re-assimilating

Technically we made it back from the Middle East to Kentucky last week, but it took a while for all of us catch up. Our bodies needed a few days to deal with the jet-lag and adjust to the time change. Our hearts and minds needed time for the cultural re-connection as well. Plus we had birthdays, work, family gatherings, as well as teaching, preaching and writing opportunities all based on our trip come up.

I have been in non-stop processing the last week on my own, as well as through dozens of conversations. Over the next week I hope to have some more pictures, stories and reflections from our month in the Middle East.

Until then I want to share a video I assembled last semester for my friend John David to use in his chapel talk last semester to mark the end of the church season of KingdomTide. He used it again during his teaching session at the Passion ’07 conference in Atlanta earlier this month. After many requests he put it on YouTube, so I thought I would offer it here as well.

The music is from a song titled Isaiah 61 by my friend Matt Maher (who you can find on iTunes). The text in the video is taken from Isaiah 1 and 41. The painting of Jesus is from a local artist named Kevin Sparks. The permissions and copyrights are a little trickier with the news footage. Since we made it for the seminary we have been told we can claim an educational usage exception to the copyright laws. We're not selling this resource - simply using it to feature the news in the more hopeful frame of the Kingdom of God.



Let me know what you think. More to come...

new jerusalem?

Today we leave Jerusalem and the Middle East. When I arrived in Tel Aviv three weeks ago, I became the first member of my family to come to this land since my uncle fought for Palestine with the Iraqi Army in 1949. I heard that when one of my cousins was told I was coming here he replied, “But our family doesn’t go to Israel.”

But I have always wanted to see this place. Jerusalem is unlike any other place in the world. Arabs and Jews, Christians and Muslims, tourists, pilgrims and locals… all crowded on top of each other in the birthplace of the three major monotheistic religions. A city of three faiths divided into four distinct quarters, overflowing with conflict, mistrust and self-interest.

Extreme wealth next to extreme poverty. Sounds of shouts for violence and prayers of hope for peace on the same hills. This city is a microcosm of the troubles of the entire world. But the hope preached by the faiths which were born or lay claim here seem to have given up, and instead have marked their territory and are content to simply hold on.

Jerusalem was the city where God dwelled as he tested the patriarchs and spoke through the prophets, and through Christ he moved from the Temple to the world. But somehow the inhabitants of and visitors to Jerusalem seem to keep trying to find ways to put God back into a box.

The Scriptures are full of God trying to get his people in this land to look past themselves and to be his witnesses to the rest of the world, even going as far as to tell them to get out of the city because they were doing no good staying here. If Jerusalem is a microcosm of the world, and the place where God orchestrated the redemption of humanity, then we must keep asking ourselves what the New Jerusalem is supposed to look like, and who are we to be as its citizens.

I wish I could write more about this now, but we have to head for the airport in an hour. I am sure I’ll be processing through this last month in the Middle East for a while… and I’ll be posting some stories and reflections in the next week that I did not have the time to write while I was here.

Until then… Salaam, Shalom, Peace.

Pray for peace in Jerusalem.
May all who love this city prosper.
O Jerusalem, may there be peace within your walls
and prosperity in your palaces.
For the sake of my family and friends, I will say,
“May you have peace.”
For the sake of the house of the Lord our God,
I will seek what is best for you, O Jerusalem.
Psalm 122:6-9

high and low places

We're very close to the end of our "pilgrimage," but we're not quite finished yet. Here are a few more pictures from some of our travels to Galilee. More to come. Salaam... Shalom... Peace.

Jenn standing in a Roman aqueduct on the Mediterranean Sea town of Caesarea.

The Jordan River.

Waiting to climb down into the valley. The cliff we hiked down is identical to the one behind us. For certain folks (read: me) who have a healthy fear of heights, this was intense therapy.

Goofing off at "Jumping Mountain" outside ancient Nazareth. When Jesus upset his home crowd by saying he was the Messiah, the Scripture says they took him out of the city to throw him down on the rocks and stone him. This is the only place outside the city that fits the description.

a good name

Today was the most beautiful and sunny day since we've been here, and it was our first full day off. So my friend Jason and I headed up to the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aksar mosque on the Temple Mount. The entire compound is called "The Mosque of Omar" which is not to be confused with the actual mosque across from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher named "The Mosque of Omar." And none of this is to be confused with "Omar Square," which is where our hotel is located.



We are heading out at sunrise tomorrow for a four day field-trip to Galilee, and from what I hear we won't have internet access. I hope to have more pictures and relflections on our time here when we get back. So stay tuned, and until next time... Salaam, Shalom, Peace.

middle of the middle east

We have just wrapped up our third week in the Middle East, and I have not been posting at all like I had planned. The combination of daily hikes beginning at sunrise, the sickness of "solomon's surprise" (which is still running through our group), the cold and rain, and falling asleep around 9:00 has moved writing out experiences and impressions to the bottom of the list. I'm still hoping to get more out there this last week, so stay tuned. Until then, here are a few images... and Salaam, Shalom, Peace.

Our class is officially called "Historical and Geographical Settings of the Bible." So just about every day we hike through the mountains and valleys of Israel and Palestine. Don't get me wrong, it is beautiful and worth it, but it kicks my butt and wears me out.

Most of the time we are hiking to some sort of ruins that are significant to the Biblical story. I'm standing with Lawson Stone in front of the remains of King David's palace complex in Jerusalem.

Tea and corn in what amounts to a cave across from the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Arab farmers sell corn on the street corners fresh and boiling hot.

Sunset on the Mediterranean Sea.

In many, many ways much of the culture here has not changed in thousands of years. One of the most obvious is the Beduine shepherds who move their flocks through the wilderness and villages of the West Bank.

The hikes are brutal, but the vistas are worth the pain. This is near Nablus, Palestine.

solomon's surprise

In Mexico they call it “Montezuma’s Revenge.” In Egypt we called it the “King Tut Two Step.” Yesterday, we experienced what I am calling “Solomon’s Surprise.”

After lunch our class was on a field trip to a museum next to the Western Wall of the old Temple Mount. It must have been Israeli Army field-trip day, because the place was packed with fresh out of high school soldiers going through the exhibits in groups. After we had been there about an hour Jenn said she didn’t feel good and that she wanted to go back to the hotel.

We got about five minutes past the hotel, in the rain and the cold, and suddenly Jenn headed for some bushes and lost her lunch. Noticing that we were in the Jewish quarter, and in the shadow of the Wall, I was afraid someone would shout, “Unclean!”

We sat on the steps a while, and then tried to move on. We would walk a few minutes, then sit down and repeat the process. It was rather exhausting for Jenn because not one road in the Old City if flat, and we seemed to be constantly going uphill. After our third “vomit-stop” I realized we were lost. I am a directional nightmare, but Jenn is a walking compass. However, at this point the compass had been keeping her head in a plastic grocery bag… so we were lost.

I asked the kind man with the machine gun how to get the Jafa Gate. He pointed one way and walked off. We went that way till the next wave, and I stepped into a shop to ask again. The three men in yarmulkes wouldn’t even look up at me, as if they had practiced synchronized ignoring. I was getting pissed. I went back outside to sit next to Jenn on the steps when a very old man walked up to us, and in the classic Jewish accent said, “Do you need help?” His name was Moshe, and he gave us directions. They didn’t work.

Finally, we were able to get a cab. While Jenn continued to fill another grocery bag (her volume is amazing) the driver kept hounding me that if I really loved my wife I would take her to the hospital and not the hotel. After driving just a shade over one mile, he charged us $8 for the cab ride. I hate being a tourist.

I got Jenn up to the room and in bed, and not five minutes later I got the “surprise.” Turns out over 2/3 of our group of 48 got it, too. From what I hear, they left the museum and started throwing up in trash cans and bushes all over the Old City. So everything was canceled today so we could all rest up. I haven’t been over there yet, but I hear the hallways and bathrooms at the dorms on campus are, well… unclean.

So with a “technicolor yawn” our first week in Jerusalem is done. I had hoped to post some reflections and pictures during this time, but our schedule at the school is exhausting. Because we lose sunlight around 4:30 in the afternoon we are usually out the door and on the bus by 7:00 in the morning. We spend most of the day hiking (and nothing is flat in this country) through the city and the outlying hills. Then it is back to the hotel, dinner, homework and in bed by 9:00. So the blogs have been sparse, but stay tuned.

Until then, salam, shalom, peace.

the holy land

Jenn and I made it to Jerusalem yesterday. As our plane taxied down the runway in Jordan we went by what looked like an airplane graveyard, and there were close to a dozen old green and white Iraqi Airlines sitting there rusting. I suppose they were the planes that were out of the country when the U.S. invaded in 1991 and instituted the no-fly zone and could never go back. Maybe that would make them exiles of some sort. They looked sad.

Our flight from Amman was only twenty minutes long. Our time in security was about an hour and half. Pretty much the same routine: Everyone with U.S. passports goes right on through until they get to me. This time though the questions and assumptions were a little more "profiling" and insulting. Oh well... I'm here now. I've always wanted to visit Iraq, Egypt and Israel. This makes two out of three.

Jenn and are staying in a hotel that used to be a seminary, and apparently is very pro-Palestinian (the poster to the left is from 1936 and hangs in the lobby right next to a framed poster condemning the wall Israel is building around Palestine).

The school where we are studying is near the Zion gate, and is one of the earliest buildings to be build outside the old city walls. It was originally a British run school for Arab boys. Guess who's back...

The campus is beautiful, but sitting on a hill means everything is very close together with lots and lots and lots of stairs. It is built up against the city wall, with parts of it built on the bedrock that the walls from Jesus' day were built on. You can see the parts that are from the 1st century that have been incorporated into the building, including one bedroom which was a 1st century tomb.

We're pretty exhausted from our first day, so we'll have more later. Until then, Salaam... Shalom... Peace

Jenn and I in the center of campus.

it was a grand stay

Literally… the name of our hotel was “Grand Stay.” We had an amazing week. My brother asked last night, “What do you tell people when they ask, ‘So what was it like.’” And while the taxis and traffic and buildings and food and language and culture have no comparison in the United States, it is nothing like the stereotypes or what you see on the news.

I connected with my family. I drank gallons of tea. I witnessed my father’s religion first hand. I saw the death of a dictator in the midst of his exiled people. I visited ancient ruins. And in a sense, I came as close to my father’s homeland as I’ve ever been, because Jordan is next to Iraq… and like all the Middle Eastern countries it is a made up nation state drawn from arbitrary lines that did not exist when my uncle here was born (thanks to the broken promises of the British and French).

And I met so many fascinating people: The Palestinian man at the front desk who had to come to Jordan because of his treatment at the hands of the Israelis (we talked for hours when I couldn’t sleep one night as the television downstairs broadcast live images from the Haij). The Sunni cab driver who didn’t like Shiites (he criticized us more for being Iraqi and less for being American… kinda throws a wrench into the notion of all Muslims being united in terror against the United States). The blind female beggar covered in all black. The calls to prayer from the mosques and the “Happy Eid” from my family as we kissed each others cheeks three times each (three times is for family or close friends).

Yes indeed, it was grand. We’re off to Jerusalem today. We’ll be there for three weeks on a study abroad trip. I don’t know when I’ll be able to get online again, or how good the service will be. But until then, Salaam… Shalom… Peace.

Ramsey and I buying shii (tea) across from the mosque next to our building as we head out for our daily trek through the city. The man was so nice and he refused to let us pay, but we forced him to take our money.

Ramsey and Noor in the snow on the way to Petra

Trying to fiqure out how to work our washing machine.

Ramsey addressing his followers at the Roman amphitheater. Amman is the ancient city of Philadelphia.

Jenn and my cousins. Tara (the one Jenn is holding) looked at Jenn one day and said, "I'm glad you married Omar." Me too.