What do an Orthadox Jew and C.S. Lewis have in common?

"First of all," he said, "You did not come to Israel because you chose to. You came because you were invited. And the blessings you are going to receive will run so deep that you will not be able to explain it to anyone back home, and you will hardly be able to discuss it amongst yourselves."

The seven of us were sitting on stools in a gift shop, listening to Moshe. Moshe is an Orthodox Jew, psychologist, book author, scholar and business owner who regularly closes his doors and turns his gift shop into a discussion room. Moshe wears regular clothing and a kibba (that head cap thing); he's short and lively and laughs easily. He speaks perfect English, and he speaks it quickly. Clearly he has a lot more to say than he has business hours to say it, and roughly five minutes into his introduction, I felt a dull panic knowing that I wouldn't get to hear everything that I needed to hear from him.

The discussion: What do Orthodox Jews and Christians have in common? Where do we disagree? And is possible that we each get a better look at the big picture when we seek to understand one another?

Moshe turned out to be one of those blessings of Israel that we were all touched by and have hardly been able to discuss. I recorded most of the conversation and took notes in a fury, but the recording is faint, my notes are jumbled, and all that I'm left with is a deeper understanding. Here are some of the highlights that I've managed to process and reflect on:

- Christians and Jews share the same language but often have different definitions and meaning behind the language. He said that the average Jew does not know that Christians believe that Jesus was God. We must have looked a little dubious, (after all, Jesus' deity is central to our doctrine), but he repeated, "If you told an average Jew that Christians believe that Jesus was God, they would correct you and say, 'No, they believe he is the son of God.' To them that means that he was man, sent by God; a prophet."

Another misunderstanding: When Christians talk about the Law, they describe it as a burden that they are glad to be free of. Moshe explained, "The Jew has no context for that. What could be more wonderful than fulfilling the wishes of your beloved?" He gave an example of when his pregnant wife woke up late at night craving an orange, and they had no oranges in the house. Moshe drove all over town until he found a market that was open, and then he didn't just buy one orange. He bought so many oranges that they eventually had to throw some away. His beloved wanted an orange; he brought her a bushell of oranges. Nothing is more fulfilling to him than fulfilling her wishes, and that is how the Jew feels towards God and His law.

- The Jewish understanding of blood sacrifice is different than ours. To them, the sacrifice was never about covering our sins for God's sake. "Cover them how?" He asked. "As if anything is hidden from God? No, our sins do not separate God from man, they separate man from God." He explained that blood sacrifice was a gift from God to man that, in effect, covers our sins from ourselves so that we could return before the presence of God feeling made clean. (This reminded me of the story of Eden, when Adam and Eve hid from God. God wasn't suddenly blocked from Adam because of sin--he came looking for Adam just as he always did. Adam was the one hiding in shame, and because he was ashamed, God gave him clothing to wear.) Moshe explained how this meant that the Jews were never expecting a final blood sacrifice from their Messiah--for them it's about continual repenting and covering and entering.

- The Jewish doctrine of hell is drastically different than ours. Moshe said he doesn't believe that God is interested in eternal punishment, but in eternal instruction. (This reminded me of God's character in the Old Testament, which of course is His same character today.) He described two levels of hell. One sounded a lot like my understanding of purgatory: the lost person realizes his or her mistake ("And that realization burns like a fiery flame," Moshe added); then God takes the next step in instruction and redemption. Doug said, "It sounds like you're describing a God of second chances when it comes to salvation." Moshe responded, "I'm describing a God of third and fourth and fifth and eternal chances."

The second level of hell occurred when a person was truly lost. He didn't explain what 'truly lost' meant, but I suppose this would be a person who was not interested in God's second or third chances. At that point, he said that the person would simply, "Poof!" cease to exist. No hellfire, no flame, just total absense of being.

I jumped in. "What you're describing sounds a lot like C.S. Lewis's description of hell from The Problem of Pain," I said. "He believes that a soul cannot exist when separated from God, so eternal separation from God would mean ceasing to exist." Moshe nodded and said, "Yes, actually, Lewis' belief about hell is remarkably similar to the Jewish belief." (You gotta love an Orthadox Jew who can quote C.S. Lewis, which he did, several times.)

Moshe's understanding of hell ressonated so deeply with me that I could feel my eyes welling up throughtout that part of the conversation. I told Moshe, "The God you are describing--a God of eternal redemption over eternal punishment--is exactly the God who I know and love and follow. And the hell you are describing is the description that I've adopted in my heart, even though the Christian doctrine I've been taught doesn't support it."

- Finally, I asked Moshe what the Jews make of the ressurrection. His first point was that ressurrection does not indicate deity (as there are other examples of resurrection in the Bible). I asked him, "What does it mean to you that Jesus rose from the dead?" He said, "It means to me that something very big happened, and I don't understand it entirely." He didn't apologize for being vague, nor did he seem to be waving off my question.

"One of my favorite verses in your New Testament is in 1 Corithinans, when Paul speaks of seeing in part now, and later in full," Moshe said. "In other words, we are all going to be surprised. If you're not surprised, then you're not walking with God. Doctrine will never surprise you, but God will always surprise you."

If I hadn't chewed over that last part, I think I would have left the conversation today thinking that I was surprised by doctrine: the way our doctrines differered, where they collided, how they sometimes seemed like pieces to the same puzzle. But I think what surprised me the most was that in listening to an Orthadox Jew--really listening, and sometimes truly understanding--my faith in Jesus Christ deepened, and my view of the Father expanded magnificently. Doctrine can't do that. God did that in me.

"It's all about the Father, isn't it?" Moshe said, standing up from his stool to open the shop and greet his customers. "Everything that Jesus ever did was for the Father. He didn't come to bring glory to himself, but to show us the Father."

Mary's miraculous, squirting breast milk.

Back when I worked at the hotel, one of our regular guests was an Israeli businessman who would pull up a chair and chat with me in the evenings. When I told him that I was going to be visiting Israel, his eyes lit up. He started telling me all of his favorite places that he wanted me to visit. When I asked about the food, he took a deep breath, then exhaled. "You're a Christian, yes?" he asked, rhetorically. "Then you're want to go to all of the Jesus things, I know. The hill where the sheep boys went loony, the place where Jesus disappeared up to wherever. But after you do all that, go to here..." he wrote down the address of a restaurant, "and order this..." he wrote down a name of a dish. "It will change the way you think about food."He wasn't exaggerating about the food: it's incredible. But after visiting even just the few holy sights in our first day of touring, it has changed the way I will read the Bible from now on.

I expected the holy sights to bring my faith to life, but it has done something else, too. It has brought my faith down to earth. I had very definitive pictures of certain places, probably based on the curriculum and coloring books that that my Sunday School teacher used, and everything is different. The shepherds hill? It's a rocky little hill right next to Bethlehem. Seriously, you can walk from the hill to the manger in about twenty minutes. I know, because we did. I had never thought of it before, but the angles must have appeared in a vision to only the shepherds, because otherwise the entire city of Bethlehem would have seen them.
Every holy sight has a church built on top of it. We hired a tour guide to lead us through the church on top of the grotto/stable where Jesus was born. The church is divided into separate worship places for Assyrians, Catholics, Greek Orthodox, and maybe a few others, most of whom were performing services. There was a service taking place in the stable, so we weren't allowed to enter. Our guide brought us to the door and said, "There was a hole here... I know it. Ah!" We each took turns peeking into the hole, and I decided that I preferred it that way. I saw just enough to see it, and not enough to completely alter the way I have always imagined it.
We were going to visit the Herodian, but decided to stop home for a quick nap, which turned into a four hour jet-lag recuperation. After we woke up, the ladies decided to go to the market, with Nikki leading the way through Bethlehem at night. (Nikki is a 21 year old missionary who lives in the Father's House by herself. She seems to know half the town of Bethlehem, and they all seem to love her.) We walked for over an hour in the streets and allies, stopping occasionally for fruit or dry goods or pastries. (Oh, the pastries. Oh, oh, the pastries.) Every door was open to something fascinating: men in barber chairs getting a shave, men in Islamic dress bowing in rows, shop owners smoking and arranging their merchandise. I tried to take it all in while cars honked and flew past us, sometimes barely missing my toes.

And that was basically my first real day in Bethlehem. We came home and ate pizza downstairs (who knew that pizza in Israel could rival pizza in Chicago?), played cards, drank tea.

Oh, the breast milk thing. I typed that title and forgot to incorporate it into this entry. Our tour guide at the stable church told us a lot of stories "from tradition," (as he said), which he did not buy into as "a practical man." Among them: before Mary and Joseph fled with baby Jesus, Mary accidentally squirted some breast milk on the wall, and all of the stones turned white. "This is from tradition," he reminded us. "But, like I said, I am a practical man. So, you know. There you go."

Bethlehem Blackout

Here is how I imagined Israel: brown, dusty land with brown, dusty buildings and a few brown, dusty plants. When people said, "Take lots of pictures!" I thought, "What could be more boring than looking at other people's pictures of dust?"

I didn't know this before we arrived, but we are here during the only "green" month of the year. When we got into the van and drove through Jerusalem at sunrise, here is what I saw: lush, green land laced with pink flowers and palm trees. Palm trees! Some of the roads were lined with deep green bushes or feathery grasses; one road was lined with these peculiar, short trees that Kathy told me are olive trees. The buildings are all made of white stone that glistens in the sunlight, and because of the hills, they look like there are stacked on top of one another. Jerusalem looks like a holy city on a hill in Florida.

Now, Bethlehem. Bethlehem is how I imagined Israel, although it rained a lot before we came, so it isn't dry and dusty. A few months ago I read a National Geographic cover story about crime in Bethlehem, and throughout our travel days I started to sense that we shouldn't broadcast that we were staying there. I wasn't sure what the fuss was about until we made it to the checkpoint--a series of booths and lines and turnabouts that were difficult to fit through and a puzzle to do so with luggage. Ingoing wasn't bad, but the outgoing "line" was a huddled mass of hundreds of Arab men penned in by chicken wire that wasn't holding up very well. We squeezed through groups of men who had been pushed out line. Finally we made it to the checkpoint, at which point I realized that no one had looked at my passport.

After a short cab ride, we made it to the Father's House and claimed our rooms. Pete and I have a bedroom, bathroom, living room and kitchen. One whole wall is a window that overlooks Bethlehem.At around five, everyone had scattered for various reasons--to pick up the rental van, buy a phone card, take a walk. At seven I became aware that I was alone in an open apartment building at dark in a National Geographic cover story location. Then I remembered Liz. I walked into the hallway and called her name a couple times. She stuck her head out of the door, looking relieved. Liz is exactly my age and is traveling with us to help Kathy coordinate meals and logistics.

A few minutes later we were playing cards in my living room, and the lights went out. Thinking that the switch had flipped on its own, I felt around on the wall for the light switch. That's when Liz pointed out that the entire city was black. "Maybe we should lock the door," I suggested. My door is difficult to lock even with ample lighting, so we decided to go to her room. We started down the dark hallway when we saw someone with a flashlight. "Jon, is that you?" I asked. A stranger pointed his flashlight at us, said something in Arabic, then hurried up the stairs. Liz and I grabbed each other's hand and stumbled back into my room. Eventually we got the door locked, and we pulled up chairs to the window to look over dark Bethlehem and a well-lit Israeli settlement. Apparently this happens about twice a week.

Everyone seemed to come home from their errands at once, and we realized that we hadn't eaten in fifteen hours. We walked downstairs to the restaurant (Jon and Nikki are friends with the owners) and the cooks made us cheesy chicken sandwiches with olives on the grill. You know how anything tastes good when you haven't eaten in fifteen hours? Well, delicious food after you haven't eaten in fifteen hours is an other-worldly experience. We ate sandwiches and Mediterranean salads to candlelight. And even though we cheered when the lights came back on, we all admitted that it had been more fun when they were off.

Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows His name.

"What do you think of Amsterdam?" I asked Jon. "Honestly?" he responded, raising one nostril. We had just eaten an incredibly expensive breakfast next door to a XXX shop that was open at eight a.m. on a Sunday.

Our flight to Tel Aviv was at 8:00 p.m., so we had nearly an entire day to enjoy Amsterdam after a night of no sleep. We walked through the streets, trying to take in the sights and architecture, but mostly trying to not get run over by bicycles. At around noon, Pete and I were sitting outside Anne Frank's house when we saw Kathy, Zack and Jon duck into a shop. It was a little cold outside, so we crossed the street to join them. Outside the shop we were greeted by two young adults, and inside the shop wasn't a shop at all. I've come to expect this of my mother in law. She was probably a mile away when she smelled the hippest church plant in town. Or, perhaps, the only church in town.

Inside about fifty people were standing and watching a streamed-in Hillsongs church service. Neat rows of illuminated liquor bottles lined one wall. I've heard that most of the churches in Amsterdam have been turned into shops and restaurants and bars, so this image was simply way too cool. As the pastor paced a stage in England, the young Dutch cosmopolitans responded with clapping and sounds of agreement. A familiar worship song started and nearly everyone's hands went up, including mine.

This trip is something of a spiritual pilgrimage. We are going to stay in the town where Jesus was born, walk the streets that he walked, and visit his empty tomb on Easter morning. But on our layover in a quaint post-modern wasteland, we walked into a bar, and I knew: we were standing on holy ground.

The Fan of my Dreams

I live a pretty sreamlined life, but once in a while I go a little crazy over something specific. For one week I went beserk over a pair of yellow driving shoes that I couldn't afford (see http://joyblogstotheworld.blogspot.com/2008/10/joy-ride.html). A few months later I found a knock-off pair for $15, but by then I was over my lust for golden suede, so I didn't bother.

A few months ago I was looking through a design book and I saw a vintage fan. You know, the kind they don't make anymore because of the risk of decapitation? They're so rad. I obsessed over them and went to all of my local thrift stores, but the only ones I found were online and over $75. I gave up in hopes that I would jinx it, the way you stop looking for love and then immediately meet the man of your dreams.

But it wasn't until I completely forgot about the fan that it showed up yesterday at the Salvation Army. It was in perfect vintage condition, which is to say that it's not so perfect that it looks like it came from Urban Outfitters. I stood there under the harsh white lights, surrounded by a bunch of crappy floral prints in even crappier (word?) frames, with Celine crooning "It's all coming back to me" over the radio. (Actually, I can't remember if that song was actually on the radio, or if she just started singing in my head.) It was $29.99, which is about $15 more than the price tag attached the the fan of my dreams. I tried to get it for less (isn't it fun to haggle with charity?) but I bought it for $29.99. Which, if you want to justify it, isn't any more expensive than a new fan. Pete said the exact same thing in utter confusion when I came home toting an old fan in the middle of February.

After I explained the fan, after I put the fan in three different places before determining it's location on top of the fridge, and after I sat and stared and sighed at the fan, Pete said, "Do you know how much I love to see you happy?" I turned and stared and sighed at him. "I do. And do you know how much happier you make me than a fan?" He said that he did. I sat and stared and sighed at it some more, then said, "I hope I don't chop my fingers off in that thing." Pete didn't look up from the computer.

"Of course you will, darling."

But take heart, because I have overcome the world.

Elizabeth grew up in a Christian home in southern Asia, graduated from school, and wanted to earn money for her family before continuing her education. Tricked by her aunt, she was sold into a brothel and starved for three months in a cell before she gave into her owner's demands. She began to pray on her knees for God to rescue her, and the other girls laughed. "God can't hear you in a place like this," they said. When International Justice Mission rescued Elizabeth and 21 other girls from the brothel and brought their perpetrators to justice, they found this writing on Elizabeth's cell wall:

"Psalm 27:1-3. The Lord is my light and my salvation--whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh, when my enemies and my foes attack me, they will stumble and fall. Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then I will be confident."

I've been researching human trafficking for a few months, but each time I hear the facts, I'm surprised. Tonight I heard Jim Martin from IJM speak at Kuyper College's Global Issues Summit.

Here were the facts, again, which surprised me, again:

- Human trafficking is the third most lucrative trafficking industry (following drugs and arms), and the fastest growing criminal industry.

- Human Trafficking is a $32 Billion industry.

- There are 27 million slaves in the world today, which means that slavery is a greater issue today than it ever has been in the past.

Some common misunderstandings:

- "Human trafficking only happens far away." (In fact, it's happening in rural America and in our cities.)

- "The problem is too overwhelming--we can't do anything about it." (In fact, people are rescuing victims and bringing criminals to justice.)

- "As sad as these statistics are, this cause can only distract the church from it's true mission, which is saving souls." (Among many others, Jeremiah 22:16: "He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. "Is that not what it means to know me?" declares the Lord.)

Some complicating factors:

- There is a lack of social demand. We take every opportunity to look away and remain ignorant, or we deny what we see.

- This issue is different than poverty, AIDS or natural disaster relief in that there are people committed to fighting back against our advances.

- The church in large branches has abdicated its responsibility.

At the beginning of Jim's lecture he presented a short documentary film, and after it ended, he asked us for one-word responses that described what we were feeling.

Anger
Hopelessness
Confusion
Despair

Members of the crowd named about 10 more, and then I shared mine:

Fear

When confronted with injustice and evil, timidity has always been my response. My tears of compassion have always been mixed with tears of fear; a heartbeat of excitement over serving in missions has always been followed with a beat of anxiety. And I felt fearful again as I watched the film and heard the stories of young girls who were forced to have sex with 30 men a day, or children whose hands were beaten if they didn't meet their quota at the end of a 13 hour work day. But after I listened to Elizabeth's story, after Jim walked us through scripture that covered each of our one-word responses, after I got in my car and asked the Lord to speak to my heart, I realized that my fear was gone.

My fear was gone, and in its place I felt commissioned, empowered, and like nothing will ever satisfy me unless I get to deliver good news to the poor. I felt bravery, compassion and love, and at the same moment that I felt each of those things, I realized that they were indistinguishable from one another, because perfect love casts out all fear. I felt Jesus asking me to stop holding back with my questions, and to stop joining David Bazaon as he "ponders the weight of the apple/compared to the trouble we're in." I've pondered the weight and the trouble and I haven't discovered any satisfactory answers, but God is restoring his creation and Jesus is building his kingdom, and I'd really just rather be doing that stuff.

Psalm 27:1-3 has long been a favorite passage, but I used to read it like this, "The Lord is my light and my salvation--whom shall I fear? (The murderers, the rapists, the persecutors, and the drunk drivers.)" The Lord is my Light has long been a favorite worship song, but I had only heard it sung at youth rallies with a couple thousand American teenagers raising their hands under strobe lights. Seeing a photograph of Psalm 27 written in a foreign language on Elizabeth's cell changed the entire passage for me. The Lord is my light and my salvation--whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh, when my enemies and my foes attack me, they will stumble and fall. Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then I will be confident.

fall is here, hear the yell

My first conversation with Dugan was in September of 2003 around a campfire in Green Lake, Wisconsin. I passed the guitar to someone else, and suddenly he was sitting on the bench next to me. He said, "I was in that tree over there, watching you sing. You're good." I tilted my head to the side, raised one eyebrow, and turned to face him.

"I mean," he continued, "I wasn't WATCHING you from a tree. I was just in a tree. Watching... You." He lurched into an imitation of a creep who sits in trees and watches girls, which was intended to assure me that he himself was not a creep who sits in trees and watches girls. It worked.

"Hi, I'm Dugan," he said.

"I know," I said. "We've met before. On my birthday, actually."

"Really? I have no memory of that."

"That's okay. You wished me a happy birthday at the time."

"Good," he said. "I'm glad to hear it."

"Why were you in a tree?" I asked.

The next evening, in the middle of a small field surrounded by tents and campers, I had my second conversation with Dugan Sherbondy. I had mentioned at the campfire that I had never seen a shooting star, so we were staking out the sky until I spotted one. We talked for hours about everything. I guessed his middle name on the first try, with only the letter "E" as a clue: Earl. (He's still impressed, six years later, or at least pretends to be when I ask, "Hey, remember how I guessed your middle name on the first try?")

That night I returned to my cabin convinced that Dugan and I would simply nod to each other across the church auditorium, or else fall in love and spend the rest of our lives together. So when he called me two days after the retreat, I assumed it was the latter.

After about a week of phone calls, coffee shops and movies, I felt a pang of confusion. I was was crazy about him, sure. But instead of the fun tension that usually accompanies that era of a relationship, there was just... fun. One evening I started what was doomed to be the first of many mental debates with myself over what he was thinking and feeling, when--out of nowhere--he interrupted my thoughts to tell me what he was thinking and feeling. I was totally off-guard.

"Listen, I've been thinking," he said, putting the car into park. "I'm really enjoying hanging out with you, and I want to keep hanging out with you, but I'm not interested in dating you. How, uh... how do you feel about that? Where are you at? What do you think?"

Still surprised, I started to nod. "I... think... that's great. Really. Thanks for telling me. I think we're on the same page."

"Okay, good. I hope I didn't make things uncomfortable? I just prefer to over-communicate whenever possible."

"Really, I appreciate it," I said. "I'm not used to it, but it's good."

And it was good. I had never had any guy address our friendship so straight-forwardly. I continued to fall head-over-platonic-heels for Dugan, and a while later I reconnected with someone else who had a flair for open communication: Pete Neal. He asked if he could walk me to my car and then said, "I like you, and I'd like to spend time with you. What do you think? How do you feel about me?" Having had my eye on him for years, I responded with a demure translation of, "Hell yeah." Two weeks later we were dating--fun tension and all--and two Septembers later we were married. Dugan emceed our reception and introduced us as Pete and Joy Neal, and this past October I stood for Dugan as he married Lindsay.

Mystery in a new relationship is fun, but mystery shouldn't be confused with confusion, clever deceit, or misunderstandings, all of which are the key ingredients in the romantic comedy plot line. Nearly every romantic comedy would be rolling credits within 20 minutes if the main characters had a real conversation at the right time, but we'd ask for a refund on our way out of the theater. ("Everyone stated their feelings clearly, no one sobbed to her best friend, no one made a fool of herself--preferably on stage or at a crucial moment in her career--roughly 15 minutes before the explosive yet finally honest conversation that solved everything. What kind of crap entertainment was that?")

Dating and marriage is hard work sometimes, and meaningful friendships with the opposite sex usually require "over-communicating whenever possible." But when I meet someone who I know I want to ally myself with for the rest of my life, (whether it's someone who came down from a tree to talk with me, or someone I want to sit in a tree with while k-i-s-s-i-n-g), it's worth the effort and the honesty it requires.

Dugan picking me up at my house.
2004, maybe?
An improvement, definitely.
This was the first time I met Lindsay, and within half an hour I had sent Dugan a text message from across the room: Marry her. I once told Lindsay that I had kept Dugan around in hopes of meeting her; which, now that I know her, would have been a totally decent ulterior motive.
= 1,000 words.
Pete and Dugan reindeer humping.

One of D & L's visits to Grand Rapids