“You look hungry,” the deli guy says, with a knowing grin.
He means well . . . I think.
“Not really,” I say (a tad stiffly: I want a salmon fillet, not a conversation.)
With his dark shock of hair and wonky paper hat, he is a stooping, nameless, genial giant. His long fingers flex inside flimsy cellophane gloves.
“How was your Thanksgiving?” he asks, slashing, then triple-wrapping the meat.
And then a shrug when I ask about his.
“Just me.”
So stoic: an answer seemingly sheathed in steel.
“Ohh, I’m sorry. No family locally?” Now who’s being intrusive?
Apparently . . . not only is he living in the States—solo . . . older siblings remain, in Israel. He waggles his plastic gloves: “Ten of us. Ten! What a total waste.”
I tilt my head, lean closer.
He consults his scale, slap-dashes a price tag across the bagged flesh. “I’ll never go back. Never be part of that. My brothers? Every last one of them in the Army. All dead,” he says. “And for what?”
Speechless, I press against the display case, hands on the countertop. As if getting closer might somehow help—my exposed mother-heart, almost audible.
“. . . and for me you turned language / into a landslide of glass houses.”
Poet Pablo Neruda wrote that line.
I have no words for this young man handing me sustenance. No gift to impart save welling eyes, a body poised to somehow absorb a shard of his pain.
But now he’s the stiff one, guarding himself. And the spotless counter shines, dividing us.
Whatever I believe about Gaza, Netanyahu, Palestine—the all-too-human or hopelessly heinous, the supposedly holy—I question my lack of action. Would it have eased that young man had I shared a few verses from Israel’s ancient Hebrew prophet, Micah? Probably not.
I glimpsed a hurt lad through his adult armor, knew myself hapless, helpless. Ambushed by a grief too vast to imagine.
Real people. Real pain, stark and divisive and centuries old.
“But you, Bethlehem, David’s country . . .
From you will come the leader
who will shepherd-rule Israel.
Meanwhile, Israel will be in foster homes
until the birth pangs are over and the child is born,
And the scattered brothers come back
home, home to the family . . .” (Micah 5:2-4, The Message)
Friends, perhaps you and I can remember this young survivor—and others we know with terrible stories—remember them together although we are far apart, and pray the rest of the passage:
“[Messiah] will stand tall in his shepherd-rule by God’s strength,
centered in the majesty of God-revealed.
And the people will have a good and safe home . . .
“For the day is coming when there will be no more war” (Micah 5:10).
Friends, how are you investing in Peace on Earth?
Speaking of ambushed: eight medical appointments for us this month! Dreamer will soon be wearing a heart monitor as well as a Santa hat. We didn’t see that coming. Our health safari continues . . .
Dear, dear readers, thank you for your prayers. Your wisdom and compassion continue to strengthen our faith.
May the Prince of Peace renew and defend you.
May mercies as well as mirth surround you.
Whatever you face, may hope enfold you.
Recent sighting: “Leave things merrier than you found them.”
[cropped] Photo by Oxana Kolodina on Unsplash