Yom Kippur

Yom Kippur - the only day I can sit at my leisure in the middle of a road and only worry about being hit by bicycles or baby strollers. No one drives. It's great - and super quiet. I went for a walk with some friends just to enjoy the quiet everywhere. The question we had was what do Israelis do on Yom Kippur? They don't drive, they don't bathe, they don't wear leather shoes or eat or drink. So what do they do? They go to synagogue and sing. They pray. They read things. They go for long walks with friends. The country is completely shut down, completely quiet, but everything feels purer, less distracting and busy and stressful. It is a day to stop and think and repent of sins and refocus ourselves. Even non-practicing Jews take part. It's an amazingly peaceful feeling when everything shuts down and there are absolutely no demands for the day. I wouldn't mind doing this once a year - or even once a month. Once the sun goes down, life begins again - big meals, party, and WORK. They have only two days till the Sabbath begins and all work must stop, and then less than one day till Succot begins on Sunday evening - the Feast of Booths to celebrate the harvest, and they have to build all the booths before the festival begins. I walked to the Western Wall that night to see if anything was happening - there were few people at the wall itself but there were a lot of men out and about cutting down massive palm branches and assembly metal structures to lay them on. A professor later told us that they will be working through the night for the next few nights to get everything ready in time. 



 

The Amazing Race

Have you ever watched the Amazing Race? I loved that show – I thought it was totally awesome, but I never really wanted to be a contestant. I thought many of the contestants were terribly rude and insensitive of the people and cultures they encountered and for all of their traveling they seemed to learn surprisingly little about the places they went. And their planning! They were often terribly ill prepared for the situations they found themselves in. It was fun to watch, if for no other reason than to think, “I will never travel like that. Ever.”

Now for my confession: I was that person today. I felt terrible about it, too. Today was our field study to Samaria and our class rents a bus and we go out looking just like tourists – but tourists with notebooks and lots of old maps. The bus left at 7:00 AM. My roommate and I were not on it. We had both set alarms on our phones, the typical way of waking up, and assumed we would wake up to the ringing of both alarms at 6:15 AM. We woke up at the same time – but it was at 7:45 AM. Both our phones had died in the night (mine was on the charger but the charger wasn’t plugged in!) The sun looked way too high in the sky to be 6 AM. Oh, no. We missed the bus – we missed the all day field study – we missed the bus! Everyone on campus was gone.

So we threw on clothes, figured out where to find a taxi, grabbed some breakfast and were out the door. Riane (my roommate) had charged her phone enough in the ensuing panic to be able to call our professor and figure out where to meet them if we could get there within the hour. My phone still doesn’t make calls in Israel. We stopped the first taxi we saw and asked him how much to drive to Shiloh, intending to barter the price down a bit. But this taxi driver, the only taxi in sight, spoke no English. The first person I have met in Israel who speaks no English at all. So we hop in and start driving – and then realize by his phone call to someone else that he doesn’t know where Shiloh is- and we didn’t either. We had no address, just a copy of an ancient map with the word “Shiloh” printed on it in English. Eventually it got figured out and Riane says, “Okay good. The faster we can get there, the better. Fast, fast, fast.” I add, “To-da’ ” – thank you in Hebrew, the only Hebrew word I know other than ‘excuse me’. Apparently he was familiar with the word “fast”.

We were making good time and I started to relax. The drive would cost us 300 shekels ($75) but we would still make it to class. I dug around in my bag for my water bottle and realized I was missing something – an important something. I didn’t have my wallet. I had left it on the counter where I made my breakfast sandwich. I have never, ever, lost my wallet. What a day for firsts.

Riane – thank God! – had enough to cover the entire cab fare and her phone lasted long enough to find our class. We found our bus, found our class, missed very little of the day (but didn’t get to see ancient Shiloh), got to see Shechem, Mt. Gerizim (the Samaritan’s holy mountain), a Samaritan synagogue, and ancient Samaria itself. But upon reflection, I realize this day could have ended up entirely differently. I was in a taxi cab going across the country into the West Bank in search of a bus. I had no usable language skills, no cell phone, and no money. I was that awful contestant on The Amazing Race, only I had no camera crew to back me up if I got into trouble. Praise God for his protection, his providence, his mercies.

Samaria

Mt. Gerizim was the mountain where Joshua renewed the Lord's covenant. Then it became the Samaritan's holy mountain - they copied the Jewish religion with the exception that everything in their scriptures references Mt. Gerizim where the other scriptures refer to other mountains. According to them, Moses got the ten commandments on Mt. Gerizim. The messiah would return to Mt. Gerizim, etc. They built a huge temple here (it was later completely destroyed - no foundation left even). You know the story of Jesus talking to the Samaritan woman and the reference to worshiping on their mountain rather than in Jerusalem? This is the mountain. Then the Byzantines built a church here (the ruins you see above). Than it was Palestinian territory. Than Israel turned it into a national park.

It's a little weird when Byzantine sites are new enough to be considered post-interesting.

 

The view from Samaria is BEAUTIFUL

 

Me and a Roman amphitheater in Samaria - Herod conquered it and renamed it Sebastia

 

I liked the flowers.

 

I just think Samaria/Sebastia is pretty cool.

 

Kids playing in the city around ancient Shechem.

 

Standing stone and temple foundation at Shechem.

 

The double sliding gate at Shechem - and we thought that was a recent innovation.

 

We tried to re-enact the sliding gate. That thing had to be enormous!

 

Eating green olives...

...is not recommended.

 

I know this is hard to see, but last night I heard a lot of music and yelling and clapping while working in the library, so I looked out the window and bam! There was a very random Israeli dance party going down outside our gate. The whole city last night was crazy - people were flocking to the Western Wall dancing, singing, shouting, banging on drums and playing the shofar (ram's horn). Tonight is Sabbath so no one is out but there are still fireworks going off. The best we can tell, this is all just early celebration of Yom Kippur next Wednesday.

 

Peace ya'll!

 

Random notes

It’s really weird to drive through the winding streets of an ancient town and have all the residents you pass, whether they are driving, or walking, or working, or playing soccer in the street, or eating dinner on their porch, stop what they are doing to stare at you.

US college students, or maybe it’s just the ones I am around, like to climb on things. On everything. Everywhere. Dr. Barki should be proud of us: if there is a sign that says to not cross something or go no further, we pretend we can’t read. If there is no bridge to somewhere we want to go, we make bridges. We are observant. We are inquisitive. He told us to “Open your eyes and learn” – I think the number of things we have walked on suggests we are doing a good job of that. We went in search of Jacob’s alter through the ruins on Mt. Gerizim. We sat on the remains of a Roman amphitheater in Samaria. We pretended to be the gate in the gate walls of Shechem. We tried to eat green olives off the tree after being told it was a bad idea. (It was a bad idea. My tongue is still burning with the bitterness.) And that was just today.

Many Jews are totally secular. Yet many religious Jews would say that anyone who doesn’t practice the Jewish religion are not Jewish – they are Gentile. So Jews who become Christians are not considered Jews anymore (according to certain Jews, but not all of them). Let’s just be really confusing about the line between ethnicity and religion.

Many Palestinians are Jewish descendents who converted to Islam in order to stay in the land. Some of them continue to practice Shabbat by lighting candles – simply because all of their ancestors did it, they don’t know why. Palestinians who are Jewish descendents will often deny it and refuse to be associated as such.

Here, the religion you are born into is the religion you stay – Christian, Jewish or Islamic. Religion is not an individual decision but is completely integrated with community. No one would consider becoming an atheist here, they would simply refrain from attending religious services as much. Someone who is raised Armenian Orthodox would never consider becoming a Catholic much less becoming Jewish or Muslim. It would require a total abandon of family and community. Unlike in the West, religion here is still a main identifier and dictates who you speak to, who you spend time with, who is your neighbor.

The different religions share the same spaces in Jerusalem but rarely intersect – if you are Jewish you shop at Jewish shops, use Jewish mechanics, go to Jewish restaurants. The same for Palestinians. Even though I hear Hebrew and Arabic on an equal basis in the city, few people are bilingual because they rarely have occasion to speak to someone from the other side.

People here like to identify everyone, to categorize them and decide what to do with them. But people like me defy the normal categories. I don’t look Arab, so I can’t be Palestinian, I don’t speak Hebrew so I can’t be Jewish, I’m clearly Western, and when I speak they know I’m an American, but I act like I live here, unlike a tourist. I have a backpack, but no camera so I must be a college student. They recall that there is a non-Jewish University (Brigham Young University) with a campus on the Mount of Olives, so the obvious conclusion that they arrive at is that I must be Mormon.

The people in Bethlehem are very welcoming of US college students.

Bedouin dresses have secret pockets in the piece that covers the chest – there was a Bedouin woman on the bus next to me, she keeps her wallet in her secret pocket. NOTE: when you are constantly pulling your wallet out of a secret pocket on a public bus to check if it is still there, it ceases to be a secret pocket. This applies to all the “secret” places tourists keep their money, as well. But also note, unlike the tourist with their pants or waste pockets, the Bedouin woman will probably know if someone is trying to pickpocket her.

Yom Kippur is the most holy day of the year- more so than Passover. This year the fast begins Tuesday evening and goes all day Wednesday, September 26^th. The holiday revolves around spending time in prayer and begging God for the forgiveness of sin. People often dress in all white clothing and do not eat or drink water, bath, wear leather shoes, or work until sundown on Wednesday (Jewish days follow the rising and setting of the sun, not the hands on a clock). Wednesday night there is a huge celebration – people dance around with the Torah, I will describe it more when I see it for myself. Out of respect for our neighbors, the students at JUC are requested to not make noise outside the building and to not be seen eating or drinking off campus during the fast. It has been suggested that we use the day off from classes to remember the forgiveness of God as well and spend at least a portion of the day in prayer or reading Scripture. Yay for high holy days! I’m looking forward to seeing this one!

Slideshow

 

Below is a slideshow of a weekend at JUC. We start off with Shabbat dinner and vespers (short worship service with praise songs and a message) than go straight to sleep - the next day is a field study, a long day on the road hiking and learning and entertaining ourselves at rest stops and every point in between. This weekend we went out to the lands alloted to Benjamin, hitting up Jericho and its archaeological remains (there are about 25 cities of Jericho built right on top of each other. It became a tel - a large unnatural looking hill created from cities built on top of the ruins of previous cities that have collapsed). Jericho dates back 10,000 years and enjoys claiming the title of being the oldest city in the world - my skeptical mind keeps adding "that we know of so far". We also stopped at the ruins of Gezer, Herod's winter palace in Jericho, saw the Kelt Canyon in the Great Rift Valley, HIKED through the Wadi Kelt into Jericho, stopped by the Nebi Samwil (traditional, but not actual, tomb of the prophet Samuel), and played with the dirt from Bedouin fields. Many Bedouins in Israel are beginning to settle down, getting involved in agriculture rather than constantly moving around. We stopped by a Bedouin field to examine traditional ground markers - just stones stacked on top of each other at the corners of each field, and feel the dirt that makes for good farming in comparison to the chalky, dry, sticky dust of the wilderness. 

 

 

Shabbat dinner at JUC (photo thanks to Dr. Stone)

 

Kelt Canyon / Judean Wilderness - I absolutely love the theological elements that come along with the wilderness. It was a place of fear and chaos to the Israelites because it meant difficulty and very possible death. It represented pre-creation to them, the opposite of order and peace. Yet the prophet Jeremiah praised it as a place of richness and peace, where he could hear God and learn to depend on him. Elijah fled from Ahab into the wilderness where God revealed himself in a gentle whisper. Our professor pointed out the number of Biblical figures who spent time in the wilderness - from Abraham, to the Israelites, to Jesus. The wilderness is a place where God forms humans into people that he can use. He takes them all through the wilderness and many of them come out stronger because of it.

 

Would you like a camel ride? How about a necklace? At least take a scarf - they'll tie it on your head before you can tell them you have no money!

 

Bath-house of Herod's winter palace in Jericho - met some Bedouin kids who were fascinated with Charley.

Took an hour long hike through the Wadi Kelt down to Jericho. These cliff walls are filled with natural caves that the desert monks used to live in in an attempt to get away from the distractions of the world. Some of the monastic communities still survive here.

 

Prof. Alexander explaining Bedouin farming practices

 

Sifting the beautiful tera rosa soil

 

The ruins of Gezer. This city was constantly changing hands because it was indefensible but served as an excellent lookout for other cities. The city's layout is identical to that of two other cities, suggesting a strong, centralized government - points to Solomon.

 

View from Gezer of the Aijalon Valley, if I had taken a picture in the opposite direction from this same spot you would see the Mediterranean - all of Israel is visible from just one spot. Great look-out location.

 

Standing stones near Gezer - little is known about these stones except that they are very, very old. As in, pre-Abraham. Possible pagan.

So naturally we want to know how many JUC students we can fit on top of one.

 

Sunsetting on my head. Good day - long day - time to eat dinner, take a shower and watch Star Wars with friends.

 

 

 

 

Chapter...3?

So I somewhat realize my last post is a little out of the blue. My apologies. I've been getting a lot of time to think, which can be good and bad. It means I get to sort things out and feel more peaceful but I can also live in my head too much. Tonight is the Sabbath, we will have a meal together, pray, sing praise songs, and reflect on what God has given us. I felt like I needed to sort a few things out on paper before that, which is what led to the previous post.

This week has been a good week, lots of classes, lots of new experiences. I volunteered at an organization called Musalaha (Arabic for Reconciliation). They are working towards getting Jewish and Arab Christians to talk together (reconcile) and so begin the reconciliation between the two people groups. I am very excited to get to be a part of it, even if my role is simply filing papers and punching holes in name tags. I learned a lot just in the three hours I was there talking with the other employees and finding out how they became connected with Musalaha. I will be able to go there once a week to learn.

Aside from that, I cannot think of anything particularly new that has happened. Life is finally beginning to settle into a routine, albeit an unusual one to me in that it presents me with more time to stop and think than I am used to. Tomorrow we go on a field study to the tribal lands of Benjamin, in the Wilderness (desert). Here are (finally!) some pictures of last week's field study.

The Judean Wilderness - there is a strong contrast in the line between Jerusalem, where we were standing, and the sudden view of miles of nothing. It was a little amazing to stand on Mount Scopus and see the Mediterranean Sea on one side and the country of Jordon on the other - Israel is tiny enough that you can stand on a high point and see either side of its borders.

Class session by a first century tomb - Prof. Alexander teaching, Indiana Jones observing.

 

Sheep!

 

Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem

 

There are a variety of Western influences in Bethlehem - Stars & Bucks being only one of them. Good coffee.

 

We speculate that we are the best looking things to adorn Herod's Herodium since Rome destroyed it. (I'm the purple shirt, second from the right)

 

The Herodium - looks like a volcano because Herod the Great builder (a man of no small ambition) made two small mountains into one mountain, built a palace on top, and had it completely walled up after he died and was buried in it. Fast forward a few years, Jewish rebels were hiding out in it and Rome destroyed it.

View from the Herodium - this is the land near Bethlehem, where David probably did a lot of shepherding. It was cool to sit down and look at it and figure out what kind of person a shepherd here would have to be to survive and how that helped him become the enormously influential king he was.

 

Ever wonder how Rome destroyed stuff? Try launching a few of these at stone walls and see what happens.

A sliver of what was once the Garden of Gethsemane. Since Jesus' time it has been split up between a variety of churches, all of which have their own little parcel of it. This piece belongs to the Church of All Nations - quite possibly one of the most subtle and meditatively ornate churches I have ever been in.

The aforementioned Church of All Nations

 

Inside the church - all the windows were made of blue and purple alabaster to recreate the feeling of twilight in Gethsemane.

 

Sambookie's latte and pastry - great Thursday breakfast tradition starting right there!

 

Happy Shabbat friends!

 

Anchor Lines

Where do I derive my identity from? From my nationality? From my religion? From my family? From what I do or study or am interested in? From my friends? From where I live? Yes and more. All of these identifiers interact with each other and work together to create who I am. But when I am challenged to give my identity back to God – then who am I? When I abandon myself to him and his will for me, when I give up my own will and bring myself into alignment with God’s, what is my identity? I cannot hold onto all my identifiers when I give my identity to one of them. The others must take second place. I am freed from the tug-of-war with the others and am released to identify with only one. But the coolest thing is this: he gives me back a new identity in him and once I put that as the only identity that matters, I know my place within the others.

I think the last four hours of writing and deleting nonsense can be boiled down to this:

“God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other. Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as a pathway to peace, taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it, trusting that You will make all things right, if I surrender to Your will, so that I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with You forever in the next.” -Reinhold Niebuhr

Four hours, and I didn’t even write it myself. This is what I have reduced all of my thoughts this week to. All the clutter, all the ideas, all the philosophies that I am exposed to, the push-and-pull of living in a different world, just to let it go and say, “I trust you, I surrender to you, I let go of all the other things that I derive my identity from and I cling only to you.” Not “do things the way that make sense to me – fulfill your promises as I have understood them” but, “your will be done.” Just that – your will be done.  In this whirl-wind of ideas and philosophies and confusion, you are my anchor-line. You are what I come back to. You are Truth. You are the Way. You are Life.

Romans 8:37-39. “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” This is where my identity rests.

 

Gotta love Pictures

Just some photos to give you stuff to look at. I had an awesome weekend hiking in the Golan Heights along the Black Canyon trail. The hike is in a closed national park which can only be accessed through specific guides. Because we were a larger group, about 23 people, we had three guides, all of whom were totally awesome. I believe it needs to be said that Israelis have a great, though extremely dry, sense of humor. Most of the jokes we hesitated at as they were in referrence to possible death or injury, but all the same, once we realized it was a joke, it was funny.

Our JUC awesomeness coming out as we emerge from the canyon. I believe this was the "strong man" pose, but that wasn't well communicated and the guide who took the picture never told us before he snapped the photo.

 

I finally got to see an Israeli sunrise! We left school at 4 AM and arrived in the Golan Heights by 7:15 ready to hike.

 

Our guide's first words: "Welcome to the Black Canyon. This is the most difficult hike in all Israel. It is also the most fun." The next words he addressed to the group: "Don't lose your equipment when you jump down the waterfall. It's very expensive." Heck - I'm being told to jump down a waterfall! I'm not that worried about the equipment. While we waited for everyone in our group to catch up, several people decided to reclimb the canyon walls and jump in.

The next waterfall was a little more difficult and we repelled down it instead. Repelling is awesome. It is also one of the most terrifying things I have ever done. The rope was several feet too short, but no big deal: we fell into a river. I've never been so happy to fall into a river.

In total we hiked/repelled/jumped three waterfalls, went swimming a few times, and got lost a few times (not that lost - while they unhooked the repelling ropes, the guides told us to follow the "path" till we got to a green sign. When you are in a canyon, there's kind of only one direction to go: forward. We just went forward in an upward direction which made things a little harder until the guides caught up.) After we reached the green sign, the guides led us up a 400+ staired hill and over an extremely large and rocky field to the parking lot. By the way, in case you were wondering, Israel has a lot of rocks. I can't imagine how many years it would take to clear an acre of land of rocks in order to grow something on it. It's no wonder that land is a prized inheritance here - their ancestors worked years to clear it for them! Had we continued in the canyon we would have eventually come out into the Sea of Galilee, about another day's hike from where we were. Instead of hiking it, I took a picture as we drove past. It was described to me as a giant pond or a very small lake but it seemed pretty large from the road. We will get the opportunity for a closer look on a field study - I believe this coming Saturday.

Temple Ideas

Another day of exciting adventures. First of all: I have mail! A wonderful letter from my mom :-) I carried it around with me all day and re-read it on the bus to Bethlehem. If anyone is interested, I love getting letters! The address here is:

Lauren Rook
Jerusalem University College
PO Box 1276, Mt. Zion
Aravnah HaYevosi 3
Jerusalem, 91012  ISRAEL



 
Today began with a trip out to Dome of the Rock. It is right next to the Western Wall (often referred to as the Wailing Wall - it is the last remaining wall of what is believed to be Herod's temple). The scene you see in the picture to the side is of the men's side of the Western Wall. Further to the right is the women's section.

Dome of the Rock is the mosque built on the Temple Mount where the old Jewish temple once stood. The site is holy to Jews because it is the location of their old temple, and it is sacred to Muslims because it is where Mohammad is believed to have ascended. Modesty is a MUST at both the mosque and the Wall - neither men nor women will be allowed near if not properly dressed. We saw a man and woman near the Western Wall who were wrapping towels round their waists because their shorts were too short and were considered disrespectful. Once we entered the grounds at the Dome of the Rock I put a scarf over my hair but a guard asked me to lend it to my friend to wear over her shoulders as she was wearing a shirt that had a wide neckline. We were allowed to walk around the Dome of the Rock, but because we are women and non-Muslims we were not allowed inside.

 

Some of the people I was with said that they felt a sense of spiritual oppression while on the Temple Mount. I can’t say that I sensed that. I did feel like I was in a place that was foreign to me and that I didn’t belong there, especially because I was wearing pants and a t-shirt and was taking pictures with a camera while other women were covered head to toe, completely wrapping their faces in scarves. I felt admiration for the beauty of the mosque and the care that had been put into every detail of it. It is certainly one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen. It was amazing to see the dedication of the people who worshiped at the mosque and the Western Wall and their reverence for holiness.

Now here is where I may lose you, and that’s fine. This isn’t just a travel blog – it’s a record of the changes in me and the thoughts that I have while experiencing new things. So be warned – my thoughts sometimes tend toward the religious. I started reflecting on all of these things: holiness, temples, reverence, worship, presence of God, etc. Although I think that the Wall is symbolically beautiful, and the Mosque is physically so, I think there is even more beauty in the Temple idea that is presented through Christ. The Jews of the New Testament period were very proud of their new temple which Herod had built for them – it was far larger than the temple of Solomon’s day and was a glory to see. They were waiting for God to indwell it with his living presence – his Shekinah glory, just as he had indwelt Solomon’s temple centuries before, making it so beautiful and powerful that the priests could not even enter the building (2 Chronicles 7:1-3). God’s presence eventually departed and the temple was later sacked and destroyed but Israel looked forward to the day when he would return and judge their enemies. They waited in vain – it never happened. Paul took their centuries of hope and flipped it around when he was writing to the church in Corinth, suggesting that God had indeed returned and indwelt his temple but that it wasn’t the temple everyone was expecting. This time it was a living, universal and mobile temple, one where he could dwell in and be worshipped throughout the world by Jews and Gentiles, male and female. Worship of God no longer belonged to one people group to hold over the heads of others, he wasn’t just to be found in one geographic location or building. And sacrifices no longer needed to be made on a regular bases to absolve people of sin and purify them - there had now been a perfect sacrifice which ended the need for sunstitutes.

The new temple was the body of Christ (recall John 2:13-22 where Jesus refers to himself as a temple that would be destroyed and raised back), and since we have Christ living in us, we are part of his temple; when we are gathered with other believers he is in the midst of us (Matt. 18:20). Paul specifically uses “temple language” throughout 1 and 2 Corinthians reminding believers that they are the temple of the Holy Spirit and are to treat their bodies and each other as though they are holy. He redefines what the return of God looks like by making the Kingdom of God a spiritual kingdom.

Paul wasn't the first or only one to view Christians in this light – the book of Acts records Stephen once saying in the presence of the pre-Jesus Paul, “The Most High doesn’t live in temples made by human hands” (Acts 7:48). Paul repeated this in Athens saying, “Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples and human hands can’t serve his needs” (Acts 17:24). Peter, too, used the symbolic reference when referring to Christ as a living cornerstone of the new temple, placing believers as its living stones built on top (1 Peter 2:4-9). These stones, these people, were rejected by the Jews as worthless, even proving to be stones that cause them to stumble, people that were just in the way, but God has a greater purpose for them. Perhaps this is what Paul had in mind when he referred to God using those things despised by the world to bring what the world considers important (like a really big temple building) to be nothing (1 Cor. 1:28).

I think it is amazing to be in Jerusalem and to see the continuation of these temple buildings and how people continue to respect them. I also am amazed by the reverence that many Christians here have for their own holy sites, like the Holy Sepulcher and the Church of the Nativity. Then I see how Christians treat each other here and the hatred that denominations have for each other as they fight about who has the right to certain sites. It seems that some of them have entirely missed the point. In God’s wisdom, worship of him was to be transformed so that it would be embodied in our relationships with each other and would be performed when we gather together. He is the God of the universal kingdom and a universal temple. He has indeed returned to his temple and it is not just a house where he lives, or a church where he is worshipped and taught about – 1 Corinthians specifically uses the word temple to describe the body of Christ. A living, breathing temple, made up of all of his worshippers wherever they are. It is associated with a life of constant prayer, a constant reminder of the only sacrificial death to give us life, a constant sacrifice of ourselves as we follow that example. The closest place we can be to God while we live on this earth is when we are in relationships with other believers, worshipping him.