Glory Ho

We started this trip with two cameras. We now have none.

Yes, the whole stolen thing really sucked. So did the day-long police report experience. There was disbelief, devastation and denial. But there was, eventually, a solemn belief in the idea that this didn’t mean the world was bad, just that two people were bad. We had to move on. To do that, we engaged in a little exercise.

Why do we take travel photos anyway?

Answer One: To show others what adventurous, well-traveled individuals we are. To decorate our home with our excellent photography (so we can show others what adventurous, well-traveled individuals we are.) To color our blogs, (so we can show others what adventurous, well-traveled individuals we are.)

But this preoccupation with proof for others is no good. Who are you living for? You or your dinner party guests?

Answer Two: It’s about us! We want to be reminded later in life about all the exotic places we’ve been. Every action-packed moment. Each tri-textured vista.

I understand. But think about it.

Continue reading ‘Naked Eyes’

Growing up, my Mom taught me that going the extra mile meant giving the extra gift. So I selected souvenirs on trips and kept emergency items in the guest bedroom drawers. You never knew when a silver duck-head wine opener or a pear-scented candle set might be right. A small gift, she said, was a perfect demonstration of gratitude, celebration or sympathy. She was right.

When we joined the Peace Corps, I was forced to downsize. I found some small stones engraved with inspiration and slipped those inside stylish cards with a carefully constructed message. This became enough. When we left on this trip, Michael put his foot down. On my gifts. There was no room for rocks or cards, no matter how poetic. So I set out empty handed on a journey which depended (almost daily) on the kindness of strangers. It made me nervous.

But through her own example, my Mother also taught me to give of my time. My moment. Despite a ridiculous daily schedule, her energy was infinite. To friends, kids, sewing ladies or bank clerks, and especially us, she listened. Oh, how she listened. With the deftness of a lifelong fisherman and the sincerity of a lifelong confidante, she slowly drew secrets, doubts and ambitions out of everyone’s sea of issues, then sent bottles of encouragement and stars of approval toward their horizon.

While I think I picked up my Mother’s talent for bargains and thoughtfulness and I do have an inherent interest in others, I’ve never possessed her patience.

But travel has rescued me again. For one, it’s softened my schedule, sanding away the gritty necessity of hourly accomplishment. It’s also kept me away from Target, so I could pack my trunk with time instead of stuff, at least for a little while.

We are now frequently in the home of a local. We accept recommendations, rice, tea, sheets, tahina and hot water on a regular basis. I have often twisted with (perhaps knee-jerk) discomfort when I know we have nothing tangible to leave behind. Yet that feeling is slowly dissipating. I think because upon our frequent departure, I sense that the hearts of those around me are already full. That to have been there, giving of my moments, has been enough. That by listening to an organic farmer explain her methods or by hugging her child or by helping her bring in the laundry, I am giving of myself, just as my mom has always done. Or at least, I’m trying.

Maybe that’s the best kind of gift, after all. Because unlike some American flag magnet, which gets kicked under the fridge, you’re giving something that lasts.

Thanks Mom. Happy Birthday

Although there exist over 100 Egyptian pyramids, the three Giza structures, made of limestone, with the Sphyinx reigning amidst, remain the most famous.

The Pyramids are a full-on Monet. From far away, pretty cool. See above! You can see their swagger and hear their sexy voice say:

“I’m not sure how to tell you this, but uh, I’m kind of a big deal.”

And they are a big deal.

But up close, just as using your Canon 7 Pixel on your nose pores isn’t all that attractive, neither are the Pyramids. Why we expect a three thousand year old structure to be sanded just so and attract a celestial moonbeam spotlight is beyond me. This is our own mistake.

But Egypt has plenty of sand on their hands, too.

Around all three Giza suburb structures (Cheops, Mykerinus and Kephren) are trash, fallen stones, camel shit and genuine scam artists scarring the landscape made beautiful by MGM. Limp yellow ropes imply loose restrictions so that policeman can get bribes for allowing tourists to take a climb. Camel-posing for a picture will cost you a couple bucks, but no matter the price on which you agree, it’ll be double by the time you’re feet land back on the sand. Tomb ticket-takers demand tips for holding your camera while you crouch under the pyramids for a claustrophobic, but curiously creepy walk.(which unsurprisingly few people are comfortable leaving). At the Spinx-front, the touts were the most oppressive I’d ever seen in my life. Across the street is a Kentucky Fried Chicken where dirty barefoot children stare into the windows and begged for our fries by pantomime.

This is life, mixed in with a wonder of the world.

We all have our own fantasized images of life. Memories, for better or worse, are the most talented make-up artists, air-brushing the wrinkles, blemishes, scabs and annoyances out of ourselves, our family, our children and our friends. The further away these people really are, the more grand they become.

So it goes with these sandy slopes. Now, months after I wrote my original impressions, I wonder if I’ve been too harsh. Because upon reflection, although they’re not perfect, they’re still the Pyramids.

.

Egypt could be the first country on our trip where we found the history more fascinating than current life. We’re talking about a land which was ruled by thirty dynasties and dozens of pharaohs for three thousand years. A civilization with customs so appealing that even the Romans played along for a century or two. Gold-plated and glowing with jewels only Carrie Bradshaw could successfully pull off, the ancient Egyptians were master planners and skilled project managers. They are what I call “china cabinet people”. Those who save their best pashmina, string of pearls or felt black hat for that special occasion which never comes. The Egyptians were saving it all for the afterlife, when they’d break out the marble game pieces, bejeweled thrones and papyrus-woven beds to play, pose and sleep like the rebels they truly were.

King Tutankhamun, which I recognize mainly from company logos was a lot like the Mona Lisa. So familiar from pop culture snapshots, that you must concentrate very hard to realize you are looking at his actual 24-carat gold casing. Little Tut took the throne at the ridiculous age of nine in the 14th century and ruled, I understand quite unremarkably, for no more than ten wild years (a shriveled, linen condom, required to keep mistresses from mixing their potential peasant lineage with royal blood, is on display). Yet because his tomb treasure were found in tact as recently as the 1920s, he’s the only pharaoh to get his own room at the museum and a nickname in popular culture. And it was impressive.

The Egyptian history, explained by our speed-talking tour guide, Tito, was a comprehensive overview of this ancient civilization—most of the world had taken a turn at Egypt—the Romans, the Muslims, the Ottomans, the British. Even Napoleon wanted to play. Alexander the Great is forever immortalized in Egypts northern namesake city. But our tour also included some dubious claims. Did you know that Ramses II’s 13th son perished after chasing the prophet Moses into the Red Sea (remember that whole “parting of thing”?) They know this because of the excessive salt found on his mummy (surely not a result of the mummification liquids) and the “bite” taken out of his foot by a sharkfish (surely not lopped off at the museum’s narrow second stairwell, my Dad suggested). I suppose depending on your audience, it’s tough to decide just where history and religion intersect.

As a fitting finale, the mummy room was my favorite. Eleven drying corpses, each kept at 22 degrees Celsius, lie still, awaiting their role in the next Indiana Jones movie. Wrapped in linen, arms crossed to indicate their royal blood, their black skin stretched like canvas across the brittle bones just beneath. Hair, some Rumpelstiltskin golden, the texture of a doll’s locks, clung like a last accessory to many heads.

Tomorrow we shall see the Pyramids.

I found the Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit at a hostel in Jordan. Sometimes books are placed on our own mosaic-potted patio by the universe herself.

I’ll never forget when I read The Good Earth, by Pearl S. Buck, an parable-like tale of poverty, gender discrimination and cultural strife in 17th century China. But not only because it was an excellent book, but because the next night as I started a squishy novel about a pregnant teenager’s triumph above her troubles in the American South, she referenced the difficult labor and delivery of the squatting Chinese woman in The Good Earth. When this happened, I sat up and looked around the room. (Yes, I often believe me life is a sitcom and the disappointment never really goes away) but I just couldn’t believe it. If I had been on Alias, wouldn’t this clearly indicate that someone had PLANTED these books for me to find in succession? It was an eerie, yet strangely comforting feeling. As if the man behind the green curtain had offered me some of his Milk Duds.

But back to Rebecca. Because this is when it happened again. First she talked about the Rocky Mountains (where I live). Then she spoke about being Jewish (I don’t know any practicing Jews or anything about their traditions and was about to enter Israel). Then she spent three pages on Virginia Woolf (I had just read The Hours). THEN, when we were about to cross the Jordan into the wadis and canyons of Petra, she began talking about the D-word.

I’ve never been a woman of the desert. I certainly love the way my sparkling earring lay against my skin (which is turning) so brown. But I’ve always preferred the soft loaf of Wonder grass to the rough brown edges of the wheat. I guess you could say my bubble gum taste gets in the way. While years ago, Natalie Goldberg forced me to consider it, somewhere between the Dead Sea and the Jordan River, Rebecca’s timing gave it a craggy context I couldn’t ignore.

In the Middle East at least, it’s such a suspicious landscape. The wind carries only the wispy, hot breath of Arabic across the sand. Bare skin and bones with steak-colored, magenta veins with the perfect shade of the softest eye-shadow braising its best features. Clunky, caricatured trucks drive at the bottom of my screen. Tracks—a camel’s, road runner’s, snake’s– are the only sign of life you’ll find. As I do in the sky, in the wallpaper, the carpet or in the coals of a fire, I find faces in every texture. Faces of eagles. Men. Gods. Monsters. I am always in search of others.

But the desert meditates with meticulous precision. Its a prodigal student. Naked, but not vulnerable. Buried, but not dead. Empty, but quite nourished. It refuses to talk and in the process, shuts us all up.

(Graffiti’d on the desert-colored visor of the 4×4)

Our camel ride began in Rum Village, Jordan. Between the Mexican, Spaghetti-Western reminiscent walls, we and the Dutch sisters were led into the great wide open on the brightly-blanketed backs of growling camels. After an hour, I brushed the carrot-cake-mix-like sand from the folds of my dress and stepped out, slipped through the silent orange sand wondering how any place could be so quiet. Then we four wheeled and yee-ha’d over dunes and across wadis toward the Bedouin camp to sleep in the desert. Where we drove became the road. No matter how fast our driver went, I didn’t care. I knew that we could only crash into ourselves.

Due to some botch in planning, and despite enough churches to lift entire town at least a few kilometers closer to heaven, there was no Catholic mass in English on Easter Sunday in Jerusalem.

So we went to sunrise service at the Garden Tomb, the spot where Protestants believe Jesus is buried.

I’d slept just a few hours the night before. Female dorm life had become an oddly comfortable slumber party in the past week but sleeping wasn’t one of the benefits. The wild-eyed Norwegian girls, Eda and Maria, were on the rooftop with wine until four. Natalie, a tough English chic with feathers and patent leather to spare, fell into bed slightly before. Ingor the, retired Dane who loved America and had once been married to a Coloradoan, had slipped in near midnight after five hours of prayer. Katya, the mysterious Moldovan, who lived at the hostel in exchange for her maid service and got free food from the Jewish soup kitchen every day, had been gone for hours. Finally, South African Andrea whose tall frame and layers of wrap-around skirts flowed with peace and love no matter her mood, had been asleep for hours. A wiry and easily frightened black cat which favored the end of my bed skittered in and out of the five-foot windows. I could hear the drunk howls of Purim, today’s Jewish, Halloween-like holiday which celebrates the deliverance Persian Empire Jews from Haman’s plot, by the heroine Esther.

But at 5:45, we slipped across the stones and between the nuns, early marketeers, Hasidic Jews and closed iron doors of an empty souk. The line was long, the crowd was loud and I was nervous.

Over the past week, I had spat out Jerusalem’s koolaid again and again. I was parched for a drink of spirituality. But I was determined to keep my expectations low today. I knew that even the chance for reflective meditation would be low. Not with this crowd. Not with these cameras. Not in this town. Easter Sunday in Jerusalem would make a good story. Period. This is seriously what went through my mind on what has turned out to be one of the most important days of my life.

Michael, on the other hand, was near giddy. His lavender and khaki linen, tanned skin and smile relieved me. Going to church without stained glass to color our view of the sky was a novelty and I guess he knew. Yes, he just knew.

The Garden Tomb was just that, a bountiful garden of stone benches, bright peonies, private space and historic significance. This is a little closer to where God lives, I thought, as we stepped inside. Without mosaics, steeples or frescoes to clutter the view. Without pouty priests and scolding devoutees to kill the buzz. Without politics and power laying claim to their share of the Old City’s square footage..

I’d been to a variety of services over the years. I knew there would be no Eucharist. I knew there would be more song and prayer, less Liturgy. But I was still unprepared for the celebration that followed.

The clapping. The singing. The rejoicing. The literal hallelujah and the claim of happy day. The kind faces of the crowd. The various orators voices, unrehearsed and happy, were like my mother’s voice on the end of the line. Faceless, but undoubtedly smiling. The live earth—bougainvilleas and birds—shared their oxygen like picnickers passing out watermelon slices in a park.

I was happy instantly.

In fact, my initial reaction was laughter. This was not church! This was too happy. Too uninhibited. Too much fun. Too fulfilling. Too spiritually accessible. I felt nourished. I actually cried.

I said: “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Michael responded: “You mean what’s right with you.”

It took me a few days to reconcile the paradox. The Protestants were singing about a divine Jesus, a Jerusalem Jesus, one I don’t believe in. They were celebrating his rising from the dead and his “wash(ing) their sins away”. Ideas which I don’t hold dear. So why was I suddenly comfortable? Because within their transmission was energy, kindness, acceptance and optimism. Ideas that guy Jesus and I  hold dear.

Check out Michael’s video for the live story. . .

Maybe I should buy a longer skirt.

Yes, maybe you should.

I mean, the men are either “tsk”-ing or ogling. The women are looking at me like I’m a two-bit whore! My skirt is not that short!

Yes, it is.

But it’s not my fault. I didn’t know.

Yes, you did.

It’s been cold. I’ve always been covered up anyway. I felt so comfortable in Iraq and Jordan and Syria. I really did. Especially in daylight. With Michael!

Yes, but this is the West Bank.

We were in Ramallah. Michael was walking behind me, as is our custom in Arab countries. This allows him to keep an eye on me and ward off any potential stares.

We just wanted to see Ramallah. We wanted to taste the tension of the West Bank. Detect the nuance between West Bank Palestinians and Lebanese Palestinian Refugees. To observe the other faction in a confusing fight for different ends.

And it didn’t take long. On the surface it was just another Arab country like Syria or Jordan with nutty traffic, cheap Western clothing, a lot of headscarves and shacks of shwarma. But when comparing it to the refugee camp of Beirut, the differences stared us down. The Palestinian camp in Lebanon was much more third world. We’d felt out of place but at ease. Here, the Palestinian’s apathetic stares and hidden hospitality demonstrated that we just another (potentially Jewish or at least Jewish-American) couple who’d gone slumming for the day.

In all the other Arab countries, our American-ness had never been troublesome. Sure, it earned us lectures and opinions, but these were always served with a cup of bottomless tea. We’d learned again and again that people saw us as individuals. Not as a representation of our government. In addition, while my hair flowed freely and my skin was quite fair, I had not once felt threatened by a Muslim man, even when walking alone.

But Israel, a tourist destination, a Westernized bastion of order, schedules and sit down toilets, was different. And in fact, Ramallah was the last in a series of harmless, but disturbing incidents which had happened during our Holy Week in Jerusalem.

There was the taxi driver who offered us a free ride to the museum. When I’d brushed him away saying to Michael “Nah, I don’t feel like it. He’ll just guilt us into paying him.”, he literally went into a rage, driving along side us and screaming about what a good person he is and how dare we not trust him.

When leaving the museum, we were quoted too high for a ride back to the Old City and Michael asked about the meter. The driver agreed and estimated the cost. For us, it was still too high, so we said no thanks and walked away. But the driver wouldn’t leave us alone. Eventually, he called Michael a son of a bitch. Then there were the teenagers in a quiet, narrow section of the Christian Quarter. After ignoring their harassing calls, we politely said “goodbye” in Arabic and received a “Fuck You All” in return.On a few occasions we encountered children whose English “Hello” was immediately followed by a phrase like “Give me a dollar”. Finally, every girl in my hostel dorm had a story about mild verbal (and sometimes physical) harassment from the disrespectful males in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City.

It was all about contrast. You might say: Rude people can be found all over the earth. Harassment of a single female is nothing new. But in Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Northern Iraq and Jordan, it was mild or non-existent. Here, not so.

We had surmised earlier in the week that this was how tourists ruined a town. When kids know that people have money, they begin to beg. When shopkeepers know another tourist is around the bend, smiles don’t come with a transaction. When you’re a dime a dozen, people don’t care where you’re from.

But we knew, too, that we were seeing this country’s conflict in color. Just to be sure we fully understood, our journey from Ramallah back to Jerusalem would put us in the very humiliating shoes the Palestinians had been wearing for years.

When the bus arrived at the “border” between the West Bank and Israel, everyone filed off the bus and into a bus-terminal-like shelter with their passport in hand. People hurried. We followed suit. Soon, there was a row of entrances (or were they exits?) divided by concrete walls. Each had a tall cage turnstile and a red and green light above it. Through the other side, I could see a conveyer belt and an overhead airport style metal detector. But I didn’t see a person.

Each entrance had its own restless crowd. Like grocery check outs, there was lane switching and strategy. Some entrances seemed to have longer green lights than others. Some people got caught between grates. I felt a definite sense of panic that I can’t really explain. I just wanted out of there. I didn’t like the desperation, the cell-phone conversations, the looking around. Was something different about today? If so many Palestinians were crossing into Jerusalem, then this must be a routine procedure. And if it’s a routine procedure, the Palestinians must be familiar with it. And if that was true, why wasn’t everyone just waiting their turn? Why the panic?

I really don’t know. But I knew it when I felt it. 

It’s been so seldom on this trip that we’ve actually FELT the way the newspaper implies we might feel in a given country. Yet there was no danger here. No potential bomb. Just a taste of the tension.

To remain in awe in Jerusalem, you must not only BELIEVE COMPLETELY but truly abandon all reason and logic so as to accept that some council at the ministry of tourism and religion in Israel knows the exact spot of baby Jesus’ birth.

While Rome shines with a self-aggrandizing decadence that refuses to be bothered by what you do or don’t believe, Jerusalem doesn’t feel the need to dress up, because its authenticity is more than enough. The church architecture is not especially awe-inspiring. The Sea of Gallilee is no longer (perhaps never was) a mysterious sea of baptismal waters. The Church of the Nativity is a simple hall of contemporary lanterns and almost atmospheric barn rafters. The Old City is a fantasyland for so many who can certainly get a Jesus keychain or Indian textile bag in their hometown, but feel so much cooler buying it in Jerusalem.

On Good Friday, following the schedule of our handy Holy Week Guide, we marched over to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher for the three-hour celebration–three hours where once inside, NO ONE would be allowed to exit the church.

According to Constantine who made it so 300 years after his death, this church is the site of Jesus’ crucifixion, mourning and burial, and must accommodate the Greeks, Syrians, Egyptians, Romans, Armenians and Ethiopians in all their individual Catholicism. As a sad result, it’s discombobulated design lacks any flicker of communal spirit. Its as though in exchange for giving everyone in the family their own private room, the living room was sacrificed.

Back and forth around the corners of this confusing chapel cluster, bishops, friars, priests, monks stomped their sticks against the stone in processional after processional. It was all very confusing and very, very serious. We sat on a bench most of that time. I tried to pray, but it didn’t really work. I also tried to freeze frame the beauty of the glittering mosaic of the mourning apostles, but there were just too many people. We watched. Waited to see what would happen next. Gave our seats to teary-eyed old woman who amazed us with their ability to be moved among the chaos.

Because faith is so abstract, so like the wind, it’s much better if we can touch it. Here in Jerusalem, you can. I understand. That’s a big reason why people are here.

But these tourists were disturbing. Hundreds of (mostly Spanish) women with their bibles, Puma tennis shoes, water bottles and determination, were prepared to engage in arguments with monks, to push worshipers out of their way and to beg for admission to the first ritual of remembrance. We wanted nothing to do with it.

No, this was not a place where I felt closer to God.

Even the alluring decor couldn’t help the atmosphere in there ascend toward heaven. In fact, by the time we left in search of $8 bagels, the whole experience had felt a little like a wait in a visa office.

Toward the end, we chatted with an Irish priest and I looked for something, anything, which merited remembering. Some shadow or shaft of light. Someone. What I found was a young nun in a full cornflower blue habit leaning over the second balcony railing. But she was taking a picture.

See for yourself here. . .

At the fourth station of the cross, the point along Via Delarosa (Sorrowful Way) Street, as Jesus carried the cross to his crucifixion, he saw his mother Mary crying for him. I’ve seen the Stations of the Cross my whole life—etched in wood, glowing in stained glass or shaped in wrought iron along the east and west wings of cathedrals in France, England, Spain, Bulgaria, Syria and the U.S. A.

But I never understood them until today.

Two thousand years ago, this narrow medina was full of Jews, Gentiles and Romans; camels and donkeys. Now the stations are commemorated with steel signage in the Muslim Quarter, a chaotic and exotic bit of the Old City with dirt-stained filigree gates, slits of sunlight, disobedient children and jaded storekeepers. But today, the path included armed security guards and police barricades to manage group after group of devout believers on a pilgrimage along this path. And as the Muslims became angrier and angrier for facing roadblocks in their own cul-de-sacs, each pilgrim wanted to walk in Jesus’s footsteps more literally than they had before, chant into the eyes of their bible and create a memory they could clutch between their praying hands forever. In one mixed ménage, we heard the deep, dark praying voices of French-speaking Africans from the Ivory Coast and the echo of the Filipino church hymns as they paused at each station’s miniature chapel. A brown-robed friar guided them through the madness. At the fourth station, beneath the well of a dripping grotto, they sang:

We’re you there when he saw his mother weep?
Were you there when he saw his mother weep?
Ohhh. Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when you saw his mother weep?

I cried almost instantly. I’m not sure if I was moved more by the idea of a mother witnessing the suffering of her son, the devoutness of these kneeling souls, or the truth that I was no longer a believer.

You see, I still reach for the comforting blanket of complete Christianity by an occasional church attendance. I say the Our Father and the Apostle’s Creed like an obedient child. I try and listen to the Liturgy, but often drift off, brushing away the guilt with justifications for personal meditation.

We all want something sacred. And Christianity, as our new friend Erik recently commented, does “sacred” really well. But it’s the personal connection where they need a little work.

Feeling as spiritually flat as I did in Jerusalem was a sign without a signal. I could no longer contrive any drama or stretch toward any symbolism. For years, familiarity had kept me in the pew. But the memorized prayers and instinctive pantomimes were simply keepsakes of my past. Like old love letters, their relevance had slipped away.

I wish I could believe. I really do. It would be so much easier. But recent experiences have led me into the darker caves of my soul where an honest life is the only way out.

As we travel, we don’t often know upon arrival just how long we’ll stay. But somehow, we always know when it’s time to go. Because when energy sources become sparse and you begin recycling the spirits of yesterday to rise toward today, there is nowhere to move but on.

So it goes for my pilgrimage out of Catholicism.

Current Location: Jerusalem

In February, one of my best friends Erin passed on a message from her pastor at Montview Presbyterian. The message was: It’s not our job to love who we love. It’s our job to love who Jesus loves.

A few years ago, I might have rolled my eyes at this comment. But now, I’m in. I believe it.

Because this is a message about kindness. It doesn’t mean I have to necessarily spend time with everyone I meet or know or live with or work for, but I should love them just the same. It’s a message I also received from historical Jesus and it seems to fall into my hands again and again.

On Thursday evening of Holy Week, I went to mass with our friar-to-be friend, Erik at the Church of the Notre Dame, a new France-funded cathedral outside the Damascus Gate of the Old City. This would be my one Catholic mass of the week. Some predictability. A little comfort. A bridge to huddle upon between this crazy land of religion and the familiar rituals of my childhood church.

Holy Thursday or Maundy Thursday, has a heavy load. Not only does it commemorate the Last Supper, but also the agony of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane and the betryal of Christ by Judas Iscariot and the washing of the Disciples’ Feet.

According to Wikipedia:

The word Maundy is derived through Middle English, and Old French mandé, from the Latin mandatum, the first word of the phrase “Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos” (“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you”), the statement by Jesus in the Gospel of John (13:34).

It seems that on this eve, after washing the Apostle’s feet, Jesus asked them to wash one another’s feet.

Now, let’s consider the time period for a moment, which included a largely shoeless society, no recorded sewage system and the somewhat free mingling of camels, donkeys, dogs and other beasts with humans, (Yes, I know Charlton Heston appeared fairly clean in the Ten Commandments) and you get an idea of just how horrible this task was perceived to be. But all the more demonstrative of his point: Love others as I love you.

As part of the mass, twelve people had been chosen (all men, hmph) to have their feet washed by the priest and other clergymen.

All week, Erik had invited us to attend church with him. And all week, there had been some unavoidable conflict. What’s odd is that prior to this evening, I knew nothing about the significance of Holy Thursday except for the Last Supper. Yet in the sea of the bible’s gospels, parables and commandments, this mass’s message, which lets face it, may or may not have blossomed from an actual foot-washing party, is one I believe in.

This is just the beginning of Jerusalem’s impact on my spiritual road-trip. . .