Glory Ho

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. . .

Note: This is a flashback to Beirut. Because I thought it best to wait until we had exited both Lebanon and the Big I before publishing it, it is appearing now. . .

Inma Foundation (for whom we built a website) was founded by a Muslim who follows the teachings of Jesus. Not exactly your typical blend. The foundation does not claim any particular denomination, style or practiced religion, but they follow life in faith, through God’s love. And their foundation strives to give without bias in a country divided by culture, religion and sect.

In January, Inma’s founder hosted an unofficial religious delegation of seminary students, pastors and spiritual leaders, on a three country, five day tour to build bridges between Islam and Christianity. As it turned out, most of these delegates were from Colorado. Cherry Hills Church, Smokey Hill, Denver Seminary, and others. At a reception in their outlandishly Lebanese two-story penthouse, the founder Samir, a charismatic, diplomatic and informal fellow, gave a short lecture on the similarities between the Koran and the Bible and how we are much stronger through unity than division. How we are all living through the love of our Creator. As a souvenir, each delegate was given a large varnished and wood-bound tome, containing each Koran passage which mentioned Jesus.

During their time, Samir organized a meeting with Nabil Kawook, the, Hezbollah’s Southern Lebanon commander. Michael and I were invited along.

TIMEOUT

So for my own sanity, let’s go over Hezbollah for a moment. You might have heard of them. The U.S. and UK, among other countries, classify them as a terrorist organization. Here’s a little more—the most truthful, but neutral description I could find– from another acronym called the BBC::

Hezbollah – or the Party of God – is a powerful political and military organisation of Shia Muslims in Lebanon. It emerged with financial backing from Iran in the early 1980s and began a struggle to drive Israeli troops from Lebanon. In May 2000 this aim was achieved, thanks largely to the success of the party’s military arm, the Islamic Resistance. In return, the movement, which represents Lebanon’s Shia Muslims – the country’s single largest community – won the respect of most Lebanese. It now has an important presence in the Lebanese parliament and has built broad support by providing social services and health care. It also has an influential TV station, al-Manar. But, it still has a militia that refuses to demilitarize, despite UN resolution 1559, passed in 2004, which called for the disarming of militias as well as the withdrawal of foreign (i.e about 14,000 Syrian) forces from Lebanon. As long ago as 2000, after Israel’s withdrawal, Hezbollah was under pressure to integrate its forces into the Lebanese army and focus on its political and social operations. But, while it capitalized on political gains, it continued to describe itself as a force of resistance not only for Lebanon, but for the region.

BUT BACK TO REALITY

There we were. Eleven men, a Lebanese woman and us. Heavy security. A meeting room which had been host to past negotiations and stalemates, I was certain. No cameras or cell phones. A lot of guards.

Nabil Kawook, arguably Israel’s most wanted man, was tall. He had a beard, a turban and a presence.

He strode up and back the narrow, yellow, sofa-lined, fluorescent-energy-star lit room. Past the Kleenex boxes and candy dishes of gold on glass. He shook each man’s hand, meeting eyes with concentration and confidence. Upon reaching me, we both clutched our hearts with one hand, the traditional Muslim greeting between unfamiliar men and women. He then moved to his throne at the head of the room. Samir, the man who made this meeting possible, and today’s translator, sat beside him. A gold Hezbollah flag stand stabbed the ceiling with power behind him.

I have to admit, I was somewhat afraid to move. As if we were all in a flat-bottom boat and the crossing of my legs might throw the whole gathering off balance and splash water into the freshly-ironed folds of the Sheik’s triple layered robes, tip the caricatured cotton off his head, cause him to drop his prayer beads or extinguish the flammable power of Islam floating around him.

He spoke of Hezbollah and their effort to help those who could not help themselves. He told the story of Ashouraa, the Muslim holiday honoring Mohammad’s martyred grandson, Hussein, and he talked about the miracles he believed had occurred. He answered questions from the delegation—about why Hezbollah wasn’t providing more humanitarian aid to refugees and about how he connected with God. I listened, but my absorption was constantly broken by two things: Unfounded fears of imminent explosion and my mesmerized gazing at his face.

But there’s that Lebanese drama again. We would not have gone unless we felt safe. Because we trusted our guides, Rob and Samir. This meeting was about bridges, not bombs.

After an hour, we all participated in a final prayer. One of the visiting pastors even asked if he could put his hand upon the heart of Nawook while we prayed. You can bet security detail was all over that one. But it happened.

As the Sheik exited, he complimented me on my last-minute dash at immersion—a black winter scarf wrapped ’round my head. He said that I looked like Mary—that this practice would strengthen my faith.

I’m not sure about that. But the experience did widen my perspective. This story is not about dispelling myths. I can’t go into Hezbollah’s tactics, strategies or battles with Israel and just how politics play into their motives. And I know nations have their reasons–good ones–for labeling Hezbollah as terrorists. But this IS about remembering there are multiple sides to a fight and about the unfortunate ignorance of those (including me) who sometimes place guilt by association. Just because the Sheik’s costume and look reminded me of the big O does not mean that he is an evil man. Just because Al Qaeda is violent doesn’t mean Islam is. Just because people don’t approve of our government doesn’t mean they dislike us as individuals.

I do know that for sure.

I’m not sure whether this is a sign of self-sufficiency or frighteningly decreasing standards.

Until yesterday, airports, despite their stress, had always given me a rush. I’ve always loved walking confidently through any terminal with some trendy new handbag across my chest. O’Hare with its Accenture ads, neon-mod walkway, Mrs. Fields cookies and convenient gates. DIA with its Native American art, view of the plains, ridiculous tram and turquoise for sale. JFK with its dodgy Union Station bar, sunglassed heads and no-nonsense staff. Paris with its silly airbus system, original metrosexuals and hottie flight attendants. For years, airports were the beginning of something good. Sure, they were also fraught with stress and schedules, but I kinda live for that shit. And running through an airport makes for a very good story.

I swallowed my first spoonful of reverse culture shock yesterday at Queen Alia Airport in Amman. Our destination: Erbil, Iraq or Kurdistan. This had been a big decision for us—we’d labored over it for weeks. But not because it was Iraq. We’d researched Erbil extensively, found a couchsurfer, received two friend-of-a-friend testimonials and read blogs and even tourism articles. We knew we wanted to go. We knew it was safe to go. The problem was the money. This one transaction would be more than we’d spent in our first six weeks of traveling. But with complicated visa issues coming in and out of Syria and the PKK at the Turkish border, this was the only way.

We were going.

Wearing our most presentable attire and switching my backpack to rolling mode, we arrived precisely at 10:00 for our noon flight. With little signage, all we could do was follow the crowd and look for our airline’s logo. At some unidentified time, some unidentified person gave an unidentified signal, which prompted the waiting area of Arab businessmen and Muslim vacationers headed for Dubai to jam their way toward a small security passageway. This happened just as Michael returned with a sandwich and a latte. Note: typical airport stress.

But because we’d been taking cheap buses and trains for the past three months, because we’d rarely maintained a schedule that wasn’t 100% flexible and because we’d learned that hurrying takes all the fun out of traveling, we weren’t used to fighting for a place in line.

The difference today was four-figure prices. Suddenly, a schedule mishap was NOT an option.

Note: switch to present tense to increase panic level.

Michael expertly slides the sandwich plate into the top of his backpack and hands me the coffee while putting everything on his back. We attack the line from both sides in pitiful coordination and end up together just in time. After a quick passport inspection, a man who would within minutes make everything more complicated than it needs to be because he was in search of a tip, grabs my bag and leads me toward a conveyer belt, nodding and yelling CHECK! just a little too loudly again and again.

Suddenly unable to think for ourselves, we think: check? But no! We don’t want to check our carryon bags. He motions me one way and Michael another. But no! We’re together! But then we realize that DUH we are not checking our luggage yet. And that DUH, we are in the Middle East and there are gender-separated lines. Though I’ve blogged about it before, I am struck once again at how being treated like a child turns you INTO a child. This time the result being a man in a blue suit who now wants a tip.

Then there is that horrible confusion about which one of us has the tickets and which one of us has the passports and I am left wondering how I have been reduced to someone who MUST have her coffee and therefore carries it through airport security.

But then I am pushed toward the “Ladies Inspection Area” and there is no line and the buzzer keeps sounding and the woman behind the curtain keeps saying BACK! BACK! but never indicates when to come forward and I finally get there and I think she’s trying to tell me to take the lid off my coffee but I’m not really sure I don’t want to because OBVIOUSLY that’s where my bomb is hidden but when start to she indicates for me to put the COFFEE through the conveyor belt and I’m like: WHAT? But that’s what I do. And then I cut back in line, playing hardball with the rest of them and I am finally frisked by this same women who gets ruder by the second and I come out to find my purse and a man yells “Who is this coffee?” And I’m all defensive and say: “But she told me to put it there!” pointing in no uncertain terms at the women hiding in her curtained box and then some man hands it to me across the machine and I look over and watch Michael being interrogated by a man at a small brown desk with not enough to do, who I will soon find out is confiscating his rechargeable camera batteries because basically, he has to confiscate SOMETHING.

So, for the record, I am now incredibly annoyed with three people who are all basically just doing their job the best they can. I can feel the tightening of my skin as entitlement (I paid big money for this flight! Don’t treat me like shit!) and arrogance (Can you BELIEVE how disorganized this country is? And why can’t they speak a LITTLE more English?) pop my skin into the loofah-crying scales of a reptilian monster.

From here, things only get worse. We are due to depart in 40 minutes. Another wait, an immigration window, and another round of frisking later, we are somehow in the holding area for a flight to Milan. Which does explain the barrage of middle-aged German women with big pocketbooks and Frommer’s Guides, but does not help our current cause. It turns out our flight is not boarding yet. What can we do but believe someone and have a seat? I dive into Sudoku, Michael goes into his meditation mode and we attempt to change our energy before the next panic attack hits roughly twenty minutes later.

Note: Back to past tense.

In the end, we departed two hours late because of a delay in Baghdad. The flight was uneventful and I even got a shot of Michael in front of the Iraqi Airways-plastered plane before the flight attendant told me to “kindly put away my camera.”

But we felt we’d been slapped in the face by familiar patterns of the past. What hassle! What stress! If only we could have taken a bus!

Was money behind this negative energy? Could it be that lavish expenditures turn me into an instant asshole? It made some sense. The original paradigm is about possessions. When you have an expensive camera, you have to worry about losing that expensive camera, about someone stealing that expensive camera, about damaging that expensive camera. And it’s worth asking: Is the expensive camera’s benefits worth the stressful experience of keeping track of it? About the witch I become while I worry?

Our airline tickets represented the same quandary. Had they been worth it?

Yes. While jewelry, excessive gadgetry or $100 sunglasses are not, the flight was. The trick is to simply internalize frustration and panic, maintaining pleasant expressions, measured movements and soft-spoken, head-tilting reactions while the world goes to pieces in front of you.

Yes. Well. Of course. Next time I’ll know. But damn that G.I. Joe. It sure doesn’t feel like half the battle.

Current Location: Amman, Jordan

Oh, you’ve heard it all before. Pity the last Middle Eastern country on our path as nothing is surprising by now. Created from the overflow of Palestinian refugees from Israel and now those having fled Iraq, Jordan, although atop land with centuries of rich it-happened-here stories, is a nation more like America, with an immigrant-mixed identity.

As we bused in on that sunny Saturday in February, this desert city of little beige boxes against an azure backdrop resembled a two page Pottery Barn spread—just the right amount of pastels, lines and curves to round out a living space. Unlike the uneven wafers of desert where Syria rested, Amman was built upon nineteen hills and so like the shoebox diorama you built in the 5th grade, it pops out with multiple dimensions. Architecturally, there was a lightness to it. Embassy flags flew more freely, strip malls were more plentiful. Big-city tunnels, tall, cut-glass hotels, Burger King and even Benihana did make it feel a little like Omaha. The only difference were the framed shots of the royal family which decorated building after billboard like American Dental Association ads. As if receiving a tour of an empty-nester’s new condo, we were privy to posed photographs of the Hashemite Kingdom’s royal son. I could just hear his parents glowing now: “Here he is with the family. There with an Arab headdress. And look at this one—isn’t he dapper with his uniform and three-finger salute?”

While in Amman, we stayed in the oldest and most authentically Jordanian neighborhood in town, which alas, meant the most run-down. The Cliff Hotel was terrible. But we bought new DVDs for around a buck a piece, sat in cold Internet cafes and sucked down fresh juice and falafel from stands with plastic grapes lights and grumpy owners. Pantene and Pert Plus made their old false promises from carefully crammed shelves. Some people noticed us. Plenty others did not.

Travelers had warned us that Amman was nothing special. They were right. But we needed these down times for video writing and video uploading. So we settled in.

Within a few days, I found a recording studio to do my recent voice-over assignments for Infowerk, a contractor which provides aviation e-learning modules for military units. Random, I know. We also spent a day at the American embassy completing forms, trading travel stories and most importantly, acquiring more pages for our passport.

As in every capital, we managed to quickly attach ourselves to a foreigner-filled bookstore and cafe not far from our hotel off Rainbow Street. The whole place was a cliché with moving parts. A girl wandered around interviewing expats for a new travel forum, mashed potatoes were on the menu, lattes were tall with free refills, wireless internet brought us infinte pleasure and American voices were so plentiful that I stopped hearing them. We probably spent 25+ hours on those couches, one night watching a new episode of Lost from our laptop, Ipod plugs in our ears, while having a margarita and eating a chef salad with cheddar (!) cheese. It seemed too good to be true.

But I know, people, I know. Jannis and Jana especially, this is not the Jordan you’ve been waiting for. It’s coming, I promise.

But first we went to Iraq.

You never know what travel might do to you. I mean, yeah, all that deep stuff. But even my tastes are changing.

(Photo by Hurina)

Take coffee. Somehow, back in the early 90s, when putting a Starbucks in a Starbucks was a funny joke, I just never needed the caffeine. And who wanted something bitter? Blech. But it was also about the morning ritual. I just couldn’t be bothered. In fact, I frequently wondered how people could spend precious time and dollars on mere liquid with a clearly marketeered mocha-triple-blend-Indochina title. But, I’ve come around. Sugar, milk, and the schwe schwe (slowly slowly) inshallah (God Willing) Middle East attitude, is making me take time to stop and drink the coffee. And it tastes good.

Olives. In Greece, Andy turned me onto the garlic-stuffed variety. Then I found them bursting with almonds. In Turkey, there was the olive farm. It seems only right to consume the product you grow, right? My father was a corn and soybean farmer for a fifteen years. While his kind of corn fed mainly cattle, I took pride in consuming the little yellow kernels off the cob, as if I was somehow helping to earn our living. So when picking them by day, I knew that all olives, which lets face it, are really just salt and oil dressed up in a silky cape, must become a part of my life. And oh, how they have.

Cats. When I was 7 or 8, I got bit by a cat. Looking back, I see that this particular cat was tired of my endless game called “I-want-to-hold-you. No-I-REALLY-want-to-hold-you.” But I avoided cats from then on. A decade later, my roommate in college, as part of joint custody with an ex-boyfriend, exposed me to Alex, the evil of all felines. Likely due to kittyhood trauma, this cat was fearless and defensive 24/7. A hisser and a scratcher, at parties, she’d perch on the arm of the couch and swat at people walking by. What’s hard to believe is that my roommate then married my brother and so this cat has become part of my FAMILY! But no matter. From this, I entered into a full-on cat-phobia, including nightmares. If anyone argued, pop culture was on my side. From Lady and the Tramp to Pet Cemetery, the cat had been typecast as a villain who was always picking on the dumb blonde dog long ago.

But at the olive farm in Turkey, for reasons a therapist will one day determine, I withdrew from my usual position within the skin of the social scene and found connection and reassurance with fur. I felt more at one with the animals. In particular, petting the cat, this self-sufficient creature which cleaned itself constantly (when I was, at the time, relegated to just a few showers a week,) seemed like a win-win situation. Somehow, my need to nurture finally swelled past human relationships.

However, upon wandering the streets of foreign cities ever since, and witnessing just how defensive cats are, especially compared to their canine counterpart, I realize that what I’ve never liked about cats was what I’ve never liked about myself. They’re always freaking out as if every passing human is plotting to kill them or they’re not gonna get enough milk. It’s as if I have realized, noting the goodwill and generosity of every stranger, that the world is a good place. That I shouldn’t be a fighter, but a lover. And after crossing that line, I looked back to the see the cold, bitchy cat, armor still strapped across its fur, paws up, ready for a rumble. So I went back, scooped it into my arms for life and consider it my duty to beckon this beast toward a better place.

The other day we realized that we’d hit hotel bottom here in Amman.

Besides the piles of decade-old dirt in the corners, the obscene toilet, and the smelly blankets, its usually about 50 degrees in our room. To combat the cold, we’ve been sleeping together, in one very small bed to keep warm. Which would be a good idea, except that due to our two-inch thick, malformed mattress, it’s like sleeping in a bathtub, with both side at a 70 degree slope. The owner, gold-toothed Tony, with his cardigan, Palestinian symbolizing keyeffieh and New York baseball camp shuffles around with his father and another unidentified mustachioed man. Mealy but mellow and always acting as though he just smoked a doobie, Tony embodies flow. Which would be great if the whole place didn’t have such a nursing home feel to it. Or if he didn’t say it was okay to “ash on the floor”. Or if the alley its in didn’t include a bum hangout.

But here we are, at $10 a night in the Cliff hole hotel, boiling eggs, drinking Nescafe coffee, sleeping in our clothes and finding a sliver of sunlight to sit in as we start the day. And we’re still lovin’ this life, always ready to get on the road again, goin’ places that we’ve never been, seeing places that we’ll never see again. (We usually can’t wait) to get on the road again.

(Graphic compliments of the graphic wizardess and new mother, Keri Smith at Wish Jar)

Willie Nelson. . . .Herman Hess, maybe mixing icons is a little like mixing metaphors. Just another rule I’m choosing to break.

We’re alive and doing fab. Please don’t anyone worry about a thing.

Sometimes I wonder how I end up where I do.

This was my thought as I walked atop the shoulders of an icy, starry night on a road between Syria and Lebanon, humming Islands in the Stream (it was playing at the duty free shop) and searching my coat pockets for toilet paper.

Our morning departing Beirut had been a hellish nightmare of false starts, perfume peddlers, taxi scams, bus ticket tricks and below-the-highway bust-ups. We’d finally managed to find a five dollar mini-bus, which along with eight other smoking, shifty-eyed males, took us up over the mountain pass and even stopped for a currency exchange. Six weeks ago, on our way in, we’d exchanged cash in panic through a barbed wire fence at the Lebanese entrance while we prayed that our bus didn’t leave without us. It sucked. But this time, despite the confusing conversion of Lebanese Pounds, Syrian Pounds and American Dollars (which were also used in Beirut) we fared better.

But getting our cash was only the first step. At the Syrian entry point, where not one officer spoke English, we discovered via a kind bilingual bystander that it would take five or six hours to issue a visa since they’d have to contact Damascus and wait for approval.

No problem. We’d been warned and were well-prepared with snacks and our books: Eastward to Tartary and Beirut to Jerusalem. Plus, there was a Dunkin Donuts nearby. Swell. All day long we watched hundreds of border-crossers come and go and the moustachioed pea-green-uniformed officers change shifts. But eight hours later, we were still hugging the radiator in our little bucket seats, going a little stircrazy. That’s when paranoia began to set in. We had no idea what was going on back there. Had our request been sent? Were they checking on it? Were visas issued after business hours? Shit, what had I written in my blog about Asad? Bloggers had been recently arrested in Egypt. What was the problem? Damn it America! Look at those Japanese tourists–in and out in five minutes!

Finally, just before 10:00 they motioned us over.

The visas would be issued.

Whew. But now we had to find a ride to Damascus. It was just a forty minute drive, but dark and cold by now, hitchhiking did not sound good. About that time, we heard American voices. Texas accents.

Fifteen minutes later we were sitting comfortably in the front seat of our own knight on a white horse. Except this hero had a 1974, velour interior dirt-dusted Caprice Classic–so big and white it seemed like it would fly. It’s driver, Abu Anas, a friend of the family spoke little English, but lucky for us, Abeer the pharmaceutical rep, Kinan the real estate guru and Zak the attorney spoke good Arabic. Somehow, it was arranged that we would stay with Abu tonight at his home and tomorrow morning he would drive us to Amman, Jordan for a small fee.

So we dropped off the Texans, then headed far out of the center to the cinder block shantytown of his suburban home. It was rockpiles and late-night fruit stands, dark alleys, corrugated tin and cement compounds. But his smile was as wide as the Caprice Classic as he called his wife and told her the good news. Though nearly midnight, he was bringing home guests. American guests. So would she plug in the space heater and put on the tea?

That night we slept in our clothes on a firm bed under three blankets. Harsh security lights courtyard, the outdoor space between the living spaces of his “house”, flooded our room, setting aglow the literally hundreds of garish ceramics displayed in our bedroom, a strange status of wealth in these Syrian communities. The next morning, after a quick teethbrush at the outside faucet, we sat around the kitchen diesel stove while Koran verses san across the television. Did we want tea? Well of course we did. As Abu’s headscarfed wife flowered with facial expressions and three of their nine little boys watched us with delight, we knew we were at a red-level alert for another kidnapping. This would be a close one.

But this time was different. This family was at ease with each other and that made us at ease with them.The energy was buoyant and we relaxed into the comfort of confusion we had come to know so well. I practiced my Arabic numbers. They practiced their English greetings. It was shy smiles and photos all around. Soon, Abu Anas made a move to go and we followed the nonverbals. Onto the white horse we climbed, one leg at a time and he drove us to. . . .not Jordan, but the bus station, where he arranged our seat with a bus-driver buddy of his. A miscommunication. Not too shocking. But it didn’t matter. A free bed, a culture-rich evening and a personal delivery to the bus’ two front positions, the best seats in the house. Abu refused to accept any money.

The Jordanian border, with King Abdullah and Queen Rania smiling at us with delight as if we’d just arrived at their private dinner party, was full of shiny marble, modern mosaics and velvet ropes which swung with order.

Amman here we come.

Since we’ve let the United States, two years and six months ago to this very day, I realize that there’s three of us on this trip. Me, Michael and Sophia.

Sophia, as many know thanks to popular culture, stems from the Greek word for wisdom. Its root rests between suffixes and prefixes throughout the English language. Sophisticated means full of a certain kind of wisdom. Philosophy means in love and pursuit of wisdom. Sophomore means both wise and foolish.

Around five years ago, Michael was sitting in the comfy green chair of our past life, reading Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, when he told me that Sophia was a biblical figure, said to be the personification of the feminine in God.

This was long before our decision to join the Peace Corps. But during our service, Sofia turned out to be the namesake of a city we called home for two years. In Beirut, Sophie is the generous, eccentric founder of Inma Foundation, for whom we built a website—the mother of Inma’s giving spirit. In Carnivale, an downloaded HBO series we’ve watched in many a dingy, freezing Arabian hotel room and a story which mirrors the nomadic lifestyle we’ve adopted, Sophie is the strong, fortune-telling character played by Clea Duvall. Recently, but before I realized this strange Sophia-ness, I purchased the book Sophie’s World, a novel of philosophy by Jostein Gaarder.

As you can see, we never get too far across a new border before her skirts find a way to twirl into our life.

So when our first niece, Sophia Louise, was born January 22nd, 2008 to Michael’s sister Meagan and her husband Ryan, we knew she was a gift from the universe . We will forever remember how we were sprawled across the world in search of the very wisdom her name embodies as she was born. And although we’re not there to hold her little pink hand at the moment, we promise to be the best Aunt and Uncle ever upon return. We love you, Sophia.

It was time to go. We spent our last day in Lebanon in typical potential peril as we gathered with thousands of others to commemorate the third anniversary of Prime Minister Hariri’s assasination, which, in 2005, had led to a national uprising and the removal of Syrian troops. We sloshed through puddles, fear, skirmishes and dozens of soldiers to get there, but it was worth it. For the first time in Beirut, we were truly “init”.

Us with Inma Director Rob and his wife Harriet–thanks for everything.

Boudreaux skiing above the Lebanese clouds. . .

Finally, the apartment I’ve been talking about for weeks. . .