to understand
Granted that trying to understand is far less than doing something one way or another, but my work to understand is more important than taking sides. Remembered here before, as a student at the Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island in 1968-69, our class of officers (mainly US Navy but of all US services and foreign military officers) ranking from lieutenant commander to Navy captain, (04 to 06) and our supervisors and lecturers three and four star officers including CNO and joint staff chiefs, all in top secret clearance.
Early one Monday morning we embarked in coaches from Newport to United Nations HQ in Manhattan, for what I wasn't sure. There was free time, and several of us, a group of friends and neighbors at Fort Adams, family housing, took in the new movie "I Am Curious, Yellow," (not sure but seems to me it was on 42nd Street), at one point of which a Marine officer's wife with us, stood up, grabbed the Major's hand, and dragged him out in a huff of disgust (let the reader understand).
But this is about trying to understand others, their passions and convictions. During the week, we were in small groups rotating to sessions with various ambassadors, including to my memory, various middle-eastern, Arab, Saudi, Iraqi, Iranian, a Palestinian ambassador, English, French, American (name I don't recall), the ambassador of the Soviet Union, and others. The idea was to help us realize that in the world of diplomacy and getting along, there are many points of view, and to help us discover and understand that an objective, correct viewpoint is illusive, elusive.
Singularly meaningful to me were the session with the Israeli ambassador and the session with the Palestinian ambassador (fifty years ago and I'm unsure of various diplomatic ranks except that we did have the senior representative from each country). Each presented his case to us in absolute, immovable, nonnegotiable language. It was clear that settlement of issues over Palestinian land, territory, was beyond resolution, irresolvable unto the ages of ages. And so it has remained in my own half century of watching with my awareness heightened by that week in New York.
These days, comes to my email inbox several times a week, mail, newspapers from Jerusalem Post, from Haaretz, and from Eye on Palestine (surprising to me, a vehemently anti-Israel publication of YMCA/YWCA united). And I read them, trying better to understand.
Depending on their perspective, either Israel is occupying Palestinian land and must get out or be forced out; or Israel has reclaimed her territorial heritage and is moving on into God's future. I'm trying to understand both sides even as I reflect comparatively on civilization in North America now, versus before Europeans came here. Or for example, in the days after 9/11 before the US moved military against Afghanistan and was gathering to do so, an Afghanistan immigrant to the U.S. described his homeland, as pathetic, vulnerable Stone Age tribal people, civilization, culture; I've never forgotten reading his words just before we attacked Afghanistan, about what a pathetic, ignorant, innocently naive civilization and land we were about to decimate. Just so, Israel v. Palestine today. But one and all, human beings nevertheless.
In trying to understand or at least see both perspectives, Occupied Palestine versus the Jews' need for and right to a homeland, I'm on the fence? The German, Polish, et al Holocaust against all Jews, and culture of antisemitism today, absolutely ratify the right of the Jews to a homeland, and even though after WW2 part of Germany should have been depopulated of people and repopulated with Jews as a beginning of reparations, Jews have a cherished holy heritage in Palestine for which no other land in the world can substitute. On the other side, to seize the land and heritage of innocent Palestinian people and award it as Israel, and that without humane resettlement, was murderous, racist evil on the part of the Allied Powers who organized the United Nations. As I saw in the UN that week in the 1960s, the problem has no rational solution whatsoever, and no practical solution except force. Nothing has changed. And for all my American naivete that thinks there is a solution to every problem, there is no solution and nothing ever will change. I don't need to declare myself on one side or the other. Both sides have absolute merit, both sides are immovable. I cannot fault the Palestine resistance, though the racist and cultural bias of WW2 victors has led the world to today's divisive hatreds and terrors; which could have been avoided simply by depopulating part of Germany by all necessary means, for reassignment as Jewish resettlement. For my worthless part, I grant Israel a native land; but I can and do fault even as I understand but neither forgive nor excuse, the Israeli government's wicked and counterproductive brutal treatment of the Palestinian people. Grieving as God surely must grieve unceasingly, I just watch.
Now for today's venture into TGBC:
Early one Monday morning we embarked in coaches from Newport to United Nations HQ in Manhattan, for what I wasn't sure. There was free time, and several of us, a group of friends and neighbors at Fort Adams, family housing, took in the new movie "I Am Curious, Yellow," (not sure but seems to me it was on 42nd Street), at one point of which a Marine officer's wife with us, stood up, grabbed the Major's hand, and dragged him out in a huff of disgust (let the reader understand).
But this is about trying to understand others, their passions and convictions. During the week, we were in small groups rotating to sessions with various ambassadors, including to my memory, various middle-eastern, Arab, Saudi, Iraqi, Iranian, a Palestinian ambassador, English, French, American (name I don't recall), the ambassador of the Soviet Union, and others. The idea was to help us realize that in the world of diplomacy and getting along, there are many points of view, and to help us discover and understand that an objective, correct viewpoint is illusive, elusive.
Singularly meaningful to me were the session with the Israeli ambassador and the session with the Palestinian ambassador (fifty years ago and I'm unsure of various diplomatic ranks except that we did have the senior representative from each country). Each presented his case to us in absolute, immovable, nonnegotiable language. It was clear that settlement of issues over Palestinian land, territory, was beyond resolution, irresolvable unto the ages of ages. And so it has remained in my own half century of watching with my awareness heightened by that week in New York.
These days, comes to my email inbox several times a week, mail, newspapers from Jerusalem Post, from Haaretz, and from Eye on Palestine (surprising to me, a vehemently anti-Israel publication of YMCA/YWCA united). And I read them, trying better to understand.
Depending on their perspective, either Israel is occupying Palestinian land and must get out or be forced out; or Israel has reclaimed her territorial heritage and is moving on into God's future. I'm trying to understand both sides even as I reflect comparatively on civilization in North America now, versus before Europeans came here. Or for example, in the days after 9/11 before the US moved military against Afghanistan and was gathering to do so, an Afghanistan immigrant to the U.S. described his homeland, as pathetic, vulnerable Stone Age tribal people, civilization, culture; I've never forgotten reading his words just before we attacked Afghanistan, about what a pathetic, ignorant, innocently naive civilization and land we were about to decimate. Just so, Israel v. Palestine today. But one and all, human beings nevertheless.
In trying to understand or at least see both perspectives, Occupied Palestine versus the Jews' need for and right to a homeland, I'm on the fence? The German, Polish, et al Holocaust against all Jews, and culture of antisemitism today, absolutely ratify the right of the Jews to a homeland, and even though after WW2 part of Germany should have been depopulated of people and repopulated with Jews as a beginning of reparations, Jews have a cherished holy heritage in Palestine for which no other land in the world can substitute. On the other side, to seize the land and heritage of innocent Palestinian people and award it as Israel, and that without humane resettlement, was murderous, racist evil on the part of the Allied Powers who organized the United Nations. As I saw in the UN that week in the 1960s, the problem has no rational solution whatsoever, and no practical solution except force. Nothing has changed. And for all my American naivete that thinks there is a solution to every problem, there is no solution and nothing ever will change. I don't need to declare myself on one side or the other. Both sides have absolute merit, both sides are immovable. I cannot fault the Palestine resistance, though the racist and cultural bias of WW2 victors has led the world to today's divisive hatreds and terrors; which could have been avoided simply by depopulating part of Germany by all necessary means, for reassignment as Jewish resettlement. For my worthless part, I grant Israel a native land; but I can and do fault even as I understand but neither forgive nor excuse, the Israeli government's wicked and counterproductive brutal treatment of the Palestinian people. Grieving as God surely must grieve unceasingly, I just watch.
Now for today's venture into TGBC:
Acts 3:1-26
One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, at three o’clock in the afternoon. And a man lame from birth was being carried in. People would lay him daily at the gate of the temple called the Beautiful Gate so that he could ask for alms from those entering the temple.
When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked them for alms. Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, ‘Look at us.’ And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, ‘I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.’
And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. Jumping up, he stood and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.
All the people saw him walking and praising God, and they recognized him as the one who used to sit and ask for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.
When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked them for alms. Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, ‘Look at us.’ And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, ‘I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.’
And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. Jumping up, he stood and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.
All the people saw him walking and praising God, and they recognized him as the one who used to sit and ask for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.
While he clung to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the portico called Solomon’s Portico, utterly astonished. When Peter saw it, he addressed the people, ‘You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses.And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you.
‘And now, friends, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. In this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer. Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah appointed for you, that is, Jesus, who must remain in heaven until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy prophets. Moses said, “The Lord your God will raise up for you from your own people a prophet like me. You must listen to whatever he tells you. And it will be that everyone who does not listen to that prophet will be utterly rooted out from the people.” And all the prophets, as many as have spoken, from Samuel and those after him, also predicted these days. You are the descendants of the prophets and of the covenant that God gave to your ancestors, saying to Abraham, “And in your descendants all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you, to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways.’
Comments. A jaundiced eye that sees an instantly reformed charlatan in the man who used to beg at the Beautiful Gate, entirely misses the point of Luke's story about Peter's faith, powers from God, and evangelical preaching here in the beginning of Peter's ministry. And as Peter lays on the guilt for those who had rejected Jesus and shouted "Crucify him."
Luke's view of Jesus as prophet, the prophet that God long ago promised through Moses, continues. And the affirmation of Jesus' second coming, with promise for those who stand with him now, and terrible threat for those who do not. Luke's call through Peter is for the enemies of Christ to repent and turn to him.
Let me see if I can find a tolerable picture to add to today's post.
DThos+
m - o - l - a - hs <-
Comments. A jaundiced eye that sees an instantly reformed charlatan in the man who used to beg at the Beautiful Gate, entirely misses the point of Luke's story about Peter's faith, powers from God, and evangelical preaching here in the beginning of Peter's ministry. And as Peter lays on the guilt for those who had rejected Jesus and shouted "Crucify him."
Luke's view of Jesus as prophet, the prophet that God long ago promised through Moses, continues. And the affirmation of Jesus' second coming, with promise for those who stand with him now, and terrible threat for those who do not. Luke's call through Peter is for the enemies of Christ to repent and turn to him.
Let me see if I can find a tolerable picture to add to today's post.
DThos+
m - o - l - a - hs <-