Tag: Israel

No Man is an Island, But a Church Is

A chronicle of my trip to Jerusalem, Cairo and Rome from November 3-18. If you want more information on a picture, hover your mouse over it for a pop-up caption. If you want to see a bigger version of the picture, click on it.

I wrote a couple of days ago about the bout of xenophobia I’d experienced when I first got to Cairo, about how disconcerting it was first for the experience itself, but then doubly for the shame I felt that someone so… enlightened… as myself would have such a visceral reaction to a strange culture. (And for the record, I now feel a third layer of shame in confessing how I see myself to you, but I want to be honest here. Thank you in advance for your grace and forgiveness at my arrogance.)

Our last day in Cairo is Monday, November 8 (which is when I’m writing, though you won’t have the chance to read this until at least the end of the week). Because the last five days have been so hectic and crazy, and because Cairo is such a stressful place to be out and about, all three of us have decided to stay in the Institute today to relax and enjoy the peaceful surroundings.

I have to reiterate how much I’m enjoying Dominican hospitality. The fathers here are hilarious and kind – last night they prayed over supper in English and we discussed everything from politics (American and French) to climate change to international travel, all in the midst of much laughter. Saturday night, we got to participate in their week-ending ritual: watching an American blockbuster. This week’s selection: The Expendables. As Jean – a Dominican nearly my own age who knows French, German, English, Japanese and Arabic – explained, “After a long week, you just want to turn your brain off and watch something.”

This morning, I slept in as well as possible given the Cairo traffic and then grabbed one of the books I’m currently reading – Untamed Hospitality: Welcoming God and Other Strangers – and headed to the garden, taking a Pepsi in a glass bottle with me.

The Switchfoot in my headphones was only occasionally interrupted by horns or sledgehammers from the nearby construction site. I relaxed under the trees, feeling the breeze and the sun, reading or watching the feral cats run all over the grounds, and I felt profoundly at peace.

After three days of craziness in Cairo, I was struck by the totally different feeling of the Institute. I’m sure it has much to do with the fact that the Institute is run by Westerners, but I the more I reflect, the more I’m sure this is a microcosm of the Church as a whole.

We are to be an island in the midst of the world – a place of safety and refreshment. A place of hospitality where everyone feels welcomed into the mysterious inner life of the Holy Trinity. The Dominican brothers are family to each other, and I am challenged and encouraged by their example. I want to imitate them. I want this kind of a community, one that is intimately bound together in their worship of God. One that is different in almost every way imaginable from the culture around it, yet is still profoundly engaged in that culture.

A note to leave you with: the Dominican who founded this Institute was considered the foremost expert on the Koran in Egypt. Muslim scholars who disagreed would seek him out to settle their debates. Think on this.

As worship experiences go, my day in the garden was a good one. I only wish I’d been able to share it with you.

Older than Dirt

The Beard Goes Home is an ongoing chronicle of my trip to Jerusalem, Cairo and Rome from November 3-18. If you want more information on a picture, hover your mouse over it for a pop-up caption! If you want to see a bigger version of a picture, just click on it!

Saturday, November 6 was our day to take on the Great Pyramids of Giza. The Great Pyramids are one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (and the only wonders still standing). They were built 4500 years ago by three Pharaohs in succession. Each pyramid is made up of some 2.5 million identical blocks that weigh thousands of tons each. They are burial plots (and the largest of over 70 similar structures all over Egypt). They’re destroyed in nearly every disaster movie. They’re shrouded in mystery and UFOlogists have all sorts of theories about extra-terrestrial involvement in their construction.

I knew all of this – like you probably do – because these are some of the most famous landmarks (monuments, tourist attractions, wonders) in the entire world. So I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect when we arrived at the Giza Plateau above Cairo and Cheops’ Pyramid emerged out of the clouds (smog?).

These things are HUGE.

I know that probably sounds trite or redundant, but I was taken aback by the physical presence of these things. Until I stood at their base and looked up, I couldn’t grasp how monstrous they truly are. I had always thought you could run up the stones, but each block is over five feet tall. Experienced climbers have died trying to scale them (Mark Antony actually did it, and it’s illegal nowadays).

Thomas and I paid the extra to enter the Great Pyramid and clime into the burial chamber. The experience was spooky – and we had the benefit of built-in stairs and lights; I can’t imagine doing it with maybe a rope and torch. The burial chamber itself was relatively (to the entire structure) small – still big enough to accommodate 20-30 tourists easily.

We then walked around the Pyramids, exploring the ruins of the administrative complex, the smaller tombs of the Pharaohs’ wives and mothers and the pits from which they’d excavated the royal boats with which the Pharaohs had been buried, making our way down towards the Sphinx.

And these things are so ancient. These were built over 500 years before Abraham was born. We are closer to Jesus than Jesus was to these pyramids. They’re OLD. And HUGE. It’s easy to feel that there must be something otherworldly about them.

The most shocking aspect of the Giza Plateau was the selling. We couldn’t walk more than a few steps without someone grabbing us and trying to force money out of our hands. One man came up and grabbed my camera out of my hand, then tried to get me up on his camel (once you’re up, you have to pay to get down). I refused, but he still dressed me like an Egyptian (with a headdress and scarf) and took my pictures. Then he tried to get money from me; I grabbed my camera and resolutely refused, and marched off (managing to give him his gear back and reacquire my hat). This pattern persisted – acknowledge that these guys exist in any way (even eye contact!) and you’d better run. Apparently the government has cracked down pretty substantially on this practice – Mark Twain wrote that it ruined his trip to Egypt.

(In fact, these were not the cleverest of the scams – quite a few men wore very official looking outfits and would stand on the way to a pyramid or sphinx and demand you go buy a ticket, then try to direct you to a co-schemer who would gladly take money you don’t actually have to pay. If you simply walk past them, they start shouting at someone else.)

Surprisingly, the con-artists thinned out down by the Sphinx and we were able to enjoy a (relatively) unadulterated view of this crazy statue. I didn’t realize that the Sphinx has a full body; I’d always assumed it was just a bust. But in fact it has hind paws, a tail and a butt, or sphincter as Anthony Mako wanted me to point out.

After Giza, we enjoyed a trip down the Nile in a felucca, which was peaceful and relaxing (a nice chance from the insanity at Giza!)

Sunday we headed out to the Egyptian Museum, which was built around 1908. King Tut’s tomb – whose riches now take up about 1/4 of all the museum’s space wasn’t discovered until the 1920s, so you can imagine how crowded it is. It’s also very old school – not laid out well, not well-lit (apparently, they’re getting a whole new museum ‘one day’ so they’re just waiting for that to fix everything).

I loved seeing all the artifacts in here – wood, paper, flesh (you know, on the mummies), all of it 3,000-4,500 years old. To see the remains of such an old and totally foreign civilization, to know that they’ve been gone from the Earth longer than I can even imagine was hard to get my brain around.

To see their chariots, and know that – as silly as they look now – that technological breakthrough made Egypt an unquestioned military power for hundreds of years. To see the statutes and monuments and models and on and on and on.

Ancient Egyptian religion also fascinates me – the gods with animal heads. As a kid, I always thought it was so bizarre (and shout-out to Stargate, loved their reinterpretation of the whole thing). But looking through the museum, I could see so many similarities to the ancient Israelites’ religion. King Tut’s tomb even contained an Ark of Anubis that is clearly similar in structure (we don’t know exactly what it was for) to the Ark of the Covenant (even though Tut was a Pharaoh of the Middle Kingdom, which means he ruled long after the Exodus).

The Giza Plateau and Egyptian Museum only confirmed how far I am from home, how strange and alien the world of the Ancient Egyptians would have been to me. And yet the ancient Hebrews would’ve had much more in common with Egypt. Abraham, Jacob, Gideon, certainly Moses and even Jesus would’ve felt much more comfortable in Egypt than in my home.

This was a great reminder that I am the stranger to the Bible. I can’t assume I know what it means from a cursory reading, or that ‘what it says’ is necessarily what it means.

Because it was written by some people that I would’ve found very strange indeed.

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Cairo & Xenophobia

We arrived in Cairo late on the evening on Thursday (November 4). Getting through Customs and entering the city took quite a bit longer than I had expected (plus it cost $15 just to get into Egypt!), but we finally hailed a cab at about 11:30 pm local time, and headed to the French Institute of Oriental Studies (apparently, ever Dominican institution founded in the Middle East is French).

Our cab driver was the second-most aggressive driver in Egypt, which puts him high in the rankings world-wide (I say second-most aggressive because another driver nearly killed us and didn’t bat an eye). I’ve been on the road in three Central American countries and they don’t hold a candle to the streets of Cairo. Most streets don’t have any markings on them at all, which means that there are as many lanes as any individual driver chooses. Even where the streets are marked, drivers treat the marks as kind suggestions at best (which can be frightening given that the marked streets tend to be bigger, more-used thoroughfares). That lovely road that looks to be a 6-lane highway? In practice, I’d bet on closer to 10-12, depending on the nanosecond you choose to count.

Maybe it’s just because we arrived on what is essentially Friday night in the Muslim world (Friday is the Muslim Holy Day), but Cairo even at midnight was alive and bursting with energy. From my window, I can hear horns bleating all hours of the day and night. The biggest difference I’ve noticed is how dirty Cairo is. The filth is party due to the fact that, as Father Kevin put it, we’re on the edge of a sandbox as big as the United States. Everything is covered in a thin layer of sand. But beyond the sand, the city is just polluted. You can smell it all the time, see it on every street.

We were greeted at the Institute by a Dominican brother who welcomed us with bread and cheese, then quickly settled into our rooms and headed out the next morning to the al-Hussein Oriental Bazaar, one of the largest bazaars in the world (a bazaar is a lot like a market). All the prices here are negotiable, which always takes me a while to get into when I travel. Merchants yell at us as we pass, offering (and more often demanding that we purchase) every sort of good imaginable. The merchants are shockingly pushy – if you’re not very firm, you’ll get pulled into their shop and they’ll practically take money out of your wallet. They’re incredible salespersons (in fact, according to the Lonely Planet guidebook, the merchants who work this bazaar are better than anyone else in the world) and negotiating with them is frustrating at first, but can be quite fun. I managed not to get ripped off too badly by the end of the day.

Even more than in Jerusalem, I noticed a strong xenophobic reaction in myself. Egypt is thoroughly non-Western. Egyptians don’t seem to have any great love for America (though they’re not especially hateful either). In the less modern areas of the city, everyone seems to be selling something, and their friendliness so often degraded into a sales pitch that I quickly grew wary of anyone who complimented by beard (“You look like Egyptian man!” while stroking a fake beard) or my tattoos (“Shalom! Where you from?” upon seeing my Star of David, or more frequently simply, “Hey, Mr. Tattoo! Nice tattoos!”).

Beyond that, this was my first time in a truly Muslim culture. I grew up (and still live) in the Midwest, where we have a church building on every corner. Where (as a rule) our culture’s greatest, most grandiose architecture was built to the glory of the Holy Trinity. Where even as church attendance plummets, the effects Christianity has had on our culture are inescapable.

Not so in Cairo. Though Egypt was once Christian for several hundred years, you’d never know it today. Egypt was one of the first countries to convert to Islam, and so has been Muslim for about 6 times as long as America has been a nation. The culture is thoroughly Muslim. Nearly every woman wears a headscarf (if not a full burka). Many men wear the traditional long Muslim robe. There’s narry a BLT to be found (and I’m pleased to report that the KFC Double-Down sandwich is not served in Cairo’s KFCs). In our cab rides all over the city, we’ve seen one dilapidated building bearing a cross.

I’ve felt very out of place here. And much to my shame, I’ve felt afraid, suspicious when I’ve been out in the City proper. I say that’s to my shame because no one here has treated me as anything worse than an ignorant American tourist (which is to say, the shop owners try to cheat me out of money). And that’s the exception rather than the rule. Most people have been very kind and helpful. Very friendly.

Once I overcame my initial shock at being in such a different place, I began to notice similarities. In the shop windows of women’s boutiques, mannequins sporting designer headscarves stand next to others displaying fashions that would draw attention at any American night club. At the Pyramids and the Egyptian Museum (more on these visits tomorrow!), Muslim school children ignore their teachers and laugh with their friends as they run from point to point. As we were heading to get some lunch, a young Muslim woman came up beside me and started examining my tattoos. She laughed and smiled at me, flashed me a thumbs-up and then pantomimed lifting weights before heading off in a different direction, waving and calling out a goodbye as she went.

My time in Cairo has helped me to see that, despite the (very) foreign exterior, beneath all the strange customs and incomprehensible Arabic, the Egyptians are shockingly familiar. Beneath the sand and dirt, Cairo’s smog isn’t all that different from LA’s. The mosques aren’t gathering terrorists. These people are just like you and me. They’re just as ethnocentric and patriotic. Just as passionate (or indifferent) about their beliefs. They love and fear and want and need just like us. Of course, recognizing our common humanity doesn’t solve any problems, but it at least gives us a good place to start talking.

As soon as I learn Arabic…

Cairo Israel Other

Jesus Was Clearly in Better Shape than I Am

The Beard Goes Home is a chronicle of my trip to Jerusalem, Cairo and Rome from November 3-18. If you want more information on a picture, hover your mouse over it for a pop-up caption. If you want to see a bigger version of the picture, click on it.

Our second day in Jerusalem started with some fantastic coffee at a small bookstore around the corner from the School. Thomas and I decided we would walk the typical path Jesus would’ve used when he came to Jerusalem. When Jesus visited, he stayed in Bethany with Mary, Martha and Lazarus. From there, he would walk into Jerusalem, passing through the Mount of Olives. (Of course, since Thomas and I were already in Jerusalem, we would do it backwards – out to Bethany and back.) I was looking forward to experiencing the geography of Jesus, and I was not disappointed (for Bible nerds – this is also the route David took when he fled from Absalom in 2 Kings 15)

We walked to the Damascus gate and then along the outside of the city walls, which are impressive and imposing. A word of explanation: modern-day Jerusalem is quite a bit larger than the Jerusalem of Jesus’ time (which is, in turn, much bigger than the original ‘City of David’ that David founded). The Old City is contained inside the large walls you see in the pictures, and even the Old City is significantly bigger than Jesus’ Jerusalem (for instance, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which contains Calvary and the Tomb, is built on land that was ‘outside the city’ according to the gospels). Probably the biggest surprise to me so far has been how small Jesus’ Jerusalem was. I’ve been to few sub-divisions that are as small as Old Jerusalem (in fact, I’m relatively certain that the apartment complex in which I currently live is bigger than the Old City).

I quickly noticed that Jerusalem is on a large hill. We rounded the corner and found the road that would lead us towards the Mount of Olives: the Jericho road! In the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), Jesus says this:

“A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead (emphasis mine).”

You can sense immediately that this is not figurative language. The Jericho drops sharply down into the Kidron Valley (which means ‘deep’ in Hebrew) before heading up over the Mount of Olives. I quickly realized that Hebrew names are not interested in creativity; they’re very, very literal. Kidron is a deep valley, and the Mount of Olives is a mountain. With olives growing on top of it.

We walked down the Jericho road, away from Jerusalem. At the bottom of the valley, we visited the Church of the Virgin’s Tomb. According to Church Tradition, immediately after Mary died, the disciples took her to this place and God assumed her body up into heaven. The church is at the bottom of the valley, and we walked down into a low courtyard even to enter the church. Once inside the church, we walked down another huge, elaborate staircase into the main body of the church. The slab on which Mary’s body was laid is now enclosed in a structure, but we were allowed to enter and see the slab.

By the time we left the Church of the Virgin’s Tomb, we had just enough time to visit the site where the disciples slept while Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane (all the holy sites close from noon until two). Even with all the buildings that exist here now, you can feel how close everything is. The Garden of Gethsemane is near the bottom of the Kidron. As Jerome O’Conner points out, it makes a great place to stop before you hike up the Mount of Olives. It’s easy to imagine Jesus and the disciples stopping here after they’ve left the city on their way back to Bethany for the night – a great chance to debrief and relax.

Since everything was now closed, we decided to hike our way up the Mount and head over to Bethany. I thought I was in pretty good shape until we tried this – the Mount of Olives is steep. We had to stop several times to catch our breath and rest, but we eventually made it to the top, where we were greeted by olive trees. Once we got over the hill, we were looking out over the other side of the mountain, towards Bethany (which we learned isn’t called Bethany anymore. The name is now el-Azariah, or L-azariah… Lazariah… Lazarus. Neato!

We got nearly all the way to the church built over the site where Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead when we were greeted by the wall very recently finished by the Israelis to keep the Palestinians out. We walked along the wall, noticing that it was covered in graffiti calling for peace, until a guard told us we would get shot in the head if we kept going. So we decided to turn back…

Now we’re heading into Jerusalem the way Jesus would have. As we turned, we saw the Mount of Olives over us, and in the far distance, the Temple Mount. Imagine Jesus’ first view of the city, the Mount of Olives in his foreground and the Temple looming in the distance, dominating the horizon, with the city walls spread around and behind it. I gained a new appreciation for his references to believers as the Light of the World and a City on a Hill much more vivid.

We hiked back up the Mount of Olives and finally had some lunch at a fantastic little café, then began our descent back into the Kidron Valley. A couple of vantage points afforded us some incredible views of the Old City and the Temple Mount. Again, it’s easy to imagine Jesus coming down the Mount of Olives, seeing the city spread out before him and weeping for it as he approached.

We continued our descent (and did I mention how steep it is? The Mount of Olives does not mess around) and made it back to the valley and the Garden of Gethsemane. The Garden was pretty cool; they’ve maintained a grove of olive trees outside the churches that mark spots where Jesus probably prayed during the night before he was crucified (since he got up to yell at the disciples several times, they’re pretty sure he prayed at multiple spots).

Thomas and I went into the church and I spent some time in prayer, kneeling at the altar just in front of the stone that (probably) marks one of the spots where Jesus prayed. The church building itself is gorgeous – all stone mosaic. The ceiling is covered with Latin phrases like “faithful even to death”. Despite all the tourists coming in and out, my sore limbs and feet, and the man giving some sort of presentation in continental Spanish, I still found the time I spent in prayer very meaningful (and that’s saying something, because I’m easily distracted).

All the details of the story of Jesus’ arrest (Matthew 26:36-50) became so much more sharp. The disciples sleeping just a few yards away. Jesus weeping and praying. You can imagine him looking back towards the city, seeing the line of torches coming out and saying,

“Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.”

Judas arriving with the guards, identifying Jesus and the guards taking him back up into the city as the disciples fled into the safety of the darkness all around.

We left the Garden and hiked back to the city, making it back just in time to gather our things, pack and leave for Cairo.

All in all, I was most struck by the sheer proximity of everything. Even though Bethany was a hard walk, I’m sure it has more to do with the fact that I’m not in amazing shape and not acclimated to Jerusalem’s altitude yet. Jesus and his disciples made the short trip (maybe 2 miles) twice every day. They had ample opportunity to talk (you know, about fig trees and stuff. Come to think of it, this explains why I never saw any figs… Mark 11:12-26). The Temple was right there – nearly always in view and dominating the landscape. Something like the Triumphal entry – going down the Mount of Olives and into the City would’ve been quite a procession, visible to the thousands of pilgrims headed into the city.

And the city itself was so small (by our standards today). It’s so easy now to see how quickly word traveled. And how much technology changes culture.

Israel

Bro’s Life

We arrived in Tel Aviv at 8:30 on the morning of November 3. After a quick cab ride, we arrived at the French School of Bible and Archaeology in Jerusalem – a Dominican school founded in the 1890s and home to some of the greatest Biblical Archaeologists in the world – including Jerome Murphy O’Conner and one of the leading experts on the Dead Sea Scrolls (I must admit that I geeked out pretty hard when I got to meet these guys!).

Nearly everyone who lives in the school is a Dominican brother. Father Thomas, my friend and traveling companion, is good friends with Father Kevin, who is studying for his doctorate at the School (and the reason we’re allowed to stay there). Despite the fact that we’re both pilgrims (and Americans) and I’m a Protestant, the Dominicans are exceptionally hospitable and nearly all of them speak at least passable English (Thomas pointed out to me that – given that I am only fluent in English and German, visiting a French school in Israel is probably not the best place to use German).

We eat meals together and observe morning and evening prayers, as well as daily mass, in the beautiful and amazing Basilica of St. Stephen, which is on the grounds of the School. When the Dominicans purchased the property at the end of the 1800s, they had no idea that beneath the property lay the remains of a 4th century church. When they began digging foundation, they discovered the old church, excavated it and built the new basilica on the original floor plan. The current basilica is the largest church building in Jerusalem, and it’s absolutely gorgeous. Outside, you can still walk on stones that date from the fourth century, as well as see a cistern original to the first church, though it’s not used today.

My room is in a secondary building the brothers use as a guest house. Apparently, before they purchased it, the building had been used to slaughter cows – there’s a pit immediately outside where they used to dump the offal. I have internet in my room and the weather makes not having air-conditioning a non-issue.

After we settled in, Kevin took us on a quick walking tour of the Old City – a three-minute walk from the School. The Old City deserves its own post, but this was my first experience with the holy sites. We visited the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which houses the rock of Golgotha (where Jesus was crucified), the site where they prepared his body for burial, the tomb in which he was buried and the site where he appeared to Mary Magdalene after he raised from the dead. We didn’t take much time (because we will go back), but even the brief moments we were there were indescribably special.

We returned, ate lunch, took naps and then did evening prayers and dinner. After dinner, Thomas, Kevin and I went back into the city to have drinks. Kevin told us more about life in the city, whetting our appetite for the next day…

One final fun fact (well, not fun for me): the Middle East is crawling with cats. They are everywhere and they are feral. The School keeps quite a few cats on their property (probably close to a dozen). They’re relatively tame; an American named Tom who lives at the school feeds and cares for them. They’ve had all the cats spayed/neutered and the cats function to keep the wild cats out of the School’s grounds. I suppose this is a great example of the principle that the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t…

Israel