Sixty or So Days in the Fulcrum
"Write what you know"; that is what they say.
I don't know all that I don't know, that is certain. I remember thinking about that fact or set of facts around eight years ago when I was spending time in a known yet unknown province of a generally war-torn country, a place that some call the "Graveyard of Empires". I guess Alexander the Great went there with troops over 2,000 years ago, helping the Pax Romana take root farther across the Earth. And other powers have settled there since, to include the British, the Soviets, now us Americans.
History.
Sting sings in his first solo album, Dream of the Blue Turtles (circa 1985), "history will teach us nothing." This quote likely borrowed and issued by someone else older and wiser. A repetitive theme, upon which many of us can agree. We continue to commit mistakes, and many of those mistake others have committed before us. It seems that too often we cannot learn from our repeated mistakes.
Hatred, jealousy, competitive greed and avarice, exploitation, violence, on and on... Bad things occur and recur.
We do learn or we should learn from the "poets, priests, and politicians" (to quote Sting, again), or we can perhaps derive lessons and truths from the historians and writers, the wise people and sages of the times and ages. What do we learn, who do we become because of it, what do we aspire to know as a consequence? Who de we list to serve?
When I was 24 years-old I had the opportunity of a lifetime; now as a 50 year-old, twenty six years past that remarkable summer for me, more than twice that age and having lived some more and seen more and reflected more, read more, been taught more, but also having forgotten some things, and likely not having learned many if not some of the most crucial things that I could have or should have learned, incorporated, internalized, and benefited from.
In these last few days, early April, celebrating the Resurrection of the the Savior with Easter, the first half of this spring month, 2021, I have contemplated the time, finite yet somehow eternal, half or mostly forgotten, yet etched and lived, completed, that I was able to do in the what my religious college refers to as the Holy Land.
Some do not see Israel and Palestine as Holy or sacred, because many do not acknowledge the supernatural aspects of the lands of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, later Moses, David, and eventually for Christians Jesus and the Apostles. Then centuries later it became more significant and holy for the believers of the Prophet Mohammed Quereshi, Peace and Blessins Be Upon Him. Jewish, Christian, and Muslim believers view the areas on the east side of the Mediterranean, the modern state of Israel, and the occupied territories of the Palestinians, as the "fulcrum" of history for their heritage and the locus of most or many of their holiest locations.
Jerusalem, in the center of the region, is the fulcrum of the fulcrum, but, there are many other spots of this small pivotal country and its regions that are considered holy and pertinent to the past heritage of faith of a few billion world citizens, yet this Holy Land (to the believers) also plays a seminal part in the current and future of the belief systems, a place that is the "central shaft", a swivel point or hub for so many other things, which involves religions, politics, sociology, military affairs and concerns, trade, perceptions, human rights, and on.
Some Palestinians consider themselves continued victims of the European Holocaust, the awful reign of Adolph Hitler, targeting mostly Jewish people but many others. Why do they think this way? Israel came to be because of that terrible time and genocide, and now the Palestinian homeland has been at times brutally occupied ever since.
Many Americans do not see it this way. More Europeans see it from the Palestinian angle, but we have to be careful of coming across anti-Semitic. Dangerous signals and messages, but above all, there is too much hate and competition for these places...
There are few simple or easy ways to fix the issues, the claims to Israel and Palestine.
Again, the analogy of a fulcrum, a site of importance that allows other parts to move and operate. To me, as I understand physics, mechanics, and reality, a fulcrum is a place of pressure and is vital to the functionality of a system or set of systems that continue to move, or not.
Below is the Oxford definition of the word:
fulcrum
[ˈfo͝olkrəm, ˈfəlkrəm]NOUN
fulcrum (noun) · fulcra (plural noun) · fulcrums (plural noun)
- the point on which a lever rests or is supported and on which it pivots.
- "research is the fulcrum of the academic community"
ORIGIN
late
17th century (originally in the general sense ‘a prop or support’):
from Latin, literally ‘post of a couch’, from fulcire ‘to prop up’.
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Once upon a time in the middle of the 1990s I was able to be in and around this "fulcrum" of history and humanity for sixty days; it was summer. What did I see, feel, learn, be impressed by, bothered by, vexed by, or pleased with, impressed by? What did I miss? What have I forgotten? What shook me, or left me different? What did I not learn? Prior to this in-person visit, for more than two decades I had seen and learned and shared things from afar, but then I was there. Did it make a difference that I was so close to the locations of the Bible and the wars, as opposed to reading it in books and watching films and television series about it?
I am not sure. Hence this review and discussion, the musings of 26 years later...
I will number things as I recall and recount, to help a bit of the flow.
1. Flying into Tel Aviv on the American international flight was long. We flew from JFK, New York City; I do not think that we laid over in Europe. Maybe London? I do not think so. A year later I found out that this flight, that the very plane, apparently, blew up over the ocean on the way to France. It was ruled as a mechanical error, not a terrorist act or an accidental U.S. missile, but either way it was a bad way for those passengers to disappear so violently. We never know when a trip may not work out.
This is conjecture and reflection after the trip, certainly humbling. We do this after so many lessons and life experiences, we review and recall what might have been: we live on, get hurt at times, take ill, or even die. I did not do any of those negatives. Hurra. And hurrah.
2. As we alighted onto the tarmac of Tel Aviv, this late day of June, the last week of that summer month, I believe in the morning (as we flew overnight), the largest amount of passengers aboard seemed to be Israelis or Jewish; they did something that came across as heartfelt and emotional, thankful and excited. They applauded. They were home, it seemed. And, for a guy like me, a student and believer in the Bible, having never been to any of Asia, or Africa, one who had done his share of studies, travels, classes, actions, life goals, based on the God of the Holy Land, it was a bit of a homecoming for me and my fellow students. We were a group of about 155, mostly Americans (or all?) some of whom I had met, and many others that I would soon come to know.
3. I probably saw armed security at the airport with uzis (Israeli-made sub-machine gun); I had been in airports like that in South America. Security was a big deal. We were warned never to leave a bag unattended or it might be targeted as a bomb.
4. We boarded one of four buses to ride inland to Jerusalem and our study center. It was a Mediterranean climate, like Chile where I had lived. Dry lands and rocks, not too green, but the palm trees and other scrub brush. Buildings and homes were made of rock, like that found in the surrounding environment.
5. The Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies, finished around 1987, is a beautiful building complex, which has tremendous views and vistas of the Old City. The Palestinians appreciate it, take wedding photos there, and it is a nice, quality edifice. We were blessed to have such a nice place, with both Arab and Israeli security.
6. The Kidron Valley, with the summer dried up "River Kidron", is only a small wadi-like creek separating Mount Scopus and the Mount of Olives from the Old City and the ramparts of the Jewish, Greek, and Muslim Quarters.Parts of it smelled of rubbish. We would cross it down the hill to approach the city of central Jerusalem.
7. There were many Christian churches all around. I thought that being in East Jerusalem there would be more mosques, and as a Jewish country more synagogues. No, as I see it now: this nation is the fulcrum. More on that later.
8. The Arabs and Israelis, with the scattered other nationalities among them, were hard to distinguish at first glance. I had thought I would be able to tell the differences more easily. If they dressed modern, for 1990s, they looked as though they were the same.
10. My fellow Americans could be pleasant but also be a source of consternation. This went for me, too.
11. I had good professorial teachers, both of religious knowledge and secular history. They were all Americans, U.S. citizens, but many or most had spent many years living and breathing up their versions of the Middle East, to include Egypt. Westerners in an Eastern land. Some of them knew Jewish culture or practice extremely well.
12. We traveled through the Negev Desert, south to reach the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Sinai Peninsula, which is Egypt but still part of Asia. The land of Moses and the 12 tribes and their wanderings, dozens of generations ago and a bunch of us Western Christians seem to resonate with the story, as we have undoubtedly Westernized it to our fashion, but in the Christian sense we see our history connected through the Abrahamic patriarchies, back and back to Adam and Eve.
13. I have been raised to be Christian, in an "American" (U.S.-based and originated) organization, and outlier among Christendom in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, yes, but Christian and devoted in many ways like millions of others in many countries and cultures. A devotee in most senses of the word. Being in this atmosphere, also as a large aficionado or student of history and current affairs, this was an amazing place to be. The crossroads of so much of who we are and portend to be, according to many. And, there is the drama of the ugliness remaining in history, too, the pain and the bloodshed. All of it was here.
14. Linguistically I had been studying and exposing myself to Arabic and the cultures of the Middle East for years, both formally and informally. It was really satisfying to be up close and personal with many things and elements there. I had taken two college years, more or less, to try to get closer to the knowledge and understanding of the ancient and modern grand mysteries of the world: there is so much to learn. I wanted --I always have wanted -- to know key things, to explore with the mind, heart, soul. Some might call that intellect, but at minimum I deem it a penchant for curiosity. This was a scratch of that itch, or itches, for sure. Over a decade and a half later, much of those mysteries and itches still remain. And here I am, still searching through my mind, heart, and soul, still searching, thinking about, contemplating, reflecting, wondering, gathering, observing.
15. We are all sensors. I watched in the the late 1970s as Iran and Afghanistan went through their internal and revolutionary struggles; men in turbans in foreign lands and desert landscapes crying for justice and vengeance, the mujahadeen of those awful scenes of blood, toil, and explosions. I watched the bullet ridden streets of Beirut into the 1980s, the other images of Palestinian hostage takers of airlines landing on grounds across the globe, pushing their grenades and firearms out the pilot windows, demanding their needs and wants, a cause bigger than money, you could feel the urgency despite not understanding the urges to such acts, so desperate, daring, usually futile, yet so bold.
16. I had many sublime and good religious and spiritual experiences in this study abroad and these famous and less known locations. I had a good time, there were really good people that I spent time with. It is hard to express what it all meant and means and can mean to me, to my faith, to my country, to humanity, to history.
Can you see some of my dilemma? How do we all fit in this space of love and hate, toil and strife, milk and honey, strength and pride, humiliation and vexation, all mixed together?
Summary
I was in the land of the Arabs of the Jews, and still more Christians; a place of refuge and relief, and at the same time a place of occupation, angst, and suppression, awesome jet planes and well armed troops in every other sector, stone throwing boys against the tanks and water cannons on an animated Friday afternoon, suicide bombers at the bus stops, Bible sites surrounded by Roman and Chaldean and Philistine and Canaanite and Hittite and a hundred other -ites' ruins, all centered on the Place, the elevated table, the sacred ground where Father Abraham was to sacrifice his only begotten, whether Isaac or Ishmael, according to traditions. Two thousand years later another singularly begotten man of some renown laid Himself in a lowly meadow, which was in essence a raised platform of humanity and souls, an olive press, in modern terms a fulcrum, that would squeeze the life blood from him like the fruit of the ancient trees surrounding Him. As C.S. Lewis featured a hill where all the creatures of creation and all the Sons and Daughters of Adam would congregate at the Last Battle and thereafter, where the world, our once and future Celestial Earth, was bigger and brighter and deeper and richer, more aromatic and defying any definitions and descriptions of its beauty; so we have come to Mount Moriah in the Old City where millions approach it, and cover their heads in utter respect for the Master of the Universe, the Lord of Lords, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful.
Yes, I went there for a few short days twenty six years ago. Two months go fast, memories and moments are left alone, dry up, are forgotten from the conscious memory; perhaps the subconscious holds on more effectively. I try to go back there, to the Holy places and the smelly grounds, the sun and sand and rocks and fields, in my dreams and in some waking moments, like this. I may go back still, all things in due course. I invite you to go, to see, to smell, to feel, to live and even die in a way there, to take in and absorb the fulcrum of our human history, where our shared ancestors fought for their rights and temples and beliefs and kingdoms or fiefdoms, for spouses and sons and daughters and legacies and some heresies.
Set yourself in the pivotal point of humanity, the fulcrum of the ages, the sacred and the profane, the humble and the lifted up. The exalted, the debased. The Holy City, the Arabs call Jerusalem al-Qodz, as do the Farsi speaking Persians, as a billion plus other billions look to the city and land at the center of their holy and less than holy thoughts and aspirations, millennial plans and prophesies; prognostications and hopes of a future City of Peace, a World of Mighty, Massive Finality and Unity.
Justice will prevail, Israel will prevail, God will prevail. Allah, Yahweh, Jehovah will bear His great, powerful, arm, and His own will know Him. They, hopefully we, shall bow their and our heads, kneel as a lowly beast of burden, prostrate themselves as vassal to His Lord, but even more, a baby chick to the great mother hen.
Go to the center point, the hub, the fulcrum, and be crushed in the wonder and glory of it all.
I would like to go there once more. I want all of us to go to that raised setting, too. Deeper, farther, richer, brighter, fuller, fairer, nicer, kinder, warmer, cleaner, more glorious and simple than the mind can understand. So plain and sublime that you will know it as you do your own home, your own mother, your own life and future and past. You will be there, and God will say it is good, and well done.
Ach. Meant to write “two decades and a half”.
ReplyDeleteAch. Meant to write “two decades and a half”.
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