more than a memory

This is a poem written by one of my dear friends on this trip. He shared it last night at our good-bye meeting (yes I said 'good-bye meeting'). I was completely blown away by it. He captured so much in this poem that I could not express to you on a blog. (I do not expect for everyone who reads it to understand it all, there are many many inside jokes).

But it is a beautiful piece of work. And it might help a little to understand what I have gone through this semester and show insight to the incredible people that have gone through it with me. You will hear my thoughts later.

More Than a Memory OR Europe Semester
by Matthew Bennett

Look.
Who are you?
Where are you?
Where did you come from?
How did you get here?
Where did you stop along the way?

There’s no more time to waste
No more tears to wipe from your face
No more fears to flick over fierce cliff faces.
No more foolish theses, themes, or broken fascist dreams,
No Florentine Renaissance figurines, no more one-euro ice cream.
No more busses, no more trusses, no more Gombrich,
No more fussing with broken luggage, no more bed buggage, no more “Rubbish!?”
Oh, and no more Gombrich.

But this wouldn’t last.
I hate to say it, but it’s true.
Some things are much less like Gorilla Glue than I would prefer.
I’d say more like the scent of a flower.
Peaking ever so sweetly in the bright afternoonish hour.
Yet in few days time the flower’s power-hour ends faster than a cold, Palestinian-Israeli morning shower.
But luckily for us, we look at flowers and say “Hey, that’s a pretty looking thing. Maybe I’ll have a sniff.”
So we do. And then we walk away. [Unlike Mr. Jerusalem and Nif.]
But we’re not flowers dammit.
We’re people. If I dare – friends. Family, if I double dare.
So we employ our next level tactics, and wander from Jericho to the Eiffel Tower.
From museum halls to wherever chocolate is sweet and beer is never sour.
From Churchill’s War Rooms to Monet’s delightful flowers.
All these places spanning countless speeding hours.

But we were given something more to grasp.
So gather round children, zip it, listen.
As surely as the mountaintops of Mittersill glisten, this trip was something grand
This trip was more than just a European one-hundred-and-four-night stand. It came with a mission.
No, I don’t mean Father Serra. I don’t mean Manifest Destiny.
I just mean simply, don’t let it go to waste.
This isn’t just a memory. It’s more than traveling from place to place.
It’s something that cannot be erased.
We experienced it all, so to speak.
We learned, we grew, we yearned and flew
We turned pages, took stages, and dropped every single LotR reference from now until the end of all ages.
We toasted to friends and dreams and silly things then crashed and burned on classroom floors.
And I could go on and on and on with more of white cliffs, wrenching hearts, and watery, narrow corridors.
But I digress, that’s not what we came here for.

I came for this, you came for that, her that one thing, him the other, and those two because of their mothers.
Well there’s something we’ve been told.
Maybe you heard it earlier, maybe now’s the first time. Or maybe you heard it through the grapevine.
And, despite what you first thought,
It didn’t matter whether it was French, Italian, or Senonian rock.
It didn’t matter what we saw or ate or drank or bought.
Or even how many times Jenny rolled around the block.
Get it in your head, it was all just poppycock – compared to what That Guy had in stock.

life is good today

I sit in my living room with a cup of tea looking out as the sun sets over the Sea of Galilee. There are rocks and wildflowers on the sandy shore, palm trees and grass in my backyard, and so many colors on the water.

We arrived yesterday afternoon at Ein Gev resort. We ate our usual lunch and once again ran, laughing and screaming, into the water. The weather was like a late spring day, where the sun is pleasant but not blazing and the water is cool. The sand is so soft here and the water is as clear as Lake Tahoe. After swimming, my friend Shanan and I sat on the rocks with his guitar staring at the lake. Everywhere we travel I try to figure out what each place reminds me of. Most of the time it naturally comes to me, it is somewhere in central or northern California- but this place is entirely unique. I have never seen anything like it in my life.

I love this place.

(my lovely backyard)

I was so thirsty for nature. Israel has been even harder that European cities in that respect. Beautiful but dry and dusty hills with the sparing fertile valley. This trip to Samaria and Galilee is more than I could have hoped for. Yesterday we traveled through Nazareth and Samaria, learning about the trade routes and fortresses of the cities as well as the Samaritan faith and the community of Samaritans left today. We drank water from the well of Jacob where Jesus talks to the Samaritan woman in John 4. Today I woke up and watched the sunrise on the shore and ate French toast at breakfast! We then traveled north of the Sea of Galilee into the Huleh Basin and into the Golan Heights seeing Biblical sites such as Hazor, Dan, and Caesarea-Philippi. Though Israeli school kids harassed us the entire time, I greatly enjoyed Dan’s beautiful spring water and wonderful walk through it.

(sunrise)

(Dan and the spring water)

We feasted on a Thanksgiving lunch of pumpkin bread and pita with turkey (and the usual hummus, pickles, olives, and carrots). In Caesarea-Philippi we stood at the cave that once was a temple to Caesar Augustus which was known to be where one could enter the gates of Hades through the River Styx. We read from Matthew 16 where Peter confesses Jesus to be the Christ, Messiah and Savoir. Jesus then tells Peter that, “on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it’ (vs. 18). And I was right there, right at that rock, pretty cool.

On the bus ride home my friend Kyle and I decided to jam together and play our favorite songs for the other on our iPods. We sat there and listened to beautiful music as we watched the sun set from the bus. I ate a little bit of pumpkin bread and thought to myself ‘this is the good life’.

we have done so much

We left Jerusalem early early in the morning for the West Bank on the 11^th. I have not much to say about the beginning of the day in Jerusalem besides that it was full of crowded religious sites and man confusing overlooks of the city. I do love being on the Mount of Olives though. It is such a vivid place to me when I read the Gospels. I would have loved seeing the Garden of Gethsemane and all the area around it, but it was far too crowded with tour groups and venders that I felt no emotion besides frustration.

(olive trees in the Garden of Gethsemane)

The real story is what came with the evening. We were split into groups of two and assigned to stay with Palestinian families in Beth-Sahour, the neighboring city of Bethlehem in the West Bank. Alex and I stayed with a Simon and his family. We ate dinner with him and had incredible conversation concerning the current state of Israel and Palestine. He told us of where his family was before 1948 and during the 6-Day War. He told us how he and his sons have blue Jerusalem IDs and his wife and daughter have green IDs meaning they basically cannot leave Palestine). We discussed the curfews put on the Palestinians during the shooting in the Church of the Nativity and many other times in the early 2000’s. His wife came home from her meeting and we talked about how they met and the culture differences among culture and dating in the Middle East (even among Christian families). As we were drinking tea and being continually fed sweets, a couple with a newborn baby and a two-year-old girl just walked in the door. The woman worked with Simon as environmentalists and this was the first time her new baby girl had been in their home. Her husband Max and Simon continued to discuss the conflict with Alex and I. And then another friend of theirs, a 20-something-year-old basketball player just walked into the living room and started joking with us all.

To our surprise, Alex and I heard vivid stories from Max and Simon about their severe beatings from the Israeli police force. I do not think I will forever forget their stories. They were 14 and 18, beaten beyond recognition for having a peace sign key chain and a picture book of newspaper clippings.

They next day (the 12^th) we went as a group to the city of Hebron where there is the most fanatic Jewish settlers in all of Palestine. The shops and homes of the local Arabs have been welded shut by the police and the economy is shutting down. Jewish settlers have built their own homes on top of abandoned Arab houses while many Palestinians have to climb in through their windows and roofs. We walked through a Palestinian refugee camp afterwards and walked along the wall that separates Bethlehem from Israel.

That night Alex and I had a much less politically charged night as we went ‘shopping’ with our host mother. Really we just stood around flipping through racks of the oddest clothes I’ve ever seen while she went shopping. Apparently she had had gastric bypass surgery and needed a whole new wardrobe. (I will just add here that that is, in my opinion, one of the most detestable surgeries available). While we were in the car we were able to have great conversation with her about her family. She treasured family above anything else in the world, and explained to us that when you cannot leave your country or town, that they are all you have. I have never met a woman that felt so strongly for her family in my entire life.

Our next day (the 13^th) was a bit of blur. We explored the Sphelah and saw the area where the battle between David and Goliath took place. Our day ended with our entire group swimming together in the Mediterranean Sea. Moments like these are the times I am most fond of- 42 people whom I know so well laughing and playing the ocean together as the sun set. And the water was so lovely and warm.

(pretty proud of that Chaco tan)

The 14^th was our exploration of the Negev portion of Jerusalem. But the REAL part of the day was in the incredible hike Cyndi took us on in the basins of the Negev. It was stunning and much-needed. The wilderness in this country is just so so different. I often don’t know what to do with it. Brown hills, white hills, tan hills. But it’s intriguing and so many of the people here find it absolutely beautiful.

(the canyon hike)

(wilderness view)

Now this night was an adventure. Our bus ride to Arad was supposed to take a little under an hour, but our trusty bus driver Omar got us lost. This means a bus full of 43 hungry and tired college kids for 2 and a half hours. People started listing all the foods they were going to eat when we get home, they talked about how much they missed their mothers, insults started flying as we became more tired, and Eric started reciting his cannibal love poem. We finally arrive in Arad as Omar pulls up to a warehouse far off the freeway. They tell 13 girls to grab their stuff and get off the bus. Apparently all of our housing accommodations had fallen through and myself and 12 other women slept on the floor of an art warehouse with mats and sleeping bags.. it was hilarious. We got back in the bus to go to dinner and Cyndi informed us that we are eating dinner with the Bedouin.

“You’re joking aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not.”

-silence-

“You see, it’s funny, because we still ALL think that you’re joking”

We waited for an escort car as Omar drives us and our GIANT tour bus on a dark dirt road into the wilderness. Turns out, Cyndi was not joking. We walked into this giant room with oddly colored pads and pillows- all exhausted and famished. The Bedouin community fed us a delicious dinner of flat bread, chicken, salsa, rice, soup, tea and Arabic coffee. Then it was back to the warehouse. We woke up the next morning and ate breakfast of flat bread, humus, zatar, yogurt, and olive oil with the Bedouin again- just as delicious as dinner. We learned about the Bedouin and their life under the Israeli government. They showed us their sheep, goats, and camels. I personally was kicked in the arm by a charging sheep. And I’m not talking about a cute little white lamb, I’m talking a BIG scared sheep.

(breakfast with the Bedouin)

After this we all swam in the Dead Sea. Covered ourselves with priceless black mud and minerals that people pay for at spas, and then jumped into the thrashing salty waves. It was all fun and screaming and floating and laughing, until the waves crash into your mouth and eyes and BURN BURN BURN. And if that isn’t enough to get you out just wait 5 minutes until your skin starts to burn. It feels like you are going to lose every inch of natural protection on you body. So we splashed our way to the shore that is covered with white salt crystals. All our friends were packing the mud into water bottles and pouring fresh water over their faces in relief. It was an adventure. But after the enflamed skin, sore eyes, and bloody knees- we know the Dead Sea means death.

We ate our usual lunch of pita, carrots, humus, and cookies and made our way to the springs of En Getti. We compared the deceptive beauty of the Dead Sea to the promises of the world’s materialism. Beautiful and temporarily enjoyable, but eventually bringing pain and death. Shrinking and stagnant. And then we jumped in the pools of En Getti. Incredible, fresh, sweet spring water. Every place water splashes from the waterfalls it sprouts new life from within the thirsty surrounding stones. The living water that comes from the Lord.

And now I am back in Jerusalem at the Gloria Hotel outside Jaffa Gate- and it feels so so good.

the Land Between

“You will not be able to describe this trip.  You will not be able to tell people back at home what you have experience here.  You will not be able to even discuss it amongst yourselves.  But Israel’s not here to make you a better witness, its here to make you a better servant.”

This was said to us by Moshe, an Orthodox Jewish shopkeeper who we visited on our first day in the Jerusalem.  I know that’s no way to start a blog, telling you I can’t explain to you anything.  But please try to understand, these are the fullest days I have ever experienced, I can barely sort through them myself.  I mean that in the most wonderful way possible.

How am I to become a better servant here?  I keep asking myself this.  To listen and to learn are first in my head.   We are studying “the geography and history of Israel as it impacts the Bible and Modern Life.”  That is my class title.  I am studying freaking everything and am overjoyed about it.  For the past couple weeks, as Europe was coming to a close, I kept wondering why I came on this trip.  I did not really care much about European cities, I certainly did not care about WWII, and I did not just come for the food and shopping.  I have not acted like I did most of the summer and was stripped of many comforts from home that I treasure... so why the hell was I here.

In the middle of our first class day in Jerusalem I remembered- THIS is why I signed up for this trip, THIS is why I’m here.  And God did so many things before we came to Israel (like handing me beautiful relationships and encouraging me to fall deeply in love with art), but this is why I’m here.  To see and learn this.

On our field first day, starting at 7 AM, we explored the nature of the land, the names of the valleys and hills of Jerusalem.  We went into the City of David to see (potentially) the foundation stones of Kind David’s palace.  We went to high rooftops to see the different views of the city.  We saw ancient houses and walls from the time of King Hezekiah.  But the highlight of the day was all 42 of us walking through Hezekiah’s tunnel.  Hezekiah’s tunnel was made around 400 BC, carved through the mountain bedrock by hand with torches, meant to channel water from the Gihon Spring to the completely other side of the city.  We got to walk through it, in the dark with flashlights water above our knees laughing and yelling.  We are on adventures e v e r y d a y in this place.

After lunch at JUC (Jerusalem University College) we had an intro to our course lecture.  We went until 5:30 PM.  Such long days.  And then back to the hotel for dinner.  Lunch and dinner always have so many olives and hummus and vegetables, I have missed vegetables so much.

Today we started at 7:30 AM and explored the 4 quarters of the Old City (Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and Armenian).  We saw the Western Wall and discussed the many city walls during the times of Herod and Great and Hadian of Rome.  We saw the old streets and the shopkeepers selling a variety (from belly dancing outfits and earrings to prayer shawls and rosaries to bras and socks to spices and produce).  We walked along the rooftops and saw the city look united from above.  We sang beautiful harmonies of ‘Come Thou Fount’ and the Doxology in a Crusader church near the Pool of Bethesda from John 5.  We then had lunch and class until 5:30 again.  In class we discussed the types of rock and disciplines of historical geography. 

But the part I loved the most was the lecture on the Agricultural Calendar of this region.  Our calendar had all the months of the year with the rainy and dry season, showing the time for harvesting each crop, and the dates for the major Jewish festivals.  We then discussed passages from the New Testament where Jesus fully relates what he’s saying to this agricultural lifestyle of the people.  His fulfillment of each festival (not just Passover) was pure joy for me to learn about. 

I must tell you my favorite example.  When Jesus speaks in John 7:37-38 he says “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.  Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”  Jesus spoke this in the final day of the Feast of Tabernacles.  This feast is at the very end of the dry/ harvest season where the people thank God for the harvest he has provided.  They pray each day with this thankfulness, and on the last day of the festival they turn their prayers into requests for God to bring the early rains.  Their cisterns are getting low in water and all the people are in fact thirsty.  So Jesus’ timing is, as always, perfect.  And he claims not no only to be God, who provides the rain for his chosen people, but to be the one who can give living water.

Seeing this relationship unfold between God, his people, and the land is beautiful.  I am loving this so much.  I will leave you with Psalm 125:1-2, which is meaning more and more to me every day-

“Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures forever.  As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people both now and forevermore.” 

concluding Europe

I suppose I should update y'all on Rome...

4 years ago when I was there with my mom I really did not like it.  We spent most of our time navigating through crowded streets and waiting in long long lines, only to push through giant crowds of people again (it was summer tourist season).
I really loved it this time.  To be fair, it is still an enormous city and I do hate that.  I hate the overcrowded-ness of the place, I hate all the high end, over-priced shopping selling things no one needs, the obsession with what it means to be Roman, or what it means to live in the Catholic capital of the world.  So why then did I like it so much..

I had incredible roommates (Laura, Sonora, and Lauren).  And we had a couple extras that might as well have been our roommates (Bry, Taylor, and Tiffany).  Our space was filled with so much laughter and silliness.  Laura and I shared the most giant bed I have ever slept on.  Everyone was piled on it as we spent a whole day writing our Technology in European Society paper and another studying for our WWII final.  Pumpkin seeds and sarcastic insults were flying.  It was wonderful.
I really was not looking forward to our tour of the Colosseum or the Roman Forum.  I saw them as merely physical representation of a powerful but sick society that is long dead and gone.  And I still think that.  But we had the most AMAZING tour guide we have ever had named Franchesca.  She made every place come to life as she imaginatively reconstructed every ruin and painted it with marble and frescos for us.  I understood the Roman Empire and current Roman culture in an entirely new way as she then connected it to our every day lives.  It made me appreciate every Roman ruin I saw for the rest of our time there.  It was essential to my time in there.

The rest of my week had times of homework, rest, shopping, site-seeing, and great dinners with friends.  I got together with my roommates from Krakow (known as 'the Bitches' for no good reason).  I am just so thankful for the times I get to go out with small groups of people I am close to.  We shared a delicious Italian meal, got cut a deal by Tony our waiter, and at gelato in St. Peter's Square (circle).  The next night I went back to the same restaurant with my small group.  I am just so blessed to be around so many incredible women on this trip.  Each day I fall more and more in love with the group I am with.  I am so thankful for them.

One of the interesting excursions I went on in Rome was to see the prison cell Peter and Paul were held in.  The cell was far below ground level (since Rome has been built on top of itself).  Above the prison was a Medieval church dedicated to Peter which is now a museum.  We purchased the audio guide for our short tour and let me tell you- it was weird.  No other word for it.  It tried to be extremely symbolic with talking about stones and water, and water dripping like a heart beat, colored stones from different time periods that talked and argued.. etc.  Strange!  The religious portions of the tour were also odd.  They practically glorified Peter above Jesus, only mentioning that he is the Son of God once and the reason Peter lived and breathed.  They claimed that Peter split time in two with his creation of the church and only talked about him, not even the reason he was really imprisoned.  On top of that, they did not even say a single word about Paul.  It was hilarious how strange it all was, but it was also sad.  This place where Paul wrote so many letters, this place that was so special to us, had become somewhat absurd.  Here is a picture of the church above the cell..

Our tour of the Vatican was not as expected either.  We had had our WWII final that morning and were practically useless, add that to a very average tour guide, with some useless information and only about 7 minutes in the Sistine Chapel, and you have a pretty big waste of time.  The thing that did stand out to me was St. Peter's Basilica (aka the Vatican church aka the most important building to the Catholic World).
IT IS SO DAMN BIG YOU CANNOT DESCRIBE IT TO YOU.  I could not even handle it.  (Keep in mind that this church was assembled entirely of marble taken by destructing every temple in the Roman Forum.  The alter above St. Peter's remains is constructed of melted bronze from the ceiling of the Pantheon).  I felt so so so small in this place.  It blew my mind.  Everything is oversized.  They have a marker of the size of every other Cathedral in the world on the floor to show you how big it is.  I thought that was awfully unnecessary and conceited.  This basilica, the capital of the Catholic world, felt lifeless to me.  It felt like a government building, only concerned with size, power, and tradition.  I do not at ALL think that way about the Pope, the Catholic faith or community, but that is how I felt towards the Vatican.


And now I sit in the Hotel Parthenon (ha) on the eve of my journey to Israel.  Yesterday we spent in class learning about the Arab- Israeli conflict, visiting the Parthenon and Acropolis, and copying my professors maps of Israel for our JUC course (yes, they let us copy, this trip is the best)!  Today we had another class and then a free afternoon.  I laid on a fenced-off lawn next to the statue of an angel in a park for two hours.  I then ate the best 2 euro gyro of my life in the same park and journaled next to the birds.  I then went to cafe Smile and drank a beer as I read my Bible (Beer & Bible, you proud Dad?)  We fly out of Athens/ EUROPE tonight at 10:30 PM and arrive in Israel/ THE MIDDLE EAST at 12:30 AM.
I cannot believe it has finally come.