Wednesday, March 31, 2010

To Run Away

Wednesday, March 31, 2010 -- Wednesday in Holy Week

Today's Readings for the Daily Office
(Book of Common Prayer, p. 957)
Psalms 55 (morning)       74 (evening)
Lamentations 2:1-10
2 Corinthians 1:23 - 2:11
Mark 12:1-11

NOTE:  Our services today will be at 10:00 a.m. (in the church) and at 6:15 (in the Parish Hall).  We will serve dinner starting at 5:15.

I can remember times when I planned seriously how I would run away from home.  It was during my childhood, and I was miserable.  I would fantasize about living somewhere else where people would be good to me, where I could have some sense of self-determination over my life.  I would start over, and not make the same mistakes that caused me problems now.  I worked through the complications of finding shelter, food, getting from place to place.  All of that was the hard part.  I never came up with a workable plan that didn't involve being dependent upon somebody else, who might make me as miserable as I was now.  So my thoughts of escape usually surrendered to sleep, or else to fantasy, when I simply imagined another life, where I was happy and empowered, and everyone was nice.

From Psalm 55:  "And I said, 'Oh, that I had wings like a dove!  I would fly away and be at rest.  I would flee to a far-off place and make my lodging in the wilderness.  I would hasten to escape from the stormy wind and tempest." 

The psalmist is in a conflict that threatened him from the outside.  (The description sounds like an enemy is conducting a siege against the city walls, but the metaphor works for any kind of external threat, foreign from one's intimates.)  But it is not the attack from the outside that causes him his deepest pain.  He is most bitter about the threat from within.  "Corruption is at the heart" of his situation.  He says he could have handled it if the only threat was enemies and outsiders, "but it was you, someone after my own heart, my companion, my own familiar friend.  We took sweet counsel together and walked with the throng in the house of God."  Personal sabotage and betrayal.  That is his deepest hurt. 

He has no satisfactory resolution within his power.  All he can do is cast his complaint upon God and trust.  "In the evening, in the morning, and at noonday, I will complain and lament, and God will hear my voice.  God will bring me safely back from the battle waged against me, for there are many who fight me." 

This psalm was probably chosen for today because it expresses some of the experience of Jesus during his last days.  He was under threat and duress from many enemies who intended him harm.  But his most anguished threat must have been the betrayal of his own close friend and confidant Judas.  Our gospels remember Jesus' own expressed desire to fly away like a dove and to let this cup pass from him.

Sometimes the only way through things is through them.  Problems are not solved or overcome so much as they are managed and endured.  When we are beyond our depths, when we do not have the power to turn things around and solve them ourselves, we make our complaint to God and we trust.  Then we do the next best thing we can to manage to to endure, leaning on the wisdom, power, and goodness of God when we have nothing.  It takes deep trust to believe that resurrection comes after death when you are in the midst of dying.

Lowell

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Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.


Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117
An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html

The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life
We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Cloud and the Poor

Tuesday, March 30, 2010 -- Tuesday in Holy Week

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 957)
Psalms 6, 12 (morning)       94 (evening)
Lamentations 1:17-22
2 Corinthians 1:8-12
Mark 11:27-33

All of our readings today are under great cloud, as is appropriate for Holy Tuesday. 

The anguish of Lamentations is almost beyond our imagination, living in a nation that has never been destroyed and deported by a foreign invader.  At one point the author looks around at the other nations and wishes the rest of them would get what they deserve also.  (We'll see a very different response from Jesus in suffering later this week.) 

Paul remembers a time when he was "so utterly, unbearably crushed" that he "despaired of life itself," feeling that he had received the sentence of death.  Some of us can also remember such times, and possibly we have healed to the place that like Paul we can use that memory for strength under other trials. 

And Jesus confronts challenges to his right to speak and to his authority, as the pressure from his enemies begins to grow.  He slips this noose, but we know that he will not escape their threats for long.

There are times when we live under great threat, anguish, and suffering.  We do not need to look far for companions along that way in our scriptures.  And it is important to note, that many of the expressions of agony and grief come from within a context where the sufferer acknowledges that it was his own failures, choices and sins that brought on the horrible consequences.  Even when one is guilty, we may cry out to God for relief, and know we are heard. 

Psalm 12 caught my eye today.  The psalmist lives in a context where smooth tongues of oppressive people hold sway, and "that which is worthless is prized by everyone."  The writer feels overwhelmed by the powers of those "talking heads" who are threatening the society. 

"Because the needy are oppressed, and the poor cry out in misery, I will rise up," says God, "and give them the help they long for."

Since the days of the Exodus, God has given a special ear to the poor and needy who cry to God.  So many of our stories speak of God's compassionate care for the poor.  Many others speak of God's hand being outstretched to overturn those who oppress the needy.  There is a remarkably deep and wide Biblical tradition of advocacy for the poor. 

One hint for us in times of conflict and challenge.  If we are to be on the side of God, we should look to the interests and needs of the poor.  If we do not want to be among those who are called unrighteous, if we do not want to find ourselves as enemies of God, we had better not ignore the needs of the poor or contribute to their oppression.  If we find that we gravitate toward the world view and interests of the wealthy or powerful, we can know that we are probably walking away from rather than toward God's interests.  That is a good lesson for us in our own time of conflict and challenge.

Lowell

_____________________________________________

Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.


Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117
An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html

The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life
We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Monday, March 29, 2010

The Fig Tree

Monday, March 29, 2010 -- Monday in Holy Week

Today's Readings for the Daily Office
(Book of Common Prayer, p. 957)
Psalms 51:1-18(9-20) (morning)       69:1-23 (evening)
Lamentations 1:1-2, 6-12
2 Corinthians 1:1-7 
Mark 11:12-25          

Note:  Our Eucharist at St. Paul's today will be at 12:15
One more Note:  As I look at the Archives for my blog, I don't see the posts that I wrote, and thought I sent to you, from my trip to the Holy Land between March 9 and March 13.  Can someone tell me if you received those?  Thanks.


I was very weary this morning, so I continued to sleep.  I'll write a brief reflection.

Today in Mark's gospel, the parable of the fig tree frames Jesus' visit to the Temple where he drove out the vendors and overturned the tables of the money changers.

At this season, the figs in the Holy Land are in leaf, and they put on what is called "false figs."  These buds will fall off and later the tree will bear fruit.  If a tree has no false figs, it will bear no fruit.  It will be barren.

That helps explain Jesus' cursing of the fig tree which had no figs, "for it was not the season for figs."  It had "nothing but leaves," which means the tree had no potential for fruit.  The fig is sometimes also a symbol for the nation or the people of Israel.

Then Jesus goes to the Temple.  Near the main public entrance there are recently uncovered arches that housed niches for shopkeepers.  The shopkeepers would have been selling various items for pilgrims and travelers.  There was also an elaborate business in selling sacrificial animals which met the inspection code as being unblemished.  And there was a money changing service to convert Roman coinage into Jewish currency without the image of the Emperor on it.  Jesus attacks all of this commerce, citing the prophets' words:  "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations, but you have made it a den of robbers."

Mark connects these stories.  There seems to be a point.  When something has lost its potential to be what it is intended to be and to do what it is intended to do, it is worth overturning or destroying.  It no longer fills its intention.

In a postscript, the next morning the disciples note with alarm that the fig tree had withered.  Jesus invites their faith.  He says, "Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, 'Be taken up and thrown into the sea,' and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you."  From the road between Bethany and Jerusalem, he may have been looking at the Herodium, the palace fortress of Herod the Great, and at the mountain next to it, whose top had been removed shovel by shovel, and taken to Herod's fortress in order to build and raise it high above any other in the region.  One mountain had been moved to make another, a fortress.  Jesus might have been telling his disciples that Herod's fortress, and his violent reign, can also be thrown into the sea, with the persevering faith that believes, while digging one shovel after another.

Having cursed the fig tree without potential, and overturned the profane commerce of the Temple, and invited faith for the removal of Herod and his mountain, then Jesus says this:  "Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses." 

What does that say about our attitude and spirit, especially when we find ourselves in conflict with something we find without potential, or profane, or corrupt and damaging.  Can we do that work with courageous, active faith, while maintaining a forgiving spirit throughout?

Lowell

_____________________________________________

Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.


Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117
An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html

The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life
We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Friday, March 26, 2010

The Way

Friday, March 26, 2010 -- Week of 5 Lent, Year Two
Richard Allen, First Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, 1831

Today's Readings for the Daily Office
(Book of Common Prayer, p. 957)
Psalms 95* & 22 (morning)       141, 143:1-11(12) (evening)
Exodus 9:13-35
2 Corinthians 4:1-12 
Mark 10:32-45                           *for the Invitatory

As Jesus approaches Jerusalem, he tells the disciples of the passion that lies ahead.  Their reaction is to argue about position and power.  They hear the businesses about glory, but not about suffering.  Jesus redirects them to a path of servanthood, open to suffering, rather than a path of glory, addicted to power.

Paul is having a similar misunderstanding with his church in Corinth.  They are into the glory.  They like having power and comforts.  But that's not the right focus, Paul tells them. 

He knows the light, but it is not his own, it is Christ's light.  He speaks confidently of the "light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God," but Paul claims to have this treasure himself only "in clay jars." 

Then he accepts the deep truth:  Life is difficult.  Life is difficult, but "power belongs to God" and is given to us as the "light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

So Paul describes how this works in his life.  "We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies." 

How different is Paul's gospel from the myth that our advertisements sell us about "The Good Life."  How different is Paul's gospel from the lightweight easy-Christian gospels that abound in Christianity, not just in Joel Osteen's church but in ours as well. 

Like Jesus, Paul points to the journey that is the path of service.  "For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus sake."

Only one who is confident in a power and glory beyond oneself can live with such trust and self-abandonment into service.  That is the path Jesus and Paul invite us to walk.

Lowell

_____________________________________________

Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.


Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117
An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html

The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life
We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Thursday, March 25, 2010

The Annunciation

Thursday, March 25, 2010 -- Week of 5 Lent, Year Two
The Annunciation of Our Lord Jesus Christ to the Blessed Virgin Mary

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer)

EITHER
the readings for Thursday of 5 Lent, p. 957
Psalms 131, 132, [133] (morning)       140, 142 (evening)
Exodus 7:25 - 8:19
2 Corinthians 3:7-18 
Mark 10:17-21

OR
the readings for the Annunciation, p. 997
Morning:  Psalms 85, 87;  Isaiah 52:7-12;  Hebrews 2:5-10
Evening:  Psalms 110:1-5(6-7), 132;  Wisdom 9:1-12;  John 1:9-14

I chose the readings for the Annunciation
The Annunciation is an exquisite feast.  It first celebrates the anticipation of something that is coming -- something wonderful and anticipated, but still some time away.  Mary hears the announcement and accepts its message -- she will bear a child who will be God's means for blessing.  There is wonder and joy, amazement and mystery, immediate anticipation and necessary delay. 

There is a richness in the waiting time -- the almost, not yet, but oh so soon.  Such an in-between, liminal time can feel half-empty and unreal.  I remember being engaged to marry, how odd it seemed to me to be committed to a new way of being in the world, and yet having to wait for that reality to actually happen at a future time certain.  It seemed that real life was being put on hold for a while; it seemed unnatural.  I didn't like being engaged. 

Waiting for a baby's arrival felt entirely different.  It was a rich waiting.  There was so much anticipation and hope.  There was the experience of gestation and growth, reinforcing the coming reality.  Life felt more real, more meaningful.  The waiting was a rich part of the process and added to the delight of the whole.

The Annunciation is also an amazing story.  It is grounded in the experience of a peasant woman who accepts a divine visitation of a most unsuspected sort.  In the scheme of things, she is nobody.  She has no standing, no worldly significance.  In God's scheme of things, she is everything.  She has divine standing, ultimate significance. 

What leap of trust did it take for her to imagine that God would choose her?  (What leap of trust does it take for each of us to imagine that God would choose us?)  What leap of hope did it take for her to imagine that God would bless the world through her?  (What leap of hope does it take for each of us to imagine that God will bless the world through us?)

The author of Hebrews asks God, "What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals, that you care for them?  You have made them for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned them with glory and honor, subjecting all things under their feet."  That statement is an Annunciation as well.  The scriptures announce that God loves us and cares for us.  They tell us that God intends all things to be subjected under our feet.  Hebrews makes it clear, with reference to that latter glory, that its path comes through the suffering of death.  Now Christ has tasted death for everyone, and the ultimate triumph is accomplished.

The Annunciation has happened to each of us.  God has declared us to be God's beloved.  God has promised blessing.  During the rich waiting time, we will experience gestation and growth, much of which will reinforce the coming reality.  Because of God's Annunciation to us, life is more real, more meaningful.  We live in wondrous anticipation of the complete fulfillment of promise -- now, not yet, but oh so soon.  Like Mary, we are pregnant with God.  Right now there is wonder, love and blessing that enriches life.  Still to come, there is the fullness of time when all things shall be fulfilled according to God's word.

Lowell

_____________________________________________

Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.


Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117
An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html

The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life
We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Labor Movements

Tuesday, March 23, 2010 -- Week of 5 Lent, Year Two
Gregory the Illuminator, Bishop and Missionary of Armenia, c. 332
Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 957)
Psalms [120], 121, 122, 123 (morning)       124, 125, 126, [127] (evening)
Exodus 5:1 - 6:1
1 Corinthians 14:20-33a, 39-40 
Mark 9:42-50

NOTE:  Yesterday I printed the wrong Epistle reading.  We are in First Corinthians, not Second.

The Exodus begins as a labor movement.  Moses functions in the same way as a labor union.  Moses approaches management -- the Pharaoh -- and asks for a work concession:  Let the Hebrews go for a three-day religious observance.  Management decides to crush the upstart movement, and adds new productivity expectations:  You will produce the same amount of bricks, but you will gather your own straw rather than having the company supply it.  The new policy was enforced with worker sanctions, focusing on the workers' supervisors.  When they bring complaint, they are rebuffed strongly. 

As management hoped, the supervisors turned on the labor organizers Moses and Aaron, saying, "You have brought us into bad odor with Pharaoh and his officials, and have put a sword in their hand to kill us."  The whole movement is close to being crushed by the harshness of management.  Pharaoh has succeed in dividing labor, getting them to fight among themselves instead of uniting in some organized way to improve their conditions. 

I'd like to repeat a story I've told before, about my wife's grandfather.  Kathy's grandfather was a Baptist minister in South Carolina in the 1920's.  He preached in a mill town, where a large portion of his congregation worked in a textile mill.  The mills' management faced lowered profits because of a post-war overproduction problem.  They created a strategy called "stretch out."  Each factory person was given more looms to work, break times were limited, pay lowered, and more supervisors hired to enforce higher production.  When the National Recovery Agency set the forty hour work week, mill owners required the same amount of work as had been produced previously in the fifty and sixty hour weeks. 

Although they were still largely unorganized by the fledgling United Textile Workers union, almost a half-million workers walked off their jobs from New England through the Southeastern U.S. in 1934.  The walkout is still regarded as the largest strike in our nation's history.  It lasted twenty-two days, and it was brutally suppressed.  The governor of South Carolina deputized "mayors, sheriffs, peace officers and every good citizen" to maintain order and called out the National Guard with orders to shoot any picketers who entered the mill.  Gangs of ruffians-turned-militia beat and shot strikers.  They threatened families and homes. 

The brutality worked.  Workers returned to the mills defeated and cowed from further resistance.  Many scholars trace the general lack of union presence in the South to the memory of the trauma so many families suffered in their singular experience of this strike.  Wages and benefits for southern workers continued to be significantly lower for generations than wages and benefits for workers in more unionized regions in the North.

For Kathy the strange thing about this part of her family's story was the inherited shame that haunted her family.  It took her years for her to piece together the facts of the story, because no one in the family was willing to talk about it.  At first, Kathy thought her grandfather had done something terrible or immoral.  "Why did Granddaddy leave South Carolina?"  "Oh he got into some bad trouble up there." 

It took years for her to learn the truth.  Her grandfather, the Baptist minister, had supported the strikers.  Because of that he lost his job.  He was fired through pressure from the mill owners and management.  His family had to relocate.  That's how they came to Mississippi.  It was remembered within the family as a dark time, and no one spoke of it.  A shamful silence covered up the story for generations.  When Kathy finally uncovered the whole story, she was proud of her grandfather.  She was the first person in her family to react with pride rather than shame.

Pharaoh knows how to victimize the victims.  Southerners like Kathy's grandfather internalized the suffering and the violence that broke their claim for justice, and they felt guilty for the ruin of their families and livelihoods.  We often see victims victimized, in of violence perpetuated against women, injustices tolerated against immigrants, and various attacks on gay people. 

The abuse of power and the economics of Pharaoh didn't stop with the Exodus.  And God is still working to set the people free. 

The church proclaims an alternative power, the Kingdom of God.  The Kingdom of God is how this world would be if God were in charge rather than Pharaoh.  The Kingdom of God upholds the place of the little and the lost, the weak and the vulnerable.  Blessed are the poor, those who mourn, who yearn for right. 

In the power of God, Moses organized a people to free them from their oppression.

In Christ, God became the victim of every abuse of power and overcame its destructiveness with resurrection power.  The Risen Lord invites us into that triumphant resurrection Kingdom of God, which continues the Exodus work of overturning injustice and victimization in the name of God.  Against such spiritual power, Pharaoh cannot prevail. 

And I'm proud to be married to the daughter of that Baptist preacher from South Carolina.

Lowell

_____________________________________________

Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.


Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117
An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html

The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life
We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Monday, March 22, 2010

Bushes Burning in the Desert

Monday, March 22, 2010 -- Week of 5 Lent, Year Two
James De Koven, Priest, 1879

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 957)
Psalms 31 (morning)       35 (evening)
Exodus 4:10-20(21-26)27-30
2 Corinthians 2:14-19 
Mark 9:30-41

We had long delays in Atlanta on our return trip from the Holy Land pilgrimage.  Some reservations had been fouled up and five of our group did not have tickets for the Atlanta to Northwest Arkansas leg of the trip, and the plane was already overbooked.  One person made it on, and four had to spend the night in Atlanta.  They are on their way back this morning, we hope.  As it was, the rest of us got into XNA after midnight.  A LONG day's trip home.  (I didn't count; nearly 30 hours.)

A phone call woke me at 8:00, so I am trying to get back on local time by starting my morning routine of the Daily Office and writing a reflection on the readings.  My mind is a little fuzzy though.

As I read today's scriptures, my mind is filled however, with new, and very vivid images of the land where these stories take place.  Psalm 31 came vividly alive in a new way, especially the line "Blessed be God!  For you have shown me your love in a city under siege."  We visited so many of these cities "under siege," looking at the foundations of their stone walls, seeing their gates, hearing the stories of their sieges, looking into the vast cisterns intended to supply water in a dry land and during sieges that could last for years, and imagining the horror of being walled in, threatened, and even breached by attacking armies. 
How powerful the words sound when someone can say "Blessed be God!" for having seen wonders of God's love in such a city under siege.  The next verse is this:  "Yet I said in my alarm, 'I have been cut off from the sight of you eyes.'  Nevertheless, you heard the sound of my entreaty when I cried out to you.  Love God, all you who worship God; God protects the faithful, but repays to the full those who act haughtily.  Be strong and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for God."  I could imagine peace and trust descending upon the psalmist, renewing his strength and courage as he waits for God "in a city under siege."  It is a powerful image for our own renewal of strength and courage whenever we wait beneath whatever may besiege or threaten us." 

I'm also excited to be reading about Moses' encounter with the burning bush, having just returned from St. Katherine's Monastery, one of the traditional locations of Moses encounter with God.  Something happened to Moses in this hard, mountainous region, and he returned to Egypt with God's commission to lead his people out of bondage.  What different places -- Ancient Egypt and this rugged desert.  The fertile Nile Valley grows lush and green, tucked within a sharp dividing line between the vast Sahara sands and the verdant flooded plains that nurtured centuries of powerful and magnificent dynasties of pharaohs.  The desert monastery had a plant it says is the one where Moses stopped.  It is a desert bramble shrub, Rubus sanctus, a thorned rugged modest plant that lives in places where water happens in the wilderness.  From that modest shrub, Moses gained the strength to return to the city of the pyramids and face down Rameses II, whose monumental statues and structures seem mountainlike themselves.  Moses complains he is not up to the task, no wonder!  But God convinces him that God's presence and power will be enough.  What trust and renewal of strength and courage must it have taken for Moses to accept that calling.

Paul takes the story of the giving of the law to Moses, a law chiseled in letters on stone tablets, and tells us the greater glory that is ours with the Spirit of freedom that is ours in the glory of God which we see with unveiled faces as reflected in the face of Jesus, which transforms us "into the same image from one degree of glory to another."  If Moses could be so confident in the revelation "chiseled in letters on stone tablets," how much more confident can we be in the letter of the Spirit which makes us "competent to be ministers of a new covenant." 

We see how this new confidence is made competent in the new covenant in the graceful story in Mark.  Under the shadow of the approaching passion, Jesus gathers his disciples "to Capernaum; and when he was in the house" he showed them the essence of the glory of this new freedom in Spirit that is ours:  "Whoever want to be first must be last of all and servant of all."  And Jesus confirmed that teaching by taking a child into his arms of welcome.  To welcome any child is to welcome Christ.  (On our trip, we saw the outline of the stones this house, and the room that has been honored since early days as Jesus' room in Peter's home in Capernaum.)

The disciples then want to ask Jesus a question of jurisdiction or power or authority or boundary:  "Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us."  Doesn't that sound like the church?  Jesus opens the boundaries wide:  "Whoever is not against us is for us." 

Then he uses a powerful metaphor from desert hospitality and Middle Eastern custom.  "Whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward."  It is the rule of the desert, a custom that has planted itself into the ethos of the Middle East -- if someone ask you for water, you give them water.  You are to give water to a stranger.  The giving and receiving of water is itself a pledge of friendship for a time.  On our trip we heard amazing stories of hospitality to strangers as part of that norm of the Middle East. 

Jesus invites us into a renewal of our strength and courage.  In a dangerous world under siege, we are called to love God and to accept our new calling as servants of all, humbly accepting those who may not follow us, affirming any who may nevertheless give a cup of water under other rules of hospitality.

As we landed on the XNA tarmac early this morning, those with I-Phones announced that the House of Representatives had passed the health reform bill last night, a cup of water for more than thirty million who have had been besieged behind the walls of lacking insurance.  A new welcome to those who have been the outcasts in our medical system, so many of them children, who have waited in hope for so long.  Thanks to those who had Moses-like perseverance to face down the entrenched status of privilege and power in order to open up the profession of medical servanthood to more.  Not all, yet.  But more.  In the desert, a bush burns again, with hope and courage for our continued call to love and to serve our neighbor, whom Jesus taught us is anyone in need.

Lowell

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Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.


Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117
An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html

The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life
We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Holy Land Trip, last post

Friday, March 19, 2010

Maybe the most helpful personal learning for me on this trip is how vulnerable I allow myself to be when things, even little things, don't work out like I want them to.  Nearly every day, usually every morning, something happens that doesn't work in this hotel.  My biggest frustration has been my difficulty being able to get on the internet.  No wi-fi in the room.  My ideal needs – five minutes to post my blog and email, a couple of minutes to check I-pod for phone calls, maybe five minutes to download email.  Later, a couple of minutes to send replies.  Those needs have proved impossible to fulfill. 

Here I am, on the trip of a lifetime, seeing wonders that will fill my imagination and enhance for life my experience of scripture; I'm enjoying a very convivial group of traveling companions, being served by exemplary tour hosts who have organized our trip and catered to our every desire – and each morning in Cairo I find my mood darkened and clouded by some little annoyance because the hotel is rude and broken.  In my imagination I compose and re-compose my emails of complaint.  As we get on the bus to start each day, I'm frustrated and angry instead of excited and expectant.  It takes me some time, maybe an hour, to come back to the present and to be where I am.

I've got more than souvenirs to take home from this trip.  I've got some spiritual business to attend to – acceptance of reality, release of control, embrace of humility.  That may be the most constructive gift of this trip – a memory for a lifetime – work on my own stuff.

One note about these notes.  Because most of the info I am passing along is from oral sources and about what I am seeing, the spelling of places and names is certain to be spotty.

Today is Friday, the Muslim holy day.  The streets are less crowded, a bit like Sunday in the U.S.  People here sleep in on Fridays.  At noon those who go to the mosque will attend services, highlighted by a 20-30 speech by the Sheik.  In Egypt it is illegal for Muslim clerics to mix very much politics into their Friday speech.  Their purpose is supposed to be for spiritual, moral, and practical enlightenment.  Clerics who cross some line of political speech are subject to arrest.

We visited two mosques today.  We went first to the Mohammed Ali Mosque, built largely of alabaster in 1830, adjacent to the 1347 Fortress of Saladin.  It is built along the same architectural plans and scale as the famous Blue Mosque in Istanbul.  (It does not have the same beauty or spiritual energy however, in my opinion.)  It was built by a ruler who seized power in 1805, and its construction was so expensive it threatened his financial security.  Mohammed Ali is called the Father of Modern Egypt.  He imported the cotton plant (from India?) and established a thriving business that continues to this day.  Egyptian cotton has a reputation for excellence.  He founded schools that made education much more widely available.  He solidified his reign when he invited many of those who were in the former ruling family to a grand celebration in the Saladin Fortress, and locked the doors to massacre forty of them in 1811.

As we left the mosque, once again we crossed paths with busloads of children who were coming into the city to see the sites of their heritage.  Many of the girls were dressed in colorful, sparkling headdresses and robes.  The boys and girls waved, smiled, shouted "Hello" and "Welcome."  At one point, Sharon stopped on the sidewalk to wave and say "Hello," and several of the young girls ran to her to embrace her in a spontaneous group hug.  It was a beautiful moment of joyful connection.

We continued our trek through "Old Cairo" going to the 1356 mosque of Sultan Hasan, the former royal mosque.  On some of the marble pieces we could see where masons carved the date of the stone's installation.  I took a picture of one dated 1323.  This is the mosque that Barak Obama visited on his recent trip to Egypt.  This mosque feels like a place of prayer.  The floor is covered with a carpet design of niches, all pointing toward Mecca, each the size for one worshiper to be able stand, and to kneel in the five-point bow to the ground that is a characteristic of Muslim prayer.

Our guide arranged for the Sheik who sings the call to prayer to come into a room in the mosque and to sing several of the chants that are part of the five times daily prayer of devout Muslims.  In this large room, with its marble and stone walls and ceilings, the acoustics and echo are perfect for chanting.  The sound is ethereal, soulful, deeply holy.  He sings with focus and deep intention. 
I am again struck by the power of music to communicate our deepest expression of the divine.  When we sing, and when we hear the holy songs of other faith traditions, we can feel closer to God as well as closer to one another. 

When President Obama was here, the Sheik sang for him in this place.  He had us laughing as he mimicked the posture of the President, who crossed his arms across his chest, as he does so often, and looked up at the patterns of the ceiling and walls during the chanting.  It would have been politically unacceptable for him to appear to be praying in a Moslem Mosque.  Too many Americans still think he is Muslim.  As a Christian priest, I was honored and moved by the opportunity to join my praise of God in my own silent prayer as our guest offered his exquisite praise of God singing from his ancient tradition.  It was a holy moment that could only exalt the divine and unite our humanity.

The sound of the chant is haunting.  Charlie remarked how this cantor did not sing with as many "quarter-tones" as many of the others we have heard.  Charlie told me that the musical scale is largely based on the songs of birds, which are in whole tones, matching the musical scale we are familiar with in the West.  Birds don't sing in quarter tones.  Tenors do, when they sing flat.  In India, some instruments are tuned intentionally with quarter tones.  Part of the exotic sound that characterizes the public call to worship from the minarets of the 1000 mosques in Cairo is the common sound of the quarter tones, melodically absent from this very professional singer in a prestigious mosque.

After the Sheik had finished his offering, and we were offering our thanks, someone asked him about his family.  Immediately he smiled warmly, spoke the names of his three children, and brought out his wallet pictures of them, measuring with his hand how much each had grown since their photo.  He told of another son who had died, and of daughter who had died in childbirth, when the child and the mother could not both survive the birth.  He said, they will be reunited and know her in heaven.  On our way out, Tim Klinger remarked how universal it is when we begin to share about our families, we are all so much the same in our love and affection.

Several times we drove past the City of the Dead, the largest cemetery in Cairo.  It is Muslim tradition to bury their dead in a shroud in the ground.  Above the ground some construct markers, other build enclosures, not unlike a mausoleum.  A symbiotic relationship has evolved in the graveyards.  The homeless make their homes there, while the dead lie buried beneath them.  The homeless keep away any possible desecrations, by grave robbers or animals; they clean the area and protect it from crime or drugs.  In exchange, they are allowed to live there in the cemetery.  There is a nearby school for the homeless children, as well as a clinic (health care is universal in Egypt).  There is some access to electricity, and even a few satellite dishes scattered among the graves.

We next visited some funeral chambers that date from 2300 BCE, the colors still visible after so many years.  Much of the content of the hieroglyphics in these funeral chambers consists of representations of food, drink, necessities and luxuries that the deceased would need in a future life.  At one time it was the custom to place real food and drink into the burial chambers.  Sometime later the Egyptians came up with a more pleasing development.  Instead of putting real food in the chambers, listings of the quantity and kinds of foods and liquids would be carved into the walls in hieroglyphics, food on one side and liquids on the other, then they would be connected by a prayer formula which would render the substances as real and potable in the next life.  (Our guide speculated that the famous "Curse of the Pharaohs" to punish with death anyone who violates the sanctity of the tomb was actually the toxic fumes of the ancient decayed foods being breathed in by the grave robbers as they first broke the seals.)

Our modern sensibilities may be bothered by the amount of labor and wealth that was spent in creating these burial monuments, presumably so that the luxurious comforts of the powerful might continue in the afterlife.  Yet these great public works provided jobs, income, economic security, and some sense of national pride for those who did the work.  They also created something that does partake of immortality in its way.  More than four thousand years later we are awed and humbled by the beauty and majesty of these works.  We also have a deeper understanding of an ancient culture which informs our own sense of aesthetic and knowledge.

We spent much of our afternoon in the incredible world-renowned Museum of Antiquities.  There is no way I can blog any description that is adequate to the experience.  I think I'll only mention a few things that caught my eye or my imagination. 

Maybe you've seen a symbol which looks like a tear-drop circle on top of a cross.  It is an Egyptian symbol for the Key of Life, an Anch or Ankh.  Some Egyptian Christians adopted this ancient symbol as a form of a Christian cross. 

The Northern and Southern Kingdoms of Egypt have separate regional symbols – North: the color red, a flat crown, and the papyrus plant.  South: the color white, a conical crown, and the lotus flower.  Pharaohs who claimed regency over both kingdoms wore both sets of symbols in their royal adornments.

Egyptian nobles were clean shaven.  The rectangular beard that is so prominent in representations of pharaohs was actually a fake beard of animal hair, attached with a head strap.  The beard is straight in statues of a living pharaohs; curled for those representing a dead pharaohs.  A living pharaoh will be standing with arms to the side and the left leg striding forward, a dead pharaoh will be represented with arms crossed and legs together.

Some of the most captivating statues are of Egypt's 1400 BCE Queen Hatchepsint, who ruled like a male Pharaoh.  She was the sister and wife of Tutmoses II who died when their eldest son was only 2 years old.  She was co-regent for two years, and then declared herself ruler, claiming to be the daughter of a god.  She was a strong ruler, who opened up trade with Somalia and began one of the significant Luxor Temples.  The architect of Luxor was her lover, and they had at least one child together, though they could not be married.  When she died she made a shrine for him so he could be near her in the afterlife; her act provoked some jealousy and intrigue among her survivors.  She was buried in the Valley of the Kings, the only female allowed there, I believe.  Her statues look just like the statues of the other pharaohs, complete with attached beard, but the smile is beguilingly feminine.

The bird-god Horus is the god of faith and religion, often represented as hovering behind the ruler.  The scarab beetle is a familiar figure in the funeral and tomb symbols.  The scarab is a sign of resurrection.  It is often shown pushing the sun up from the ground each day.

Found among the sands of the desert was a wooden statue from 2200 BCE, made of sycamore, preserved in amazing clarity.  The eyes are of precious stones (alabaster for the whites), and they gleam with remarkable reality from a face that looks eerily like Marlon Brando.

One of the most controversial of the pharaohs was Akhenaten and his beautiful wife Nefertiti.  Akhenaten introduced a form of monotheism, worshiping the Sun God alone.  He also preferred his statues to be more realistic than stylized, showing his long face, wide hips and round belly.  Some scholars believe that King Tut was his son and that Tut was married to one of his six daughters, the couple being born from different mothers. 

That brings us to King Tutankhamun, 1361-52 BCE, who came to the throne at age nine, was married at age 12, and died at 19.  The only reason he is famous is that his tomb alone escaped the centuries of grave robbers and is left for us to see, having been found in 1922.  Recent imaging and DNA tests show that Tut had a weak left leg from birth, a knee injury, possibly from a chariot fall, that left him with a terrible infection, and that he had malaria when he died.

The tomb had four gold plated cedar wood box coverings, each box inside another, much like Russian dolls.  The jewels and gold which were placed into the tomb are simply stunning and beyond my ability to describe.  So much.  So artistic and beautiful.  So much!!!   Go to Wikipedia or some reference and browse a while.  It is mind-boggling that so much priceless treasure was buried with this minor king.  What must have been in the tomb of someone like Rameses II?

Later in the day we visited a while longer in Old Cairo.  We visited a ancient synagogue there that is now a museum.  At one time there were more than 100,000 Jews in Cairo; now there are about 40 families.  Their expulsion is a tragic story.

Next to the synagogue is the Coptic Cathedral of St. Sergius.  It is a small building filled with wonderful icons.  St. Sergius is always pictured with a companion saint (variously spelled) Wacchus.  I believe they were both Roman soldiers.  I forget their story, but I recall that a researcher (Boswell) found a marriage rite in the vast library in the Vatican that invoked the blessing of Sergius and Wacchus, which Boswell speculated might have been an early Christian blessing or marriage service for gay couples.  You can look that one up too.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

We went sailing on the Nile in a fascinating one sail boat operated by a skillful pilot.  The trip was relaxing and enjoyable.  A great way to finish a busy and intense trip. 

A few final memories and images. 

When a Muslim says prayers five times a day, part of the practice is to kneel on the floor, touching both knees, both hands (or elbows?), and the forehead to the ground, bowing to the ground on several occasions.  Many of the people here have a calloused spot on their forehead from touching the ground over and over.  I visited with a man in the Bazaar for a while, making his acquaintance, and later asking his permission to take his photo, showing very clearly a significant spot on his forehead, a sign of his faithfulness and piety. 

It is not unusual to see someone walking down the street, sometimes with lips moving, fingering the beads for the Muslim prayer to the 99 names of Allah.  While we were in the Bazaar, a number of men were chanting in a back room, saying the evening prayers.  Several of us moved near enough to hear.  Charlie got into a conversation with a man, complementing the beauty of the chants.  He brought out his Koran, telling us that everything we need to know is found it the Book.  Before we could leave, he had given Charlie a pamphlet for Christians, telling us about Islam, and a DVD.  We turned down his offer of an English Koran. 

As we sailed along the Nile, the afternoon call for prayer came from both sides of the bank.  I find the sound to be contemplatively beautiful.  It sounds so much better to me than the recorded chimes of Christian hymns that some churches have.  But it makes me wish for bells like those that are common in English churches, which ring various "changes," patterns of bell tones that invite a community to recollection as they play. 

We pack this afternoon, leave for the airport at about 10:00 tonight for a 1:30 a.m. flight.  Ugh.  We'll have stops in Paris and Atlanta before arriving at XNA, where we hear there has been snow in Fayetteville.  From the mild, 70 degree sunshine river cruise today, to snow at home tomorrow.  Regardless of the weather, it will be good to be home. 

I look forward to sharing the images and insights from this trip in various ways in the coming months.  It will be great to see everybody, especially next Sunday.

Lowell

Friday, March 19, 2010

Holy Land Trip, Thursday, March 18, 2010

Sorry I didn't get a report in yesterday.  Getting connected to the internet has been ridiculously difficult (and expensive).  In fact, nearly everything about our Cairo hotel has been problematic.  Le Meridien at the pyramids is supposed to be a five-star restaurant – it can't touch LaQuinta.  Simply awful. 

So I'm going to report tonight (Friday night) about Thursday.  I'll write about Friday tomorrow.  We've got the morning to sleep in (and write). 

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Thinking about the drive through the Sinai, I am awed by the difficulty that Moses and the Israelites must have faced living in such an extreme territory.  They would have been very dependent upon Moses' father-in-law Jethro, who I would suppose was a Bedouin, familiar with surviving in the desert.  The passages about the community's complaining about the food, the water, the vulnerability takes on a new reality.  I marvel that people live in this rugged land now, some of them not so differently from Moses and his refugees from Egypt.

This morning we got away early to see the great pyramids of Giza.  Out hotel is actually very close to them.  The desert is right on the edge of town.  The pyramids are burial sites for Egyptian royalty and their families.  The pharaoh would be interred alone in a single pyramid.  The Great Pyramid was built in 2600 BCE for Chufu, and his son and grandson (succeeding Pharoahs) are in smaller pyramids nearby, queens in much smaller pyramids next to his.  There are 114 pyramids in Egypt, 11 in Gaza. 

When a pharaoh was enthroned, he began work on his tomb.  The great pyramid took 100,000 workers 20 years to build, mounting 2.3 million blocks, each weighing 2 to 15 tons.  It is 148 meters high and at the base could easily house St Peter's Basilica.  If the stones of the Great Pyramid were turned into a fence, it could create a wall around France three feet high. 

The laborers were not slaves, but free men, farmers who were given work during the flood season – an ancient form of an economic stimulus package.  Workers were given food and housing for themselves and their families.  There were rewards for especially good workers.

The bottom section of the pyramid it is built of granite, which had to be shipped up the Nile during flood season from Aswan, 650 miles away.  I believe the rest of it was build with limestone from a nearby quarry, with a bright, smooth limestone on the top.

We visited the step pyramid in the complex of Zoser, an earlier structure from 2700, a less sophisticated engineering feat.  With the pyramids you can see them learning and becoming more accomplished in creating these marvels.  Then there is a dropping off of the quality of the building over several hundred years.  Because of economic problems they cut some corners, and the results show dramatically when you look at later pyramids that seem to be little more than a pile of stones.

We were the first group to go into the smaller pyramid this morning.  We entered a side tunnel that was so low we had to bend over almost to the waist.  The tunnel went about 40 steps down, then leveled and the ceiling was high enough for us to stand maybe twenty feet.  Then we went to the center of the structure through another low tunnel going up.  We emerged in the burial room that was about 40 feet by 20 feet.  We were the only people in there.  The room is empty, except for a sarcophagus that was large enough for five of us who were naughty enough to get in, with room enough that all fifteen might have squeezed in.

As we returned, again as the only people in the pyramid, we were so thankful not to have to be going slowly with a slow line of tourists going both directions through the narrow tunnels.  Beside the discomfort, I think some of us, maybe me, would have had some nasty claustrophobia.

Near the great pyramids is an ancient building called the Family Temple, which was the place were the bodies were embalmed.  All of the organs would be taken out, except the heart.  After embalming, the body is processed to the Mortuary for final prayers.  Then the mummy was taken down the shaft that we climbed through and placed in the room we visited and filled with treasures and needed things for the next life.

According to Egyptian mythology, the soul of the dead person would take two trips.  A boat is supplied for the journey.  For the first 12 hours, the soul goes with the Sun god Ra.  For the next 12 hours, it journeys in a night voyage.  At the last hour, the person faces the final judgment.  In front of a panel of judges, the person's heart is weighed.  On the other side of the balance scales there is a feather.  If the person has led and good life and not accumulated many sins upon the heart, it will be lighter than a feather, and the person will enter into paradise.  But if the person has sinned and has a heart heavier than a feather, the person must face punishment and banishment.  That puts a twist to the old saying, "light as a feather."

We visited the Sphinx and took lots of pictures of the whole area.  The word "Sphinx" means "living image," and as we left the precinct, we were greeted with hundreds of school aged children, the girls in their beautiful robes, all of them smiling, waving, giving the foreigners the peace sign and brightening up the whole morning.  For me, they were truly a living image.

We watched a demonstration of how papyrus was turned into the world's first paper.  Fascinating.  Then we looked at art painted on papyrus.  To me, one of the most interesting traditional designs was a drawing of the tree of life.  The tree has five birds, moving counter clockwise from the bottom of the tree – baby, child, youth, married, and old – the latter bird looking in a different direction from the other birds, looking toward eternity.    We also saw a design of the world's first calendar, a circle with people representing the four seasons, the four directions, and four something else, to make 12.  There are symbols for each day of the year and the corresponding zodiac signs around the circle.

We visited nearby Memphis, the first capital of Egypt, from 3200 BCE.  Our drive there was through a fertile, rich land, the Nile Delta.  In 32 BCE a devastating earthquake destroyed the ancient mud-brick city, which was not rebuilt until more recent times.  In the last few centuries archeologists have discovered a number of ancient statues, including two major images of Ramses II, the reputed pharaoh of Moses, and an alabaster Sphinx. 

Our final stop was to Sakkara, where we visited an amazing tomb of Edoup, a child princess who died at age 9.  The section we went to has been closed for 20 years and recently reopened.  We were able to walk into the tomb, to see and touch lightly the hieroglyphics, which are so well preserved that some of the color still remains.  It is part of the nearby complex of Zoser, from 2700 BCE. In the middle of that area is an arena where the pharaoh had to reassert his vitality in order to keep his reign.  The pharaoh would run eight laps, then he would fight a live bull.  If he killed the bull, he would be given another 30 years to reign.  The only witness would be the High Priest.  Rumor has it that the pharaoh succeeded, in no little measure thanks to a bribe to the High Priest.

A note about all of the unfinished buildings here.  It seems that nearly every building has signs of emptiness, shells of rooms, upper floors abandoned in mid-construction.  Building taxes are only collected when a building is completed.  Great incentive for not quite finishing that final floor or an adjacent set of rooms.  Makes for an abandoned look for many structures.

Lowell

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Holy Land Pilgrimage, March 17

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Today we head to Egypt.  Cairo is a city of 22 million people.  Last October Kathy and I visited Shanghai and Beijing – both are smaller than Cairo.  We're expecting some apocalyptic traffic jams. 

Last week the temperature in Cairo was 110 degrees with 75 percent humidity.  Happily, the heat has broken; we're expected temperatures in the 70's. 

On the way we traveled through the Sinai peninsula to go to St. Katherine's Monastery, first built by St. Helena (Constantine's mother) around 330 when she was shown this location as the traditional place where Moses encountered the burning bush.  Justinian expanded the church in the 7th century.  The altar was placed at the location of the bush, and a cutting was transplanted to a place directly behind the church.  It is a robust plant to this day, and pilgrims touch it, break off pieces, and place strips of paper with prayers into the wall and supports surrounding the bush.

St. Katherine was born into an aristocratic family and converted to Christianity. Because of the scandal, her father spoke with officials who sent fifty wise men to change her mind.  Instead, Katherine convinced the fifty wise men and they converted to Christianity.  The officials decided to torture and execute her, but the instrument of execution failed initially.  She was killed in a subsequent execution.  Years later a monk dreamed that her body was at Mount Musa (Moses Mountain / Mt. Sinai).  When he found and unearthed her body, it had a wonderful perfume.  The monastery that previously was dedicated to St Mary was rededicated to St. Katherine, and relics of her skull and left hand enshrined there. 

The Church of the Transfiguration is a stunning Greek Orthodox Church with an amazing collection of icons and lamps as well as a famous representation of the Transfiguration.  The library here is one of the most remarkable ancient libraries on earth, housing some of the earliest biblical manuscripts.  The famous Codex Sinaticus was taken from this library in 1860 when a German scholar was given permission to study it and didn't return it.  We walked through doorways from the 6th century to enter into this timeless space.  Because we were the last group go through, we got lucky and were able to hear some of the noonday prayers. 

Just outside the Church is "Moses' Well," the traditional location of the well where Moses met his wife Zipporah. We walked outside to see the monastery high on the mountainside where the monks live.  All of this sits at the base of what is called Musa Mountain / Mount Sinai, and there are steps around to the other side of the mountain where it is said that Moses was given the Ten Commandments.  Next to that peak is another mountain named Mount Horeb, which has a prominent chapel on its peak that is said to be the burial place of St. Peter.  As we left, we stopped at the place where it was said the Israelites built the Golden Calf.  There is a Cow-like figure in the stone which is said to have been created at the place of the incident. 

The landscape here is stunning.  Veins of granite and colored rock run through the rugged mountains, and beautiful stones of several hues litter the groung – blue, rose, turquoise, green, black.  As we drove through the Sinai, (the word means "Moon," and sometimes it looks other-worldly) the scenes changed from sand to rock and back again, some areas with sandstone figures in front of colorful rock mountains.  For many miles we drove past the Gulf of Suez with ghost-town resorts dotting the shores.

As we neared the tunnel under the Suez Canal, we encountered a massive traffic jam.  Four lanes tried to merge into one and traffic got terribly snarled and stalled.

We learned today that "lunch" in this part of the world happens between 2:00 and 5:00 p.m.  We've found ourselves incredibly hungry from time to time, thinking that the schedule was all messed up.  Now we know, it was just our expectations that were messed up. 

We've seen a lot of Bedouins, many of them watching small flocks of goats or sheep.  There are seven tribes of Bedouins, and they live under their own law, each tribe administered by an elder Sheik.  Wealth is measured in ownership of camels, and we've seen plenty of camels.  The animals tend to live 25-30 years and be worth $800-$1000 each.  They produce a rich milk and can go without drink or food for 14 days.  Camels have two eyelids to protect them from blowing sand, and they have wide, padded food pads that can travel well in the sand. 

Modern Bedouins are not the same kind of tent dwelling nomads as their ancestors.  They tend to follow the rains, but they more typically live in communities of simple structures.

We are entering a Muslim culture, but before we do, I want to mention a conversation one of our party had with a young Jewish woman who helped us with some of our arrangements.  She, like about 90% of the Jews living in Israel, is a secular Jew.  She goes to synagogue about once a year, she said, and she usually works on the Sabbath.  From what we have heard, when we are in Muslim countries we will experience cultures who actually practice their religion.  We've already seen people pause for prayer in the middle of the work day.  Yesterday in Petra I noticed a group of men leave their vending places, enter a cave, spread their prayer rugs and face the wall (toward Mecca) for their afternoon prayers.

There is some irony in the fact that only a small percentage of Israel's Jews are actually practicing Jews, but among them, the Hasidim seem to exercise a disproportionate power in the decisions of the nation.  On the other hand, in this part of the world it seems that most Muslims pause for prayer five times a day, observe the monthly fast of Ramadan, and otherwise follow the five pillars of Islam. 

Tomorrow we'll go to the Pyramids, Sphinx and other highlights in Egypt.

Lowell

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Holy Land Pilgrimage, Tuesday, 3/16

Tuesday,March 16, 2010: Petra

We are on the coast of the Red Sea for a "free day."  A group of us bought tickets to travel to nearby Petra in Jordan.  We got away early, went through the border crossing, and set out on the 2 1/2 hour trip to the remote desert city, ranked by some as the eighth wonder of the ancient world.

Petra is a city carved into sandstone cliffs by the Nabataeans, who began as Bedouin caravan traders, but became the masters of this region's trade routes linking China and India with the Mediterranean coast.  They became a wealthy and powerful people, and created a unique home and civilization.

We walked into the valley through As-Siq, the main entrance to Petra through a stunning narrow gorge passing between cliffs 250 feet high.  We saw other worldly geological formations, beautiful rocks in earthy rose, yellow, bronze, and blue colors.  We followed the ingenious water channels and dams that provided water to the city that was home to up to 40,000 people. 

The most famous building is called the Treasury, which reveals itself through a very narrow winding cliff.  100 feet wide, 120 feet wide, carved into the sandstone wall – it is truly beautiful.  I thought of the poste on the wall of the Petra Cafe in downtown Fayetteville, and I'm looking to talking with the restaurant owner when we get home. 

I had no idea of the continuing scope of the huge city, much of which still lays hidden underground, not yet excavated.  There is an amphitheater that seated 4000, many cave tombs, and amazing carved facades into the cliffs.  We walked over seven kilometers, and didn't see half of it.  Truly an amazing wonder. 

On the bus, our Jordanian guide told a story to warm us up for the trip, and to make a point about the spiritual richness of this area.  The Pope was visiting in the Middle East, and saw a phone that he recognized.  It was a direct phone line to God.  He asked if he could make a call.  Of course, said the host.  After the Pope had finished, he asked how much the phone bill would be.  Four minutes, $200 a minute – $800.  A Middle Eastern neighbor asked if he could make a call also.  After four hours he hung up and asked How much?  Let's see, said the host, four times 2... $80.  Why was his call so much less? asked the Pope.  Of, from the Middle East its a local call.

While some of us were in Petra, others enjoyed a relaxing day in this resort town of Eliat, Israel.  Some snorkeled in the reef, at least two parasailed, some rested on the beach, others at the swimming pool, at least one enjoyed a mud-bath. 

During the meal, Suzanne invited our bus driver to come and sit with our group at her table.  In conversation they learned that he has three children, a daughter age 11 and two sons, 10 and 8.  He was very animated and proud when telling about them.  Suzanne asked what his hope were for his children.  His first hope – security.  His second – education.  When Suzanne asked about what they were likely to study, she learned that as Palestinians, they cannot go to college in their own country of Israel.  If they are to get a post-secondary education, they will have to go to Europe or the U.S. 

Our driver says he is fortunate because he was born in East Jerusalem, so he has an Israeli I.D., and he was born when E. Jerusalem was Jordanian, so he has a Jordanian passport.  He says he is very privileged, much more so than most Palestinians.  He says that Palestinians cannot get an Israeli passport.

Those of us who went to Petra, into another country, into Jordan, found that even though we went through the usual country-to-country business of presenting passports, getting visas, and going through customs, we got through that process more quickly than we did in Israel going between Israel and it's Palestinian territories.  Even so, as I went through customs, my backpack was searched thoroughly, every page flipped through in the three travel books I carried.

Tomorrow we visit St. Catherine's monastery in the Sinai on the way to Egypt.

Lowell

Monday, March 15, 2010

March 15, 2010;Masada,DeadSea,Eliat

Monday, March 15, 2010

Last night a lot of us went to the premier of a documentary called "With God on our Side."  It was a film made by evangelical Christians for other evangelical Christians challenging the Christian Zionist movement.  There was a lot of commentary from John Hagee, who became a lightening rod during the previous presidential election.  Hagee and others believe that Israel is God's chosen people, and that God intends to widen Israel's borders from Egypt through much of Syria, all of Jordan, and most of Iraq.  Anyone who has ever lived on that land other than Jews, including the Palestinians who have been here for about 2000 years, have no claim or right to the land, and are to be disenfranchised, according to Hagee.

There is another movement of dispensationalist Christians who believe a scheme created by John Nelson Darby in the 1800's that maps out the end times in anticipation of God's destruction of the earth, with the salvation of the few who have been saved in a particular way.  For them, the founding of the modern state of Israel is a marker of the end time, and they look forward to the fire, brimstone, judgement and blood of the final battle.

These Christian groups, mostly from America, are underwriting many of Israel's most aggressive policies toward Christians and others who live in the land, and they are providing significant political support for many American politicians to create a strong pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian American policy.

The video contrasted the Christian Zionist movement with the stories and witness of Christians living in the Holy Land today, all of whom are Arab Christians.  We heard stories of the ethnic cleansing that happened in the 1948 war when Palestinians were forcibly removed from their homes and lands, becoming refugees scattered throughout the Middle East.  We heard stories about the ongoing establishment of illegal settlements, which take land from Palestinians in violation of International Law and create Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories, now 121 settlements housing 500,000 persons.

Palestinians live under military law.  They describe the two systems, one for Jewish citizens and a parallel apartheid system for Palestinians.  Walls and checkpoints divide Palestinians from their health care, jobs, schools and families.  We heard stories about ambulances being fatally delayed by checkpoints.  We heard about the government's intentional strategy to minimize tourists' experience with Palestinians.  That's something we've experienced for ourselves.  One of our guides told us that for a balanced approach to the news, he usually goes to Al Haritz for the most trustworthy news reports for the Middle East, better to his mind than western or Israeli papers. 

Sharon was so taken by a line of graffiti on the Wall that she ordered a ring with the inscription in Arabic, "Imagine if we were loved."  She laughed on the bus, because of the hesitation of the man taking her order.  "It'll probably read 'Don't worry.  Be happy!' and I won't know the difference."  Walking through the Muslim quarter of Old Town Jerusalem yesterday, a man touched Sharon's sleeve and said, "Don't worry.  Be happy!"

Charlie has remarked that the Palestinians he has talked to are so forgiving.  He said he didn't think he could have experienced such prejudice and oppression and be so willing to forgive.  Our guide, without speaking about this to Charlie, said pretty much the same thing.  He's been coming here a long time, and he is humbled when he sees the forgiveness of those who are so oppressed.

Yesterday we saw a prayer in the baptismal area of St. George's Anglican Cathedral:

Pray not for Arab or Jew,
for Palestinian or Israeli.
But pray rather for ourselves
That we may not divide them in our prayers,
But keep them both together in our hearts.
(Based on a prayer of a Palestinian Christian.)

One more piece of graffiti before we leave the West Bank.  A paraphrase (practically a translation) of Ephesians 2:14 – "For he himself is our peace who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility."

We left Bethlehem, after a soldier walked through the bus, and headed south.  Not far into the wilderness we stopped at a place where we could look out over the Wadi Qelt, the ancient road between Jericho and Jerusalem.  Amazing wilderness.  In places the narrow passage is the width of a man's shoulder.  With tight turns and narrow passages, it was easy to imagine Jesus' story about a man on this road who was set upon by robbers, stripped, beaten and left for dead. 

This is also the road that many priests would take between their homes in Jericho and their assignments in the Temple.  Anyone listening to Jesus' story would have believed that the priest and others did the right thing by passing the unconscious man at some distance.  It would leave a person ritually unclean to touch a corpse or a naked person.  If one were going to serve in the Temple, it would mean lost time in the purification rites; if one were going home, helping the stranger would mean becoming unclean and having to return to Jerusalem to go through the rites.  Everyone listening to Jesus' story would have understood that it would be inappropriate by their customs to help the injured man.

Jesus told this story as an answer to a question.  The questioner probably was just checking out this Rabbi – does Jesus know the correct answer to the question: "Who is my neighbor?"  The right answer is, "Anyone who is a member of your family."  But Jesus tells the story of the good Samaritan instead.  The hatred between Samaritan and Jew was vile and intense.  Listeners would have been shocked that a Samaritan would take this man to a Jewish Inn – like an Indian taking a scalped man into a town in the Wild West.  The Samaritan took a chance with his own life by aiding the injured man. 

When Jesus asked the punch line, "Who was neighbor to this man?" it had a deeper meaning in this culture.  "Who made this man his family?"  The hated Samaritan did.  For Jesus, all humanity is family.  This was radical teaching. 

We went to Qumran, the separatist community of Jewish believers who left Jerusalem when the Hasmoneans discontinued the tradition of appointing the High Priest from the family of Zadok, appointed their own family.  The Essene community decided that God's Glory had left Jerusalem because of the apostasy of the rulers and the illegitimate High Priest.  They found their way to the desert, to wait for the immanent return of God's Glory.  There were three possible routs for God's return to Jerusalem: either from the Jordan near where the Israelites first came into the country, or from the Kidron Valley, or from Mount Nebo where Moses was buried.  The desert location of Qumran was situated in a position for them to join the triumphant procession when God's glory returned. 

They saw themselves as God's righteous People of the Light, in battle with the People of Darkness, now, at the end of time.  The community developed a complicated rule of life, with strict rules for sustained righteous perfection.  To allow the community to remain pure, the latrine was 2000 cubits from the city, and everyone returning went through the miqvah bath before entering the community.  One the Sabbath, no one allowed any discharge or flux from their bodies until the end of the observance.

The Qumran community worked hard on their documents – making copies of the scriptures, the rule, and the teaching of the community's leader, and other writings..  It was these documents that were discovered in the 20th century, preserved hidden in jars in caves around the community.  The texts from the Hebrew Scripture were nearly 1000 years older than the earliest texts that translators had at their command. 

When an earthquake destroyed Qumran in the early first century, BCE, Herod gave them some prime property in the Old Town of Jerusalem.  Later when Rome appointed the High Priest, a group of Essenes left again to reorganize the community in the desert. 

On the road south from Qumran, we passed the En Gedi oasis, where David hid in a cave and cut the tallit off of King Saul's prayer shawl while the king was relieving himself. 

We also passed the Kidron Wadi which stretches from the desert into Jerusalem itself. 

Finally we arrived at Masada, the mountain fortress built by Herod the Great to protect him, probably from threat from Cleopatra, who wanted Marc Anthony to give her Judea as a present.  It is unknown whether Herod ever went to Masada, but he sent his family there for protection when he visited Octavius Caesar. 

During the Jewish Rebellion of the 60's CE, a group of rebels escaped from the Roman invasion and secured themselves on Herod's former fortress.  Masada had huge storehouses for food and an elaborate and brilliant process for collecting and storing water.  A Roman army of 8000 surrounded the mountain (their camps are visible from the peak), and made siege on the compound for three years.  Every attempt to overcome the city failed, until the Romans built a rampart from the desert floor all the way to the city wall, providing a path for a siege machine to approach the wall.  At one point the siege machine caught fire and appeared to be threatened, when the desert wind reversed and blew the flames into the city wall, allowing the battering ram to reach its target.  When the wall had been breached, the Romans retired for the evening, certain of the victory on the morrow.

That evening, the remaining Jewish defenders decided to take their own lives rather than to be killed by Romans or live in slavery.  They burned everything so that the Romans would not take it, except they left a supply of food as a message that they were not defeated by starvation.  They then cast lots, and ten of the men oversaw the systematic deaths of the residents, men, women and children.  When the last ten were left, one was assigned to kill the other nine, and then to thrust himself upon his own sword.  When the Romans entered the silent city the next day, only five women and two children who had hid themselves were alive to tell the story.  Masada is now a symbol of Jewish independence and resistance, and many soldiers take their oath of office in this place. 

The park was covered with hundreds of school children who come here as part of their civics education.  It also was incredibly hot, well over 100 degrees, and a hot south wind blew oppressively upon us.  The visit was physically miserable. 

We proceeded to the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth, some 1300 feet below sea level.  After lunch, we waded into the sea, walking through the salt piles on the beach, and feeling the oily, mineral waters.  South of town we drove by a few mountains of salt and other minerals being harvested from the sea to make various products.

The Dead Sea is deeply endangered because the waters of Lake Galilee and the Jordan River which feed it are being used so much.  There are several potential schemes for restoring water to the Dead Sea, but something needs to be done soon, within our lifetimes.  We passed a resort-spa that used to be on the shore and now uses carts to take vacationers to the water some 100 yards from the spa. 

As we drive through the desert, the scenery changed dramatically.  Great cliffs and mountains gave way to broken, windswept brown sculptures that look like another planet.  Eventually we moved into the Negev and the flat, empty plains.  For a while the desert winds whipped up such dust that the sunset was filtered and almost disappeared.  Then the purple-black mountains appeared behind the flat expanse..  Occasionally trees from an oasis popped up out of the wasteland. 

We've been finding passages from the scripture, especially the psalms, that speak of mountains, desert. water and other images that explode with new vividness.  None of us will ever read the scripture in the same way again. 

Tomorrow is a free day in Eliat, a Red Sea resort town in Israel.  Many of us have signed on for an extra trip tomorrow to see Petra.  That's our plan, so I'll report back to you about one of the wonders of the world.

Lowell