Things not yet seen

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.

These are the opening lines of Chapter 11 of the Book of Hebrews. The more I study literature, the more I am amazed at the magnificence of the language of Scripture. Doesn’t this sound like an introduction to an epic catalogue? That first sentence is the premise, and what follows, then is the proof: a chronological catalogue of examples, people who lived out this definition of faith. This is a veritable Who’s Who of faith-driven people, from Abel to Noah to Abraham (who the writer dwells on for some time) and even Rahab (who we sinners like to dwell on—if she can get on this list, then I can too). In fact, pastors have renamed this chapter as “The Great Hall of Faith.”

I love this definition of faith. It is a state of being, rather than just a statement of belief. Faith is a state of sureness and certainty, a bold confidence in something. People talk about having faith in themselves or faith in a system of thought, or faith in a government, and when I hear these things, I think of a balloon swelling and filling up and floating up perpetually. But then there is always the reverse picture—losing faith in oneself, or in a system or in a government, and there is something deflating, crumpling about this. The key, people tell me, is not just to have faith, but to have faith IN something good, because then, the balloon will not pop.

We are supposed to have faith in ourselves. I have tried. I have filled up that balloon many times, pumped it full of oxygen and tied it off tightly, but in the end, it always leaks. My best intentions, my most glorious goals always turn into the worst kind of wretchedness: petty competition, vanity, gossip. And sometimes this is a slow, hissing leak, and sometimes this is a dramatic explosion, when I realize all at once that the virtue I was gloating over was really just a pile of dung, and I am left stunned, my guts blown everywhere.

We either go through life filling up our leaking balloons, or spend our lives on a quest for the Balloon Which Shall Not Leak. Some people give up all together. They know the law—that all balloons leak eventually—and so they amuse themselves ironically by watching others’ futile attempts.

So, if faith is a state of sureness, a confident selection of something, this is what is strange about the Christian faith: the balloons we are told to select are named, “What We Hope For” and “What We Do Not See.” Personally, I think that this is crazy. Loony. The visible balloons—things like family, finances, food, the things that we can touch and hold and know that they make us feel better, the things that we love and are the good things in life—these things leak. They disappoint us. They run away. They hurt us. They enslave us. But at least we can see them. If a visible balloon leaks, how much more will an invisible one?!

I suppose that in order to answer that question, one has to know more about the balloon. What is it that we hope for? What is it that we do not see? We find a clue to this answer in the very next verse, Hebrews 11:2:

By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

Ah, so this balloon we are hitched to is the belief that we are in God’s world. And there is something strange about this world—if we peel back the many layers of the visible so that we can get to the very core, the very heart, the very creative center, the foundation of reality, we find the Invisible. If all of the visible of the world was made out of the Invisible, is it any surprise that the only really perfectly created balloon, the Balloon Which Shall Not Leak, is also made out of What is Not Seen?

It occurs to me that some may say that this is a circular argument (ha, ha, no pun intended!). I completely agree. It also occurs to me that some Christians may say that this argument makes us look crazy. I also completely agree. There’s little sense in any of this. I think about Noah building a giant ship in his back yard while it hadn’t rained in ages. Hebrews 11: 7 tells us: By faith, Noah when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. And I think about the phrase things not yet seen.

Impolite politics

I am a Palestinian.

I am practicing this statement. I realize that I never say that single naked statement. I always feel compelled to modify it, like I am a Palestinian Christian, or I am an Israeli Arab, or I am an American Palestinian.

This has confused some people. I spent six months preparing some students to travel to the West Bank, and talked all about the history, political and religious issues of the region. After spending a week in Hebron and Bethlehem, one of my students told me that he had not realized that I was a Palestinian. He knew that I was something else, and that I wasn’t Jewish, but didn’t realize that I was one of the, you know, Palestinians. He had known me for three years and he didn’t know that I was a Palestinian.

This is, of course, my fault. I have a way of reading people, of knowing what is socially comfortable and uncomfortable, and of being diplomatic. I don’t want to commit the faux-pas. There are few things more horrifying, I have learned, than rattling along in a new culture and suddenly realizing that everyone is staring at you like you have toilet paper attached to your pants. I didn’t know that was rude, you want to say, but you know that no one will believe you. I spend much of my time studying my world, trying to avoid these situations, trying to make others feel comfortable. I have succeeded. They are all very comfortable.

Words that make people squirm: wall. occupation. desperation.

I live right outside of Washington, DC, so you would think that people are comfortable around politics. But politics here are very different. People chose a side the way people chose a sports team, and then they cheer very loudly from the sidelines, Democrats on one side, Republicans on the other. Some are hard core fans, others just pick a team because they need something to wear to the game. What I have found is this: it’s impolite to talk politics with someone who disagrees with you. You cannot say what you really think about the war unless the person nearby agrees with you already. So, you feel people out, check to see what color they are wearing before making comments. This is a great system: everyone stays cool and comfortable.

Now, there are times when you can have a political argument, say, at a politically charged dinner party. But if you want to be polite about it, you need to preface it with lots of humble, defacing statements about everyone having a perspective, etc.

I know it’s just my perspective, being a Palestinian and all, but have you noticed that massive concrete wall with an armed surveillance tower that is snaking around my village?

It doesn’t seem to work.

There are reasons for the wall, they tell me. There is security. There is Yasser Arafat. I nod, and I say, have you seen the wall? Do you remember dancing in front of your television when the Berlin Wall came down? Is it okay with you that you are paying to put up a new one?

Ah, that was different. And they tell me all of the reasons why—that was Communism and this is Palestinian. I nod. What happens, do you think, to the woman who used to look out her kitchen window and see olive groves, and now looks up from her potatoes and sees the concrete wall and barbed wire? Does she thank God every morning?

But of course, I don’t say many of these things because soon my friends shift in their seats and wish that I would move on to another topic. They want me to say that there are two sides to every story and that it is understandable and justifiable and that nothing is perfect and that we all have to just get along. Especially at dinner parties.

And I say that yes, there are two sides, but how would we know what the other side looks like since we are locked into our side of the wall? And I tell them that living behind a wall is so horrifying that we draw pictures on the wall, pictures of hills and trees and flowers and kites and we write under the picture, “This is our home.”

Despite my arm-long list of places where I have lived, this too is my home.

Taking my own medicine

There is always this delicious moment when I first open the cover of a blank, new notebook, and pause before I write down the first sentence: a sensation of freshness, of adventure, like straining to see your dish before the waiter sets it down. I have had this sensation many, many times, but always privately. Publicly like this feels, well, rather indecent.

I will write anyway.

I have resisted having a blog for many reasons. I am technologically grumpy. I am fearful and this half-published form seems dangerous. I am paranoid about my students looking at me knowingly in class, having read my blog the night before.

I will write anyway.

I will write because two things have come to my attention recently. First, I am only pretending to be private and most people know most things about me anyway. Second, I need to take my own medicine. while exchanging emails with an old friend, I found myself writing these words: there are times when people need an audience, need to be heard, need to dig out the thing that is lying at the center of their soul and say it, and for that, you sometimes need an audience.

I'm not sure where this journey will take me, but I want to start with a series of posts that are reflections upon Hebrews 11, particularly the passage that I have highlighted at the top of this page.