I kept a journal in Israel... but now I can't find it. 14 years is a long time to hold on to sea-stained paper. I'm sure it was in a box, somewhere, before the moves and the floods. I remember writing in it on the bumpy road to Caesarea. At the time, a doomsday prophet talked about the end of the world. Sometime in May '98, he said. I wrote it down in Israel and I prayed, Not yet, Lord. I'm not ready, yet. Though of all places, the hills of Israel would not be a terrible place to spend the last day on earth.
Bombs rain down today and I watch the news on the couch, slippered feet stretched out, coffee in hand and children all around. I don't know a lot about diplomacy, am not particularly well-versed in foreign policy, and don't want to claim to know or feel the nuances of a dark and violent and ages-old conflict. But Israel and her people - Jews or Palestinians, atheists or orthodox - I love them. I love them all.
It could all die down tomorrow; tentative, sensitive peace again.
But I wish I could find and touch and read that journal again, even if just to see the messy handwriting from a bus on the bumpy road.
O Lord my heart is not lifted up
My eyes are not raised too high for Thee
I do not think on things too great or marvelous
or matters too difficult for me
But I have calmed and quieted my soul
Like a weaned child is my soul within me
But I have calmed and quieted my soul
Like a weaned child with it's mother is my soul
O Israel
Trust in the Lord
From this time forth, and forevermore
O Israel
Trust in the Lord
From this time forth, and forevermore
Psalm 131 (Waterdeep does it best)
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