Travelling

Today I traveled for over 12 hours.  Mostly driving, stopping a few minutes here and there to get gas, go to the bathroom, or, of course, take pictures.  I am fairly certain that one could traverse the entire length of Israel in that time, without even trying very hard.  In comparison, I traveled through only 3 states out of 50:
Colorado,

Wyoming,

Montana. 

(Please forgive the blurry pictures...they were snapped as I quickly passed by.)

And however far I drove, I had no problem reading the road signs (though they did vary from state to state), or talking to people, or understanding the gas pump instructions.

I've been back in the states for well over two months now, but these sorts of things still strike me:
1. The inexplicable luxury of not having to ask for help with the gas pump (because each one asks you to enter different information and none of them "speak" English).
2. The experience of walking down a sidewalk and realizing that, for a change, you are not walking twice as fast as everyone else on that sidewalk.  Some people are even running and passing you!
3. Still walking down said sidewalk and realizing that you have no problem understanding the conversation of the two women walking their dogs nearby.  In Israel I got used to ignoring people - they were rarely talking to me and I could almost never understand what they said anyway.  Here, it's harder to block out ambient conversations because I can actually understand them.
4. Remembering that I can look men in the eyes here, without fear that they will think me a loose women and make an accordingly inappropriate comment.
5. Friendly exchanges, in a language I understand, with complete strangers.  Again, this could happen in Israel, but it was rarer...probably because most gas station attendants were men and prone to be a little creepy.  (See #4.)
6. The immense distances.  The United States is a diverse country, but Israel has almost all the same types of landscapes, stuffed into a much smaller area.  It still amazes me that I can drive for hours without much change in scenery,
here...

 to here...

 to here...

to here.  

 Changes are noticeable, but not dramatic.

7.  The vast emptiness takes my breath away.  One can drive for hours without seeing more than a town or two, each only a couple thousand people.  The immense distances in between, broken only occasionally by a barn or farmhouse, still amaze me.  I love these wide open spaces.  They made me wish I had time to stop the car and explore.  

These sorts of things do make life and traveling easier and more pleasant.  Still, for all it's problems, I miss Israel.  I listened to a story on the way home about an orthodox Jew in Jerusalem.  The descriptions and place names were so familiar - Mea Shearim, Old City, Jaffa Road, Damascus Gate, Khamsin - I could picture it clearly and longed to be there myself.  

For now, however, God has me here, so I will strive to enjoy English and comprehensible gas pumps and huge wide open spaces and other small pleasures of life in these United States.  

Quote

That is why, though the historical arguments for Jesus's bodily resurrection are truly strong, we must never suppose that they will do more than bring people to the questions faced by Thomas, Paul, and Peter, the questions of faith, hope, and love.  We cannot use a supposedly objective historical epistemology as the ultimate ground for the truth of Easter.  To do so would be like lighting a candle to see whether the sun had risen.  What the candles of historical scholarship will do is to show that the room has been disturbed, that it doesn't look like it did last night, and that would-be normal explanations for this won't do.  Maybe, we think after the historical arguments have done their work, maybe morning has come and the world has woken up.  But to investiage whether this is so, we must take the risk and open the curtains to the rising sun.  When we do so, we won't rely on the candles anymore, not because we don't believe in evidence and argument but because they will have been overtaken by the larger reality from which they borrow, to which they point, and in which they will find a new and larger home.  All knowing is a gift from God, historical and scientific knowing no less than that of faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love.

~N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope, p. 74

Long-Term Planning

I don't know about the rest of you, but my plans for the future include something like this:

For those who missed out on the literary reference, see this.

Seriously though, I have been struck this year, more than ever before, by the slow and steady approach of old age. 

It's not so much that I'm struck by my own mortality or the fact that life can end in an instant.  Life is fragile and tragedies abound in this world, but that is not what has impressed itself upon my consciousness of late.

No.  What has struck me most are the silent but steady ravages of time.  I, along with everyone around me, am growing older.  I've noticed a few more wrinkles, more of a tendency towards aches and pains - just the beginnings of the signs of the passing time.  Friends my age are noticing their first grey hairs or are beginning to lose more hairs than they can hide.  My parents and people their age are beginning to complete their collection of grey hairs and minor aches and pains are becoming constant companions, sometimes even calling for drastic treatments.

The cumulative effect of a long life can be even more clearly seen in my grandparents and other people of their generation.  In the past few years I have watched my grandparents go from being completely independent to needing more and more help and care.  I have watched my parents struggle to help them make the transition.

It's made me think.  

We value independence.  All of our life we are taught and trained to be independent: we learn to stand on our own, walk on our own, go to school on our own, make a living on our own, take care of our family on our own, etc.  We can be willing to accept help when we know we need it (and we are willing to help others in return), but unsolicited help is unwelcome as our pride asserts itself.

So we live, until suddenly people start limiting our independence.  "You can't keep working.  You don't have the strength any more."  "You can't drive your car - you can't see properly!"  "You can't live alone in your house!  You could fall and hurt yourself or even die and no one would know."  "You can't care for your own finances any more.   You keep loosing track of things."  Suddenly we go from being productive member of society to being a burden.  Suddenly we realize that the work and play activities we've enjoyed for years are no longer possible for us.  Quietly, softly, our dreams slip out of our grasp.

No wonder my grandparents have struggled, contradicting the advice of their well-meaning children, insisting that they are fine, that everything is unecessary.

"I don't need a hearing aid!"

"Of course I can keep feeding the cows this winter!"

"I don't need a cane/walker/wheel chair."

"If only I had my own house again, things would be better."

When we are no longer allowed to be independent, a trait we have cultivated all our life, what are we to do?

With these ponderings I am left with many questions.  

How can I help my grandparents at this time?

How can I prepare for the time when my own parents will have to make that transition?

How can I prepare myself?  The thing is, a

t this point in my life I have a hard time planning anything further in advance than next week.  Things are so uncertain that I'm not sure what I'll be doing next week, much less next month.  However, it is fairly likely, whatever happens in the meantime, that someday I too will face infirmity and old age.  I want to be practicing habits of mind and character now that will serve me well then.  Perhaps I can work on admitting weakness and accepting help.  Perhaps I can work on being content in situations where things are not going as I would wish.  

It's something I'm still thinking through.  

How are you preparing?

* Apologies to my family for using you for examples in this latest pondering.  I hope you don't mind!  Love you all!

Modern Israel

Disclaimers:

1. I'm sorry about what I'm sure will be a long loading time...lots of pictures.

2. This is a slightly modified PowerPoint presentation that I gave to a small number of Montanans in a certain church.  Thus, the information is specifically aimed at that group.  If you live in America and know relatively little about Israel, you may gain some information from this.  If you live in Israel, you might as well skip it now, as you are sure to be disappointed. 

There are several difficulties involved in giving a presentation on Modern Israel in a short time to people who have never been there (or have only been there for a couple weeks).  To illustrate this, let me give an example:

Or maybe they think of the Old West:

Perhaps they've been there on vacation and know of the National Parks:

 Or they might think:

 Summer vacationers who love it here have no idea what it's like to get up at 6am every day in the winter to go out and shovel the snow off your driveway so you can get your car out, for example.  They won't know which grocery stores have the best deals or what produce is in season.  Of all the little details that make up daily life - so important, yet so difficult to explain - they will have no understanding.  The same is true of Israel.

Like any modern state, Israel has a number of issues that affect it today: thing like  history, social justice, ethnicity, and religion.  The details may vary, but the general idea is that same.

Except for in one area.  As Christians, when we think of Israel, we tend to get our ideas from the Bible.  No other country in the world is associated quite as much with the Bible as Israel is.  The problem is, different Christians understand the Bible in different ways, leading to wildly differing opinions on the modern state of Israel.

Here are some examples of books written about the Bible, Bible Prophecy, and/or Israel.  All of them draw different conclusions.

Basically, any discussion of modern Israel has the possibility of bringing up controversial issues.  I'm going to try to avoid most of those as I go on to talk about the land today.

This slide has pictures from Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Christmas, Purim, and Independence Day.

A place where peace is broken, but hope can still be found.  

Any questions?

Tales from the road

This weekend I spent about a day and a half road-tripping around Montana, which led to a number of unrelated humorous incidents.

1. Bull Mountains
You ever wonder how places get their names?  My sister and I were driving along, passing from a flatter area into a slightly more hilly area when we passed a sign: "Bull Mountains."

 Yes.  As you see.  Larissa and I looked around and thought, "Mountains?  What mountains?  That's just Bull Do-do! ....Oh...."  And then all was clear.

2. Mecca Bar
Fairly shortly after that we passed a bar.  The Mecca Bar.  I still can't quite believe that is the actual name, but I double checked the sign...  I am sure that people make pilgrimages there from all over Montana for their world-famous beer.  Ironic, since any actual Meccan beer is bound to be terrible.

3. Oh Deer!
Deer in Montana are notorious for being on the road at the wrong place at the wrong time.  The one below is one of the smarter ones we saw - no where near a road.

Roundup, however, apparently has very well trained deer.  As we drove down the street we noticed a group of three deer on the side walk, the one in front intently studying the street in search of cars.  As soon as we had passed we could just about hear her say, "Ok guys, it's all clear now!  Let's go!"  And I watched them cross in my rear-view mirror.

4. Animals Dead Ahead
Of course, anywhere you go, when you see a bunch of bird circling around an area some ways in front of you, it's always a sign that there are animals dead ahead!  (And sure enough, when we got closer, a less intelligent deer was dead on the side of the road.)

5. Mount Tabor?  Jordan?
As always, I miss Israel.  This hill reminded me of Mount Tabor.

And who knew that one could drive to Jordan from here?

Hospitality

Do you ever wonder when "having people over" was replaced by "meeting people for coffee?"

I don't just means in terms of youth and adulthood.  In my youth, friends would come over to my house, or I would go over to theirs, or we would play around the neighborhood.  Coffee shops were certainly not within our budgets, even if our parents would have allowed us out of sight that long.

More than that, though, it seems like there has maybe been something of a cultural shift.

In the Old West there were no coffee shops.  My historical information may be lacking, but it seems like just about the only place for socializing outside the home (other than church or the general store) was at the saloon - and that was limited to men (and some women of ill repute).  With few exceptions, there were no restaurants for families to meet at and dine together.  If you wanted to socialize with another family, you would invite them over to your house or perhaps meet them at an event hosted by yet another family.

In contrast, today, there are any number of places where you can meet and eat (or drink) with friends without having them invade your privacy, or you invading theirs - and without involving your respective families.

It's not that I'm against coffee shops.  I was on my way to meet a friend at one today when this thought struck me and made me wonder.

Is there a reason we so rarely invite friends into our home?  (It happens, but it seems that more often we meet somewhere.)
Is it because it's too much trouble, with our busy lifestyles, to bother to cook or clean?
Is it because we have so many friendly acquaintances and invitation to the home are limited to close friends?
Is it so we can meet on neutral ground, neither side having the advantage?
Is it so we can escape from normal life for a while and be with friends in a more relaxing environment than we might find at home?

I daresay there are any number of reasons why hospitality has become something of a lost art here in America, some more worthy than others.  Still, as someone who enjoys having people over, cooking for them, trying to make them feel comfortable and welcome, I think it's a little sad.  Perhaps its an art we should bring back.

Anyone want to come over for dinner or tea sometime?