On the Willows

Lent, the liturgical season of wandering, is wrapping up this week and coming to an end next Sunday with the celebration of Easter. Yet, my season of wandering continues. I have been in al Mafraq, Jordan for almost 3 weeks and have at least a few more to come but the details of the coming months are still mostly unknown. The only known detail is that I will not be able to return to Bethlehem until June at the earliest.
My time spent wandering, both physically and metaphorically, has been a time filled with many reflections, thoughts, and prayers. I believe I may have journaled more in the last month and a half then I have in whole years of my life.
It is when we are thrown completely out of our comfort zones that we can more clearly see God working in our lives. I have been completely amazed at the way things have come together in my moments of doubt and even despair. From my last few days in Bethlehem, to Taizé, to Paris, to Mafraq, I have experienced God’s provision again and again, not just to provide for my most basic needs but also for what I have needed to be whole. Not only did I have travelling mercies throughout this journey, but I also received new friends and contacts for support. I received endless, incredible support from friends and family around the world. The strength I received from prayers and good thoughts has kept me going. As I mentioned in my post about Taizé, my sharing group spoke often about the concept of taking faith and life “day by day.” I have come to understand this idea as a two-way street of both discipleship and provision. Day by day, I seek to love God more dearly, follow God more nearly, and to see God more clearly. At the same time, day by day God provides what I need for that day, including strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.
The way the Church has supported me throughout this journey has been truly humbling. As a Global Mission Fellow, I am called to “engage in a local community, connect the Church in mission, and grow and personal and social holiness.” The call to connect the Church in mission has made itself apparent and come to fruition in a way I had not envisioned possible when I was commissioned to this call in August. It has been a source of true joy to see and experience the Church come together. I rejoice when I reflect on the ways that Mt. Lebanon United Methodist Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Immanuel United Methodist Church in Waltham, Massachusetts; my fellow Mission Interns and US-2’s; United Methodists across Western PA; Summer Youth Institute alumni; new friends in Bethlehem; and countless other people were connected in their prayers for me. To me, this is a glimpse of the Kingdom.
Finally, I have been reflecting on the nature of God. Throughout my wandering, I have been wondering what it means to believe in a wandering God and as my wandering has brought me to a place full of refugees, I wonder what it truly means to believe in a God that mourns with the oppressed and the exiled. We know that God, in steadfast love, was with the Israelites throughout their time wandering in the desert. As we celebrate Lent and remember Christ wandering in the wilderness, we have a clear image of a God who wanders.I have access to a piano here at the Church and as I sat down to play the other day for the first time in a long time, I played the one song my fingers remember automatically – a song of mourning, a psalm of exile: “On the willows there, we hung up our lyres for our captors there required of us songs and our tormentors mirth, saying, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion.’ But how can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” I realized that never again will this song be so appropriate to my life. It is a psalm of the Israelite exile in Babylon. The original psalm, Psalm 137, begins, “By the rivers of Babylon…” Never again will I be an exile from Jerusalem, so close to the rivers of Babylon. But more than myself, I thought of the all the refugees I have spoken to. When I ask in my basic Arabic, “Do you like Jordan?” they always respond, “Jordan is nice but Syria is better.” Of course it is, it is your home. I feel like they are truly saying, “How can I continue with any sense of normalcy, anything resembling my old life, when I am so far from home?”

How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?