(This is a reprint from Noozhawk December 2013)
I used to read Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” every year on my Christmas-week birthday. The beauty of Dickens’ word pictures appealed to me as much as the age-old theme of redemption and renewal.
It is a story set in the Christian tradition, with a moral that transcends any particular faith.
When I read the book as a child, I pictured myself as Tiny Tim’s hardworking elder sister, toiling selflessly at a day job before rushing home to help care for the family. She was Pollyanna-cheerful, lifting the spirits of her overworked parents, who were poor and anxious about Tiny Tim’s illness.
This year, unpacking “A Christmas Carol” from my dusty box of Christmas books, it occurred to me that I’ve taken on a different role.
Instead of the elder sister’s, I act the combined parts of the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. I play these roles as a trip organizer, planning Holy Land journeys for my church.
As the Ghost of Christmas Past I shuttle travelers across a land sacred to the world’s monotheistic religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
We stay in Jerusalem and Nazareth, visit archeological sites, and see natural features like the Sea of Galilee familiar to us from scripture. We are inspired and moved by meeting people whose ancestors have made this place sacred.
My second role as the Ghost of Christmas Present is cheerless, for it is impossible to ignore the present situation in Israel and Palestine.
Thirty-foot walls snake throughout the West Bank, some sections decorated with slogans like “American Money — Israeli Apartheid” and “Control+Alt+Delete This Wall.”
A 20-by-10-foot section of the wall around Bethlehem features an achingly beautiful landscape painting of a wooded valley backed a snowy mountain. But Bethlehem residents can’t even travel to Jerusalem a few miles away.
Modern highways are built for Israelis only, and myriad checkpoints allow Jews to pass freely while Palestinians are capriciously denied access to their jobs, schools, and medical care. With our Palestinian Christian guide, we suffer these humiliations along with them.
The Ghost of the Christmas Present role needs no words, for the pictures are explanation enough.
In “A Christmas Carol,” the Ghost of Christmas Future is the scary figure — especially for our not being able to see his face.
He is a skeletal figure in a long dark hoody, pointing out scenes that Scrooge desperately hopes are not the undeniable future but rather what could transpire if he doesn’t mend his ways.
My own role as the Ghost of Christmas Future is more hopeful.
Many Palestinian Christians and Muslims, as well as Israeli Jews are actively working together to improve the unsustainable situation.
In Jerusalem and stateside, I feature speakers who are working to bring justice and peace, such as Sabeel, Neve Shalom (Wahat Al-Salam), Jewish Voices for Peace, Jerusalem Women Speak (Partners for Peace), Open Bethlehem, and the Tent of Nations.
One speaker I heard in Jerusalem in October 2005 told us how he and his Israeli Jewish group had harvested olive trees the previous night for the Palestinian landowners, since Israeli soldiers prevented them from reaching their fields.
Israeli forces later burned the trees, a practice that continues unabated today. Nevertheless, there are countless acts of grace and humility buried in news that is overwhelmingly about violence.
Ghosts, if they exist at all, have no power except to influence by suggestion.
My Christmas hope is that the ghosts of Christmas future will continue to work for a just peace through the people of the Holy Land, combining these countless acts of humility to a worldwide movement that respects people over politics.
Israel and Palestine can yet be a place where all religions and cultures are respected, the land is revered, and pilgrims of all faiths are welcomed to a holy place.