By the Sycamore Tree

“So now what, you want to kill me?” The question shouted by the Palestinian man startled me. I was caught completely off guard. Especially since he was asking it of me!

A few minutes earlier our small group had filed off the bus near an old but still stately sycamore tree. It was day “who can remember” of a twenty-three day adventure. We were in the West Bank of the Palestinian Authority. Having come from the ruins of ancient Jericho, we had stopped at a tree reported to be the one a man named Zacchaeus once climbed so that he could catch a glimpse of Jesus. Zacchaeus was a short, curious, and seemingly clever fellow who also happened to be a tax collector.  If you are unfamiliar with the story, you can read it in Luke 19 in the New Testament. Now known as the Zacchaeus tree, it reportedly tests over 2000 years old. Could it be the actual sycamore mentioned in the story? “Who knows?” is the most honest answer for this and many sites throughout this area. It may or may not be the exact tree, but seeing it helps bring the story alive. Why not grab a photograph while remembering it?

A fellow traveler was about to snap Judi’s and my photo when a fistful of textiles were shoved into my field of vision and I became aware that someone was shouting at me. The person attached to the hand asked if I wanted to buy a keffiyeh, the traditional Arab headdress. I was posed for the picture and eager to have it taken before someone else stepped into the frame to get their own shot. In that hurried state of mind, I did not even look at the person demanding my attention.  Instead I motioned for him to go away.

In response to my actions the zealous salesman seized the moment and yelled, “Don’t wave your arm at me. Don’t treat me like that!”

Maybe it was the jetlag. Perhaps it was my truest, gut-level response to being yelled at by a stranger. Who knows?  I shouted back, “Then don’t stick your arm in my face when we’re trying to take a photo.”

Not to be outdone nor ready to concede he barked, “Then you say, ‘Excuse me, I am taking a photo. Could you please wait?’”

By then I was fully engaged in this moment and countered with equal intensity, “Why? You did not have the courtesy to say, ‘Excuse me, can I interrupt you and ruin your photo?’ did you?”

Ordinarily I would feel bad about raising my voice, but so many exchanges in that culture sound like shouting matches to me the loud volume seemed to be expected, if not required. It was the man’s next response that floored me. At the top of his lungs he inquired, “So what now, you want to kill me?”

I was stunned. Looking directly at him I replied, “Of course not. How do you go from “stay out of my photo” to my wanting to kill you? My wish is to enjoy this place and take this picture. That is what I want.” My adversary walked off in an apparent huff.

After Judi and I immortalized our stop with the desired photo, the man was still milling around in search of his next target, pushing his wares whenever possible. I approached him and said, “I apologize if I seemed rude earlier. It was not my intention to offend you.” He placed his hand on my shoulder, kissed my cheek, and tried to position the keffiyeh on my head.

“Here. This is for you,” he said.

I answered, “Thank you, but I am not interested in buying it.”            

“No, no. It is a gift for you,” he insisted.

That is when I realized it had all been part of his ruse and I walked away. Well, a ruse in my opinion but a refined sales technique in his mind. Past experience had taught me that accepting the gift leads to an instant and insistent request for a something to be offered in return. Give something to be remembered by–or perhaps a few dollars. I had seen it before, though the temper tantrum was a new twist. I suspect it was designed to elicit an emotional response that might create a sense of guilt and soften me towards the ultimate goal of a monetary exchange. Before our travels ended, more than one pesky merchant would respond to rejection by asking why I was so angry even though my responses to them had been kind. It is all part of the game.

Encounters like these are simply a part of the travel experience in many parts of the world. Anticipate it. Prepare for it unless you want to bring home a suitcase full of unwanted trinkets. Honestly, it is not completely out of line with what we regularly face. A harsh reality is that at home or abroad, in a historic location or at the local market, to those with goods to sell we are all potential customers. Failure to engage any who appear on their radar is a missed opportunity. Missed opportunities affect the bottom line, which impacts their quality of life. That is true whether we are at the local farmers market, an international spice bazaar in an unfamiliar land, or standing in front of a 2000 year-old tree. A minnow may not recognize that it represents lunch to fish higher on the food chain, but that doesn’t change the facts. If you swim among predators, you risk being preyed upon.

The rules of engagement vary from place to place. Think about it. When shopping at your local department store, no one from housewares will chase you through the aisles hounding you to purchase an instant-pot while you cruise the footwear section. A different set of etiquette is in play but the desire to catch your attention and convince you to purchase is the same. (Though come to think about it, Google ads chase me all over the internet!) At a basic level, the goals are similar: exchange something they have (product) for something they want (your money). That is the case whenever we set foot into someone’s sales territory.

I can appreciate that reality and for that reason respect the man who tried to sell me his wares. He needs food daily and a roof over his head. Others may depend on him as well. All of us face the challenge of finding ways to acquire the resources we need to survive. Some are fortunate enough to have a skill or service that others will pay for. You may even find an organization that will hire and compensate you on a regular basis. Those who are not so lucky are forced to find other means to subsist, even if the activity is not one they relish. That is one reason I attempt to be polite to telemarketers. I despise their unsolicited phone calls, but that is their job. It may be the best opportunity they have to provide for themselves. (Of course these days, robocalls have put most of the humans out of work, it seems! Equally annoying but easier to hang up on).

I doubt many of us want to view life as little more than a sequence of transactions where people and things are evaluated based on how they might be beneficial to us. We much prefer that deeper values ground us, with altruistic motives shaping our interactions with others. If that is the case, then a fundamentally important question lurks behind the various methods utilized to secure a desired outcome: How shall we initiate and cultivate the engagement?

For instance, a salesperson wants to be noticed. Shall a passive or aggressive approach be utilized to achieve that goal? If the potential customer is not interested in your attention, then what do you do next? “Just say no” or “no means no” often carry little weight here, being trumped by either a dogged persistence or an eternal optimism that will not be quenched. What then?

The experience by the Zacchaeus tree prompted me to think seriously about that next step. Frequently when a sales pitch is about to break down a concerted effort is made to escalate the situation. Keep the connection alive. Intensify the moment. Here is the thing: how one chooses to raise the stakes matters. This is a crucial moment in these encounters wherever they occur. Shouting can be one means of escalating an exchange. For me, questioning my intent to harm heightened the tension of that moment by the Zacchaeus tree. It felt like an absurd question, yet at the time I had no idea if this was being posed as a serious inquiry. That this occurred on the heels of the U.S.’s assassination of an Iranian general and both countries were in the midst of bellowing threats about next steps may have heightened my awareness. If actions trigger reactions and rhetoric draws lines in the sand, we can quickly find ourselves held prisoner by our own need to save face. That was not a memory from Jericho that I wanted.

Next steps matter in our inter-personal exchanges. I will be unpacking many of the experiences from these travels for a while, I am sure. One thing that was clearly reinforced under the sycamore and numerous other times on this journey is that life is complicated, especially when we try to take the other’s point of view seriously. Most of us are merely trying to make the best of the hand life has dealt us even when others see us as trying to take advantage of them. Easy solutions are difficult to come by. It would be simpler to throw up our hands and leave it at that, insisting that life’s complexity justifies poor, manipulative behavior. Simpler perhaps, but I prefer to live in the hope that we can do better by one another. After reflection on the exchange with my keffiyeh-hawking friend, I find that a few questions have settled as important when engaging others:

• Can I be forthright about my intentions?
• Can I articulate my true motives?
• Can I respect another’s right to be uninterested in what I am offering?
• Can I be considerate of another’s preferences without being manipulated by them?
• Can I be gracious and tolerant, at least initially, when facing irritating tactics or responses?
• Can I be kind in the face of rejection as well as when I am the one rejecting another’s offer?

Taken together, these questions can be a tall order to fill but I think it is worth the effort. Not to sound preachy, but when Jesus acknowledged Zacchaeus as the greedy tax collector he was and still chose to dine with him in his home, it turned out be a transformational moment for Zacchaeus. Maybe that is possible for the rest of us as well. I have my own work to do in this regard, but with a little practice hopefully the only killing I will be doing is with kindness.