Not Bad for Your Age

27.Not Bad for Your Age (20 July 2019)

Just some old guy doing climbing for the first time
in his life. (25 June 2019 – Guthrie, Oklahoma)

So, how old are you?

            I was asked this question by children and youth at summer conferences in June, when we spent a month in the U.S., traveling around various cities in the southeastern quarter of the country. It was a new world for both Maria and me, and eye-opening in terms of the differences – as well as similarities – between our “Northern” (in the U.S. sense) outlook and that of the region in which we traveled.

            The first time was by a child in Alabama, at a Disciples (CC/DOC, for those interested) camp. We were giving a presentation about Lebanon the country, and where we live, and why we are there. We showed them a map, held up the flag, talked about Lebanon in the Bible, the cedars, and so on. The 4^th and 5^th graders before us were listening with rapt attention. “Any questions?” I asked. You have to be a fool or very quick on your feet to open the floor to questions from children. Clearly, I was the former, not the latter. First question: “How old are you?” Ahem. This needs a clever rejoinder. “How old do you think I am?” And they started guessing. I thought I should put them out of our misery, so I picked one answer and said, “We’re in our 60s. That’s pretty old, right?” Bless them, they moved on to other questions. These children included us in their program and their hearts, even filling our “warm fuzzies” bag with notes of appreciation and gifts (of candy and chocolate!) during the week.

When it rains on your summer camp… make your own fun!
Just make sure you’re sufficiently young before the belly-flops
in the mud. (18 June 2019 – Wetumpka, Alabama)

            Maria and I were serving as counselors to junior and senior high campers during most of our time in America. Their concerns and questions were similar in some ways to those of the youth here in Lebanon, but they seemed to be facing so much more social disintegration. The family situations they described expressed a deep longing for significant relationships not just with their peers (though that was very apparent in the way they bonded with each other), but also with caring adults. This was one of the fringe benefits of being with them: to experience their warmth even with us, coming from such a distance.

Bringing insights from the Middle East to the parable of the
Good Samaritan during high school camp.
(27 June 2019 – Guthrie, Oklahoma)

            Our role was that of “mission visitors”, so we had varying amounts of time to speak directly to these youth (and adults in North Carolina, Alabama and Oklahoma) about our work and our friends and partners in the Middle East, and to challenge them to consider taking one year or many years for “overseas” ministry. In one of the camps I told the youth, “Please consider spending some time serving others elsewhere in the world. You will learn humility and grace as you go in Jesus’ name. And you will also have the opportunity to view your country (the U.S.) from a vantage point outside your usual world. You might see this country in a different light, and see yourselves as others see you.”

The message is clear: “developers” are not developing for others’
sake, but instead hoping to catch the wave of climbing
property values. (24 May 2019 – Mar Mikhael - Beirut)

            The guys in my cabin in Oklahoma were high school juniors and seniors, and many of them had known each other for years from attending this camp. A lot of them at the camp, boys and girls, were preparing to enter the military. One afternoon during cabin time (how happy I was for those rest times!) one of them asked me, “How old are you?” Not having learned my lesson from the 4^th & 5^th graders, I said, “Guess.” The guys said numbers which were all over the place, and that made me smile. When I finally helped them figure out the right number, the original questioner said, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look really good for 63. I would have thought early 50s. I mean that as a compliment.” And he was totally sincere.

            I’m not sure what to think about compliments like this, or about all those clichés about aging, or about only being as old as you feel. Good health, mobility and flexibility are important to a happy life, but sometimes I feel as if the line is being crossed over to the glorification of youthfulness. Life becomes a matter of feeling good (or young), just like churches often communicate, and not a matter of doing something that matters with your life.

Greening the concrete jungle: flowering plants after they got
their heads plucked off by passersby. (19 July 2019 –
Geitawi - Beirut)

            Again, the contrast these questions were drawing in my head was stark: we live in a place of the world where the signs of old age, the wrinkles, grey hair and bent back are still command respect in many families, even if official programs in this region do not always reflect that. Not surprisingly, it is the religious bodies here that strive to pick up the slack and care for elders – and children. It is why we have institutions like CAHL in Beirut and the Aleppo Armenian Home for the elderly, and why churches here run 5- to 8-week Vacation Bible Schools in the summer. It is why the church has its two KCHAG retreat centers, and why it operates Armenian Evangelical schools, imparting knowledge as well as Christian character with a biblical foundation. This is God’s vision for the church: to be a multi-generational family, a “home”, where respect and care is evident towards all.

Faith, beauty and hope through song at the “Armiss” choir
concert. (2 June 2019 – Beirut)

            I love old things, too. And it’s not just because I’m steadily becoming an old thing. The character that is expressed by things artistic or architectural, things that have stood the test of time, enriches my character and that of the environment. Yet I wonder if these old things can stand the test of money. As I (and others) have often lamented, the ongoing destruction of Beirut’s architectural heritage is most disconcerting. People (who knows who they are, or whether they are even local?) see land as something to profit from, and they aim to create the biggest (and often ugliest) structures they can, in order to gain the most from each square meter. In reaction to this, graffiti artists are creating pieces that express the urgency: “Old Beirut Matters”. Although those with bulldozers rule the day, perhaps sanity, and respect for heritage, will endure these times.

            A couple of days ago a woman entered the mini market I often frequent, brandishing clippers and a broken bloom, complaining to the proprietor, her neighbor, that people walking by her ground floor window boxes snap off blooms as they pass. She was frustrated at all the work she was doing to beautify this world of concrete. After she left, the proprietor turned to me, again in frustration, and said, “Am I supposed to look after her flowers?” Yet today he saw me admiring the plantings and said, “Do you like our garden?” The building across the street, where he lives, had window boxes at every window. I said, “Yes, it’s great! We need to see more green around us!”

LebCat 26: All that a cat could want – fresh garbage and
cardboard boxes! A slice of feline heaven on earth, as
Lebanon's trash crisis looms. (14 July 2019 – Geitawi - Beirut)

            The “Armiss” concert on June 2 went quite well, and had a full house. Afterwards I received many, many words of appreciation for it. The program did not include any new music, but rather traditional works, some new presentations of old music, and some old music that had not been heard for many, many years. I’m currently working on the video footage to create a DVD of the event. I hope that these sorts of events can continue bringing together what is both young and old, fresh and seasoned. Because it matters. It really does.   [LNB]

Drip Drip Drip

22.Drip, Drip, Drip (23 January 2019)

A brief respite from the rain, the city, the daily grind… at the
Pastors’ Retreat at KCHAG. (11 Jan. 2019 – Monteverde)

            For the past two weeks, for more days than not, all we had been hearing was the sound of rain. Morning and daytime and evening and morning. Sometimes we had breaks from the wet, but we accepted the steady “drip, drip, drip” as a necessary part of the winter season. Each dark and dismal morning I would get up and look out the window to see if it were really morning, and if it were raining… again. Once we had ascertained the day had started, and once the haze had cleared for a brief respite, we would look out the other window to see a brighter, whiter quilting over Mount Sannine. What we experienced as drip, drip, drip, they received silently, in the form of heavy snowfalls.

Norma paying a visit to our balcony/rooftop.
(23 Jan. 2019 – Geitawi, Beirut)

            Our “early warning device” in our bathroom is the best indicator of the precipitation. When a single drop of rain falls, it pings on the “tarbouche” or “fez”, the cover on top of the vent pipe, giving us a more accurate weather picture than the TV or our phone apps. But it doesn’t show us the damage caused by the heavy rains, in a country whose infrastructure is not in optimal condition, and which won’t see improvement any time soon. All of this rain brought landslides to a number of areas, closing highways and causing traffic delays at every turn.

            Not only were the roads, drains and rivers unable to handle all of this, but the refugee camps, most of which are in the central portion of the country, were turned into swamp-like conditions. In some situations, the water flowing through them resembled whitewater rapids, which would not have been a problem for that farmland-turned-tent-city in “normal” days, but where in today’s world does “normal” exist?

            Schools, which closed for several days because of the storms, are now adding makeup “rain days” to the end of the school calendar. We in the city are awaiting the next deluge, and whose name will be heard over and over in the news. The big storm was “Norma”, followed by one with another Western name (which the Arab media changed to “Maryam”). Some are guessing that next, Norma’s husband, or boyfriend, or maybe even her “ex-” will show up…

The “tarbouche” on our roof. Actually looks more like a
Japanese-style wicker “kasa” hat. Which sounds pretty European
to me. But then the Japanese call Euro-style hats “boushi”.
Go figure. (10 Mar. 2018 – Geitawi, Beirut)

            Over last weekend, “drip, drip, drip” was replaced by “thump, thump, thump” – the familiar sounds of the Huey helicopters, audible from miles and miles away. Lebanon hosted an economic summit of Arab leaders earlier this month. Considering the ever-worsening economic state of Lebanon, this was probably a good thing to host, to give visibility to the problems the country and immediate region is facing. Most of those leaders said they were coming, but then after some locals tore down and burned one of the flags near the venue (and posted a video of themselves doing it, of course) to express a decades-old grievance, they canceled and sent lower-level ministers to represent them.

Graffiti that blesses and challenges passersby, long after the
artist’s death (Samuel Pashgian’s home,
22 Jan. 2019 – Geitawi, Beirut)

            But the summit went on, and again roads were closed (for security purposes), and people stayed home. So, instead of traffic jams on the ground, there was the incessant “thump, thump, thump” of the Hueys overhead. For soldiers in Vietnam in the 1960s, this meant that help was on the way. For us here in Lebanon, I’m not sure what it means.

            But the dripping sound is more analogous of things that we face, such as the steady closure of small businesses in favor of “outlet”-style stores in western-style shopping malls, and the emigration of their owners to Armenia. Like a slow leak under the kitchen sink, you don’t notice it until it’s already damaged the floor. This is just one of the indicators of how a sub-group of Lebanese society, such as the Armenian community, is being stressed. The society overall will be the worse if these small, industrious communities disintegrate.

A pointed message on an electrical post
(6 Jan. 2019 – Geitawi, Beirut)

            The slow attrition of church members, something seen around the world, can be seen here as well. People, for whatever reason, tend to leave very silently, such that only the very alert notice, and then have a window of opportunity to reach out to them. Fortunately, there is an active and committed group of church members, including many young people, who are taking note and trying to think of ways of keeping people connected and integrated to their churches and communities. They’re even thinking of ways to keep young people who find work in other regions of the Middle East to stay involved in the life of their local church, possibly making use of new technologies to bridge the physical distance. It’s exciting, and I’m looking forward to ideas that will emerge.

            I’ve resumed rehearsals for the Armiss choir, and we’re preparing to give a full concert in June. It will be hard work, especially to build their cohesion. Drop by drop (not drip by drip) we’re gathering singers, young and young-ish (my peers) to be a part of this, and hopefully for all four voices. Notice I did not liken the choir to a bucket. That was on purpose.

LebCat 21: A fat-cat, similar to the non-feline
variety so prevalent in the country, waiting for
a burger to fall to the ground.
(17 Jan. 2019 – Mar Mikhael, Beirut)

            There’s some very interesting graffiti around the city, and I don’t pretend to understand all of it. Some is ominous. Some is humorous. Some is objectionable. Some is a nuisance. And some is thought-provoking, like the wall in Hamra on which is scrawled “Free your mind – Kill your television”.

            It has been two years since we moved to Lebanon, and the excitement, the challenges and the rewards continue. It’s exciting that I am resuming my Arabic studies, after a 20-month “break”. It’s challenging to focus on just a few things, work- and personal-related, and to say “no” to a bunch of other things that legitimately need someone’s attention. (Something about praying to the Lord of the harvest…) Meanwhile, it’s rewarding to be part of a network of friends and colleagues who do their best to support each other. Early in the month I was part of our semi-annual Armenian Evangelical pastor’s retreat, in which colleagues from Syria and Lebanon came together for a 48-hour experience. It’s things like this that keep me grateful for God opening up the way for us to be here.   [LNB]

Strange New World

20.Strange New World (29 November 2018)

The Legend: Jim’s Steaks. Worth the wait in the cold
in a line out the door and around the corner.
(23 Nov. 2018 – Philadelphia, Pa.)

            Last night we flew back in to Lebanon, back to the familiar yet strange place we call home, returning from a “strange, New World,” to borrow the words spoken by Captain James T. Kirk of the starship Enterprise.

            Several weeks ago an opportunity opened up for Maria to receive some software training for her work at Haigazian University, so we decided it was time to take some vacation, making this our first trip back to the U.S. and to my family there since we moved to Lebanon early in 2017. It was also our first trip to Toronto (and to Maria’s family) since then.

Family reunion! Lara K. and her “Beirut family”. Thanks, Dan,
for taking the photo. (20 Nov. 2018 – Broomall, Pa.)

            The first strange thing to me was how “un-strange” so much of it was, right down to the roadways and the potholes, in the same spots I had left them in January 2017. It seemed as if I had only been away from the U.S. for two months, not almost two years. And worshiping with the congregation and singing in the choir at the Armenian Martyrs’ Congregational Church in Havertown, Pa., where I used to be the pastor, only strengthened my feeling of never having been away.

            Being with family was another one of those strange-but-not situations. I suppose that if our separation had been five years it would not have felt like it had been only a short while. But then I wonder about those dear to me, from whom I am separated by death, whose faces carry that almost-forgotten quality to my eye. Yet because of our common faith in Jesus we have the hope of an everlasting reunion. Now that will be a strange feeling!

New car “vending machines”. Order online, and the lift
brings  your order, as if it were a bottle of soda.
(27 Nov. 2018 – Philadelphia, Pa.)

            When Maria and I went into the supermarket in suburban Philadelphia, we were bewildered by the varieties and sub-varieties of practically everything one could imagine, in a store with enough floor space and stock to contain several of the largest supermarkets in Lebanon. We also felt the intensity of advertising in the U.S., and how it shapes you into someone who consumes and buys and buys more as a way of life. It is something we were able to clearly perceive as strange only because of the distance we had had from America these two years.

            But also strange – yet not – were the tents sitting on city sidewalks, which our son Sevag pointed out to us in the neighborhood where he is a high school teacher. In Lebanon I would have accepted that sight as something quite normal in present-day Lebanon – refugees are a part of life in the “new Middle East” promised us by an earlier U.S. administration. There in that section of Philadelphia the tents on city sidewalks belonged to the homeless, refugees of a different sort, indicative of a societal malaise that gets little attention.

Homeless encampment on a sidewalk in the
Kensington area. (27 Nov. 2018 – Philadelphia, Pa.)

            After only a few days in the U.S., another strange feeling beset me: I was forgetting who I was as an Armenian. In that short time my environment was so decidedly American that it was very easy for me to “revert” to the identity I grew up with and maintained, that is, until the 8^th grade when I chose for a book report that so shocked me (my grandmother’s copy of Rev. Abraham Hartunian’s Neither to Laugh nor to Weep) that I realized I had to learn what it meant to be Armenian, and then relentlessly pursue it. I know that some prefer to reconcile everything into everything else, to find the “both/and” in every situation, but when you are part of a minority culture, that melding means the obliteration of your culture. Your existence becomes a mere “decoration” or something “exotic” for the majority culture to enjoy, and otherwise ignore. And that is a hard road to travel if you are a young person wanting to be true to his language and heritage.

A snowstorm welcoming us to Canada. And almost keeping our
plane from landing. (16 Nov. 2018 – Toronto, Ont.)

            What sadly wasn’t so strange to me was the refrain heard over and over, wherever we went (and wherever we are): “We need leaders. Where are the new leaders?” Churches need pastors. Schools need teachers. Community and cultural organizations need visionaries. And they all need donors who believe in their mission and will give generously. I told people that they will not appear magically from some far-away place, but will grow up from within the Armenian churches, schools and community, if they are taught and learn to value their faith and heritage in the face of the intoxicating effect of the “new” and “exciting” all around them.

The best place to be – with children and youth. Thanks, John P.,
for the photo. (25 Nov. 2018 – Havertown, Pa.)

            The most joyful moment I spent occurred during the worship service at my former church. As I had done for nearly 10 years when serving there, I piped a tune to bring the children to the chancel steps, where I would sit and give the children’s message. There are only a few children in that church, so I expected two or three. But some of the high-schoolers, who years ago had been part of this group of little ones, got up, and then others, and before long a big group of “kids” was gathered around me, sitting on the floor in front of me. I was floored… and thankful to God for the seeds of faith growing in those youth, who love their church and their faith so much.

LebCat 19: Double surveillance, with LebCat 17 checking out
the lower level (28 Oct. 2018 – Nor Amanos, Bouchrieh)

            When Lebanon celebrated its 75^th Independence Day, following the news from afar we experienced a strange mix of emotions: wishing we were there, glad we weren’t caught in the incredible traffic jams from closed roads into the capital, as the army practiced for the parade, hearing the pain in so many social media posts about the day-to-day struggles of regular people, while the elite classes disregard their role in creating misery and hopelessness and a lack of desire to celebrate anything.

            Engagement in life’s challenges should not be a strange thing for a Christian (or for any human being), whether Armenian or not. The Apostle Peter in I Peter 2.11-12 was on to something when he exhorted the church to live as “strangers and sojourners” regarding fleshly entrapments, which is a far cry from advocating for a disengaged, “holy huddle” in order to wait for Christ’s Second Coming. That engagement is what will keep us vital and focused as we interface with the strangeness of the worlds we inhabit.   [LNB]

Like an Old-Timer

17.Like an Old-Timer (29 August 2018)

Togetherness (mostly) over kebab at the Bakalians!
This time with Sevag and a bunch of friends
(20 July 2018 – Geitawi, Beirut)

         When taking some visitors around Beirut recently, I realized that I was talking like an old-timer. Remember, you don’t have to be old to talk like a senior citizen. I was pointing to this place where there used to be such-and-such school, and the other place where so-and-so used to live, and on and on. I’ve only lived about a dozen years of my life here (and not even my formative years), but here I was, talking about the place as if I had been here all my life. To be fair, I can talk in the same fashion about nearly any place I’ve lived, but this place is nowhere near where I was born.

         So, here I was giving the “insider’s tour” of our neighborhood, from the post-Genocide era, to the pre-Civil War era, to the ups and downs of the past 3 decades. It offered a strange satisfaction, a deeper sense of belonging, while at the same time reminding me of the responsibility to pass along the heritage I have inherited (and chosen), particularly the Western Armenian and Armenian Christian heritage. The fact that I might know more than most people about this background is largely irrelevant. There is so little I know, and so much catching up I have to do to begin to grasp it all… even as an old-timer… or a perceived old-timer / know-it-all.

The theme-word for this summer’s youth
conference was “dukhov” (on the hat), a Russian/
Armenia word meaning “with spirit”. Ha.
(23 June 2018 – KCHAG, Monteverdi)

         One of my new favorite spots to eat is a little hole-in-the-wall kebab sandwich place, a 10-minute walk from home. The proprietor and sole worker there is a youthful and light-hearted, 70-something Armenian woman, whose friendliness and focus on providing high-quality food is a rare commodity. Eateries in this city can be pretty snooty places, even cheap eats, but Angele easily finds a way into your heart, and you into hers. She gets up before dawn each day, chops her fresh onion and parsley, gets to the butcher for fresh meats, switches butchers if she feels they are slipping in their quality, and lines up her skewers in small quantities in the refrigerated display for her regular customers. When I stopped by she talked about how, a few days ago, Persian Armenian visitors to Lebanon kept coming back day after day, even bringing friends to eat there. Sometimes Angele recruits willing friends to help with the chopping, but she is the one and only cook. Puts the charcoal on, sets the blow-drier to intensify the flame (they keep breaking down, and her brother keeps fixing them), peels the skin off the tomatoes after she cooks them, tosses on the right amount of spices to make a delicious sandwich… and charges almost nothing for it. At every turn she thanks the Lord for helping her. “It’s enough for me to live on – that’s all I need, praise God.” In a country of debt-based living, it’s an outlook on life that a lot more people need to share.

A heart for figs that grow out of the walls of Roman temple
ruins (25 July 2018 – Niha, Beqaa)

         The summer zoomed by us. We started out serving as counselors for the youth camp, then I got to be recording secretary for the church union’s annual meeting, and in between we got to see brother-in-law Vicken for a very brief visit. After that we spent a month (sort-of together) with our son Sevag, who was making his second annual appearance here. We enjoyed Lebanon for a few days, visiting Rayaq, where a lot of Armenians settled after the Genocide, until they emigrated to Armenia in 1946. We ate the most flavorful – not sugared – Arabic ice cream (in the Beqaa village of Saghbine). Sevag then did his second annual stint as a leader at the Armenian Evangelical Children’s Conference in KCHAG while we departed for Armenia to get ready for yet another big conference… “Zoomed” is the word.

Wrapping up the Armenian Evangelical Youth Conference
(15 Aug. 2018 – Hankavan, Armenia)

         Over the past months Maria and I had been filling our days and nights as directors of the worldwide Armenia Evangelical Youth Conference, organized by the Armenian Missionary Association of America for its 100^th anniversary. (Read about Day 1 through Day 14 here.) Sevag, along with the Syria & Lebanon group, joined us a few days after we arrived Yerevan, with about 140 other youth and mostly young leaders from a bunch of different countries for a two-week conference. (Read his interview in Armenian here.) The most memorable part of the plan was, predictably, the service opportunities the youth had, in teams of 4 to 10 people, heading out to various cities and villages. Each team did something different, whether helping run Vacation Bible School, or making jam, or doing housecleaning, or planting rooftop gardens, or visiting lonely elders in border villages, or refurbishing dwellings, and on and on. The conference got them culturally enriched and spiritually challenged, and then provided them an outlet to give to others a portion of what God was filling them with. Good, good times.

LebCat 16 and associates: We will soon take over your planet
with our fuzzy bodies and our laser eyes. Meanwhile you must
feed us (18 Aug. 2017 – Mar Mikhael, Beirut)

         Emerging mostly unscathed through all of this, Maria and I realized anew that this kind of leadership is something we need to encourage, advise and challenge in others. Because, simply put, we are old-timers! Happily, there are at least a few out of the youth with whom we worked throughout the summer who will likely do very well as tomorrow’s and today’s leaders.

         News update: it seems the ants noticed that they were getting very little social media traction from their antics in our apartment, so they took a break from bugging us. That and a bit of spray from a store that sells organic stuff seem to have done the trick. For now.

         September has nearly made its way back into our lives, so it’s time for both of us to hunker down again for the new academic year. With the summer conferences behind us, we can focus on the tasks we were sent here to do. While we continue to be integrated deeply into the fabric of life here. And gladly fulfill our roles as old-timers.  [LNB]