The Bells of Return

The position, in which I stand in the service of our Church, was filled, prior to me, only by priests who were displaced by Israel from their country, in the year 1948, following the “Nakba”. In more precise terms, the work in the Church which I entered, as a minister, rested on priests from there as well as laymen, some of whom were from our country and some also from there wherefrom they were forcibly kicked out from their land, and found themselves a home, in this land. Did the displaced laypeople see that they, together with the priests, could surveil their way back to their land from here? Togetherness is filled with ambition. The elderly, whom I knew, most of them have returned to God. However, they have all bequeathed to their children the love of a land that they had only seen in their stories. How is longing born from the story? Those who know that stories are their narrators do understand the meaning of this birth. Today, I see some of the “offspring” extending their eyes towards their fathers’ land! One of them said to me: “I hear bells ringing. Are they the bells of return?”.