Sunday, May 30, 2010

The Law Of Return, or I Promise To Go Wandering


This is difficult.


I'm sitting on my bed at the Ron Beach Hotel in Tiberias, Israel, watching the light fade over the Sea of Galilee. I'm listening to Bob Dylan. I've just finished packing-- more efficiently than I ever have before, so that I can put everything back in place after Israeli airport security folk rummage through my belongings and interrogate me as they will no doubt do-- to go back home. We leave in two hours to take the trek to Tel Aviv for our 5 am flight out of Ben Gurion.

I have absolutely no desire to leave, and that's a predicament I have never before faced when setting home from an adventure. Last year at the end of the England trip, I thought I would go insane if I didn't get back to my bed and my routine and my friends, and that trip only lasted two weeks. Now I've been gone for five weeks, travelling through countries whose cultures are so very different from mine, whose languages don't even share my language's alphabet, and whose inhabitants stare at me as though my walking down the street is nude and/or heretical performance art.


But I love it here. I love the sound of strangers in the street arguing in Arabic. I love living in the tension between hope and despair. I love not thinking about myself. I love sharing food between six people. I love putting za'atar on everything. I love thinking about how much water I'm using and where it comes from. I love it so much here that I find it hard to remember anything that I love about Canada, and I don't know what to do with that feeling.


I have never been one to miss people when I go away. I get pangs of remembrance from time to time, but I've grown so accustomed to lacking the people I love even when I'm at home that lacking more people when I'm not at home is really no problem. Listening to the people in my group talk about going home makes me wonder what's wrong with me. They are all sad to be leaving, but just a little bit more excited to get back home to their loved ones and a sense of normalcy. I envy them that. My desire to be here is outweighing my every other impulse.

But I think I can probably trace my reticence back to my fear of returning home and falling into exhausted ambivalence. I have done that so many times in the past, and I have always hated myself for it eventually. But what makes my desire to come back and study in Jerusalem different from my other dreams is that I don't think it would be just for me. I think that I would become a better person, a person who plumbs the depths of the world's troubles and lives for something greater than herself, if I were to follow the path that I am seeing in my mind now. I think there's something to that.

Maybe being gone for longer than ever and in more foreign conditions than ever has simply made me forget what it's like to have a home and a family (and a refrigerator, and a washing machine, and my own bathroom, and crackers, and movie nights, and nice footwear, and men who aren't named Hannah, and people who obey traffic laws, and, and...). But whatever the reason for my current inner state, I hope that it will not hinder me but propel me forward into the unknown, into the unimagined future, into the expanse of possibility that I can feel at the tips of my fingers when I consider how many paths are continuously converging in this world and how little I know about them.


What I want is to be anchored, yet nomadic; I have seen that life is as possible in Be'er Sheva as it is in Dan, that hope still flows abundantly in the dry and desolate places, and, moreover, that the wanderer is always welcome in this land where nothing is ever certain, where even the stones compete one with another, and where history can't repeat itself because it never finished a single phrase.

It is easier to accept the life of the purposeful wanderer when Bedouins and their tea are in the picture, that I know for sure.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

welcome to Pentecost

I find that it's good to live with no expectations. Today was a case in point. 

I had not given this day a single thought before I woke up and faced it. I've had my itinerary for a couple months, and I knew what was going to happen on this day, but for some out of character reason I didn't let my imagination tell me what it would be like. I could not have imagined a better day. 
After breakfast this morning I fell into a panic; I had yet to decide which church I would attend, and convoys of my fellow travellers were already beginning to set out in taxis and buses to their various religious destinations around the city and across the wall. To make matters infinitely worse, I couldn't decide what to wear. In a fit of exasperation I threw together an outfit and forced myself to leave the room and decide my destination based on which group I would find in the lobby when I arrived there. The group in question was just about to head off to Christ Church Anglican, the first Protestant church ever built in Jerusalem. I thought I was probably in need of some choir and liturgy, so I took it as a sign. All the way to the old city I tried to imagine a nice high Anglican service. I pictured myself at the Cathedral Church of the Redeemer back home.
What I found when I arrived was quite a different picture. The setting was undeniably beautiful and serene; we walked through a verdant courtyard and into the neo-Gothic Victorian church. It was much smaller than any of the churches we had visited, and much, much simpler in its decoration- although I guess even Westminster is simple compared to the most insignificant of Greek Orthodox shrines. We arrived early, so we had a chance to sit and soak it all in. 
Things I then noticed: 
a man wearing a clerical collar, checking mics at the front 
a piano, a keyboard, and a guitar set up off to one side
a projector screen
stained glass windows without any human subjects
an extremely attractive boy at the end of our row
Hebrew inscriptions on the altar 

I was surprised by all of these things, but not disappointed. In yet another atypical Nans moment I decided that I was okay with not worrying what kind of gong show congregation I had walked into. 
I somehow managed to forget that it was Pentecost Sunday. I have no idea how that happened. But that made it all the better when the service began and I was reminded. 
I think it was when I realized it was Pentecost that things started to take on a whole new level of meaning. Before the service, my lovely trip friend Carol had struck up a conversation with the cutie at the end of the row, and it turned out that he was from Germany, but his father was Kenyan (shabbam!), and he had just arrived in town from Tel Aviv and had stumbled upon the church almost by accident. I could hear that half the people sitting behind us were American (southeeern draaaawl) and the other half were Swedish. One of the priests was Australian, another American, and the third Canadian. There were of course Brits all over the place, too. As we read Acts 2, I was struck by the synchronicity between the story of Pentecost and the story I was living out. Not only that, it hit me that the event described in the New Testament had occurred about a five minute walk from where I was sitting. And, by a small miracle of scheduling, I had witnessed the festival of Shavuot, the day on which Pentecost occurred, at the Western Wall a few days previously. The whole story took on layer after layer of new meaning. I could have cried. 
By another strange coincidence, I knew absolutely every song that was sung during the service, from the awkward opening hymn to the 90s power choruses to the contemporary songs to the time-signature-less offertory hymn (although, to be fair, I learned it in Latin and thus had difficulty singing the English words). Even though no one else in the congregation seemed to know the songs like I did, that didn't stop them from completely givin' 'er vocally all the time. By the end of the service, people were shouting out for joy, and I was sending up a prayer of thanksgiving for my waterproof mascara. We ended with a song I hadn't heard for probably eight years but remembered word for word. There's nothing like spiritual nostalgia. 
But the thing that I realized towards the end that almost brought me to my knees was that this was the first Pentecost since my September Transformation, which is when I would contend that I felt filled with the Spirit for the very first time. And the more I thought about it, the less I could ignore how God must have intended to have me in Jerusalem on this day. 
I realized and experienced a whole lot of things during that service, most of which I will keep to myself until I can't anymore. 
I fully remember, not just cognitively, exactly how I felt in September. I am overwhelmed by God's faithfulness in bringing me back to that place after all the shit that hit in February and March and April. I am vindicated in having looked at this adventure through those almost unbearable times as the light at the end of the tunnel. And I am furthermore overjoyed to think that this is just the beginning of the life I will make for myself as I constantly rely on my steadfast Provider. 





Friday, May 21, 2010

reconciling with board games

Hello strangers,

I know it's been a while since I last posted something. At this point, it's getting difficult to write about isolated experiences and single striking thoughts; all the elements of our travels are beginning to fuse together, and the ideas and opinions from my brain and the many fine brains we have picked over the last four weeks have been diffused into an emotional foundation that is hard to describe.
Nevertheless, I feel that I should attempt to share some of the ideas that have been funneling down into my heart.

It was only a few days ago that I started to think about this trip within the context of my September awakening that compelled me to embark on this five-week adventure. I now find it strange that I was able to go three and a half weeks without thinking about why God would lead me here. I pretty much always think about the 'why'. But I only started to think about it when I realized that I could do more here than visit and try to learn.
I know it's pretty common to fall in love with a travel destination. I know that everyone at some point gets tempted to say, "Screw it, I'm moving to Cleveland". People start to wonder if they can make their vacation into a life. I've done that before. I'm still doing that with Britain. But the thing with the Middle East is that I didn't really want to come here. I was more than willing to, but it wasn't my idea. This idea of this trip wasn't born out of a personal dream or a long-standing longing. It basically came out of nowhere. And because of that, I am starting to think that the things I am feeling for this land and these people have practical significance for my life and my future. I feel different here. I feel like I am free to care about the people around me and the issues that permeate their lives. I feel less self-obsessed (but apparently not enough to quit blogging, the ultimate self indulgence). I feel like I can focus on the gifts within my person that have nothing to do with talent. I feel like I can actually see the search for God on the streets here. I feel like I don't have to deal with the questions that are ubiquitous in North American Christianity, the questions that nauseate me and keep me from wanting to practice my faith and associate myself with the people in my religion.
I don't think it's a stretch to say that I'm feeling called to live in this part of the world, maybe not permanently, but at least for a little while. I hesitate to say that definitively because I know it's easy to fall in love with places that you visit and throw meaning onto that temporary love. But God called me to go on this trip, of that I am certain, and I am also certain that God doesn't interfere with people's lives and point them in a new direction for no reason. This is why I have been looking into intensive Arabic language programs in Morocco and the Middle East and graduate programs in Jerusalem. The way I've come to see it, if God will bless me with a decently long life, I will fill it with as much learning about as many and various subjects as I can. I will try to understand this world and its joys and sorrows in order to find my place in it.
A couple months ago a friend of mine spoke into my life in a most unexpected way. She shared what she felt God was telling her to say, and it bowled me over. This prophetic word acknowledged the frantic-ness within me. I sometimes feel like a have a city inside me, with so many streets leading in so many directions that I can't choose which to take. I feel like I am many people sometimes. But God acknowledged this in me, and basically said that I could look at each and every person within my personality and choose to embrace her. I don't have to feel limited, or bound by the necessity of choice. I have always felt this way, so I suppose it is who I am; perhaps I am a twelve-sided die, and Middle East Hannah is but one side of many.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Rabinowitz FTW

Hello my lovelies!

I just returned, exhausted, from my third day of exploring the Old City of Jerusalem. Today was very interesting because we began not in the currently-walled Old City, but in an area outside of it that would have been inside the city walls in the time of David. We saw some ruins that quite possibly belong to David's palace, as well as some other interesting things, but there was one definite highlight that lifted my spirits and lit my imagination and just made me feel so wonderfully alive. That thing was wading through Hezekiah's Tunnel. 

This tunnel was carved into bedrock some 2700 years ago when Hezekiah learned that the Assyrians were going to besiege Jerusalem. Its purpose was to contain the Spring of Gihon, the only water source near the city, so that the people of Jerusalem would continue to have safe water access during the siege, and the Assyrians would have to find their own inconvenient water source somewhere far away. The average height of the tunnel is about my height, and it runs for 533 meters. There are so many things about it that are amazing, starting with how people actually created it using chisels by lamp light, but it's all its mysteries that get to me, the ways and means and purposes and discoveries that we don't fully understand yet. 
It took us 45 minutes to walk through, and at the beginning the water hit us mid-thigh. It is obviously pitch black in there, and even with flashlights scattered throughout our convoy it was impossible to see the ceiling and the floor simultaneously. Some sections were only about five feet high, while during the last stretch towards the Pool of Siloam the ceiling reached heights of twelve feet and more. We had no concept of how long we'd been wading or how much further we had to go. The tunnel had a strange echo, and after a while we each began humming to ourselves, creating a pleasingly discordant sonorous wave that followed us until our guide, Allan Rabinowitz, asked us to stop walking, turn off our flashlights, and be silent. The darkness and the silence were complete. Hello, sensory deprivation therapy. Rabinowitz had told me to start singing Amazing Grace once the silence was full, so I did as I was instructed. We all sang, and after a few notes we began wading again. Once we got to "'tis grace hath brought me safe thus far," we turned a corner and saw the light from outside streaming in. As I stepped out onto dry ground, I heard the warm and muddy echo of the tunnel diffuse into individual voices singing out confidently that grace would lead them home. 

That un-embellished experience would have been enough for me. The tunnel would have even been enough without the song. But the fact that a Jewish man who is unapologetic about his religious and political beliefs (and disbeliefs) led a group of Christians in the singing of a hymn was a beautiful gift to me. It was in itself a glimpse of grace, a refraction of the hope that still shines out in dark places. It was what I needed. 

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Israeli impressions cont'd

As anticipated, new impressions and opinions of Israel/Jerusalem have bubbled up in my noggin since last I wrote. Last night I had a facebook chat with my oldest friend and expressed some of the things I was feeling when I came home while they were still fresh. I copied some of those ideas here and expanded on them. When thoughts are whirling about inside my head and kicking up emotions every which way, I find it impossible to edit content and make it neat, so here you go, the raw blog diet: 


I think it might feel easier if I'd had an opinion on the conflict before coming here


I am just so monumentally saddened by how evident it is that there is no solution, no compromise possible


anything anyone does or could do is just salt in someone's wound


but tonight I witnessed Jerusalem Day celebrations at the Western Wall


they're commemorating the capture of the Wall by Israel from Jordan during the Six-Day War


the Hasidic men were dancing and singing at the tops of their voices


and I remembered the longing I felt all throughout my childhood for a tradition that went back as far as Judaism, a tradition that hadn't changed


I remembered all those years of reading nothing but Potok


I remembered yearning, gut-wrenching yearning to have been born into an identity


and I saw the joy in their faces as they celebrated having reclaimed the epicentre of their homeland, even though that epicentre is still incomplete; it is the closest they can come today to what was once the temple, but it is not the temple


and I saw the policemen


and I saw the army


guns and guns and guns


and I walked through the security gates


and I thought of Isaiah and Lamentations


and the words of Jesus to the women of Jerusalem


and Revelation


and Weep No More

and And God Shall Wipe Away All Tears


and how the Zionists obviously hope to bring about the healing of the land and the restoration of the land, to fulfill the ultimate purpose of the land, by bringing Judaism back home to Jerusalem


but that with all that has happened since 1948, I cannot believe the establishment of Israel to be the fulfillment of biblical prophecy; I don't think that those prophecies will be fulfilled until the day when heaven and earth are finally renewed, because something like that can't be forced 


and I was overcome with the hopelessness of the situation, the sense that the killing and fear will never end

that two groups of people not just in Israel and the Palestinian Territories but all over the world seem incapable of achieving peace, and that every act from one party will always result in retaliation and payback from the other party. 


and I hope it gets easier to deal with, but at the same time I think that that would make it seem less important somehow. I don't want to feel less strongly, even though what I'm feeling is changeable at best and ambiguous at worst. 

Monday, May 10, 2010

Israeli impressions

May 10, 2010

Hello habibi, 

Today was my first full day in Jerusalem (we arrived yesterday after a long drive from the seaside resort town of Eilat), so I thought that I would spit out a few ideas in your direction before they start to overwhelm me. I intend to expand on them as more information and more various opinions enter my malleable brain, so by no means should you take these impressions as the final word on Israel from the Nansean perspective! 

Call me a tired postmodernist if you will, but I love a good juxtaposition. If I had the energy, I'm sure I could keep a separate blog just for listing every hilarious, surprising, or poignant juxtaposition that I have observed in the Middle East. Lazy as I am, I will only share one with you today. Imagine this: you approach a security gate in the Old City of Jerusalem that you know will lead you to the Western Wall. There are signs in a variety of languages warning you that you will not be admitted if you are not dressed with appropriate modesty. There are more signs alerting you to the sanctity of the space you are about to enter, about the holy presence that still resides in the stones of the ancient wall, about the proper attitude of respect with which you should enter the sacred space. You subconsciously formulate a set of expectations based on these many signs. You pass through the metal detector and proceed past the guards. You descend the steps, mesmerized by the huge wall that now faces you and the frenzy of activity at its base. The word 'fervor' bubbles up in your brain. But as you reach the base of the stairs, you look to your left, and out of an old stone archway process three teenage boys in tan uniforms and tall black army boots, around whose shoulders are slung large automatic rifles. Their pants are hanging so low that were their shirts not tucked in, you would be seeing more than you bargained for. But ah, the finishing touch is this: they are each eating an ice cream treat.  
I'm pretty sure that you're all capable of reading into that. 

Another funny thing that in reality wasn't at all funny struck me when I was returning to Tantur from the Old City on the bus (one of the Israeli buses, mind you, because the Palestinian buses are too full in the early evenings what with all the Palestinian workers leaving Jerusalem at the end of the workday). A rotund ginger boy of about fourteen stepped onto the bus wearing a t-shirt that read "BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD." Although he was not named on the t-shirt, I'm sure that we all remember that the author of that quotable phrase is Gandhi, the pioneer of non-violent resistance.  I might not have thought anything of it had it not been for the Introduction to Islam lecture with which we began our day. 
While answering the last question posed by the class, our lecturer Mustafa Abu Sway made mention of a Palestinian Christian man whose teachings he had followed in the 1980s. This man's name is Mubarak Awad, and he attempted to apply the principles of non-violent resistance to the situation facing Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories. He was deported. 
I realized that I was sitting on a bus in the most confusing city in the world. My mind has vertigo, and I won't count on it abating any time soon. 

we interrupt this rant with another rant

May 6, 2010


This evening the most wonderful thing happened.

I arrived back at the hotel after an exhilarating cab ride from the souk in downtown Amman. I had been shopping in the souk for about three hours with Bill, Laurie, and Nathan. While there, I discovered many interesting things, including numerous brightly embroidered kaftans (one of which I purchased pour moi), pungent halal meats, baby-and/or travel-sized hookah pipes, and that Jordanian men are in fact no better behaved than Syrian men. I grew quite appalled at the openness with which they gawked at me, and also began to deeply regret opting for walking shorts that exposed my knees. This time, instead of only openly staring at my face and hair, they gave me intensely un-subtle once-overs that featured sometimes-prolonged forays into the Hannah's Legs Appreciation Society. The thing that keeps on alternately amusing and astounding me is that these men don't seem to realize that I can see them looking at me. ANYWAY. One of the foundational points of the story is the contrast that this scenario makes with the scenario to come.

So, I returned to the hotel from the souk. After I had freshened up a bit and tried on my kaftan (hilarious!), I returned to the lobby in order to find myself some delicious Western-Jordanian fusion buffet. But when the elevator door opened, my ears were greeted by the most delightful cacophony of drumming, clapping, and joyful singing. My curiosity was piqued and there was only one cure! I easily discerned that the source of the jamboree was the grand staircase descending from the lobby to the basement; every step was covered with Arab men, women, and babies who were watching the ruckus below. Now, gentle readers, I know that you are wondering, What ruckus, Nans? Well, gentle readers, you are in luck since I am about to assuage your curiosity. 

At the bottom stair a woman was standing in a white dress and white hooded cape- obviously, she was a bride. But she was standing alone. In front of her there was a crazy mess of jubilation: four men dressed in pin-striped bedouin kaftans and headdresses who were dancing and singing in response to two other bedouin-clad young men; all the young men present dancing with their arms up, clasping each other's hands, letting loose to an insane degree; two men playing complicated rhythms on hand drums; four young members of the bridal party standing still, holding tall candles and wearing sleeveless white over-embellished dresses. The song went on for about fifteen minutes, without a sign of boredom or exhaustion from any of its participants. I have seen celebrations on tv, but I have never been in the same room as one. I have never celebrated like that. I have never seen honest, exuberant, ecstatic happiness like that up close. The people standing next to me were intrigued; I was choking back tears. 


Later that night I started thinking about hospitality. I don't think that's too far a leap from the idea of celebration. I raised the topic with my meal partner, and it spurred on the greatest conversation I've had in a very long time. We exchanged numerous stories from our lives until we landed on altogether different topics, but yet somehow managed to retain a foundational layer that united all our thoughts. I think that most people who spend any consequential amount of time with people who suffer in extreme poverty will come back home with stories of these people's overwhelming generosity and hospitality. I doubt that I will forget the story this friend of mine told me about her time in India seven years ago. She was with a group of college students who were going door to door in isolated villages and talking about their lives as Christians. Obviously throughout this venture they came face to face with the many facets of destitution. Many of the people they met invited the group in for chai, but one of the families actually invited them to have dinner in their home. My friend tells me that this family had absolutely nothing save one chicken that provided them with eggs, and this chicken they killed and cooked in order to feed these Canadian students they had just met. That is hospitality, a kind of hospitality I have never heard of or encountered myself in North America. I think we have come to misunderstand the definition of hospitality; we have stripped it down to the point of rendering it synonymous with welcome or hosting. To be a host takes no spiritual fortitude; it requires no faith whatsoever. Hospitality on the other hand depends entirely on unwavering faith in a good Provider. It also requires the giver to be free of concern for material goods, and yet to be simultaneously aware of those goods' value to another person. It requires perceptiveness and selflessness. The bedouin people of the Middle East are known for their hospitality. They live a nomadic existence in the desert, in the wild, or in the outskirts of society, and because of this lifestyle they have few possessions. But if a traveller stumbles upon a bedouin tent, the owners of that tent will without fail welcome the traveller into their midst and offer her tea, food, and a place to spend the night. Only after she has spent three nights among them will the bedouins ask the traveller where she came from or where she is going. The need, not the reasons for it, are the bedouins' concern. 

Hospitable acceptance such as this requires a great deal of grace; grace requires freedom, and freedom calls for celebration. It is no mystery and no surprise that the contemporary West is content without grace. We are pretty content with ourselves and attribute our every success to our own intelligence, skill, and effort. We think that we are beyond grace, but as I have stated, we can only receive freedom once we have opened ourselves, even relinquished our selves, to the grace of God. 

Leaning on that bannister at the Geneva Hotel, I was overcome with the hope that my culture will one day be able to celebrate in a similarly unabashed way. I was struck by the wedding as a microcosmic example of Eastern and Western culture. Our weddings are often contrived, micromanaged, straight-laced, and artificial, and as a result they tend to come across as boring, awkward, and meaningless. They are so controlled that they belie the truth behind it all: it is the continual grace of God that will keep a couple together until death. Without God, all the hard work in the world will eventually come to nothing. 


Yeah, not quite the same as chauvinism and hummus. 


Sunday, May 9, 2010

upon alighting at Amman

May 5, 2010


Hello gentle readers,


So, I think I've been in the Greater Holy Land for a week now, but I could be wrong. We do so much each day, we spent what felt like two weeks on planes and in airports trying to get here, and we lost so many hours to the time change that a day has begun to feel like an antiquated and negligible unit with which to measure time. I have seen so much up to this point that I have already begun to forget where I've been and what I've seen. I wish I'd had better internet connections so that I could have kept you updated with my activities instead of getting to this point and feeling overwhelmed by the thought of summarizing the trip thus far. I also wish my camera hadn't broken the second I put lithium batteries in it at the beginning of our first day in Damascus. Thankfully, my roommate had an extra camera, but without the proper cord I'm unable to transfer pictures onto my computer and keep you updated that way. Ah, the unexpected and obstacles of travel! Oh wait! Actually, as I was formulating my thoughts in order to convey them cogently to you, I MacGyvered a way to transfer my photos. Stay tuned for the results of this, the latest miracle to occur in the Holy Land. 


Anyhoozers, about an hour ago we arrived in Amman, the capital city of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. I have to say, I heard some awful stories about this country, but I'm having difficulty believing them now that I'm here. Jordan is absolutely beautiful. We spent the last day and a half in the north-western region which is where the majority of the country's olive and almond trees are located; seeing the terraced slopes and disciplined greenery thereupon instantly brought my thoughts back to that other blessed land, Tuscany. 

Being in countries like Syria and Jordan has made me wish that I understood more about the political history of the Middle East. Every ten minutes our guide makes reference to some war or other, some international land dispute, or some region that I know I should be familiar with, but I'm just not. I didn't have time to prepare myself properly for this trip, and I discovered that I left all the reading packets I received for this part of the trip at home. At least the principles still make sense to me. Today, we journeyed to the ancient Roman/Christian city of Gadara, which overlooks the Sea of Galilee and part of the Jordan Valley. We could see the Israel/Jordan border and the Golan Heights that have been the site of so much conflict between Israel and Syria ever since Israel's inception. But our minds were opened to the fact that these disputes have had far less to do with land, oil, or even religion than they have had to do with water. Here, water is everything. However lush the northern regions of the country might be, Jordan is one of the poorest countries in the world where water is concerned. In Canada, we take water for granted, there's no question about that. But I had not considered that my taking a natural resource for granted could actually hamper my understanding of a seemingly never-ending political conflict that the entire world is caught up in. It is interesting to gain some perspective on Israel from a land that is currently enjoying peace with that controversial country. Israel is not a taboo topic in Jordan, but it definitely is in Syria. The day we arrived in Damascus, we had a formal dialogue with two sheikhs, three professors from the Al Fatih Islamic Institute, and the Grand Mufti of Damascus. At one point in the dialogue (the point at which it ceased being a dialogue), the sheikh who was our host apparently intuited that Charles' questions and comments had something to do with the issue of Islam and Israel (which they absolutely did not), and so he began an enraged rant against the state of Israel. Nothing could be said or done to slow his passionate momentum; he appeared to be overheating as much emotionally as he was physically. It was apparent that most of the sheikh's fellows on the Islamic panel were in agreement with him; those who had other opinions were careful to keep their eyes averted from his sight line. We had thought that in a diplomatic, organized setting like the one they had established for our dialogue we would be able to speak at least cautiously about Israel in order for some light to be shed on the Syrian/Muslim stance on Israel. We got much more than we bargained for, which was illuminating in a different way. Thankfully, Arabic people seem perfectly comfortable with yelling and then forgetting it ever happened; following his soliloquy the sheikh welcomed us into his home and treated us to drinks, music, speeches, and heaps of food. 

Visiting both Syria and Jordan has been very informative historically and gastronomically speaking, but I think the information I will value most as time passes is that which I have learned about the internal conflicts of the Middle East. We tend to think of this region of the world as one big minefield. We think of women covered head to foot, unquenchable bloodlust, expansive deserts, oil barons, and violent religious fundamentalism, but there are so many wonderful things happening in the Middle East, so many wonderful things that have happened over the millennia, and we cannot turn a blind eye to that. The people here adore their rulers and trust them, and recently they have had some pretty good reasons to do so. But in some cases, they have appropriated all the negative qualities of the West while being slow to accept the West's good ideas. Lasting progress must germinate slowly in places where tradition goes back so much further than we in our young country can imagine. 

I'm updating myself

Hello, all you friends and lovers.
So, here's the deal: I've been travelling through the greater Holy Land for the last two weeks or so (time moves differently in this part of the world, so it's hard to know for sure), but I haven't had free & easy internet access until now. I've written down a few descriptions and contemplations along the way, and I would like to share them with you, so I will be posting them in chronological order but very belatedly. I hope to add photos to them when I get more time, so keep checking back! 

Much love.