Afflicted and Unclean

You may have wondered why there haven’t been any new posts. This is my third attempt. Just getting from the bed to the bathroom and back from the bathroom to the bed has felt challenging. That’s when I new something was wrong. What you see pictured above is the equivalent of The Red Cross in the U.S. It is the pod where we were tested and were found to be Covid-positive. This has stirred up a great deal of anxiety in me/us and our children, not to mention that this reality will cause delays and many inconveniences for Thomas’s work and my ministry with Alex UMC. Many emotions are wrapped into all of it and it is hard to find balance while struggling with a foggy head.

My lungs wheeze, my head spins, but I am beginning to feel a little stronger today. Thomas has been asymptomatic. He has had Covid once before and he received the antigen cocktail intravenously during that time so maybe he is more protected. It is a good thing he is doing better; he has been able to take good care of me as we have been quarantined here in Tiberias in our hotel room by the health officials of Israel. Unless I need medical attention, we have to stay isolated to keep others safe. As we all know, Covid is not just a physical disease, it also has social and political complexities and it is a pandemic that has created other layers of pandemic. I am feeling those now more than ever…we are afflicted and unclean. I have felt the stories of the sick and ostracized in scripture more profoundly then ever as Thomas and I have been trying to make a way for one another for healing to begin. Our CLAL group and teachers have now returned to the U.S. but not without making sure we would be cared for and have all that we needed while in quarantine here in Israel. The policy of Israel is that travelers who test positive for Covid have to quarantine for five days before they can commence travel.

Rabbi Brad and Rev. Brian made sure we had medicines, meals set up, contacts in place, our hotel stay extended, our air travel updated, and taxi service arranged. We are not afraid, just sad to have this journey interrupted – missing two full days of touring and now separated forever from our group. We also realize we are blessed, so blessed to have one another, our generous hosts at Hotel Emily, and the generosity of invisible friends who are doing their best to support us from the other side of these walls – each doing their part to make sure we have meals, water, medicine, clean bedding, towels. We have an in-country contact who is setting up transportation for us to Tel Aviv once we are through quarantine – her name is Dafna and she calls or texts to check in on us regularly. She asked about my breathing yesterday and I told her it is fine and not to worry. She said if it gets too labored, I need to go immediately to the hospital.

We are in the Galilee, in the city of Tiberias, the region where scripture gives us a great deal of what we know about Jesus’ public ministry.

Here, when people refer to Galilee, they say ”the Galilee”. At first I was confused. As an English teacher, that sounded odd. It now makes a lot of sense. It is a region – not a city or village or town, but a whole region – with amazingly diverse topography. From my chronology worksheets of the Holy Land (Rev. Dr. Brian Maguire), it is given this context: the Galilee is a region of Israel and Lebanon between the Carmel range and the Litani River in Lebanon. Further subdivided into the mountainous upper Galilee and the more verdant Lower Galilee including the Jezreel Valley (yes, it is o.k. here to think ”Jezebel” from scripture). The region largely fell outside the influence of the Kingdom of Israel. With a mixed population, the region was conquered and annexed into the Hamonean Kingdom by John Hyrcanus and Aristobulus I. Thereafter, Hasmoeans and Herodians maintained a ”Judaizing” policy of resttling southern Jewish families into the region and forcibly converting the local Iturean population. Galilee was always a border region of the hisotric Jewish Holy Land with mixed populations and would later serve as the settling for Jesus’ public minstry and the formation of Rabbinic Judaism.

On one of our last tours with our teachers, we learned how this region during Jesus’ time was an extremely diverse and politically charged place to live. Two brothers ruled but in very different ways. The general area we toured and in which we are staying now was ruled by Herod Antipas (not the Herod you think of first, but a son of Herod The Great) and it was a Jewish Kingdom. Herod Antipas ruled as Tetrarch over both the Galilee and Perea as a Roman client (a tetrarch is not a king or governor, but in-between). He relocated the capitol of the Galilee from Sepphoris to his new city of Tiberias around 20 AD. He is mentioned repeatedly in the Gospels as one of Jesus’ opponents. Herod Antipas married Herodias, the former wife of his half-brother, who was also his niece. Herod ruled one side of the Sea of Galilee, and his brother, Herod Phillip II ruled the other (also a son of Herod the Great) – the regions we now know as Lebanon and Syria. Phillip’s lands were non-Jewish.

Scripture tells us that Jesus gave his sermon on the beatitudes at what is now aptly named Mount of Beatitudes; an area of the Galilee that would have been the border between the two kingdoms. Think about that! Jesus was so brave…Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them, Matthew 5:1-12.

In the region of the Galilee, there is Capernaum, where Jesus went to live when he left Nazareth (Matthew 4) and where he called his first disciples, Simon, called Peter and his brother Andrew. As pilgrims, we could only go so far in this region, but we were able to spend ample time in Magdala also known as Migdal and also known as Tarichaea (the city of Mary Magdalene).

Side note: One thing I have learned in Israel is that every place on a map has at least two names, if not three. The histories here are so rich and deep and ancient – cities are built on cities – it is hard for us to understand since I come from a land that is often only given a 200 year history; 2000 years is too much to embody. But if we are being honest, the Indigenous peoples of North America hold the stories of more than 2000 years and we should do a better job of listening.

Magdala/Middal is a fishing town on the Northeast side of the Sea of Galilee, and the likely hometown for Mary, one of Jesus’ closest disciples. Migdal means ”tower” and likely refers to drying towers for preserving fish (Tarichaea, also a name for this city, means pickled fish) In 2014, a first century synagogue was discovered at the site where we toured.

It was in Magdala/Migdal in the Galilee that I felt a strong pull of light and a sense of being home. I never felt that way in Jerusalem. The Galilee was where Jesus lived out much of His public ministry. It feels different to me to be here, much different. Jerusalem is where Jesus was crucified, died and was buried. When He rose again, He did not go back to the cross, but instead, He appeared to His disciples in various places – yes, the Upper Room in Jerusalem, but also in the Galilee where he broke bread with them and grilled fish on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, John 21.

Reading Mary’s story as I sat near an archaeological dig that had uncovered the old city’s ruins, giving us more information about the ancient people, I felt presence – that is the best way I can describe it.

What does it take to treasure each day,
To give thanks for the gifts not earned,
To savor the taste of every first fruit
And know that enough is as good as a feast?
It takes a lifetime to learn how to live,
To sort through the stuff that fills up our days,
To weigh and measure just what to claim
And know that enough is as good as a feast.
So, sit at nightfall with those you love
And light a candle to greet the dark,
Clasp hands as you bless the bread
And know that enough is as good as a feast.
Open your heart to the joy and the pain,
The bitter and sweet of the knowledge you’ve gained
And sweetly surrender to what you can’t change
And know that enough is as good as a feast.