megan in... massachusetts?

so, i'm home. it's been almost a month now since i stepped off the plane in boston. it's all very strange. it is also very normal, somehow, as though i never left, as though it was all a dream.

i did dream of jerusalem last night. i woke up sad, willing the dream to continue, walking through the narrow, slippery steps of the old city, ignoring the obnoxious comments of the shopkeepers, watching the sun gleam off of the golden dome of el axa mosque, laughing with friends in the student lounge.

i woke up with a feeling of dread, of foreboding, as though leaving was still before me. but it wasn't. it isn't. i have left.

people keep saying i will go back. they mean to be comforting, i know. and perhaps i will some day. but it won't be the same. it will never be the same again. this may seem simple, but it is hard to accept.

there are so many things that i wish i had pictures of. i have nothing to show of the most familiar of places and people. the places i saw every day, and never thought to leave. everything became so normal so quickly. and now i have left.

so, if you are reading this, and were there with me, i miss you. if you are someone i have come home to, don't take it personally. and if anyone happens to receive texts of random trivia, don't be concerned. i am sure it is just a phase, and will pass soon.

an hour and a half

i leave soon. REALLY soon.

it's kind of scary, really, how fast this semester has gone by. i still remember sitting in my room blogging about how i was leaving in 2 days and wasn't packed. how did time go by so quickly?

so many changes, so many friends, so many memories. if i were asked to explain what i've learned, i wouldn't even know where to begin. i feel like i've gained so much confidence this semester. i have long dreamed of being a woman, and as frightening as it sounds, i think i am getting there. many of my friends here might not know it, but they don't know who i was before. to be honest, i'm not sure i do, either.

i hope i have learned to stand strong, but not alone. i hope i have learned to search for truth, and not simply swallow what is fed to me. i hope i have learned how to build friendships. i hope i have learned how to trust, and heal, and hope. so many fears have been realized, so many anxieties uncovered, but somehow i have managed to pull through this far.

an hour and a half. well, a little less than that now. i hope i will spend it well.

i hope i will spend life well.

poem

this is a poem i wrote about a time a couple years ago when i was dealing with depression and anxiety. i was thinking back to that time a few weeks ago, and i wrote this poem sort of as a reminder of how far i've come, and what changes have been worked in me since then. i don't usually write poetry, but i thought i'd share it anyway. its called trapped.

Trapped

Did I hear it?
Did I see it?
I don’t know.
I’m not sure.
Let me check again.
Again.
Again.

So simple,
Would it matter?
One small mistake?
But in my mind,
It is not so small.

When the world is,
So limited:
Only what we hear,
Only what we see,
Only what we feel,
Do we know?
Can we?

Unimportant,
But all-consuming.
I must not be seen,
To be human.

Perfection.
Unattainable?
I think not!
But do I know?
Can I?

Careful,
Not to trust.
I’ll seem foolish,
If they fail,
If I fail.
I fail.
I fail.

Trapped on earth,
Wanting something,
Wanting truth.
But I can’t find it.
I can’t hear it.
I can’t see it.

Someday,
Maybe,
I’ll be human,
And they won’t care.
I won’t care.
They don’t care.

Until then,
Perfection,
On the outside.

Or if I can’t,
Be perfect,
I’ll be nothing.
Quiet.
Blank.

But inside,
Always,
I fail.
I fail.
I fail.

Holocaust Memorial Day

the streets are almost empty, but all who are out have stopped and stand still. the cars have pulled over to the side of the road and sit, lined up, waiting, listening to the siren. A steady, eerie sound that reaches the whole city.

today is holocaust memorial day. in israel, it is call the day of shoah, a word representative of the holocaust, and courage. it is a day where this nation stops and remembers the 6 million of their not-so-distant relatives who died, and those who, by the grace of God, did not.

two minutes. two minutes of stillness, two minutes of silence, except for the shrill call of the siren. that's not much time to remember.

i realized yesterday that i have less than 2 weeks until i come home. despite the endless papers and tests awaiting my attention, i thought i should write at least one last blog entry before i go home.

i never finished telling stories from egypt, did it? oh well, they can wait. right now, i will talk about jordan.

about 2 weeks ago i went with my physical settings of the Bible class to jordan for 4 days. we saw the ancient edomite, moabite, and ammonite lands, as well as a few random stops that had nothing to do with our class. one of those stops was, of course, petra. you cant go to jordan and not see petra. it was an incredible day of hiking, taking pictures, climbing rocks, and humming the indiana jones theme.




because we were a large 'tour' group, we were required to hire a tour guide. our tour guide's name was zafar, and he was one of the most ridiculous men i have ever met. his lectures were memorable if only for quotes like referring to the demon possessed man in the story of jesus sending the demons into the pigs as "the freaky man", talking for 15 minutes about a forest that had been cut down in a war, and replanted, and blah, blah, blah, and ending the speech with "and the whole point of this is... wood!", labeling a room in a crusader castle "the frontal, front, army front chamber... in the front", hiking through a canyon and referring to the boulders we had to climb over as "serious bitch obstacles" in a bible class. this man was amazing!

so, that was the first trip to jordan. then this past weekend i went with my cultural backgrounds of the bible class back to jordan, for 3 days this time. the first night we stayed with a bedouin family in wadi rum. they killed 2 sheep for us, and we ate them. they had camels, and tents, and kids, and it was all very interesting. we had question and answer time with our host, and talked about everything from genealogy to his oldest son's studies.

the next day we went to meet a sheik and he spoke to us about his four wives, his nomadic lifestyle, his role as a leader of his people, and the translator gave us a demonstration on the many ways to wear a kafia.

afterwards, we went to the translators village, and saw how people made cheese by putting milk in a sheepskin and shaking it for 3 or 4 hours, and how they formed it and coated it in salt to preserve it. then we saw how they made bread, and sifted grain and ground it into flour. i haven't looked at my pictures yet, but i'll post some at some point, when i have a chance to get myself all sorted out.

galillee, egypt, and jordan, round 1

its been a while since i've updated, and i have so much to write about!

two weekends ago i spent 4 days in galillee on a class study trip. it was by far the best i have been on, and i love every minute of it. we had the chance to see many places talked about in the gospels, and even got to take a boat from one side of the sea of galillee to capernaum on the other side.

we stayed at a resorty place, right on the water, that was directly across from tiberius. on a clear night you could see all the lights from tiberius. it was so beautiful.

we got back from that trip at about 6 sunday night, ate dinner, showered, and did laundry. the next week was spring break, and i and 4 of my friends had plans to leave the college at 6 the next morning. after packing and getting a couple hours of sleep we all met and started off towards our bus, which was on the other side of jerusalem, at around 6:15. the bus was scheduled to leave at 7:15, so halfway through the walk, we decided to get taxis, since we wouldnt have enough time to walk to the other side of the city. after settling on a decent pice (that was later refused by one of the taxi drivers, who demanded more) we got to the bus on time. it took about four hours to get to eilat.

once in eilat, we stopped and ate lunch by the red sea, and went for a quick swim. then we took a bus maybe 20 minutes to the border crossing, and walked through to taba, egypt. we then hired a taxi for the next three days. the first day, we went and stayed at a place aptly named paradise beach, near nweba. this place was beautiful, and we were almost the only people there. we stayed in grass huts on the beach for about 2 dollars that night, and ate amazing food, and went snorkeling and swimming. that night they gave us bedouin tea and something from south africa that tasted like irish cream, and played drums by the fire.

the next day, our taxi driver, abrahim, drove us to st. catherine's at mt. sinai. after arguing for about an hour about whether or not we needed to pay for a guide to help us to the top (we thought we didnt, but apparently its "illegal" not to), the five of us hired a guide along with two men from malta, and a guy named sasha from russia. our group soon split into the fit ones, who went up with the guide, and the slow ones, (myself included) who saw the guide for all of the first fifteen minutes of an almost three hour climb.

when we finally got to the top, it was just before sunset, so we found a good place to set up camp, and broke out the food! we ate while we watched the sunset. after a couple hours we went to bed, most of us out under the stars. i have never seen so many stars! it was unbelievable. we had been told it could get pretty cold, so in addition to our sleeping bags, most of us rented mats and blankets from the bedouins. at about midnight, the first other group arrived at the top, and from then on there is a new person or group getting to the top every hour or so. some of them start to take pictures of us.

we woke at about 4 with the moon still rising, but a hint of pink on the horizon. the top of sinai is full now, with hundreds of people with their camera's out, waiting to see the sun. we can see where it will rise from our sleeping bags, so we don't move. as time goes on, the sun gets higher, and people start snapping pictures, with someone every so often turning around to take a picture of us. later we stood and realized why. we were a mess! i'll post pictures later, but we look like flood victims or something! you can see a short video of that morning here.

after hiking back down, abrahim drives us to dahab. we spend most of the rest of the week there. unfortunatley, i have to go, but i will continue with stories from dahab, and from jordan (where i am going tomorrow with a class) at some other time. bye!

the dawning of hope in jerusalem

this morning i went to a sunrise service at the garden tomb in east jerusalem. while historically jesus was most likely not buried here, the place still is held in a special place in the lives of many people. i had never been there before, but the garden was lovely, and i can imagine it is very serene and beautiful when it is not crowded with hundreds of tourists.

the service itself was good, but occasionally somewhat annoying because of how very american it was. it was mostly singing, with a short message. one of the songs was described as an anthem, and was more than usually american sounding in tune, but the first line stood out to me.

"See, what a morning, gloriously bright, with the dawning of hope in Jerusalem"

i love that idea. the dawning of hope in jerusalem. i haven't been here long, not even two months yet, but i have fallen in love with this city, with this land. but the longer i stay here the more things that back home seemed black and white fade and blur into misty shades of gray. but there is hope.

i want peace. there are few who would say that they do not. but i think that there is something even more sad than a lack of peace, and that is a lack of hope. people here are beginning to doubt that peace is even possible. they have no peace, and they are losing hope.

in my islamic thought and practice class last monday my professor, a catholic palestinian arab from bethlehem in the west bank, told us a little about his life. he said that he had gone to school in the states, and eventually got a green card and lived there for almost twenty years. he came back to his homeland, back to bethlehem, to teach at bethlehem university. he wanted to educate his people. he came with a hope of making a difference, of bringing education to stem the violence and injustice. but that is not what happened.

"It has gone from bad to worse," he said, "I am looking for a light at the end of the tunnel, even just a little candle. It is not there. I cannot see it."

the more violence there is the more those wanting peace lose hope. they begin to think there is no peace, there cannot be peace. without hope, there can be no peace. this city, this land has seen enough of darkness, of night. it is time for dawn.