This was probably my favorite field study thus far. I was really looking forward to hiking in Israel and this trip gave me a good chunk of it. I really was not even expecting to hike today so it was a pleasant surprise. When we started out at the lookout area in which we sat silently for a few minutes, I got to experience the arid, dry atmosphere at its finest. The air almost consumed every sound, the chalky hills absorbing all voices and janglings of the donkey or camel coming up behind us. Like a movie theater that has the cloth panels to absorb echoes, the Wilderness is one big Voice Swallower. But then we started to hike down the Wadi Qelt. This too was part of the Wilderness, dry and dusty and silent. But the walls and cliffs let our voices bounce quite a bit more and carried every noise to the tour group a ways behind us. It was hot. My Minnesotan skin can never quite be prepared for such a baking. And stranger than all this is to my foreign body is the occasional oasis that pops up in the middle of no where (seemingly). St. George's Monastery, for instance. Where did that come from? I saw both palm and pine trees ( I think they were pine) in one little area of one huge Wilderness area. And to make matters more interesting, one is always walking either down or up. There really is no steady land. I had to remember to look up every so often and take in the scenery because I was watching my feet when I hiked. One false step can…well….the best way to say it is through Galadriel: we stood "…on the edge of a knife, stray but a little and you shall fall…". Well, maybe that's exaggerating. ;) But I enjoyed the hike regardless. I'm definitely learning to appreciate water…luke warm water from strange faucets at that. And this was just our morning….

The afternoon brought us to the oldest and lowest city on the face of the planet: Jericho. I didn't particularly get excited on the bus ride there. In fact, I just don't really get excited ahead of time too often. But once I got there, I was so enthralled! All the pictures I had seen about the excavations and all the stuff I'd read about Kenyon and her bible-hating findings were right here. I was witnessing thousands of years in one moment….and I smiled inside. Jericho, the winter refuge from rainy Jerusalem, the place to go for pleasant and mild days when the rainy season is weighing you down, was located just beyond the Wilderness. Literally, there's hills and wadis of Senonian chalk and some Cenomanian ridges that don't produce anything because no water gets there and the earth is white as snow but hot and dry and desolate….just a few more feet and you're surrounded by palm trees and a luscious green scenery with the a beautiful view of the Jordan Rift Valley. I do take mental snapshots. Sometimes a camera can't quite catch what you see, and sometimes you don't even want it to. Certain things are best left to cherish in one's head.

Later on in the day when we went to Gezer, I was tired and a bit hungry and was mentally and physically ready to head home. But stepping off the bus wasn't difficult when I saw fields and a beautiful flatland surrounded by the cities and the coast and some wildflowers and a few trees and, of course, some ancient walls. This scene reminded me of southern Minnesota and I felt strangely familiar and at home with it all. Overall, it was a good day.

PS. My computer broke and I'm in the process of either fixing it or figuring out how to put pictures online without it. So hang in there with me...it will be a few days before I can figure stuff out. Thanks. -GRACE

Approaching Jerusalem

The Dome of the Rock

My Favorite Person.

Well another field study has past me by and I'm growing more and more accustomed to Jerusalem and its surroundings everyday: the smells, the inhabitants, the tourists, the sandy wilderness and the flourishing farmlands, the cities and sites and history....

Today's field study was entitled “Approaching Jerusalem.” And that's exactly what it was. We took a bus down to Herodium, a volcanic looking hill that Herod the Great built his palace on top of. It was extremely fascinating, and I was somewhat excited about a scenery beyond Jerusalem. The masonry of the palace wasn't as grand as the Temple he built, but it was very interesting to trudge around in the palace of someone so historical and, well,...infamous. Near the top of the hill, we stopped and read Psalm 23, the psalm I remember from my childhood at Nanny's funeral, and probably one of the most famous passages known by people who don't even really care about Scripture. Anyway... we read it in the context of viewing the “pastures” down beneath us, what David most likely shepherded in. We could now see why such “pastures” (small little spots of green that the sheep would demolish and then have to move on to the next) would be so valuable in an area that was quite desolate.

After the Herodium, we drove to Bethlehem, the first time I entered it. I wasn't nervous or anything, but people kept telling me it was so different from Jerusalem that I should prepare myself for extreme poverty and rather upfront people. Well, it definitely wasn't as “friendly” as Jerusalem felt, but it wasn't as strange and terrible as I had heard, which was a good thing. The Church of the Nativity was here. I wasn't really looking forward to going here, not because I didn't have respect for Jesus' birth place, but because all the historical churches commemorating stuff here are extremely un-western. It's difficult for me to appreciate the incense and the dark rooms and kissing the stone where Jesus was born etc etc.... But the church was very beautiful. Lots of wood and pillars and generally more of a like-able place than the Holy Sepulchre, but I feel heretical for saying so. Nothing dramatically spiritual happened to me while I was there...but that might be due to my religious skepticism and stubbornly hardened heart than anything else. But I've only been here two week, so I'm hoping there's still Hope. Anyways,....again...

We left the church and there in the Manger Square was a tree that had been uprooted somewhere with an inscription under it saying that it did not want to be uprooted and that it was moved here from somewhere else without its permission (yes, the tree was speaking in first person). It widened my eyes a little more to the constant battle over land here. I asked Cindy a bit about the conflicts here and she told me a thing that happened last summer when the Pope visited. Right when the Pope was about to pray in the middle of Manger Square, right outside the Church of Nativity, the Muslim daily prayer came blasting from the little mineret/mosque type structure near there. Clearly, it was “timed” just right....

Later, we came down the Mount of Olives and visited the Garden of Gesthemene. I really like it there. The basilica that's there is not my cup of tea...but I really love the doors. They look like architecture straight out of Lothlorien or Rivendell. But the Garden itself...its beautiful. Old old olive trees with purple and red and white flowers and little dirt pathways and ....well, that's about it. It's fairly small and it's fenced in so you can't actually go into the garden, just around it. But I really like it there...I'm not really sure why. Maybe that place breaks into my confusion and makes everything just a tad bit clearer...if only while I'm there. I really am trying...

As I live here longer and longer, I grow “used to” the conflicting lifestyles and visual stimuli and the meshing of language, religion, and culture. I know I keep bringing it back up, but it's been extremely strange being around it all the time. It's like I need one gigantic stress ball to squeeze...especially in Jerusalem. I'm sure once I get out and about Israel a bit more, the clash of the “titans” won't be as overt, and my need for a stress ball will cool immensely. It already has. But that's today...who knows about tomorrow! Until another day....