The People of God

Walking home from school today, I happened upon a Palestinian man who was, as Arabs say, "in the autumn of his age." As we neared each other, he smiled and said, politely struggling to use English, "You...where from?" I responded that I was from America, and we began conversing in Arabic (I can only hope that if he tells anyone about me, he'll be generous regarding my Arabic).

He grew up in Jerusalem--Silwan--but he had to leave his home and flee to Jordan during the 1967 war. His eyes lit up when I told him that I had lived in Jerusalem for three months--on the Mount of Olives, I told him. By Augusta Victoria. "By the hospital?" he asked. Yes, by the hospital.

"Do you like Palestine or Jordan better?" With a sad smile, he answered his own question: "I like Palestine better."

Half of his family lives here in Jordan; the other half lives in the West Bank. He has 3 sons and 4 daughters (a family size that I'm vaguely familiar with). He spoke of Palestine and of his family there not with anger or hatred toward the powers keeping him away from them, but rather with an intense longing, a painful void, a yearning hope.

We parted, and I paused to look back at him as he walked away. "That man," I thought, "is of the people of God, too!"