1996 Israelis and Palestinians

1996  Israelis and Palestinians.  Allegheny Airlines, Pittsburgh Airport, Committee on Uniform Series Meetings, New Orleans,  Boston and New England, travel games; Israel and Palestine, the historic biblical story, current life and politics, Thomas Stransky, the Mennonite and Jesus’ tradition of moving, love and forgiveness.

My childhood was hearth and home; in my sleep I could hear Buster (our dog) thumping his tail on the porch floor; at dusk I was whistling and heading home for my own bed while my brothers slept out on the hillside; on our Holmesville driveway, I placed a sign “A Future Farmer Lives Here.” It was the storge of C.S. Lewis’ four Greek loves, the homely and domestic affection. As a Miller family, we did very little travel except one-day excursions to the Columbus and Cleveland zoos and traveling with my father to where ever the evangelists landed in Ohio. So, I was an unlikely candidate to do a lot of traveling during my adult years, and yet as my interests and work would have it, I did my share of travels. I think it started from mission and service, the summer of 1965 when I joined the Mennonite voluntary service unit among the Pruitt Igo high rise dwellers on the near north side of St. Louis, Missouri. It simply kept on going for several years in Puerto Rico. There were Mennonite Publishing House (MPH) travel and Venezuela living. Sometimes, family vacations could be attached to school and publishing conventions. With time I learned that generally one made better decisions based on some frame of reference greater than oneself, whether statewide, national or international.  Furthermore, travel brought some excitement, occasional boredom, often enjoyment, and always appreciation for a return to 903 Arthur Avenue. 

For four decades I flew with Allegheny Airlines and US Airways. I traveled by air from the times Allegheny Airlines was an efficient regional carrier in the 70s, had its hub in Pittsburgh, then bought up smaller carriers such as Piedmont, and eventually evolved into US Airways. During the 70s I made many a morning trip to Chicago with Paul M. Lederach for meetings in which during the hour and 10-minute flight we were all served a full and warm breakfast (omelets), juice and coffee and an extra roll which Lederach always requested. Somehow, with few exceptions, the stewardesses (still young, attractive and female) could serve everyone and get back to their seats for landing at O’Hare. MPH emphasized frugality, and members of the clergy and the armed forces could travel on a stand-by discount, and so the people who traveled with me such as Paul Lederach and Arnold Cressman generally would get on the plane late. We were all seated in the cabin and then they would come: an unlikely cohort of Mennonite ministers and members of the American armed forces. I don’t recall that Lederach ever missed a flight. Since then, food and ticketing have all diminished, of course, and about ten years ago, I stopped flying US Airways; they often cost more and had fewer flights from Pittsburgh. As I write this, US Airways with headquarters in Tempe, Arizona, has merged with American Airlines.

Scottdale was convenient to reach downtown Pittsburgh but not the airport out in Moon Township; we were an hour and a half south and east of the airport, depending on the traffic. But during the pre- 9-11-2001 period, I developed some expertise in leaving Scottdale about two hours before a flight,  running through the parking lot and walkways directly back to the gate, getting my boarding pass as the last people were entering the plane. Right on the plane as the door was closing. Or I would go to the ticket counter and they would call out to the gate, saying hold it, one more passenger is coming, a morning run, and l got a seat. I don’t believe I ever missed a flight, even if it was close many times. Now, of course, that all has changed; I go early, and I take off my shoes and belt, thanking the kind TSA workers for searching me. Several years ago, I absent-mindedly opened my zipper fly after removing my belt. The bemused TSA worker told me to keep going and that they were not that invasive yet.

I usually did not go to the ticketing counter because I carried my bags. I think I got leery of sending bags through back in the sixties when Gloria and I went to Colombia and our bags arrived several days late, and it was a lot of bother. Looking a little scruffy seemed a small cost for the benefit of simplicity and efficiency. Early on I bought a canvas bag in which on one side I could take a change of underwear, an extra shirt, running shoes, and on the other side I stuffed the files and papers I needed for the meeting. And even with carry-on, one can take some hearth and home along; I always had room for my little black genuine leather toiletry bag which I bought at Maxwell Brothers in Millersburg when I left for Malone College in 1965. I replaced the zipper one time, but the leather and plastic lining have remained durable, and it has served me well for five decades. Dear reader, I do admit, however, that simplicity should not trump decorum. Traveling to New York overnight with only my brief case and a clear plastic freezer bag of a toothbrush and briefs stuffed inside was not a good idea to my traveling companion.

I also had my familiar spot at the Pittsburgh airport parking lot; although this easy-to-find spot directly out from the belt walkway and to the left was less storge than the ease of always being able to find your car when you returned. Before the new 1992 airport, I often used the Campbell Road park and fly because of its ease to and from the old airport. Finally, the large Alexander Calder mobile greeted you hanging in the old Pittsburgh lobby, and it found its way into the new airport as well.  One could talk of similar routines at Chicago O’Hare with the nearby Hampton Inn, the Travel Lodge, the Four Horseman Restaurant, the latter eventually populated by Marlin Brando look-alikes in dark glasses, black derby hats, and big Cadillac limos awaiting in the parking lot. We moved up the street to the more comfortable Marriot Hotel for eating where one night who should appear but our old Bruderhof neighbors from Farmington. Christoph Arnold and a few communitarians were having a late night drink after a day of visiting the Chicago-area Christian colleges, presumably giving them counsel on leadership, communal living and family life.   

Once a year I would go for a week of meetings hosted by the Committee of the Uniform Series which met in several cities on a rotating basis, but regularly we landed in the old Royal Sonesta Hotel in New Orleans French Quarter.  The one hundred-year-old Committee was under the National Council of Churches (NCC) and the old hotel were a perfect match for each other-- a throw-back to times when things were still going good for this ecumenical organization and the old hotel whose carpets were sometimes comfortably thread bear. We were a rather traditional group and preferred to go to places where you could still get a hot water bottle placed under your pillow in the evening. The hotels gave us special rates and the NCC gave us subsidies, so the costs were reasonable. In New Orleans we were among fine cooks, jazz bands, carnival parades, and colorful necklaces. If you happened to be in the streets in the evenings, you might also be entertained by slightly drunken women flashing their boobs from the iron woven balconies. Still, with all that evening entertainment, and let’s say it was a distraction, we managed to do good work with preparing Bible studies for our churches.

The committee reached back to the turn of the century when most of the Protestants got together around the common text—the English Bible. Denominational representatives created outlines which surveyed the Bible every six years. We did some book studies and a few thematic studies, and in an earlier day provided a common Bible study for most of the country’s Protestant churches; we even had a temperance (alcohol) Sunday every quarter. By the 90s it was about one third membership of African American denominations, a few mainline denominations, especially the Methodists, and smaller groups such as the Church of God Anderson, Brethren and the Mennonites. The big enchilada among these groups was the Southern Baptist Convention, which still sent a group of a dozen editors and biblical scholars. The committee had good revenue from royalties of independent publishers such as David C. Cook and Gospel Light; hence the outlines we created could subsidize some of the smaller and poorer publishers and denominations. A number of the African American denominations also used the outlines for their children’s Sunday school materials, and this work increased their representation.  

I loved the mix of people because it was one of the few settings I attended where such a theological, cultural and racial mix could work and worship together—for a whole week. Unfortunately, the big umbrella with a common Bible would not last. During the late nineties, the Southern Baptists pulled out and created their own outlines; their denominational leadership was becoming more conservative and ours more liberal; the NCC was less than transparent concerning its finances (at least to the Southern Baptists’ satisfaction), and finally the remaining representatives tended not to vote for Southern Baptist officers. Whatever the combination of issues, I missed the Southern Baptists when they left, and I’d like to think they missed us too. 

The genius of the Uniform Series Outlines was to provide a biblical text and all the denominations could do their own interpretative writing. In some ways, it was a Protestant Sunday school lectionary. I helped celebrate its 125^th anniversary when we met in Indianapolis, Indiana, in April of 1997.  I also remember the week because the National Basketball Association Pacers were at home that week, and the visiting New York Knicks were in our hotel. So one night I went to the nearby Market Square Arena to see them play, which included Reggie Miller and Patrick Ewing, the latter approaching the end of his career. 

In mid-July 11 of 1996, our family took a New England trip tied to a school conference, which was a kind of reprise from the trip Gloria and I took twenty-four years earlier (1972). Now  Elizabeth, Hannah and Anson went along; Jakob and Lisen were in Korea. Our first stop was at Newport, Rhode Island, which is kind of an over-sized houses place. In 1972, as a part of the Newport Music Festival, Gloria and I heard a four-piano concert at the Breakers with snow flakes falling from the ceiling at the end (we’re talking during August). This time we went to the International Tennis Hall of Fame . Then it was on to Boston where we stayed several days near the Boston Commons, hence visiting make way for the ducklings and bookstores. We hiked and took day trips out to Concord, one day swimming in Walden Pond, now one end turned into a public beach. We visited the Concord Library and the Sleepy Hollow graveyard where Thoreau, Emerson, Hawthorne, and Luisa May Alcott were buried. We visited many of the same places where we had been earlier, but now added the Louisa May Alcott House, and we followed the Revolutionary War trail from the Old North Church up to the Bunker Hill monument, which Elizabeth refused to climb. On July Fourth, the Boston Pops played at an outdoor venue at the Commons and exploded fireworks.  

We ended the trip going up the Portland, Maine where I attended a school conference and late one night we visited the L.L. Bean store in Freeport which is open twenty-four hours a day. What I remember most of this trip was the new meaning of this part of American history and literature, now also at least on some levels appropriated by our children. In Boston one day, we were walking down the street and met Michael Dukakis, the Democratic candidate for president during the late 80s. Another day we sat with Red Auerbach (okay, his statue), the Celtics basketball coach with this trademark victory cigar. I used to follow Auerbach’s Celtics during the Bill Russell, Bob Cousy and John Havlicek years, and always enjoyed hearing comments by the great center Bill Russell, who is also a philosopher. But I suppose the other element of family trips has simply been having time together; on this trip Hannah, Anson, Elizabeth, and Gloria and were playing card games non-stop when we traveled in the van. Sometimes in the evenings, I would joined them for Rook (the only card game I really know).      

Outside of America, I had my first introduction to the Middle East from the Bible stories and when people such as the Mennonite Bishop Harry Stutzman made the trip to Israel and came back with pictures and stories (1949). So when the National Council of Churches division on Christian education offered a travel seminar to Israel and Palestine in 1997 from April 28 to May 15, I was interested.  Representatives from various protestant denominations joined the travel seminar as a part of the celebration of the 125^th anniversary of the Committee of the Uniform Series with generous foundation money making it affordable. The National Council’s very capable and consummate staffer Dorothy (Dot) Savage ran the trip and had planned into it about every aspect of one might have wanted for historical, theological, educational and socio-political views. For two and one-half weeks we visited biblical sites all over Israel and Palestine: around Jerusalem, north to Tiberias (Galilee), and south to the Dead Sea and Ein Gedi. We explored biblical archeology at the temple walls and at the caves where the Dead Sea scrolls were found.

We heard Nora Carmi and Naim Ateek at Sabeel, a Palestinian study center which had appropriated liberation theology to the Palestinian cause. Carmi lifted up a copy of Donald Kraybill’s The Upside Down Kingdom , saying it was one of the best Palestinians’ reading of the Jesus and the New Testament. The Jewish lecturer Binyamin Schlossberg and the evangelical scholar Steven Pfann described Hebrew life and early Christianity. Professor Nafez Nazzal described the emergence of Islam as we visited the dome of the Rock and other Muslim holy sites. Old Testament scholar Randall Bailey travelled with us, giving fascinating Afro-centric interpretations to our experiences and the scriptures. Maria Harris, a Christian education specialist, also traveled with us, reflecting on our experience in relation to her latest book  Proclaim Jubilee: A Spirituality for the 21st Century, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996); she told me she leaned quite heavily on the Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder.  We heard a lecture by Jesus Seminar participant Arland Jacobson and case studies from attorneys for the Palestinian cause. We visited the Jewish national shrines such as Yad Vashem, the holocaust memorial.

But enough of this name dropping. Two main things took me to Jerusalem, the biblical story and the current politics and life of the region. First the biblical story where for two weeks, I enjoyed having a place and physical image for the names, geography and places of the Bible and Jesus. I ate fish (Talapia) from the Sea of Galilee, swam (floated) in the Dead Sea, and one day Carmichael Crutchfield and I spent a day walking and running on top of the walls of  old Jerusalem (you could actually could do this). Crutchfield, pastor of the Mother Liberty Christian Methodist Episcopal Church in Jackson, Tennessee, was a great traveling partner because he also enjoyed the physicality of these places. I experienced many worship services such as the Anglican cathedral up on top of Mount of Olives and one Sunday afternoon a hymn sing with the Mennonites at Patricia Shelly’s house in East Jerusalem. Well, but now we’re getting into contemporary life, and let’s stay with the historic story.

I’ve generally accepted the Hebrew and Christian story and text as basic documents and scriptures handed down to be appreciated on their own terms as sacred literature. Hence, I never felt the interest to sharply distinguish, for example, the Jesus of history with the Christ of the church. There certainly is value in historical criticism and the whole apparatus which goes with it, and I’m thankful for the Enlightenment to our culture. Still, other critical readings (from the New Criticism of the 50s to the many Post-Modernisms of today) can understand and appreciate the texts, authors and readers on their own terms. The devout over the centuries have taken the appreciation and obedience approach, and they were everywhere obvious at the Christian, Jewish and Muslim sites. 

But the biblical story was often overwhelmed by the present conflicts in Israel and Palestine. A taxi driver points to the house where his parents were evicted after the 1967 war. One afternoon Carmichael Crutchfield and I visited a Palestinian family who lived in a UN housing settlement where tennis shoes were hanging from the electric wires, commemorating the lives of youths the Palestinians considered as martyrs for their cause. Our intent was to visit a Mother who was an expert seamstress, selling dresses for added income. But inside the house we were really in a shrine for her teen son who had been killed by the Israeli police. I grew sadder by the moment as this Mother described her son as a virtuous innocent who had grown up throwing stones at the Israeli police and was now a martyr. I grew sad because his younger brothers and sisters were listening and were growing up in a culture of hate and vengeance. At the other end by Tiberias (Sea of Galilee) one evening I went to a hot spring spa and met a Israeli mother who had brought her daughter who had a nervous disorder; the warm water was good for her daughter, she said. She had grown up in a kibbutz and told of how they had evolved into now having private property. She told me of the constant insecurities of her life and family and her hopes for a better future for her children. In 1997 suicide bombings were still quite common in Israel. Both of these women reminded me of Gloria and gave personal meaning to the lectures and talks we had been hearing.

Still, aside from the personal stories of sadness and tragedy, I’ve never weighed in strongly regarding my international and political learnings on this trip, partly because I didn’t know what to say, and I’m generally skeptical of one-trip authorities. I have lived with many of these voices among my associates, people who strongly condemn Israel and American policies and legitimize Palestinian resistance, under the category of justice. However, I could not join them then and will not now two decades later. I remember Thomas Stransky, the rector at Tantur the Catholic hospitality and study center where we stayed. Stransky suggested that in a greatly polarized situation of authentically competing claims, one can choose to become an advocate for a side. But this approach may also increase the conflict and inhibit one’s ability to listen and speak to all sides. His own calling at Tantur was to work and speak with all sides, and hence he was slow to announce answers or take strong sides to the Holy Land’s deep conflicts and contradictions.

I have often reflected on our Amish Mennonite and perhaps even biblical folk tradition since that trip. Historically, the Amish and Mennonite tradition is to forgive and even accept the social order and then to move on, not to resist. When Switzerland and Germany were inhospitable and unjust in the seventeenth century, we came to Pennsylvania; when the Ukraine and Russia went totalitarian in the twentieth century, we moved to Manitoba and Paraguay. With Mennonites and Amish, justice is a penultimate value and a measure for the state to approximate. But for the Christian community, justice is always trumped by Jesus’ teaching and way of love, reconciliation and forgiveness.

None of this wisdom is easy or immediate, but it is a long-term commitment, even if it means moving. We have tried to raise our children in a culture of health, acceptance and goodwill not in a culture of hate, resistance and vengeance. Tevye the milkman was also Tevye the Mennonite as he sadly moved his family out of Tsarist Russia. Would the Palestinians have a better life, especially for their children, if they accepted more of their current situation or moved to neighboring countries? At what point might it be better to believe that Israel may stay for a while, even if nothing seems permanent of our earthly kingdoms, even Jerusalem? Perhaps Palestine will sometime become a friendlier place, but in the meantime? I realize that this approach may sound like pure foolishness, and it will not solve all the governing issues. But I’m afraid it may be about the main offering my tradition, and perhaps even Jesus’ tradition (as mediated by our Catholic host Thomas Stransky) authentically brings to the table. I began this travel chapter with hearth and home which in my experience, I could assume the state would protect. Israel and Palestine gave me a chastened and saddened reminder of what happens when the state will not or cannot provide this protection.  

Much of this chapter would give the impression that I was the main traveler in our family, and because of my work I was. But Gloria loved to travel, and much of our romance was spent on stories of Cali in Colombia and a Roy and Berdella Miller family month-long trip to the West Coast, hitting all the National Parks along the way one summer in the mid-fifties. Gloria enjoyed traveling and in December of 1996, when her brother Les was in New York we went up to see him and a taping of the Bill Cosby Show. Les was an assistant to the director and at the shooting of the Cosby show episode, Bill Cosby himself came out to meet us at the end of the evening, now late at night. He asked our forgiveness for the late evening in finishing of the show. He said he knew as Mennonites we wanted to get back to Pennsylvania that same evening to milk our cows. As I post this chapter, Cosby is better known for allegations of rape than of family humor. 

We made it a Manhattan Christmas visit, shopping at Macys and going to one of the Christmas shows of the Radio City Rockettes. A few weeks later between Christmas 1996 and New Year 1997, Gloria was off for a week in Costa Rica serving as a guide for my mother Mattie and Miriam’s daughter Hannah to visit with my sister Ruth and John Roth in Costa Rica. They were Goshen College Study Service Trimester leaders during that school year. I stayed home. 

Most of this chapter comes from memory, my date book, and my journals and personal files from this period. I generally made a manila folder file of trips such as the one to New England and to Israel and Palestine. The 1997 Israel Palestine travel seminar section especially drew from “A Book of Experiences and Reflections” which was compiled by the National Council of Churches staff after the tour