Leave The Stale Tunnel For A Richer Life

The trips I’ve taken to Israel have bonded my heart to the people there, to the spiritual heritage there. So my heart can only cry for the innocent and guilty alike in Israel in these days.

Do you remember? Not many days ago, Israelis and Palestinians were wounding and killing each other. Over a tunnel!

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should have guessed the decision to open the tunnel underneath the Temple Mount would result in angry confrontations. I thought he knew: People are bound to fight over a tunnel when those people are inflicted with tunnel vision.

I speak of both Israeli and Palestinian leaders as having tunnel vision. Fear can do that to a person or a people.

Let me tell you about another tunnel.

The ancient water tunnel at Meggido, in northern Israel, is an engineering marvel. It was carved out of solid rock by people over many years of very hard labor.

A tourist can’t help but be in awe of their monumental effort.

It is also a monument to creative fear. The tunnel was built so the people inside the walls could get water from the spring outside the walls without exposing themselves to their enemies.

Under the circumstances, perhaps the fear was a reasonable response.

Is the Israeli government’s tunnel vision a reasonable response to its fear of a Palestinian presence in Israel? I don’t know.

But I do know there has been treachery, deceit and faithlessness on everyone’s part, Israeli and Palestinian alike.

Yet the Israelis are the ones in control. So it seems to me they have the greater responsibility to exercise restraint.

They must be the leaders in finding ways of achieving accommodations that are healthy for all people involved.

I also know there are a great many Israelis and Palestinians - Jews, Muslims and Christians - working and praying so hard for peace in their land. Working together, most likely even praying together.

They seem to be the ones who understand that tunnel vision is a tragic flaw in any struggle for shalom for the Jews, salaam for the Palestinians, peace for all.

God did not create anyone to live in a tunnel or to live with tunnel vision.

God, Yahweh, Allah - the same God, folks! - created life to be lived out in the open air, where people could share the gifts of life generously.

Whatever name we use for God, I believe God is always ready to help us break out of our self-constructed tunnels into the light and warmth and bounty of the world beyond those tunnels. The God I read of in the Jew’s Torah, the Christian’s Bible and the Muslim’s Koran is the same God whose taproot, radical hospitality makes plenty of room for people of all faiths to live in the same world.

It takes a serious working partnership between this God and people for everyone to live cooperatively. People then seek to help one another survive, and even thrive, rather than force each other to survive.

I’ve seen this God actively move among Israelis and Palestinians in acts of compassion and justice.

So I wonder: Where is God in Israel today? My imagination has God saying in clear, direct terms to leaders of the Knisset and the Palestinian Authority:

“You don’t seem to have much use for me right now. So I’ll get out to where the fighting is, to tend the wounded, to carry the dead off to be buried, to cry with the survivors and to help people rebuild their lives.

“When you get tired of being afraid of each other, let me know and I will come to all of you and show you how to get out of your tunnels. You built the tunnels, but you don’t seem to know how to get out of them. I do.

“When will you start trusting me and letting me work with you?

“The air in here is stale and limited. But outside? The air is fresh, the water is clear and refreshing and unending. There is enough of everything you need for all of you to live peaceably beside one another.

“I won’t be a party to your tragic foolishness. But when you’ve become sick and tired of tunnel living, look me up. I hope you can remember where I’ll be.

“I am very eager to welcome you all back to the land of life that has been yours all along - to share with one another.”

God may be saying this to people in Israel, but I can also hear God sometimes speaking in similar terms to those of us who claim to be The Church, yet suffer from tunnel vision. In all kinds of situations.

Is this spiritual affliction yours at times? What can you hear God saying about your narrow, fearful sight?

MEMO: The Rev. Paul Graves, a Sandpoint resident and social services director of Mountainside Care Center, has been a United Methodist minister for 28 years. He can be contacted via e-mail at welhouse@netw.com or regular mail in care of The Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Paul Graves The Spokesman-Review