Traveling Light: 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.