earlier today i sat at the top of the mount of olives for a few hours, watched the sun fall over jerusalem.
i met a young boy, maybe 9 or 10 years old at the top of the mount. he first tried selling me some olive branches for a few shekels (an odd sale to be making in a place surrounded by olive trees…)
he followed up his sales pitch by telling me that his jeans cost 400 shekels (about $115), his shirt 200. this seemed a bit random, but i played along. asking me how many shekels my shoes and shirt cost, we joked and laughed a bit.
amused by this boy, i thought to ask where he was from. the boy proudly asserted, ”Palestine!”, gesturing toward the land below. ”this, this is not Israel. Israel, no good!” he stated definitively.
wow. the statement caught me off guard; i couldn’t tell you what the next thing i said to him was. the boy’s voice carried resentment and complete resolution—a scary combination.
there we were, a brilliant sunset happening over the old city, the temple mount, the dome of the rock—some of the holiest of places in the world to billions of people. i’d love to believe that there of all places exists some underlying beauty and meaning that could be understood by everyone, especially when viewed from the perspective we shared tonight. but it’s always more complicated than that.
the boy eventually became distracted and left me to myself.
funny, ironic—he ended up just giving me the olive branch.
