Three weeks at home: Remembrance and Gratitude

 Remembrance and Gratitude

I’ve been trying to write this final blog post since I got back.  It’s been three weeks.   I didn’t know what I wanted to write.  I needed some time to think and experience and reflect.  I also needed some time to sleep, heal, and recoup.  

I want to say thank you.  To Joe, for all of the things.  To everyone who kindly contributed to my well-being.  You brought me peace.  Elaine, Jeff, Deb, Rebeca, Ivette, Marie, Pauline – Thank you so much!  If I missed anyone, I am no less grateful.  I also want to give thanks to everyone who lifted us in prayer, who intervened for our whole group in prayers of safety and love over us.  The folks at Sighted Moon, each and every one of you, for following along and caring so much. 

It’s easy to write too much.  It’s been a common theme of feedback in my writing experience, so I try the best I can to be brief.  I wanted to talk about so many things.   I decided I was going to focus on 3 three things – the three most important experiences of my time there.

       The actual Land of Israel!

WWhen I went to Israel in 2016, it was autumn.  It was beautiful, in a desert kind of way - the entire land was brown and dry, and the weather was California hot.  I spent a lot of time in the city, so I saw very little of the actual land.

T  This time, it was spring and it was delightful!  I was almost always out in the land, driving somewhere, visiting somewhere, scrambling up some hill or creek bed, and seeing the wonderful greenness all around us.  The wild barley and wheat are eye-poppingly green, and the wild oats jiggle like tiny bells.

Joe picks on one friend who stopped to examine every rock.  I was worse with the flowers, trees, and animals….and sometimes the rocks.  I spent a lot of time with my phone asking what this plant or bird or tree was with image search. 

 I found every kind of flower.  Everywhere!  Daisies, lupins, wild irises, little pink flowers and little red flowers and tiny little yellow sprigs of joy poking out from among the rocks.  Yellow mustard flowers, and hordes of anemone. 

 

During this trip, I talked to tiny flies, beetles, and millipedes, and every single dog I came in speaking range with, even the ones at the airports sniffing my bags.

 

The sea was amazing.  Some of my best days there were padding along the surf, picking up seashells at the seashore and talking to the pigeons.  Sometimes we got back in time, and I hustled over to the beach to watch the sunset.  

It was just so beautiful in spring.  I pray I get to see the land in every season!

2.       The people under fire

Everywhere we went, people were gracious and kind and caring.  They were happy we were there.  They invited us to their homes.  They dined with us, prayed with us, and educated us.  They answered our incessant questions in pretty good English.  They embodied grace under fire. 

 People exhorted us to encourage one another, to pray for the peace of Israel, and to help ourselves to as much as we could eat, whenever there was food.  I think it would have been much more frightening if the people hadn’t been so considerate, and so generous in their giving of advice, encouragement, and kindness. 

 

Almost everyone we saw asked us what we were doing there, and we told them.  We came to search for the barley.  We came to bless Israel.  We came to see the land and visit the sites.  We came because it’s Israel!

 Sitting in the bomb shelter again and again we came to know the neighbors who lived nearby.  Not everyone has a shelter in their home or apartment. I shared shelters with every kind of person.   When the loud pops happened overhead, we collectively cringed.  But every time, after the alarm was over, people went back to work, back to their workout, back to their dog walk.  Life is worth living, and they were going to live it for as long as they could. 

 My travel companions were also such a blessing to me.  Thank you to each and every one of you who came, who stayed, who put up with my many faults.  This was unlike any experience I could have imagined, and there you were with good humor, a willing spirit, a strong arm, a generous gift.  The kindnesses offered were too many to number.  I’m very used to walking through this life mostly alone.  Thank you all for being a part of one of the most meaningful experiences of my life.   May YHVH bless each and every one of you, and your families,  for your kindness toward this widow.

 

3.       Our Red Heifer ceremony. 

It makes no sense this would make such a difference for me.  There’s no temple, no priests, no mikvah, and we’re a bunch of dumb Americans, Canadians, and South Africans.  The cold spring water hurt me – all three times I got a headache, the two final times I had terrible debilitating migraines. I know we were just “playing” at doing the ritual.   Practicing,if you will.  But it was very important to me.

 

Because the Father was clearly blessing us.  Because so many things fell perfectly in line.  Because YHVH heard me, and answered my prayer.  Perhaps because YHVH was honoring my obedience, and touched me and healed me.

 I have struggled since Storm died.  People go around throwing the words “spirit” and “oppression,” and it all sounds mystical and spooky.  Perhaps grief and trauma are spiritual oppression's.  I just know that my life has been a slow-moving train wreck for a while now.   Everything in my life is too hard, so complicated, and even up to the morning when we headed up the hill to Ein Lavan, I was struggling with problems I could not solve.  

 I knew in my heart I was going to be mikva’d (baptized) before I left for Israel.  I knew as soon as Joe said he was going to do the red heifer ceremony and invited me to participate that I was going to do this ritual.  At first, it was just biblical curiosity.  A desire to do the things of the Bible - much like the feasts and festivals – rehearsals for the future.  I had hoped it would bring me understanding and a deeper relationship with the Bible and with my God.  When Joe asked, I told him I had hoped that the red heifer ritual might lift my grief, and I prayed to the Father for this.

  I can’t pretend to fully understand it or how it works mechanically.  I can only tell you   that I lived it.   The stated reason in the Bible for this ritual is cleansing from touching a   dead body or being in the room with one, and some other cleansing.  It’s a physical   cleansing.  But as I did some research in the matter, the symbolism is also one of spiritual   and emotional cleansing.  Letting go of my grief, literally chopping off 11 years of sorrow and pain, became a spiritual and physical releasing of that whole life.

 My life has been somewhat lacking in rituals, mostly due to my own decision making.  But this ritual written in the Torah – it mattered. I am healing in a way that I have never felt.  

 Whatever happened, something shifted.  Some weight has been lifted.  Some change has come upon me.  There are so many changes – my sleep has returned, and along with it, my ability to dream.  I feel energetic and competent.  I feel like I can get things done.  I feel like I have a grip on things.  It’s been a really long time since I’ve felt like I had a grip on anything.  Praise you, Yah!!

 I hope I have many more blogs to write about Israel in the future.  I enjoy writing, and it has really been a pleasure to have this blog be read. Thank you, Reader, for sharing along with my trip.  It's been my joy to share with a live audience.