Israel 2

From Tel Aviv, we headed to Tiberus, by way of the Roman city of Caesarea and the ancient battleground, Meggido. But the payoff for me after an exhausting day of traveling and wandering around ruins was arriving at the Sheraton Moriah in Tiberius, and finding a very well-appointed, modern and comfortable hotel. The beer of choice at the hotel bar was, again, Carlsberg (as it was in so many places). I was happy to find out that drinks at the bar could be charged to my room, but chagrined to realize that, of course, they had to be paid for before I checked out. Which is something I should have thought of ...

On our first night in Tiberius, after the tour members had gone their separate ways and our responsibilities were over for the night, a coworker and I walked along the boardwalk in the balmy November weather and drank vodka and 7up out of plastic cups while looking out on the Sea of Galilee. It was Saturday night in Israel and Shabbat had just ended, so the place was bustling -- Arab merchants selling bootleg CDs, a miniature amusement park with people crowding to get on the rides, and all sorts of people of varying shapes, sizes and complexions wandering around and taking the air, just as we were. On a wide concrete platform behind the hotel that jutted out into the lake, a number of people were taking dance lessons.

I still remember the strangeness of being transported from a place that had prematurely turned bitterly cold -- Chicago -- into a Mediterranean climate. It was November, and I was wandering around in my shirtsleeves. As difficult as the days were, the nights had their moments of liberation. Thinking about those moments, I wouldn't mind being in Tiberius and charging another Carlsberg to my room right now.

A well written note

There is a book whose title I have always remembered: "The Good Old Days -- They Were Terrible!" I take the point. Modern conveniences have made our lives much easier. Would you rather haul a block of ice into an icebox, or put your perishables into a refrigerator? Turn up the heat with an electric thermostat or stoke a fire with coal that has been delivered through a chute into your basement? The answer for most of us is easy.

But I still maintain that there were habits of behavior and of thought in days of yore that were desirable and tended to make people more ... literate and articulate I guess. Take music, for example. When many living rooms had as their centerpiece a piano, or when more people were used to singing hymns in parts in church, you can bet that more people had a knowledge of the rudiments of music. The ability to read music even in some halting fashion has faded as the habit of making music has been replaced by simply listening to music. Convenience has introduced a world of music to our ears, but our hands no longer know how to work their way around a keyboard, and our voices have been stilled.

It's the same with writing. Clear writing and clear thinking go hand in hand, William Zissner once said. When people were in the habit of using letters as one of their primary forms of communication, rather than the telephone, or the much less formal writing found in emails, instant messages, etc., more people wrote well. It was not that they had studied writing -- they were just used to the hard work of having to put their thoughts onto paper and make them understandable to the person on the other end.

All of this crossed my mind as I went through some old papers at my Mother's house. Among them, I found a little note, one that I had read many times before, that my Mom dashed off to the many people who had written to express their sympathies at the death of my Grandmother. Here is what she wrote:

As much as I would like to, I am sure you will understand that I cannot personally acknowledge the many messages that I have received following Mother's death. I hope that you will accept this somewhat formal looking note as a personal expression of my deep gratitude for the assurance you have given me of your thoughts and prayers for me and my family in this time of our sorrow.

I thought I knew something of the wide circle of Mother's friends and how greatly she was admired and loved, but the many expressions of sympathy and the moving testimonies to the influence of her life which I have received have been overwhelming and only deepened my sense of gratitude to God for all that she was and all that she was enabled to do. To say that all this has been a comfort to me is to say too little; it has served to strengthen my faith in that Gospel which we profess and by which she sought to live, the consolations of which have deeper sources than memory, since they spring from the victory which Christ has won for us over death and the grave.

Two paragraphs, four sentences. Each time I re-read it I am impressed by the economy, and touched by the obviously deep emotion held in reserve carefully and with dignity, by the note of transcendence, of faith, hope, and love, at the end. Memories fade and bodies fail, but some things endure. Take away my email if you must, but let me be able to create one well written note.

Thanks Mom.

Lament for the caboose

I remember as a kid driving with my Mom down Monroe Street toward downtown Springfield and having to wait at the tracks at 3rd Street for a freight train to pass. I was always happy for the delay. My brother and I would count the cars, and always hoped for the trains to be as long as possible. I loved the racket, the somewhat menacing swaying to and fro of the cars, the names and slogans emblazoned on them ("Cotton Belt," "Southern Serves the South," "Main Line of Mid-America") that reassured me that there was a world, vast, intriguing, and a bit mysterious, beyond Springfield's borders, and that some people were already on their way there.

And a caboose -- there was always a caboose. For awhile, I decided that sitting up in the little cupola, waving to passengers in waiting cars and kids hanging out by the tracks while the train passed through towns, and maybe stepping out occasionally on the little porchlike area at the back of the car to take the air, was the job for me. (Really, it still sounds like the job for me). Of course I had no idea what the man in the caboose actually did; I just liked the fact that he got to do it where he did.

Cabooses are all but gone, replaced by something called a "flashing rear-end device", which, though it may hugely improve efficiency, doesn't exactly fire the imagination in the way the caboose does. If you're interested, do some online shopping for an old caboose, or an old passenger car, or freight car ("priced to sell!") here. Surprisingly affordable.

We Will Go Sailing

The other day my eight-year-old daughter couldn't sleep. After tossing and turning for a bit she said that she had a poem going through her head that she wanted to write down. It was late, but I dropped my Strict Dad facade and let her go into the kitchen and write. As she went to bed she said she didn't want me to read her poem; a few minutes later, she called from her room and said that I could, if I wanted to. Of course, I did want to. Here's what she came up with (I corrected one spelling error and added one comma):

We Will Go Sailing

Look away you sailor!
Look up to the sky.
Today is the perfect day to
go sailing, you and I.
The sail shall billow
as we draw away
from the shore.
We shall not come back
until we've had that adventure
far from the shore.

No, she's not Lord Tennyson. But I genuinely liked it -- the image of a perfect day, a friend, an "adventure far from the shore" out there waiting. I thought of a lovely little anthem we sang last fall with the choir, one that both she and I loved, a setting of this text by Thomas Campion. Maybe she still had that image of ships and sails, of going on journeys and returning home, in her mind.

I'm a proud Dad, so what else can I say? Keep writing honey, and trying to translate those ineffable feelings and impressions into words.

My father asks for nothing

Touching. Read it.

(With thanks to Solomonia)

Israel 1

Last fall, I took my first trip to Israel. Circumstances were not ideal. It was a working trip, and helping lead a group of 120 for ten days through an endless round of tourist sites is more exhausting than I could have imagined. It would have been nice to have more free time to explore at will. But it was an opportunity too good to pass up and I'm happy I went, especially since I almost certainly would never have had the opportunity otherwise.

Though I intended to keep a journal, that idea got thrown out after the first day when I saw how demanding the routine was going to be. But, sitting in the hotel in Tel Aviv overlooking the Mediterranean on that first jet-lagged day, I did manage to write the following:

At the Newark airport, our flight is given a special gate to depart from. This area is secured and swept by security personnel before we are checked in. People boarding the flight are swept with wands and given several different passport checks before boarding. I've heard from many about how serious Israel is about security, and they weren't kidding.

The boarding area in Newark is a sea of humanity of all different religious persuasions. There is our group composed mainly of Christians, some of whom pray before boarding. When I tell one of my co-workers that I have just spoken to my wife on the phone and she is suffering from salmonella poisoning, he immediately calls over one of the pastors in our group and we form a tight circle and pray, in the sight of everyone, for her healing. Public prayer like this is not something I'm used to, and the moment is awkward at first, but I come away a bit touched by the whole thing; the confidence of my fellow travelers that this is indeed the first order of business upon discovering that someone is ill, and their concern for someone who is a total stranger to them.

There are also many orthodox Jews. As the time to board draws nearer I see what I think is a line of them forming to use the bathroom, but it turns out they have gathered in a small alcove to say their afternoon prayers. Their prayer books are out, and they are nodding back and forth repeatedly just as I have seen pictures of them doing at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. The next morning on the plane, some gather at the exits and do the same thing. Wherever they are, when it is time to pray, everything else stops.

In waiting area at Newark, something else happens that makes an impression. As another tour leader and I are lining up to board, an elderly Israeli man walks up and says to us, “I just want to say I think it’s great what you’re doing. My son is a tour guide in Israel, and during the second Intifada it was Christian tourism that allowed his business to survive.” It's the kind of unsolicited comment that cuts through a lot of rhetoric, and gives you a small feeling that you are doing something that has value.

The plane trip is long and uneventful. But there are some breathtaking views. Taking off from Newark, we are treated to a beautiful view of Manhattan on a perfect autumn late afternoon. Hours later, as dawn breaks, I watch the sun rise as we fly over Italy, and see the glowing lights of Rome just below us. Later we pass over Greece, and flying over the Mediterranean I see dots of small islands below, and think of the ancient history of the land we’re passing at 33,000 feet. It's hard not to think: What a rich and mysterious world we live in.

The view from the room at the Dan Panorama in Tel Aviv (above) was a good reward after a long trip, as was the hotel bar, the "Old Tel Aviv," where Carlsberg was on tap and flowing freely. During a couple of free hours prior to dinner, I walked across the street to the sea and sat watching planes on final approach into Ben Gurion airport. Plenty would happen in the next 13 days, including many emotional highs and lows (mostly lows), but at this point I remember feeling very content, and wishing that I could set up camp at the hotel for a few days, sit on the balcony and soak up the heat and sun, both of which were absent in Chicago upon my departure.