Is This Not the Fast I Choose?

Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?       Isaiah 6-7

3:15 AM and I’m up with the birds and my fellow EA for our first round at Checkpoint 300*, the checkpoint at the wall that leads out of Bethlehem to Jerusalem. We layer ourselves and stuff our pockets with clickers for counting and instructions about what to do if the line doesn’t move in a timely way and of course our phones so we can call each other from one end of the check point to the other incase there is a hold up or just to give each other moral support.

 After a brief training the morning before, I decided I was ready to be the one in charge of counting---counting the over 2,000 men who will try and pass through the checkpoint with their permits so they can get to work, see family, or stare at their confiscated olive fields now taken over by the Har Homa Settlement. I will also count the women and children, on a separate line, and all those who pass in the humanitarian line.  We are told that our reports about the count go to various organizations including the UN as a way to monitor what is happening at the checkpoints. We are the only “eyes on the ground” consistently monitoring this inhumane process.

Richard decides to join the “main line” to see how fast it goes instead of the shorter humanitarian line. When I see him there towering over the other men I am reminded that accompanying sometimes does truly mean standing along side, sharing the same miserable boxed in space.

After a few minutes I realize I have not put on enough clothes for the morning wind and yet this small inconvience is nothing compared to what the Palestinians face daily as they leave Bethlehem for the Israeli occupied territory of Jerusalem. The men are 400 deep already at this dark hour before dawn. Only the birds make sounds as they fly above the caged metal bars that trap and hold the men like prisoners. The gates open for only minutes and close again. When they are closed I scan the desolate scene. I see in the near distance at the car checkpoint a woman soldier standing with her legs apart and her gun pointed down. I wonder if she sees me. We are two women doing our assigned jobs and then I hear the quiet murmur of two men praying, kneeling on their prayer mat, a cardboard box that once held pineapples. Their praying reminds me that this place too is sacred ground in a land of contested holy sites.

The line is not moving. Only one metal detector is open on the other side, the Jerusalem side. When it is blocked there they delay opening on the Bethlehem side. I speak to the guard and she throws up her hands to indicate there is nothing she can do. I call the humanitarian hotline and request that they open another metal detector. At one point, between the second and third call, I mutter aloud, “My God.” One of the Palestinians says, “My God, too.” Our eyes meet briefly and we share a moment of frustration.

An hour or two later, I notice a black plastic shopping bag left near the exit gate, the gate for those few traveling from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. I wonder about the poor person who might have dropped their bag when the soldier in the warm booth motions me to come forward. I worry that my incessant calls to the humanitarian line might now have caused me to loose her favor. Instead she says, pointing to the bag, “Be careful, that might be a bomb. We had trouble yesterday.” A bomb. It never crossed my mind that this small plastic bag could contain a bomb. Thinking she was going to come out and do something I step back closer to the door of the men just in case I need to duck behind these unbearable walls. She doesn’t come out. This is not some kind of American thriller. I am alone with my thoughts about mortality and what if scenarios…but then the gate opens and I go back to counting and she goes back to nodding mostly yes. I decided that if I meant to die in a bomb blast in Bethlehem then that is that and there is nothing more to do. I could just as easy die in a car crash in Chicago.

We finish our checkpoint work later than usual, around 8:00. I am exhausted and cold to the bone. Ameen, the coffee man, gives Richard and I a free cup of tea and some chocolate biscuits for our efforts to do something to make this unbearable situation slightly more bearable.

Later in the morning, I meet with some Arab Christian women at the Arab Education Institute. I am tired and look like how I feel I am quite sure but I wanted to meet with them. When I enter they are sitting around a circle talking about fasting for lent. Each has been given a scripture passage to reflect upon. The class is in English and Arabic. They are speaking English so that I may join with them. This is the passage I received.

            “When you fast,

            be not as the hypocrites…

            who disfigure their faces,

            so they may appear unto men to fast...

            But when you fast,

            anoint your head

            and wash your face,

            so you appear not unto men to fast,

            but unto your Father

            who sees in secret,

            and your Father shall reward you openly.”

                                    Mathew 6:16-18

Fasting. What will my fast be this year? I haven’t fasted in years. I used to give up candy or chocolate when I was younger, later it was swearing I think for a moment about Isaiah’s fast and this passage together and realize that my fast must include removing the yoke of my own judgmental character. In such a place as this, it is easy to move into a place of good guys and bad guys, the oppressed and the oppressors. The people are good and the soldiers are bad. But then I remembered the soldier’s cautionary words about the possible bomb. I remembered Mrs. H whose home is now next to the wall. “It’s not the Jewish people”, she told us, “who are doing this but the government, the system.” “We want all the walls to come tumbling down,” she told us at the prayer walk.

All the walls to come tumbling down, including those we erect that make enemies out of people. I pray this Lenten season that I will be able to fast from this need to judge and divide, make enemies. 

*Checkpoint 300 also known as the Bethlehem checkpoint was established on 11/15/2005. CP 300 is not on the green line and the wall separates East Jerusalem from the West Bank.

Photo of inside of Checkpoint by EA Benoit Meystre, Bethlehem

Rev. Loren McGrail

Accompanier in Bethlehem

Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI)

World council of Churches (WCC)

Website: www.eappi.org

Cell phone:   054 815 7613

Landline:  011 972 02 274-7558

Email: lorenmcgrail@gmail.com

Blog:  http://agarmentofdestiny.blogspot.com