(NOTE, IF A PIC LOOKS PRETTY CLICK ON IT AND YOU WILL SEE IT BIGGER, gah, I wish I'd gotten my blog on wordpress.)
Doug, Bart's husband is home for work and coming over for dinner in a couple of days and he's bringing Bomba from Bart. I brought back a suitcase full on my trip there and the guy at the airport rolled his eyes and told me I could buy it in America... but I don't know where... kinda like Bart and black beans... so she's sending us our favorite with the peanut butter filling. At any rate, it goaded me into finishing the chronicles of possibly my only grand adventure overseas in this lifetime.
It's not as fresh so this will be less descriptive. I'm sad. Not that anyone else really cares. I wish I had thrown myself into blogging with fervor each night right when I got home while the euphoria of having been somewhere exotic and different was still running through me. I didn't. I laid plastered to the couch staring at fingerprints all over everything wondering when I would feel like cleaning my house again so the kids could fingerprint it again.
I think I'm on Saturday. After we wandered around looking for broken pottery and staring at the amazing desert fossils and rocks splashed with iron, I watched a film crew for a bit then we left the Bedouins. I will hold them in my heart forever. It was a beautiful and whimsical place but half of my joy was watching the people and to listen to them talk. I heard one young man talking in english with a very thick accent; both were in dread locks dressed in what looked like blankets to me and he was saying quite earnestly "I am trying to drink less coffee and more tea." It was something you'd hear the person at a table next to you in a restaurant in America say... but there we were at the edge of nowhere, camped on the border of a country so violent you don't dare cross and you hear this simple normal exchange. I chortled. (I admit I may not have chortled but I really felt the urge to type that word.)
We drove back to Jerusalem a completely different way through beautiful country. The desert with old ruins and a vast expanse,
gave way to rocky green mountains
Doug nicely pulled over and let me take pictures a couple times.
When we got back to Jerusalem it was Shabbat so you can't shop anywhere except the 24 hour stores which are exorbitantly priced... which we did. We recuperated that afternoon. Doug's back hurt fiercely and it made me feel guilty that he drove me literally all over Israel under great stress in rain etc... One more example of what the Bartlett's gave me; something I'll never be able to repay.
Sunday Doug had to go back to work. The boys school has an American schedule but he works an Israeli schedule. So, he gets Friday Saturday off, they get half of Friday and Saturday Sunday off. The rest of us got up, made scones and went to church.
Going to church was a very meaningful part of the trip to me. It was very spiritual. It was a beautiful Anglican church in the Old City. The service was nice, I enjoyed it very much but at the end, right there in the Old City, a stones throw from the via dolorosa I took communion. I knelt at an alter and the priest came to me and he placed a cracker in my palm then he pressed it until it broke and said "this is Christ's body broken for you." I've always tried to grasp it, make it feel real, absorb it... but with that simple motion he made it real. So real. I've never had a moment in communion like that. It twisted my heart and showed me what a shallow human I am.
We had lunch at a cute little place at the Mamilla mall. Had some cappuccino... of course. Then we wandered through the Old City. I saw some weird giant gold candelabra they have made for the next Temple which is very creepy to me ( I know that shocks people but I went through a place where they are collecting everything they need for the next temple and it gives me the willies) and the "Western Wall." Bart made me stand in front of them like a tourist for my picture. I felt... uncomfortable. There was no magic there for me.
Then we found some ruins. They were really cool. Nobody was there. And we saw the temple steps. Steps that maybe Jesus sat on and taught from. I wanted my picture there. Bart took it but I can't seem to find it. I look the same... like a tourist. It felt special though. Here's some various pictures of Hassidic Jews, the army, some cool old roman pillars and the ruins that I loved.
Doug, Bart's husband is home for work and coming over for dinner in a couple of days and he's bringing Bomba from Bart. I brought back a suitcase full on my trip there and the guy at the airport rolled his eyes and told me I could buy it in America... but I don't know where... kinda like Bart and black beans... so she's sending us our favorite with the peanut butter filling. At any rate, it goaded me into finishing the chronicles of possibly my only grand adventure overseas in this lifetime.
It's not as fresh so this will be less descriptive. I'm sad. Not that anyone else really cares. I wish I had thrown myself into blogging with fervor each night right when I got home while the euphoria of having been somewhere exotic and different was still running through me. I didn't. I laid plastered to the couch staring at fingerprints all over everything wondering when I would feel like cleaning my house again so the kids could fingerprint it again.
I think I'm on Saturday. After we wandered around looking for broken pottery and staring at the amazing desert fossils and rocks splashed with iron, I watched a film crew for a bit then we left the Bedouins. I will hold them in my heart forever. It was a beautiful and whimsical place but half of my joy was watching the people and to listen to them talk. I heard one young man talking in english with a very thick accent; both were in dread locks dressed in what looked like blankets to me and he was saying quite earnestly "I am trying to drink less coffee and more tea." It was something you'd hear the person at a table next to you in a restaurant in America say... but there we were at the edge of nowhere, camped on the border of a country so violent you don't dare cross and you hear this simple normal exchange. I chortled. (I admit I may not have chortled but I really felt the urge to type that word.)
We drove back to Jerusalem a completely different way through beautiful country. The desert with old ruins and a vast expanse,
followed by areas flooded by the spring rains...
then giant rolling hills like northwestern Arkansas only it was so old. So very old with beautiful rock terracing and grape vineyards and herds of sheep and goats.
When we got back to Jerusalem it was Shabbat so you can't shop anywhere except the 24 hour stores which are exorbitantly priced... which we did. We recuperated that afternoon. Doug's back hurt fiercely and it made me feel guilty that he drove me literally all over Israel under great stress in rain etc... One more example of what the Bartlett's gave me; something I'll never be able to repay.
Sunday Doug had to go back to work. The boys school has an American schedule but he works an Israeli schedule. So, he gets Friday Saturday off, they get half of Friday and Saturday Sunday off. The rest of us got up, made scones and went to church.
Going to church was a very meaningful part of the trip to me. It was very spiritual. It was a beautiful Anglican church in the Old City. The service was nice, I enjoyed it very much but at the end, right there in the Old City, a stones throw from the via dolorosa I took communion. I knelt at an alter and the priest came to me and he placed a cracker in my palm then he pressed it until it broke and said "this is Christ's body broken for you." I've always tried to grasp it, make it feel real, absorb it... but with that simple motion he made it real. So real. I've never had a moment in communion like that. It twisted my heart and showed me what a shallow human I am.
We had lunch at a cute little place at the Mamilla mall. Had some cappuccino... of course. Then we wandered through the Old City. I saw some weird giant gold candelabra they have made for the next Temple which is very creepy to me ( I know that shocks people but I went through a place where they are collecting everything they need for the next temple and it gives me the willies) and the "Western Wall." Bart made me stand in front of them like a tourist for my picture. I felt... uncomfortable. There was no magic there for me.
