Green stairs climb a rocky hill. But they end before they reach their destination. And so, countless climbers have worn a dirt path up and yet further up reaching, finally, the main road. I sit at my breakfast table looking out the window and across a deep slice in the earth filled with pine trees, derelict cars and concrete apartment buildings. The stairs on the far side become more distinct as the sun rises, changing in color from charcoal to gray-green and finally to teal.

A man, bowed and slow, climbs those stairs. Every morning at 6:30 he climbs those stairs, pausing just at the base of the dirt bath before trudging on up. Where is he going? What is he thinking as he climbs? Would he feel any self-consciousness-or anger-were he to know that an American watches his early morning exercise from a distance?
I have no fear living in Lebanon in these uncertain days. But I must admit, there is a change in the way that I am perceived. I have become, in the eyes of the man who bags my groceries and carries them to the car for the standard 66-cent tip, less an individual shopper and more an American. The driver who squeezes past me on the road doesn't see "me" at the wheel-she sees an American. When I take my evening walk through the small community of Bsalim, I am no longer a teacher at Mediterranean Bible College Bible College up the hill-I am the American teacher. My Lebanese friends now say, "I hear that Americans are being encouraged to leave Lebanon. When are you going?"

I am strangely uncomfortable. The "I" that I am, now wears a mask. "I" am less, and "American" is more. It's the first thing that people see. And I can't seem to remove the mask that obscures the real me. Oh, I am an American. I have been nurtured and formed by the country that is my home-the country that I love. But I am not my country. When I walk along the roadways and when I buy my groceries, when I drive my car or go to church, who hears? Who sees? Who understands the real me? I am unsettled. I am annoyed.

I wonder. Who do we, followers of Jesus Christ who happen to be American-who do we see first? The Iraqi? The Palestinian? The terrorist? The prostitute? The homeless? Or do we see a child whom God loves?
Do we see Jesus Christ? Green stairs climb a rocky hill. But they end before they reach their destination.

"IT IS NO SMALL TASK to change thousands of years of belief that more weapons mean more security. Yet that is our task!"

-KEN BROWN