Your children will be like olive shoots around your table.?~Psalm 128:3
Just outside the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, a Palestinian street vendor approaches me with an armful of the Arab headdresses known as keffiyeh. I would like to drape the red-and-white cloth over a communion table as a sign of solidarity. Could I do that? The street vendor senses my hesitation and asks where I?m from. When I answer, ?New Jersey,? he says he had his heart broken by a girl from New Jersey. We croon together like girlfriends. He says he has five children, and I tell him I have two. We were warned to stay away from street vendors because they will pester us, but I cannot pretend that he and I are not connected.
What have you purchased to link yourself with someone unknown?
Prayer: O Creator, help me be open to the stranger today.
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