March 31, 2002

We were awoken early in the morning by a sustained burst of gunfire coming from the direction of the Israeli camp at the edge of town. It's strange what becomes "normal" in this place.

The liturgy at St. George’s Orthodox Church of Zababdeh.

Elizabeth continued to nurse the ear infection while Marthame headed off to St. George's Orthodox Church. Having fasted "the Orthodox way," Marthame was told he was eligible to take communion. This is not, however, a sanctioned notion. The eucharist, in Orthodox practice, is fed by the priest by spoon as a mixture of bread and wine. Even - and especially - small children receive.

Meanwhile, the reports coming from Ramallah are deeply disturbing. The media attention is focused on Arafat's compound while the Israeli army is conducting house-to-house searches and rounding up all men between the ages of fifteen and forty-five, for questioning, detainment, arrest. Given how such operations have gone before, we only can fear the worst. Turning off the TV becomes, at the same time, both impossible and necessary. More suicide bombings has merely confirmed that.

A day of resurrection surrounded by mortality...Happy Easter.