ I don’t wanna follow Death and all of his friends.” Much like the teachings of a wandering, homeless rabbi in the hills of this country, there is a powerless power in the tales and events of redemption and resurrection.  When listening in to a conversation a friend of mine was having some months ago about the apparent coming destruction of the end of the world, he suggested this: “What if the world will be recreated and not destroyed? What if spring still comes after the final winter? What if the fire does not destroy but refine? What if Satan is reconciled to God and redeemed?”  What if God’s judgment is renewal…?

This is my lesson from Al-Basma.  Resurrection is real.  Life can be redeemed.  And to me, redemption is entirely about love.  St. Augustine once said, “What do I love when I love my God?”  His quote was then reworked by philosopher John Caputo who said, “How do I love when I love my God?”  Perhaps God is not so much a “what,” an object to be found, but is the “how” of our search.  Maybe God is not what we discover at the end of our journey but is instead the wandering itself.  Perhaps God is the whispering invitation that haunts us to cement a unity between our words and our actions, beckoning us to go, be peacemakers and friends.  If so, then J.R.R. Tolkien is right – “Not all those who wander are lost.”

Al-Basma is hastening in the Kingdom of God.  The river of love flowing in this place reminds me that even broken places and lives can be fixed.  It reminds me that even from death can come life.  And in the smiles of an abandoned person, I hear the words, “Take hope, habibi. There is hope.”

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Legend has it that as St. Francis journeyed along the road searching for the meaning of God, he came upon a dead tree and in exasperation exclaimed, “Speak to me of God!”  And suddenly, the tree began to bloom.

May we hasten the day when dying trees bloom,

Salaam aleykum,

Michael