{"id":542,"date":"2013-11-08T04:22:46","date_gmt":"2013-11-08T04:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=542"},"modified":"2014-08-13T21:31:08","modified_gmt":"2014-08-13T21:31:08","slug":"the-patriarchs-and-a-balloon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-patriarchs-and-a-balloon\/","title":{"rendered":"The Patriarchs and a Balloon"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It was late in the Spring of 2010.\u00a0 I had just finished up my last class and was about to leave for a well needed rest over Spring vacation.\u00a0 Just before closing my office door, my dear mentor, friend, colleague and co-leader for our Israeli travel-learn tours casted a vision for a new site he wanted to try and visit for our soon upcoming trip.\u00a0 He said, \u201cDid you know one of “Herod The Greats”<\/strong> most famous building projects is still standing fully intact?\u201d \u00a0I answered, yes\u2026 but no we\u2019re not!\u00a0 <\/strong>See, Herod built some amazing structures throughout his reign, Caesarea by the Sea, the Temple Complex, the Herodian and even Masada.\u00a0 Yet there is another amazing building that very few ever travel to see.\u00a0 It\u2019s called The Cave of the Patriarchs and to this day is the only fully standing Herodian built structure.\u00a0 In the caves below the structure are the tombs of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah.\u00a0 Crazy, I know, but they\u2019re actually there! \u00a0\u00a0Now here\u2019s the catch, it\u2019s in Hebron.\u00a0 The same Hebron that is deep in the unsecured territory of the West Bank.\u00a0 The same Hebron, where on the stairs of the tomb of the Patriarchs the Hebron Massacre took place in 1994, when 25 worshipers were killed and another 125 wounded.\u00a0 After a few minutes of conversation, I told my friend and mentor, \u201cIf we do this, I\u2019m taking care of the arrangements!\u201d\u00a0 Two months later to the day, we pulled up to the cave of the Patriarchs via an armored bus and four extra IDF soldiers for protection.\u00a0 Here\u2019s what we saw.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This past week while reading \u201cThe Matrix of Christian Ethics: Integrating Philosophy and Moral Theology in a Postmodern Context\u201d by Patrick Nullens and Ronald T. Michener,\u00a0 I was captured by their perspective on human dignity and the \u201cImago Dei\u201d.\u00a0 More specifically that humans even in their fallen state, have great value due to being created in the image of God.\u00a0 This significant value being expressed by their Creator states succinctly that they are “very good”<\/strong>.\u00a0 Within this statement, the protection of human dignity in the gracious love of God, not human ego or pride, is the very expression of the Imago Dei.\u00a0 The following are three ways I saw the Imago Dei protecting human value and dignity on that memorable day in Hebron.<\/p>\n

Faces and windows\u2026\u00a0 <\/strong>As we drove through the streets of Hebron\u00a0 it became evident that fear, tensions and insecurity ruled the day.\u00a0 Those who were on the streets were not quick to make eye contact, however at one stop a woman looking curiously out a window in her home made eye contact with me.\u00a0 The moment could not have lasted longer than 5 seconds, yet in that moment, hollow empty faces became human.\u00a0 A simple stare shattered the differences of two people, two cultures and a whole lot of preconceived false beliefs.<\/p>\n

Pizza and hunger\u2026\u00a0 <\/strong>After coming out of the Tomb of the Patriarchs, we noticed down this battered side street a neon glowing sign, saying “PIZZA”<\/strong>.\u00a0 It was also lunch time.\u00a0 Before we knew it we had twenty pizzas ordered up.\u00a0 As we sat and waited, a gentleman from the street approached me to talk.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t long into our conversation I realized he was hungry.\u00a0 I invited him to eat with us.\u00a0 Before our time was done, 10 more from the streets joined us.\u00a0 As I stood back and watched, it\u2019s still hard to explain what went through me watching our students in deep conversations, caring for the needs and souls of Palestinians.\u00a0 Those who were feared or held at a distance now found commonalities over pizza and conversation.<\/p>\n

Children at play\u2026\u00a0 <\/strong>Leaving the Pizza shop we began our walk down the street to our bus.\u00a0 As we walked soldiers littered the landscape, yet through the midst of these soldiers walked a small child with a balloon. Never have I been more captured by the Imago Dei making itself present in the midst of pain, brokenness and hurt.\u00a0 The simplicity of a child at play brought color into darkness, simplicity to complexity and order to chaos.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Where has the Imago Dei been showing up in your life?\u00a0 Do you love and care for others as all having human value and dignity?\u00a0 That day in Hebron, I realized God was stripping another level of ego from my life.\u00a0 I was forever changed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  It was late in the Spring of 2010.\u00a0 I had just finished up my last class and was about to leave for a well needed rest over Spring vacation.\u00a0 Just before closing my office door, my dear mentor, friend, colleague and co-leader for our Israeli travel-learn tours casted a vision for a new site […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,212],"class_list":["post-542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-nullens","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1875,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542\/revisions\/1875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}