Pastor’s Corner

Dear Friends and Neighbors ~

     On my desk in front of me is the ugliest photograph I ever
 snapped.  It is not so much that it is out of focus or "off-kilter,"
 like so many other photos I for which I sheephishly claim
 responsibility.  It is the subject matter that is ugly: It is a pile
 of broken concrete and furnishings that used to be a home.

    I'd caught a bus to the Hope Flowers School near Bethlehem, where
 peace-making is taught to children of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim
 parents.  As the driver turned into the concrete driveway that led
 down a narrowing road to the school, someone on the bus inquired,
 "What on earth?"  As he pointed to the
 unspeakable mountain of rubble on the property adjacent to the school,
 the driver started to respond, but then thought better of it.

    Now inside the school, we listened as the Principle of Hope
 Flowers cheerfully greeted us in three languages:  "Peace unto you!
 Shalom!  Salaam Alaykum!" he
 exclaimed.  As we toured the facility, we were utterly amazed at this
 "island" of understanding and peace, where children learned to treat
 all persons with dignity, regardless of and because of their
 contrasting skin-color and creed.  And, appropriate to the name of the
 school, each of us left with a sense of hope.

     But, it wasn't until the next day that a certain Jeff Halper,
 founder of ICAHD, (the Israeli Commmittee Against Home Demolition),
 explained to us why the destruction of the home outside of Hope School
 had taken place.  "The Israelis want the land,"
 he said.  First they claimed that there were Palestinian terrorists
 living there.  When
 it became obvious that the house was inhabited only by a gentle
 father, his docile wife, and their five young children, the
 authorities issued a warrant for the home to be destroyed on the
 pretense of "false ownership," although the man produced the deed that
 proved that he'd inherited the land from his father, his grandfather,
 his great-grandfather, his great-great grandfather, and his
 great-great-great grandfather.

       Then, Jeff said something I'll never forget.  "In fact," he
 began, "it wasn't so much that the Israeli's wanted the land, as much
 as they wanted the family off of it."

       I hope you'll want more clarification, as I did.  I hope you'll
 ask the hard questions like I've been doing since that I beheld that
 mountain of ugliness. I hope that when you hear the pundits say:
 "It's the Palestinians who don't want peace," you'll remember Martin
 Luther King, Jr., who said that "without justice there can be no
 peace."  And, finally, like the headmaster of Hope School, his
 teachers, pupils and parents, I hope you and I will learn to live by
 and treat others with dignity and respect.