Have I mentioned yet how much I love free wireless internet in Bethlehem? I’m sitting Reem Al Bawadi, the restaurant right next door to the Holy Land Trust’s office, and I’m soaking up their free wireless, so thanks Holy Land Trust! The above picture is from our time last night at The Tent in Beit Sahour, a wonderful restaurant that I’ll be making sure to get to many times during my stay here. For about $9 last night, I got a Corona (yup! Corona in Bethlehem) and a huge barbecued chicken dish with fries. It was very very good – and of course, everyone is smoking the argilah, having conversations and just getting a chance to chill in the summer evening with the beautiful and refreshing evening breeze come through the tent.
It was good to spend some time getting to know some of the “participants” (or whatever you call us) better last night. It’s a pretty diverse group I think, and that is very cool. I’m still trying to figure out how to really be as present here in the Holy Lands as I can be. My heart is most definitely with Sarah in Atlanta right now (and then it will move to Rochester, Boston, New Mexico and then Scotland), but it is also very important for me to be fully present here in Palestine as well. I want that; Sarah wants that for me. I’m just having a hard time figuring out what that looks like when a lot of the time, all I want to think about is Sarah and all of the fun stuff we have to think about and our future together…
…but at the same time, I have an amazing opportunity to be “here” (granted, it’s a long way away from Sarah) this summer, and we both know that I need to be fully present here. In Sarah’s post on “Presence” she wrote the following: “I want to be fully present. I don’t want to spend time and energy worrying about the future or regretting the past. I want to be fully present in each moment I’m given.” I want to seek how to be present with Sarah in my love for her, as well as being fully present in Palestine with experiences, people, new friendships and contacts, new scenery. We’ll figure it out – omnipresence sure would be nice sometimes…