Poem #4

From my youth I was taught to fear you O Lord my God,

and worship you only, all of the the days of my life.

And indeed I did attempt this solemn duty;
I learned reverence and honor
and trained myself to serve you.

But you would not accept my sacrifices,
or the righteous deeds I offered.

Still my floundering attempts at spirituality were not lost on you.

And in time you broke through my religion,
bludgeoning me with grace over and over again,
until I was too tired to resist your affection .

Jeremiah once contended that you overpower us,
that in the end your will prevails on us
like a fire in our bones that we cannot restrain.

I can't say I have found this accusation false,
but, for both our sakes, I'm glad you do.

Poem #2

We ought naught disparage disparity
or call to question those desperate days
when the dream seems far from coming true,
and the dawn delays before its breaking.

For the dreamer is dearer to the dream-maker
than circumstance may suggest,
and there is deep beauty only found
in the deserts that stand before promised places.

Love long labored for
Does not wax and wane with time,
And that which is purchased at great price
Is not oft neglected nor easily forgotten.

It may be otherwise in other worlds
where there were no falls,
no broken covenants or prodigal sons,
but that is not our fate.

The things most precious in life
must be purchased at great cost,
and they may tarry over long,
yet they are sweeter in their fulfillment.

Poem #1

I wonder what it’s like for you,
quietly listening
as we grasp for lofty phrases,

hoping to articulate thoughts we had
in fading moments
when we glimpsed into other realms.

What are you thinking when we struggle
to locate
the right words for the task,

and what are you feeling when we manage
to fabricate
some feeble attempt at eloquence?

I wonder what it’s like,
for you read words
written by shaking hands

with eyes of timeless grace that
somehow is
perfect for our weakness.

23

I am currently engrossed in an epic struggle to prepare for a final that I am in no way ready to take, so I’m afraid I have no deep insight to offer right now. I expect that I will soon be able to write a bit about my trip as a whole and what I have learned, but for now I only have a few words.

Today I opened the 23rd letter sent to me by my friends and family. These letters, as well as all the other messages and emails I’ve received have given me a great of joy and encouragement, both from their content and from the simple reminder that people are thinking about me. It’s hard for me to believe how much God has blessed me with such a great family, and with so many friends, who love me and pray for me.

In coming to Israel, I have realized how important these people are to me and I would even go so far as to say I have developed a much deeper love for them. There are many things I will take from Israel, but in this place I plan on leaving all my days of taking friends and family and community for granted.

So, to all my loved ones:
Thank you. Thank you for your prayers and for investing your lives in me. Thank you for being Jesus to me. Without you, I would be a shell of who I am now. I can’t wait to get back and see you all in a few days.

Until then…

22

Well friends, it’s way to late for me to be writing this, but I haven’t posted anything in a while and this seems to be a fitting occasion to post something.

Earlier today, I figured out that tomorrow marks the beginning of both the 22nd day I’ve been in Israel and the 22nd year I’ve been on this earth. I’m not sure if it’s just coincidence or if there is some hidden meaning; I think maybe it’s better to wonder.

A part of me does wish I knew though. I wish I could write something terrible clever right now, that would be full of significance and insight into all of the subtle similarities between these two journeys. Unfortunately, I’m short on the necessary elements for such a work (time, energy, insight, and wit ect...), but if you’ll bare with me, I hope I’ll at least explain a little of what I see as I take the opportunity to reflect on what God is speaking to me at this time in my life.

One thing I’ve become aware of, especially since I’ve been here, is that God has a way of working in my life without my being aware of what he is doing. I’m not sure if I understand his reason for this, but as I just told you, his way of doing things is often beyond my capacity to comprehend. Looking back, this has been a point of contention between the Lord and myself. I can remember many bitter spiritual seasons, permeated with disillusionment and frustration. Most of my life, I’ve tried to prove myself to God, always doubting his intentions toward me and always hoping he would give me concrete answers about who I am and how he feels about me. The thing about concrete though, is that it is awfully heavy and usually lacking in beauty and grace.

Nevertheless, in coming to Israel, I wanted to find clarity about why God has put things like Israel, Judaism, and Hebrew on my heart. Moreover, I still wanted those solid answers to a lot of the deep questions I’ve carried for so long.

Why do You impart desire and calling into me that You leave unsatisfied? Why do You whisper hopes and dreams that remain unfulfilled? Why have You left me here to wander, between the dreaming and the coming true?

I can’t say God has answered these questions, but I can tell you he has been changing the way I see them. Being here has allowed me to see that I don’t need to know his plans for me, in order for me to be ok. Because, it not his plans that I need to put my trust in. I think one of the main reasons he has brought me to Israel was to waylay me here and strip me of everything that I thought I needed that wasn’t him, even his plans.

I thought it was important that I have the answers to all these questions, but I realize now, that the only reason I wanted the answers is so I could own them. But I don’t want the answers anymore. I know now that I only wanted them so that I could have something to remind me of who I am and where I’m going and why. I wanted to point to them and say, “That is how I know God loves me. Look at this, I’m practically indispensable to him.” I confess these things now, to you who are reading this and to God, and I’m saying I repent. Remind me of this, if I start to need those answers again. Remind me that there was once a time when said “I don’t want the answers anymore." The only way I would need them is if I didn’t have God. I don’t need answers, I don’t need reasons, and I don’t need an important identity, I just need Jesus. My trust is in the Lord, the Lover of My Soul, the Dreamer of Dreams, and the Giver of All Good Things.

Right now I can honestly say that I feel more weak and broken and blind than I have ever felt in my life. I’m a lonely, emotional, mess of a human being who can’t seem to learn Hebrew and who can’t seem to figure out how to give Jesus to people. And somehow this is better, somehow this is all part of his Dream for me.

I understand why the Israelites complained.

When I used to read about the Exodus, I could never understand the Israelites. They had clearly seen the Lord move in power multiple times and they still doubted him, time and time again. How can a person be delivered in such dramatic ways and still doubt the Lord? How does a person manage to muster the audacity to complain against God after seeing plagues, pillars of cloud and fire, a sea parted and an army decimated, bitter water turned pure, manna and quail, and water coming out of a rock? Well today, I feel like I may have gained some insight into this situation.

After a week and a half of seeing God provide for me in amazing and completely unexpected ways, upon moving into my dorm room in Haifa, I began to feel like complaining. When I thought about how easy it was to lose sight of everything else except for my frustration, it sort of shocked me back into thinking clearly. Somehow I realized that, just like the Israelites, I was already doubting God again even though I had seen the Him take care of me so well.

Let me recount the ways God has moved in power in my own life just since I’ve come to Israel. Although, I haphazardly came here without anyone, the Lord saw my need before it was there and he provided for me. He provided me with Dalton, Amir, Dana, Zohar, Regev, Regev’s family, Avishay, and Arik. I didn’t have a place to stay or food to eat without having to pay a lot of money, but the last week and a half, my new friends here have given us a place to stay and whatever food we want for free. I came to Israel to get to know Israeli’s hoping for good conversations with strangers and the Lord gave me friends. Whenever Dalton and I became lost or desperate, there was always some random person who would help us out. The more unpleasant or stressful the situation, the more God showed up in the end. In all these things this and in more ways than I can list, He has been completely faithful. I don’t just believe in the notion that He is faithful; I’ve tasted and seen the fruit of his faithfulness here.

But you see there’s this feeling that you get, whenever you have been in a difficult situation for a while and you get to a place where you think you’ve pushed through the worst of it, only to find that it was just the beginning. I was looking forward to Haifa as being a place where I could enjoy having a nice room to relax in. I imagined that my place here would be something like traditions at OU, nice and pleasant with cool roommates like Jermaine, with whom I would hang out with and develop relationships with. However, when I got here, after several stressful public transportation experiences, I found that it was not all I had hoped it to be. All of my roommates were in their rooms, except for one who quickly went into his without saying anything, and the place was not very nice. It would not be so bad, except that it’s Israel and there is no a/c in my room.

So, I found myself in the same situation as the Israelites, feeling abandoned and wanting to complain after witnessing great miracles of provision. How can this be?

Well, first of all, there’s the heat. There is something about being hot, that just makes you want to complain; I think if I was nice and cool right now, I would be having a much easier time maintaining a positive attitude. I imagine the same was true for the Israelites. I guess the other part, is that we are forgetful, broken, people, and we are blinded sometimes by the painfulness of being in the desert. But what I do know is that God is in the desert and the pain, and that he is close to the broken-hearted.

So Jesus, thank You for leading me into the desert in Israel. I didn’t plan on this, but I know that it is what’s best. Thank You for the brokenness and the suffering, and the fear and doubt that you deliver me from. Thank You for always providing me people, who love me and whom I can love; You have torn my heart open again and allowed me to feel new levels of love and appreciation for them. Bless the people that are praying for me. Use me in their lives as you are using them in mine. Thank You for my wonderful family and for letting me talk to Mama and Natalie tonight. God, I even thank you for the lack of air conditioning and friends right now. I embrace this desert and I look forward to the ways that you will speak tenderly to me here.
--BC

Hosea 2:14-16

14 "Therefore I am now going to allure her;
I will lead her into the desert
and speak tenderly to her.

15 There I will give her back her vineyards,
and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
There she will sing as in the days of her youth,
as in the day she came up out of Egypt.

16 "In that day," declares the LORD,
"you will call me 'my husband';
you will no longer call me 'my master.

Two conversations

Yesterday, I spent almost the entire day just talking with different Israeli's. We were at a pool helping Amir's sister, Zohar, work at the pool's concession stand, and then we went to Amir's house to have dinner and hang out. It was crazy to encounter so many opportunities to learn more about how Israelis perceive themselves and others in just one day.
I don't have time to write about these things in extreme depth, but here are a couple of glimpses into two conversations that I won't soon forget:

Convo 1:
This is a part of a conversation between a 13 year old Jewish boy. He was an Ashkenazi Jew with big blue eyes, and curly brown hair. It was cool because we spoke in Hebrew about things I could understand, but, because he spoke English really well, when it got more complex, we were able to speak in English. Among other things, we talked about his Bar Mitzvah, God, prayer, Christianity, Judaism his grandfather coming to Israel from Romania, his father being a pilot in the Israeli Airforce, his brother having to serve in the army in a few months and what he was doing for his summer vacation. What was really amazing to me though, was hearing him speak to me about being a Jew. He was extremely articulate, I feel like he was a good example of how a common Israeli child views himself and the world. Surprisingly, it is very similar to things I have heard from adults. I will try to replicate part of it as accurately I can. This starts after we had been talking about the Holocaust.

Me: So, were you grandparents in the camps?
Boy: No. He got away. My mother told me he was naked in the snow hiding. That is all she will tell me though... have you seen the Pianist
Me: No
Boy: It is very sad. I couldn't believe it when I saw what they did.
Me: Ya I know, its crazy.
Boy: I don't understand why everyone hates us.

Convo 2:
This one was between myself and Amir, the man who has been letting us stay in his store. We were talking about different types of Judaism and the Lubavitch Rebbe, a Hasidic Rabbi whose pictures are all over the place in Israel; some people think he may be the messiah and that he is not really dead. Amir was saying that some people claimed they saw him in Europe after he died. We then started talking about how there are different types of Christians. He was not really understanding my explanation, so decided to just try to sum everything I was saying up.

Me: There are a lot of different beliefs about certain issues within Christianity, but basically, we believe that Jesus was the Messiah and we to love God , to love people, and to
follow the things Jesus taught.
Amir: Christians believe Jesus was Moshiach!?
Me: Yes.
Amir: But Jesus died!?