Peace

Damascus Symphony

A Greek Orthodox priest in the patriarchate, Damascus, Syria, Jan. 2014

A Greek Orthodox priest in the patriarchate, Damascus, Syria, Jan. 2014

I have been able to visit the ancient city of Damascus twice. The first time was in August, 2010, when I traveled with eight other women from the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. with the Outreach Foundation. (https://jpburgess.wordpress.com/2014/08/04/faithful-women/) It is an amazing city! We saw the sights and met the people who lived there in peace. One of the many we met was a woman named Colette Khoury. An author in her own right, Madame Khoury is the granddaughter of Faris Khoury, a former prime minister of Syria (the only Christian to ever be so) and a founder of the United Nations.

This is me and Colette Khoury, in her Damascus apartment on a hot day in August, 2010.

This is me and Colette Khoury, in her Damascus apartment on a hot day in August, 2010.

We met so many wonderful people there, including those in the Presbyterian Church in Damascus.

In January, 2014, Steve and I were back in Damascus to encourage those brothers and sisters in the Damascus Church. We experienced amazing worship and fellowship and I think we shook hands and/or hugged everyone in that congregation, grown larger because of the refugees from the war in that city.

The differences in three and a half years were very apparent to me as we walked through the Christian quarter. The little Ananias Church is still there at the end of the alley off the street called Straight. It’s the place where Saul was baptized and renamed Paul. You can read about it in Acts chapter 11. What’s different is that many of the shops are closed because there is no tourist traffic there anymore. I wrote about it here:

https://jpburgess.wordpress.com/2014/07/09/st-tekla-and-elias/

Coffee and tea outside a shop in the Street called Straight, Damascus, Syria, Jan. 2014. The street was quiet except for the mortars we heard.

Coffee and tea outside a shop in the Street called Straight, Damascus, Syria, Jan. 2014. The street was quiet except for the mortars we heard.

Another change was in the sounds I heard. Yes, there were still honking horns and the call to prayer from multiple mosques, but there were also explosions from mortars falling near the city. “Welcome!”, the head of our security contingent said. Sadly, the people who live there have become accustomed to it.

One of the most wonderful sounds we heard was the sound of Greek Orthodox priests singing ancient texts in a church that dates to the third century, their voices resonating off the stone walls and floors. The only word I have to describe the sound is heavenly.

There was a symphony of sound all around us in those precious three days. And it pulled these words out of me:

Damascus just like every place has its notes and sounds
When you walk along its streets it totally surrounds
The honking horns of cars and cabs
The clack where cobblestone meets heel
Yella, yella, come here quickly!
Schweih, schweih, slow down! Tires squeal.

There are sounds that call five times a day
For the faithful to bow down in prayer
From loudspeakers perched on minarets slender
It comes from everywhere.

The early churches rooted here
Add sweet harmony to the air
Ancient songs of prayer and praise
Music fine and rare.

Other directors have added percussion
That we could not help but hear
Guns and mortars lobbed in anger
Causing some tremors of fear.

My prayer for this land of music so fine
Is that the orchestra gathered
Will remain in place for centuries still
That all will remember it mattered
That it takes the percussion, the woodwinds, the brass
It takes the family of strings
It takes everyone working together for peace
Each one of us, together, should sing!
God made us all, each one to reflect
Uniquely the range of his glory
Let our voices and lives blend harmoniously now
To continue his musical story.

I pray for the end of war. I pray for united nations and peoples. I pray for a symphony of peace.

Amen.

A Bob Ross kind of day

trees1I miss Bob Ross. I used to watch him paint a new painting in thirty minutes every Saturday on PBS. The list of colors of his paint would scroll across the bottom of the screen: titanium white, phthalo green, phthalo blue, prussian blue, midnight black, dark sienna, Van Dyke brown, alizarin crimson, sap green, cadmium yellow, yellow ochre, Indian yellow, bright red. Such exotic names. Such living colors.

Remember? He would just take a blank canvas and start brushing color on it. Soon there would be happy clouds, evergreen forests, snow-capped mountains, bubbling streams, wind-tossed waves on lakes or oceans…and over here lives a happy little squirrel.

Week after week, he would create a full landscape, narrating a story about a cabin or a farmhouse, and completely draw you in. It was total entrancement for thirty minutes. It was so peaceful in that world he created. I miss that.

So today I took a thirty-minute walk in my neighborhood on a Bob Ross kind of day. I just needed to stretch my legs and soak in the crispness of a picture perfect autumn day in midtown Omaha. I headed out the door, turned left on Webster Street, walked up the hill and down to J. E. George Blvd., turned south toward Underwood, pushed the button so the light would change and I could cross Underwood safely to walk down the west side of Memorial Park, then turn east to head to Happy Hollow Blvd. and walk by the creek north to home. It was just about thirty minutes.

A sweet yellow Labrador retriever was resting on the phthalo green lawn of a titanium white house behind its midnight black iron fence. He didn’t respond to my “Hi Pup!” or my hand claps, but he seemed happy to be soaking up the sun in his restful position.

On I walked past a neighborhood family of young boys tossing a Van Dyke brown football back and forth with their dad. Perhaps the Huskers should come over to this neighborhood to recruit, because those two caught every pass thrown their way. There was no wind to alter the arc of those effortless passes that dad threw.

Continuing on my journey, I passed a sweet older couple walking a puffball of a dog that could only have been made by a blend of ochre and brown off Bob’s palette. He had the happiest expression on his face and was a size that could have fit in Bob’s shirt pocket like that little ground squirrel he featured once in a while.

Down the walk I went and came across a mom with two little girls whose hair was styled in the bob cut so popular when me and my sisters were young. I couldn’t not comment about how cute they were and it made their mom smile. Ebony was the color of those bob cuts.

I turned off the walk a bit farther down to walk through the grass still green with the rains we have had. I was attracted by the crimson red crabapples on a grove of trees and wondered if they were the ones I needed to make my jelly. Alas, they were not. But as I left their company I came across the neighboring grove of honey locusts whose leaves were changing already to the ochres and Indian yellows of fall.

And walking on through an aromatic stand of evergreens which made me think of Christmas trees, I trailed through the faded glory of cannas already touched by frost. Their guardian ranks of marigolds and salvia were still glorious in the yellows and oranges and reds and violets that carry us through the summer. Soon they will all be gone, but on this day they blazed in the glory of the sun.

And just like Bob could always spin the tale of someone who lived in that wood or on that farm, as I crossed the south end of the park and looked up toward the stark white of the memorial on the top of the hill, I spied a wedding party posing for photos on the curve of the walk up the hill. There was the white of a beautiful dress in the shadow of the trees, surrounded by the dark suits of gentlemen and the dark purple dresses of the ladies. What a beautiful day for a wedding! I think that’s what Bob Ross would have seen as he brushed those colors on the canvas.

And walking back up the trail toward home on Happy Hollow, I listened to the last of the cicada song, much weaker now than the loud symphony they give us in the summer. And I heard the sound of younger and fitter steps coming up behind me so I moved over to let the jogger go by, not changing my pace. I’m sure I saw and heard much more than him as his earbuds were in and his eyes were dead forward. Too bad for him! He missed the young boys who were playing down by the culvert in the creek streaming slowly by down in the hollow. He also missed the bright yellow flowers blooming on the vine that covered the dull green fence that is there to keep us from tumbling down the engineered terraces along the walk. He missed seeing the little holes the squirrels had dug to bury acorns and such other delicacies that get them through the winter.

Just like the thirty minutes I used to spend with Bob Ross, thirty minutes walking in the neighborhood today invited me into a story of beauty in a small space. In a very large world, Omaha is a small place. In the urban sprawl of Omaha, Dundee-Memorial Park is just a corner. But in my corner of the world today was a phthalo blue sky with happy cirrus clouds and Indian yellow leaves and bright red crabapples and every other color on that list.

It was a Bob Ross kind of day and for thirty minutes, there was peace and it was mine.

 

Hand in hand

Holding hands on wedding dayThere we are on our wedding day, May 18, 2002. Gosh! We look so young you can’t even tell we are 43 and 44 years old (she said while wearing her rose-colored glasses). I remember that day like it was yesterday!

For both of us, it was our first – and we have pledged! – only marriage. First time for two folks in early middle age. Steve’s parents were married when his mom was only 19 and Chuck was 25. My mom was 23 and my dear old dad was 27. It seems so young to me!

So there we are, standing in the church for pictures on the big day, and I love this one because we are holding hands. We get teased often at church for our PDAs: public displays of affection. We often hold hands, stand arm in arm, and even exchange kisses. It’s still first love for me. It always will be.

We did meet at church, in Sunday school actually. I sat in the front row with Jana, and Steve sat in the last row. He used to tease us for being “teacher’s pets” and I accused him of flinging arrows at our heads from the back row…figurative arrows. Somehow we were friends who liked to tease each other and then we ended up on the adult education committee together. Our families joined together with other friends after church for lunch on Sundays at Arby’s. Our pastor George and his wife Pam were part of that group. After we got engaged, George shared the story of how he woke up in the middle of the night after having dreamed that Steve and I would be married someday. He woke Pam to tell her, too. Oddly enough, it was before any of the rest of our “keeping company” started. He just had a vision and I have always loved that story.

Anyway, how we eventually ended up going out that first night is another story for another day. It involves a letter from me and then a returned letter from him. It’s not fodder for an HBO mini series, but I am sure there will be a movie about it someday. Steve will be played by Kevin Costner and I will be played by…me.

The first night we went out was exactly one year before that wedding picture: May 18, 2001. We met at Delice, a bakery/bistro in Omaha’s Old Market area. He had a cup of coffee and I had a Diet Coke. We each paid for our own. I had nothing else to compare this to as I told Steve, “This is my first date. With a man. Ever in my life. Did I tell you I was 42?” That was the truth!

After our caffeine intake, we decided to walk a bit farther into the market for dinner at the Upstream Brewery. And that is when it happened: he reached out for my hand. And for the first time at the advanced spinsterly age of 42, for the very first time, (did I stress that enough?) my hand was nestled into the larger hand of a man who was not my father, not my uncle, not my grandpa. And I will never forget the wonder of that feeling. I can close my eyes and see us walking down Howard Street, hand in hand, and thirteen years have melted away. I knew then and there I would marry him someday, so it was funny when George told us of his dream.

I also experienced my first kiss that evening, but this story is not about that either. It’s about holding hands.

At dinner that evening, Steve ordered a burger and I ordered a salad. My whole self was just in shock that I was even there, and I was so enthralled that I just couldn’t eat, so Steve finished mine. But that was the end of the meal. The beginning went something like this. Steve said, “Should we say grace?” And I just nodded, knowing I couldn’t say anything. He reached his hands across the table and took both of mine in his and thanked God for our meal.

And we have never done it any other way.

After that first date (I only use that term because it’s easier. We never considered that we were dating, just keeping company.) the story got out quickly that we were a couple. We tried to keep it just to ourselves for a while because it was new and special, and frankly, I think we were both a bit scared. But once we were discovered, it was wonderful to be so easy with our PDAs, especially holding hands. We started sitting together in church and when it was time for prayer, somehow we just reached for the other’s hand and held them until the “amen.”

And we have never done it any other way.

I think of how many times we have prayed hand in hand like that in the last thirteen years. So many meals. So many church services. Weddings. Funerals. We have prayed for our family members in their joys and sorrows; we have prayed with and for our friends in theirs as well. We pray with our small group when we gather to share lives and learn more about our God. We have prayed on trips to be with the church in Germany, the Czech Republic, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. We have prayed for peace, over and over again.

I know when we join our hands like that, God meets us right there as we pray.

praying hands in DamascusAnd so this picture means so much to me. We were in Damascus, Syria, in January with The Outreach Foundation. We had traveled to Lebanon to be with the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon along with other global partners of NESSL. Sixteen of us made the short journey to Damascus to be with the church in a country that had been at war for almost three years. They still are, and we continue to pray for them even now with the news of the impending U.S. participation in a plan against ISIS. Oh! How we pray for peace.

While we were in the church service that day, surrounded by the members of the Damascus congregation plus the refugees who had fled other parts of Syria to be there, we bowed our heads in prayer as we have done so many times. And we reached out our hands to each other as we have done so many times. And somehow that caught the eyes of a photographer and this photo was posted on Facebook.

If there is only one picture that you can pick to describe the life you have shared with that one person you know God picked for you personally, this is the photo I would pick to tell the story of Julie and Steve. And they are not the hands of Kevin Costner.

They are Steve’s, and they are mine. Hand in hand.

Heart for healing, heart for peace

Heart for the Middle EastIt sits in a small box on my desk, nested in shreds of paper. It’s called the “inner spirit rattle” and it was a gift from a co-worker, a sister, a woman of generous heart and deep feeling. She gave it to me because when she saw it in the gift shop it reminded her of me.

That makes me smile. With it came this little card with a quote from Billy Joel:

I think music in itself is healing. It’s an explosive expression of humanity. It’s something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we’re from, everyone loves music.

“…an explosive expression of humanity.” What a great visual of the power of music! It meshes with my great manifesto of peace through music. (Someday that billion voice flash mob of a choir will happen. Talk about an explosive expression of humanity…can you imagine the explosive peace? I can.)

So I keep this musical heart rattle next to me on my desk and it brings me comfort and joy because of the giver and reminds me always of how we can encourage one another in this life. There is the sweet tinkle of bells and the soft rattle of its inner stones when I shake it. It’s a quiet music I can make right here in my office anytime.

There is another little card that came with it that says…

American Indians have long used rattles during ceremonies to ensure blessings upon their crops. Use this rattle to help rattle some rain into your life, some rain out of your life, to help rattle your worries away…

I use it to remind me to pray for the people I know represented by the world map just above my head to the left. I pray that peace would rain down like the deluge that came into our yard again last night. That those who have lived as neighbors for centuries in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, Egypt and other parts of this globe will be able to live that way again soon. That their children would grow up to see tomorrow and the tomorrow after that. That together they will sing songs and make music that is an explosive expression of humanity. That the other kinds of explosions which have destroyed their communities, their homes, their lives, would be forever silenced. Such a rain of peace would be life-giving and life-sustaining.

The prayers that arise from my heart when I look at this beautiful little gift of a rattle are for healing and peace.

I found these words today from Pope Francis, and though they are about Syria specifically, I offer them on behalf of the entire region as I hold my ceramic heart in my hand, and the prayers pulse out with each beat.

A reading from an Angelus homily of Pope Francis

Today, dear brothers and sisters, I wish to add my voice
to the cry which rises up with increasing anguish from every part of the world…
from the one great family which is humanity.
It is the cry for peace!
It is a cry which declares with force:
We want a peaceful world; we want to be men and women of peace …
and we want in our society, torn apart by divisions and conflict,
that peace break out!
There are so many conflicts in this world which cause me great suffering and worry, but in these days my heart is deeply wounded by what is happening in Syria and by the dramatic developments which are looming.
I appeal strongly for peace …
How much suffering, how much devastation,
how much pain has the use of arms carried in its wake …
I think of many children who will not see the light of the future!
With utmost firmness I condemn the use of chemical weapons.
There is a judgment of God and of history upon our actions which is inescapable!
Never has the use of violence brought peace in its wake.
War begets war; violence begets violence.
What can we do to make peace in the world?
As Pope John said, it pertains to each individual to establish new relationships in human society under the mastery and guidance of justice and love.
All men and women of good will are bound by the task of pursuing peace.
I make a forceful and urgent call to the entire Catholic Church, and also to every Christian of other confessions as well as to followers of every religion and to those brothers and sister who do not believe:
Peace is a good which overcomes every barrier, because it belongs to all of humanity.
I repeat forcefully:
It is neither a culture of confrontation nor a culture of conflict which builds harmony with and between peoples, but it is a culture of encounter and a culture of dialogue;
This is the only way to peace.
May the plea for peace rise up and touch the hearts of everyone so that they may lay down their weapons and let themselves be led by the desire for peace.

Amen.

Dream for a new day

 

Sunrise photo by Sally Gerard.

Sunrise photo by Sally Gerard.


I had the weirdest dream last night.

Vladimir Putin and I had a cheek-to-cheek dance while Pasty Cline sang “At Last.” We did this under Rembrandt’s beautiful painting, “Return of the Prodigal Son,” which hangs in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. After that we did vodka shots and somehow managed to achieve world peace.

It wasn’t a nightmare. I woke up and remembered every detail of it and it just made me smile. I know where most of the pieces of it came from, but not all.

Putin is in the news constantly for what is happening in the Ukraine and the horrors of another war, including a downed passenger plane. I am a news junkie; I watch and read everything and wish there was something more I could do to end all these situations. I mean anything beside the praying which I do constantly. I fall asleep at night in the middle of those prayers for peace…and then I dream about Putin. And he is really just a substitute for any of those right now who are asserting their own perceived power over someone else. And the someone elses are paying a very high price with lost homes, lost families and lost lives.

My church small group did a months’ long study of that painting as we processed through Henri Nouwen’s book about it. He spent hours gazing at it in the Hermitage with special permission. They even brought in a chair for him for his comfort. He explored the ways that the story of the prodigal son compared to his own life through the years, and how he – and we – progress through all the parts at some time. We are the younger son who wastes the gifts of his father, even wishing him dead, and then comes back empty-handed, only to be received by that same loving father with a party involving killing the fatted calf. We are the older son, jealous that a ne’er-do-well brother, a wasteful profligate child could be received so generously by the same father we have worked so hard to please, certain of our own goodness and deservedness, and yet not realizing the loving relationship we have shared with him all those years was worth more than a party. Hopefully, we become the father, able to pour out that same sacrificial love for our own children, not because they deserve it, but because they don’t. It’s a story about love, mercy, grace, giving and receiving. We can become like the father; it’s modeled for us so amazingly in the life of Jesus.

I’m not sure where Patsy Cline came in, but golly! “At Last” is a tune you can slow dance to. Oh! I know…right before we went to bed last night, I asked Steve if we could have a dance… I never danced before I met Steve. Oh my, the intimacy of a slow dance, holding onto each other in that close embrace, while the music plays on and on. That is the stuff of good dreams. And you can’t hide yourself from each other when you are standing that close; it’s a place of honesty as well as intimacy. And for it to be beautiful, you have to move together, coordinating and synchronizing your actions.

Vodka shots…well, we are red wine drinkers at our house, but I love that scene in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” when Marion has the drinking contest in her bar up in the Himalayans. It just seems like a good way to come to an understanding. I’ve never done vodka shots, but I am willing to give anything a try if it leads to…

…peace. It’s what I long for constantly. Pray for incessantly. Desire for everyone on this planet.

If we can look across the table or the border or the sea or the world and see that other person – that Democrat/Republican, that Israeli/Palestinian, that Christian/Muslim, that gay/straight, – as a brother or sister and recognize our common humanity, we can figure this out.

I saw this today on Facebook today and I think it covers it pretty well:

The Moment of Dawn
By Paulo Coelho

A Rabbi gathered together his students and asked them:

‘How do we know the exact moment when night ends and day begins?’

‘It’s when, standing some way away, you can tell a sheep from a dog,’ said one boy.

The Rabbi was not content with the answer. Another student said:

‘No, it’s when, standing some way away, you can tell an olive tree from a fig tree.’

‘No, that’s not a good definition either.’

‘Well, what’s the right answer?’ asked the boys.

And the Rabbi said:

‘When a stranger approaches, and we think he is our brother, that is the moment when night ends and day begins.’
http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2007/06/25/the-moment-of-dawn/

I am hoping that my dream of peace with Vladimir Putin can be one of those moments when night ends and day begins.

Mourning for Mosul

Adeeba and me

Adeeba and me

I have been privileged to travel to Iraq three times since November, 2011, to spend time in fellowship and worship with my brothers and sisters in Christ in the evangelical, or presbyterian, churches. I have been in Basrah in the south three times! I have visited Kirkuk and Erbil, and also met some wonderful people from Baghdad and Mosul. As a matter of fact, I have met the entire remnant of the church family of Mosul. Four of them are sisters, Mary, Hana, Nadira and Adeeba.

Hana, Adeeba and me in Erbil.

Hana, Adeeba and me in Erbil.

The Presbyterian church in Mosul, Iraq, was the original of a small but thriving protestant church family that was founded by missionaries in the 19th century, part of the great missionary movement of that time. These four sisters had a brother who was an elder in the church. After the war which began in 2003, insurgents came to Mosul and it became very difficult to be a professing Christian there. The brother was kidnapped and assassinated. The family was asked to pay for the bullet which killed him. I can hardly recount the memory of hearing this story from these women without seeing their faces in my mind, sorrow evident at such a loss.

They stayed in Mosul and found a way to protect the historic building of their church, even though they could not worship there any more. It was located in a very dangerous part of a city in a dangerous part of the world. Yet they managed to hire a guard who would stay there and protect it. It was more than just a precious place to them for the value of a building: it was a reminder that the church was born in places like this at the very beginning. not long after the resurrected Christ instructed the disciples to become apostles and sent them out to build the church. And they did. Mosul was the home of Chaldean Catholics, Syriac Orthodox, and others, including the Presbyterians.

Today I received word that ISIS, this conquering, brutal, extremist group that swept into Mosul a few weeks back and took control, has ordered that all remaining Christians leave or face the consequences. Death. That is what they mean. And so the remaining body of Christ in that place moves into the diaspora that is happening in other parts of the world.

I do have word that these dear sisters had already moved to a safer place in the north, leaving behind the beloved church building they had long protected since the death of their brother. And this must make the sting of his death hurt afresh. I know my heart breaks again for them and for all the faithful in a place where Jonah the prophet was buried. It is an ancient place and a reminder that the faith I profess has been handed down through generations of saints and martyrs who suffered to share the good news with us all.

All four sisters are in this photo along with our small group in Erbil. Mary is next to me and I came to understand why she would never smile with us. Her pain is great and today I am sure it has grown.

All four sisters are in this photo along with our small group in Erbil. Mary is next to me and I came to understand why she would never smile with us. Her pain is great and today I am sure it has grown.

In an upper room in Erbil, Iraq, in November, 2012, we worshipped in song and prayer. Adeeba and her sisters sang out at the top of their lungs because they could, which was something they couldn’t do in Mosul then. On a later bus trip that we took to Kirkuk, Adeeba broke into “Oh, Come All Ye Faithful.” It was the most joyful rendition of that Christmas carol I have ever heard and we all joined in.

When I wrote about “peace through music” yesterday I wasn’t thinking of that. But I am today and I am longing that Adeeba, her sisters, and all the faithful of that place will find peace again and be able to raise their voices in musical celebration.

Peace through Music

I love this video clip. It’s Jeff Vojtech, Mike Geiler, me and Alisha Sauer singing this beautiful hymn by Stuart Townend. I love the music. I love the text. I love the harmony. And when I sang it with these three, and when I listen and watch now, I feel peace.

I think music is one of those places where we do find peace. It strikes me always when I watch the musical, “The Music Man.” My favorite part of that movie is when Professor Harold Hill diverts the school board from investigating him for fraud by forming them into a barbershop quartet. These four quarreling men who seem to really have no respect for each other, blend their voices into perfect four-part harmony by simply singing the words “ice cream,” each on his own note. It’s beautiful. It’s perfect. And the fight is over; there is peace.

I wrote a lengthy essay on that topic a few years back and the thought comes back to me now in this time of global crisis. Wars in Syria, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, the Ukraine. All over the world we are experiencing the lack of peace in the form of conflict and people – people just like you and me – are being killed and maimed and are suffering in so many ways.

It is hard to watch this on a daily basis and feel inadequate to do anything about it. I pray. I cry. I shout at God and say, “Why?”

And then I think back on that fictional account of four school board members in River City, Iowa, singing together. Their fight is over and music was the answer. And I know that is very simplistic thinking.

But that is my dream and my prayer and maybe it is just that simple.

Wouldn’t it be amazing to organize the world’s largest choir? I am talking one or two or six billion people! I imagine that we would all sing just one word – peace – in whatever language was our own, in harmony. And for the briefest of moments, there would be peace and harmony.

And maybe it would lead to more moments. And maybe there would be peace.

On days like today when planes are shot out of the sky, and armies march, and missiles fly, and children die, that’s what I think about.