White Baboon

Sometimes I think Jesus gets a bad rap.

He reminds me of those musicians who began playing because they loved the sound of music but then everyone started calling them a “God” . . .and they were eventually led astray by either their agents or the rest of the guys in the band . . . and succumbed to the peer pressure of insipid lyrics, increased radio-play and high-priced tickets.

But it’s not fair to call Jesus a sell-out when he’s not actually here to make his own decisions.

Lucky for him, there exist busloads of devout followers who have taken it upon themselves to start their own churches and expose the teachings of Jesus without the baggage (or divisive agents and personalities) which seems to weigh down Christianity.

But the fact that I instinctively cringe when I see WWJD bracelets, or that I measure my words much more carefully when I’m with someone who has a cross around their neck, says that Christianity is still failing to spread the message about love and forgiveness. Because when faced with confident tokens of faith, I either categorize people as ultra-conservative or sit in fear of judgment from them. Somehow, Christianity has been taken to an extreme, encrusted with Teflon, repelling instead of replenishing.

I believe Jesus is actually ABOUT love and acceptance and forgiveness. And I’ll tell you why. About six years ago, Barb Kiebel, a dear friend and strong woman who used to serve me spiked lemonade and Marlboro Lights on her back porch when I was first starting my business, lent me a book called Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time. She was involved in her church—an open community where lectures on Islam were not considered threatening, even in 2002.

Upon reading the book, I was somewhat surprised to discover that Jesus, this guy from Nazareth, and religion, the Catholicism I’d grown to be suspicious of, were often two very different things.

However, let’s be clear about where I’m standing. It’s on the bottom rung. I’m talking about Jesus, the man. Not Jesus the divine son at the right hand of the father who will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. Not the giver of life. Not the one whose kingdom will not end. Not Him.

Just an inspiring guy who has happened to have the biggest following of all time.

Since we’ve come to Beirut and began working for Inma Foundation, I feel I’m meeting Jesus yet again. Among other beliefs, at the very minimum, the staff of this organization follow his teachings. And it’s evident within their community. These people are balanced human beings who give of their time and resources without seeking something in return. They empower without controlling. They exude goodness without making me sick. They don’t really gossip. They make me want to be a better person.

This has been a recurring theme as we explore the earth. We’ve been part of “an economy where sharing is the primary currency,”(thanks Jen Lemen) as we couchsurf, hitchhike and rely on the kindness of strangers. We have become more aware of the impact of our own energy on others. About the sky-high value of old-fashioned, but evergreen kindness.

Funny, eh? How after so much meditative, deep-sea-diving into my soul, that life’s little sevens or twos or nines (or whatever you happen to need in your game of Go Fish) are not found in some spiritual temple amid the silence, but in a bomb-common place like Beirut, amid the chaos of Christianity and Islam.

8:00 Consider getting up, but switch positions and ignore the springs digging into my hipbone. Notice wall-heater is still functioning, which means electricity is on. Which means it could very well go off at 9:00. Good thing I juiced the oranges last night.

8:35: Get dressed and try to put water on for tea. Realize the faucet is only a trickle, which means in a bout five minutes, there will be no water at all. Have a tough time lighting the burner, so kitchen smells of sulfur. Use water from the cooler for eggs and tea.

8:40: Hear Michael messing with the toilet, realizing there is no water. He comes into the kitchen with quite a look. I nod in acknowledgment. Last time this happened, the Palestinian plumbing student at Inma center, who had fixed the water twice before, said that he could help us today, but didn’t want to. He wanted to teach us a lesson about wasting water. This was translated to us from Arabic by American volunteers who were rather aghast at his audacity. But despite the fact that we were at that time showering every few days, we didn’t say much. Since he didn’t fix our water, we were instructed to move across the hall. To the apartment three times as big.

So now, we REALLY didn’t want to come to this guy about the water. I decided to think about it later.

8:50: Retrieve Middle East book from living room to see when we can catch a bus to Jordan, our next destination. Michael is heating water to shave. We eat hard boiled eggs with soy and hot sauce and drink fresh orange juice on the terrace. Sometimes we read Economist articles to each other. Not today.

9:25: We say hello to Adel, the mechanic and the Syrian guy, Faisal, who serves coffee in the empty parking lot, then get a service taxi to Bourj el Barajne, the Palestinian Refugee Camp. A service taxi is basically a carpool. Most trips are $1/person. When we tell him our destination from the roadside, he grunts an affirmative and we get in. I think service taxis are the best way to see Beirut.You never know how long the ride could be, which route the driver will take, who might squeeze into the backseat with you. One morning, as I sat alone in the back of an unusually filthy car, my driver stopped, flashed five fingers and big smile my way, then got out and jacked the car up and down multiple times over a twenty-five minute period. During the rest of my ride, the guttural sounds coming from the car were matched only by the driver’s spit-spewing hack. On another day, during a 45-minute ride, the driver and three passengers smoked cigarettes, stopped for coffee-to-go and chatted as if they were all old friends, while I huddled reading in the corner, wondering if I’d accidentally crashed their road trip. But everyone is always nice. Helpful. Friendly. And you never have to worry about the driver taking the long way around. Because you KNOW he’s taking the long way around.

9:45: We see the KFC, our landmark and ask to get out amidst piles of dirt and two by fours, then cross the road, walk through the car wash and up four flights to the Inma Office. Hoda is making sandwiches (pitas rolled up with cheese) in the kitchen. Everyone is huddled in one room, sharing a joke. Apparently, Fadi’s father died last night. Which of course, is not funny at all. But Fadi had been asked to pick up the coffin and he was feeling a bit spooked about the task, which was embarrassing. And somehow, this became hilarious.

10:07: Suher, a Palestinian employee and Jamie, an American employee who came with her church last fall and will stay for a few years while her husband gets his masters at American University of Beirut, are going into the camp to sign up new kids for the pre-school. We tag along. We’ve seen the strange mix of colorful murals, unprotected cables and abandoned plastic dolls of this ghetto before, but our skin still pops as we walk.

I know the way, but we cannot walk too far ahead. Foreigners are not allowed unaccompanied through the camp. We reach the pre-school’s office. Ramadan greeting cards, rose-colored walls, Arabic scripture plaques and silk flowers attempt to decorate the cold, dark and drafty room. We sit in plastic deck chairs—the folding chair of the developing country. High-pitched child screams echo nearby. Jamie and Suher complete child profiles with meek mothers.

Eventually, we take a tour through the pre-school, which is more like a high-ceilinged courtyard with tiny rooms for teaching. We are given sweet steaming tea in brown mugs as we snap pictures of toddlers in blue-checked uniforms upon the blurry mirror of the steel slide.

Primary-colored murals are everywhere. Along the top surface of the wall separating the kitchen from the hallway are ever-shining shards of sharp glass, permanently glued in place. This is to keep away the thieves, since the kitchen has no door.

12:30: I have been asked by Louise, a British woman living in Beirut and working for Inma, to help out with the adult English class in the Vocational Training Center in the camp. They’re working on informal and formal greetings and their levels vary from beginner to intermediate, but they’re all headscarfed women and all inclined to giggle. They are giddily happy about learning English. This is pretty nice.

When I return to the center, Suzanne tells me Michael went to the Fadi’s father’s funeral.

2:00: I take a service taxi back to the Hamra area, look for the bookstore where I found $8 paperbacks a few weeks ago and then settle in at our restaurant with free internet and delicious tuna wraps. I order by leaning over the balcony from the second floor.

6:30: Michael arrives at the restaurant after a day of mourning.