Pardon My Interruption: Craig's Thoughts About This And That
Someone has spray painted “Allah” and “Muhammed” in Arabic on one of the gates leading to the upper platform on the Temple Mount.
The owner of all this candy is a man named Isaac. He’s not proud that he owns it all. In fact, he would be happy to help you become the owner of this delicious delight. Not the store. Just the candy, which he sells by weight.
He was surprised when I greeted him in Arabic, and was all too happy to let me take pictures of his candies and to help me with my Arabic. His question was the same as some of my readers: “Why do you want to learn Arabic.” My answer wasn’t what another Arab man later in the day incorrectly suggested: “That’s CIA Arabic.”
Here’s my real answer: “I want to learn Arabic so I can speak with Arabs in their language.” The gospel is that important.
As my Arabic studies progress, I catch myself trying more and more to pick out identifiable words from inscriptions around the city. While on the Temple Mount, I focused on the script that goes around the octagon building that supports the Dome of the Rock.
It is a particularly difficult script (for me), but I was able to identify a few things.
“Can you pretty easily read the script going around the Dome,” I asked. “Yes, because I have it memorized. We start memorizing it in first grade” was the answer I received.
That struck me.
First, memorizing the script on the Dome gives local Muslims a heart connection to the Dome of the Rock; or more correctly, the whole of the Al Aqsa Mosque compound. And that is particularly true when it is done at an early age. The social and political implications of such a connection are worth consideration as the issue of control of and entrance to the Temple Mount makes its way to the front page of the news cycle.
The second thing that struck me about children memorizing that particular script is that I know from talking to others that that script isn’t a stand alone memory verse for Muslims. Many Muslims around the world strive to and succeed at memorizing the Qur’an, which is about the size of the New Testament.
I don’t personally know any Christians who have memorized the New Testament. I’ve heard of not more than a handful who have done it, but I don’t know them. I’m familiar with various children’s ministries that “focus” on Bible memorization, but most of them focus on isolated verses. Which is to say, very few Christians memorize large sections of either the Old or New Testaments. Why is that?
I do have a few friends who have been an encouragement to me to do much better in Bible memory; they have endeavored to memorize whole chapters, even whole books. May their tribe increase, and may they continue to challenge me in Bible memory.
The Holy Land’s Underbelly
On Wednesday evenings, my friend Bill and I go to Tel Aviv to teach at the Sudanese church, which is located near the central bus station in south Tel Aviv. This an area that is heavily populated by foreigners – some legal, some illegal.
One Israeli described the demographics like this: “It’s so crowded with foreigners that it’s hard to find an actual Israeli there. And if you do, they are simply passing through going to or from the bus station.” His observations are pretty accurate. After our meeting with the Sudanese men, we generally get a bite to eat at the nearby pedestrian mall. Besides eating, we also wander around trying to strike up conversations with whomever we can; but mostly we are observing, trying to figure out how things work in this island of foreign workers.
Not only is this the foreign workers’ stomping ground, it is also an area with homeless people who have found themselves on the streets due to drug abuse or mental illness. I’m sure there may be some other reasons, but those seem to be the most prominent.
The homeless guys in the photo above, are sleeping in the shooting gallery. That’s where heroin addicts hide in the shadows and inject themselves (see the video below). The place is littered with filth, all the things associated with homeless drug addicts: human waste, trash, treasures collected from dumpsters, rats, empty lighters, spoons, and old needles and syringes.
At times it’s overwhelming to see the collection of misery that has settled in that area. And, I’m talking about the majority of those in the area, not just the heroin addicts sleeping in their own waste. My heart aches both for the addicts and for those who have made their way to Tel Aviv – however they did that – to work one level above slave conditions (worse in some cases) in an effort to send some money back home, or to seek a better life for themselves.
What’s astounding is the emptiness and collective hopelessness that permeates the area. Pubs of one ethnic variety or another are the gathering places, the anesthesia that dulls the emptiness that is life for so many of these wanderers.
In contrast to this painful scene, are the men who meet us to study God’s word at the Sudanese church a couple streets over. They, too, have tales of hardship to tell, but they aren’t empty or hopeless. The difference? It isn’t in the hardship of their lives verses the hardship of those we painfully observe on the walkway each week, because their lives are equally challenging. The real difference is the hope of the gospel.
I’m encouraged every Wednesday night to sit with these men and see a real example of the hope and contentment the gospel offers; to see the effects of believing in the supremacy of Christ over all other suitors.
Here’s a video of two guys shooting heroin in the shooting gallery last night.
UPDATE: Here’s the same video with brightness and contrast adjustments:
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