Volume 8 - Vagabond

This may be the toughest journal I’ve had to write. I have seen the Promised Land and lived to tell about it. But what is there to tell? For as long as I could think I’ve been a Christian. I’ve wrestled with the faith for almost as long, questioning whether any of it could actually be true, why so many of my brethren are so fond of violence and consumerism, and how on earth to reconcile the two testaments. I’ve studied other religions and investigated what I believe to be both factually true and the most beneficial to the future of mankind. God has seen me through it all and given me the faith to persevere through all the stumbling blocks. I consider myself very blessed for all this. And He has seen me through again. So going to a place with so much potential impact as a pilgrim, as a vagabond, as an amateur archaeologist, how do you possibly begin to comprehend your experience? The beauty is that you don’t. So nothing in here will attempt to explain anything in one fell swoop. It’s the process that is important. I went to Israel…and this is what happened.


My first day was spent in the ancient port city of Jaffa, just south of modern Tel Aviv. It’s one of the oldest cities in the world, and from its Arab loins sprang forth the first all-Jewish settlement in Israel in 1909 (Tel Aviv). I saw the first of many “oldest thing I’ve ever seen” at the first of many archaeological sites when I found the remains of an Egyptian fortress (I didn’t really find them, I just happened upon the fence and sign surrounding them) that was at least 3000 years old. 3000 year old buildings would become commonplace very quickly, but they never ceased to amaze me. In America we tear down schools and baseball stadiums built in the ‘70s. That’s less than 40 years ago. Millions of dollars go into new buildings that will be torn down in 40 years just like the last ones. The Middle East is literally covered with the remains of 5000 years of habitation. True that these buildings aren’t “standing” anymore (the oldest buildings still standing are only around 2000 years old), but there is something mystical about seeing something that was put in place by man that long ago. When I was in Europe I was amazed by the walled cities and castles still standing from the Middle Ages. But Israel makes the Middle Ages look like yesterday.

The site where I was digging was called Tel Rehov. It was a pretty large hill in the middle of a scorching arid valley. Each morning I started digging at 5:00 am, I looked out over a giant ball of fire rising over olive fields in the Jordan Valley and the Jordan River and the country of Jordan (I’m surprised they didn’t name the sun after Jordan too). History has not uncovered much about Rehov yet. We know it was an outpost for the Egyptians and that the last major period of habitation ended in 730 BC with the Assyrians, with a few folks returning in the Middle Ages between 700 and 1100 AD. There’s been no one there since then. This begins with part of the problem of writing this journal. There is just SO much information I picked up on this trip about all these different empires and kingdoms and history and everything that is so important to understanding this place, and there’s really no way to remember to write all of it down. So much of this won’t make sense, but don’t worry, I’m still trying to grasp all of it too. The important piece is this, Israel is smack in the middle of every important trade route of the ancient world. Therefore, since the beginning of time, people have wanted to be there, and is history is thus the chronicle of people group after people group conquering, killing, and inhabiting the land one after another. We think of it as the traditional homeland of the Jews, which it is, but lots and lots of other people have lived there too, including the people the Jews kicked out. In fact, Rehov is one of those cities that the Israelites never got. It was a Canaanite city begun in the Bronze Age.

It’s an interesting feeling digging up the remains of the “bad guys” of the Bible. As I’ve discovered over and over again in all my travels, there’s really no such things as bad guys. There are just people. There was nothing about Rehov that screamed “evil heathen” at me. It was a just a city made of mud, with the remains of pottery…and beehives. This is the biggest deal about Rehov so far. A few years ago, they unearthed what were confirmed by all accounts to be the oldest beehives ever found. There is definitive evidence that the people of Rehov raised bees earlier than anyone else we know of. Until this find, in fact, there had been no evidence of bees being raised in Israel at all at the time of the Israelite conquest of the land. Scholars, therefore, had assumed that the “land of milk and honey” promised to Moses was talking about the “honey” of fruit. In fact in many languages, the word for bee honey and the gooey juice surrounding the seed of fruits is the same word. These hives were the first indication that there may have actually been bee honey in the Promised Land. And this calls to note an important point about archaeology. I had no experience with it before, and now I have just a little, but seeing an expert (and the professor who led our dig turned out to be about the most famous in Israel) work and how the whole process is done, I can say with confidence that it’s possible that everything we know is wrong. The great thing is that no one in the field would disagree with me. We commoners have a tendency to take everything we hear as gospel. We hear that so and so discovered such and such and it tells us whatever about history, and that’s a fact. But no archaeologist would ever say anything is a fact. Archaeology gives us the best, most scientific guesses possible given the facts that we have. We have things that we have discovered and we use the scientific method to assume certain things based on those facts, but 1) those assumptions based on the facts could easily be wrong and 2) new facts can completely alter our interpretation. And even with the best methods, it is very easy to miss a lot. Thus, when explaining what we were finding, the archaeologists with us would never say this is “blank;” they would say I think this is “blank.” There is a sizable debate going on now about the existence of the massive Biblical kingdom of David and Solomon. Currently, there is no convincing evidence that these two kings ever existed, so some people think they don’t and other think it’s yet to be found. In the end, archaeology is a lot of for a lot of reasons, one of which is the fact you’re simply never done. It never ends, and you never know if you’re right about anything. The mystery!

It is exciting to find things too. You practically walk all over pottery. It’s everywhere. Much of it is significant (if it’s a complete vessel, if it’s in a locus or area that is identifiable as a room, if all the pottery from a locus is from the same time period, etc.) but most of it isn’t. So we dig and dig and dig and throw out 90% of what we find onto a big pile. Depressing at first but all part of the process. My personal “big” finds were a perfectly round stone that may have been used as a weight or a grinding ball and a spindle whirl used for weaving fabric. And I had learned enough by my fourth week that I was an “assistant square supervisor” (ahem, acronyms) when a new volunteer found a stamp used for making impressions on pottery or “wax” seals. The stamp had some kind of writing on it which no one could decipher but hopefully someone can. Writing is a huge discovery because it tells archaeologists volumes more than you can learn from simple pottery and architecture. I even discovered a massive stash of broken pottery that turned out to be a trash pile of sorts, though I was moved away from that area just after finding the pottery (much to my chagrin). In all, the actual digging aspect of the trip was enjoyable and very informative, but as always the actual work is never the most important part.

The big scare of my trip came in the form of the “mystery bug.” I had my physical injury in Guatemala and my illness in Galapagos, so I was due for an animal attack. We came across all kinds of centipedes, stink bugs, scorpions, and a few snakes in our digging and our squares were right on top of porcupine boroughs. The culprit in my case will never be known. I was sitting in our square working with a trowel when we found another scorpion. He was a tiny baby, and since there’s no reason to kill a scorpion or any animal unless you’re in real immediate danger, I began to move him outside like all the other ones we’d found. Well he was too small and slipped off the trowel before disappearing into the dirt. Had it not been or this occurrence, I may have assumed my forthcoming attack was just a bee sting (bee hives, remember ) and it quite possibly was. But being that I had just seen a scorpion, I was quite scared when I stood up and felt an instant throbbing, tingling pain shoot through my leg under my shorts. There is no mistaking that is was the bite or sting of some small critter. There’s no way I can see the area without stripping down to me bare bum in front of all my new friends. Despite the intense pain I was in, my American Puritanism held sway and I kept my clothes on. I was eventually taken in the car to a remote location where I did end up wearing the birthday suit and rubbing tomatoes on the bite. So here I am naked in the desert rubbing hot tomatoes on the bite of a mysterious bug. Oh and it got me again in the car…straight on my butt. We never found it. I shook my clothes, I examined them, I scoured the earth, but this thing was gone. I put some Tiger Balm (a miraculous and addictive little Asian rub) on it, took a Benadryl, and the next day it was better. And as usual, I had made a wonderful first impression on everyone.

Some other interesting things happened at the kibbutz. When I was in Guatemala, one of the vet students there took it upon herself to take some ticks of the horribly sick dogs who spent their days at ARCAS. I found this terribly admirable of her, especially considering the 100% surety of getting some of those ticks on herself at the same time. I always wanted to help out, but never did for fear of the ticks. Well, what better time than to throw off your fears than during a round the world trip? I got another chance at the kibbutz. Most dogs in Israel were well taken care of, but a few wandered around just covered in the little bloodsuckers. They were everywhere man. And when there were more than one leeching off the same hole, ugh. It’s not their fault, it’s what they do. A tick needs to suck blood to survive; it just stinks that they have to harm something else to do it. I was feeling particularly bad because just a few days ago there was a woman who wanted to get on the bus I was on who didn’t make it on time. She was close and was beating on the side of the bus. It was totally not her fault. The bus stopped, she got up, but she was old and by the time she made it the bus had pulled away already. Thing is, I could have stopped the bus driver. I could have said something and he would have stopped and she would have got on. Just like when the little lizard in Costa Rica was getting manhandled by dogs, I had the power to help someone and didn’t. Given the time to think through what I was doing, of course I would have stopped the bus, but I didn’t have time to think, I had to just react. And my gut reaction was not to do good, but to be safe. I didn’t know if the driver would understand me, I thought, or if he’d listen. I made it a point that day to make my initial reaction one of doing good rather than being safe. So, with the generous help of some friends, I took a few hours and pulled ticks off a little puppy. It was emotionally and physically quite draining, and the ticks were back the next day, but I felt good knowing that I had given that poor little gal a few hours of peace. It followed me around everywhere for the next week, even sleeping outside my door that night and greeting me at the usual 4:30 wake-up.

The group at the kibbutz was quite different from those at my volunteer programs in Latin America. They were almost all American. And thus they came armed to the brim with technology. The mercury in the thermostat of my disdain for computers and cellphones continues to creep toward the tipping point. I love the people, of course, which is why I hate the technology. Sitting outside my room looking out at a dozen people in the same space right next to each other, none talking to one another, but consumed in their phone conversations with people who weren’t there or Internet browsing and I thought of the Jack’s Mannequin song that asks, “have you ever been alone in a crowded room?” If you ever wonder why we as a culture are so awful at relationships, why we’re so lonely, look no further. It’s not the only culprit to be sure, but never has it been so easy to completely disconnect from our surroundings anywhere in the world. Here we were in Israel, a land completely foreign to us, a land ripe with opportunity to grow, to know each other and to know ourselves. But were we present in the moment? Were we engaging with one another? No, we were disconnected from one another. Safe.

Another peculiar thing my American brethren do is appropriate other cultures for their own use very well. We are really nothing but a fairly new (given the history of civilization) mishmash of other cultures, so I don’t completely blame us for it. But I find it striking when I see Americans walking around with towels wrapped around their heads (this is not at all a hint of racism, they really use towels). Would these same folks walk around the States with “pants on the ground, pants on the, actin like a fool wit yo pants on the ground?” Maybe, maybe not. But it’s considered culturally sensitive to relate to some people groups by adopting their traditional dress and offensive to others to do the same. Many people do these things out of a genuine interest or desire to show solidarity with another culture; many do it because it’s trendy. It seems we ought to be what we are. I’m not from New York, and I don’t like the Yankees, so I don’t wear Yankees hats. I have never been to China and I can’t read Chinese so I don’t have a tattoo in Chinese anywhere on my body. What a beast fashion has become. Who wants to join a nudist colony with me?

My first excursion was a weekend trip to meet up with a good friend in the coastal city (Mediterranean) of Haifa at the Biblical Mt. Carmel. Aside from the fact that the city was on a massive hill and had a wicked sculpture garden full of oddly naked little brass girls, there was nothing terribly fascinating about Haifa. I did get my first taste of the Shabbat Shutdown, though. They take the day of rest seriously in Israel. Whether anyone rests or not I don’t know, but the bus drivers certainly don’t drive anywhere, and the restaurants certainly don’t serve food. (Later on my trip I would end up eating 3 meals in a row at a gas station and paying ridiculous amounts of money to take cabs around.) Kosher rules also reared their head when I found a distinct absence of meat on any of the pizza in Israel. Rabbinical teaching interprets aspects of the Biblical kosher law to ban the eating of meat and cheese together. This of course also rid the menus of cheeseburgers. They supplement the lack of meat/cheese combos by eating astronomical amounts of sesame seeds and cucumbers (though not together). Cucumbers were a part of every meal and sesame seeds popped up on chicken fingers and even in a strange but yummy bar of smashed sesame seeds called halva. If there is an official food of Israel, it’s the sesame seed. I asked one of my tour guides in a later trip how sesame seeds got to be so popular here and he told me to look it up on Wikipedia…hence the reason I almost never take organized tours. (There was also the other tour that rushed us through the sites so they could stop to gas up the van before we were dropped off.) And there wasn’t a moment I was out without my water bottle (which was all the time) when I wouldn’t get strange looks from one and all for this bizarre contraption I was carrying. Somewhere there is a cultural divide that I never figured out. It seems quite natural to always carry water with you when you’re in a desert (which all of Israel is), and yet every metal detector I went through (in front of all public buildings), every restaurant I entered, every conversation I had included the question “what is that thing you’re carrying.” This was not the last time I would be utterly confused by this country, but more on that later.

The main attraction in Haifa was the Baha’i Gardens. I learned a bit about Baha’i, which I knew little about before, from the free tour of the gardens, though as usual the tour was less than informative. What I gathered is that the religion was essentially started in Persia not too long ago in the grand scheme of things. Both founders were eventually kicked out of the country or killed for their beliefs and they moved the center of the religion to Israel, mainly because this is where other religions are located. In fact, the Baha’i Gardens are on Mt. Carmel precisely because the area was already holy to the Big Three. The basic teaching of Baha’i I believe is that all religions are more modern revelations of God’s will. God reveled his will to many prophets over time, with the most recent one being the founders of Baha’i. The point of this is that we’re all the same, so peace is the most important thing in the world. That is very true, and I like the faith for that. It does seem to me, however, that there’s not much new here, and that the religion doesn’t actually say anything. Other things I found odd were the lack of symbolism (maybe that’s because of my Christian background). There were beautiful stars and peacock statues and Greek architecture all over the gardens, but our guide said none of it means anything. In fact, there is no such thing as symbolism in Baha’i, it’s all just done to look pretty. And there aren’t really “churches” or regular meetings or believers, just country councils. And there is none in Israel. And if you don’t live in a country with a council you can’t be Baha’i. So it’s impossible to be a part of the religion if you live in its spiritual heart. And though they consider all religions to be equal, you can’t go in many of the buildings unless you’re Baha’i. There must be something I’m misunderstanding in all of this, eh?

I actually preferred the Japanese gardens at the base of Mt. Gilboa on the kibbutz where we stayed. It had fish and turtles (which all look like toys now that I’ve seen the Galapagos version) and a path to an amazing private outcrop that gave a spectacular view of the valley. At first, I wasn’t impressed with it, but then I realized that’s the point. Formal English gardens, which we’re more familiar with, are designed to wow you. They’re supposed to be impressive. Japanese gardens work the opposite way. It’s not the grand scale and accomplishment of created beauty that gets you, it’s the minute detail. The way the little individual details are beautiful on their own and fit together to create a cohesive whole…that’s the charm of a Japanese garden. It’s designed to encourage careful, slow reflection. You can’t rush through a Japanese garden. You have to sit with it, be one with it, let it envelop you. It turns out to be a very moving experience.

The next trip was to the center of the world, Jerusalem. Jerusalem is…unique. Today’s Jerusalem bears little resemblance to the Jerusalem of the Bible. In a way, I think I (and many people who go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land), despite knowing better, expect to see places “where Jesus walked” and be overwhelmed by this intense spiritual presence. Like being in Jerusalem would allow me to see exactly what Jesus saw. Truth be told, Jerusalem is a chaotic, crowded, fiercely cultural commercial marketplace weighed down by centuries of history and conquest and has been rebuilt so many times it’s hard to imagine what it looked like even a few years ago. That said, it is a deeply impactful place. It did not impact me in the way I thought it would at all, but the positive influence it had on me is probably more profound than I expected. Today, everywhere where something interesting in the history of Christianity happened, there has been a church built. In fact, there are usually many churches. At least two at every site, one where the Catholics believe it happened and one where the Orthodox believed it happened. And most of these churches have been rebuilt over and over. Where’s America’s lovely evangelical church or Europe’s beloved Protestants? Well, think of how old Jerusalem is. Christianity split into Catholic and Orthodox sects pretty early on, but Protestants and Evangelicals didn’t come around until at least the 1500s, which was, well 1500 years later. An example of how things work: Catholics and Orthodox agree on the site of Christ’s crucifixion, a hill called Golgatha meaning “place of the skull.” Protestants disagree. They have found a hill outside the current Old City walls (which are much newer than the walls there during Jesus’ time) that looks like a skull. It’s in a garden and has an old tomb nearby. Everything matches the Biblical account perfectly. Catholics and Orthodox have another site, inside the current walls but likely outside the older walls where they believe Adam (the very first person) is buried, thus making it the place of the skull. We could argue about which one is more likely, but ultimately it’s all faith. The Orthodox church controls this site, and in fact many of the biggest sites in the Holy Land because they were aligned with the Byzantine Empire that ruled the area when all of this was being figured out. (The Catholic Roman Empire was ousted and the Byzantines took over more recently before the modern state of Israel, plus a bunch of other people.) Many of the Orthodox priests running these sites were pretty darn rude, but then again, I imagine it’s a pretty stressful job, eh?

Most of the holy sites were discovered by Helena, mother of the Roman emperor Constantine, who depending on who you talk to was either the best or the worst thing to ever happen to Christianity. She came and “found” the holy sites and started building the churches on them. It was her who really turned Christianity into a major world power from the little sect it was before the conversion of the Roman Empire. So clearly, none of this looks anything like it did in Jesus time. What to Jesus was a rock is now an enormous church filled with icons and mosaics and murals and chandeliers and altars and all the trappings of holiness or money (again depending on who you talk to). It was very foreign to me. We don’t have much regular interaction with the Orthodox church (which is really just the Eastern or Greek Orthodox church, though there are many more branches of Orthodoxy) here in America. Their churches are completely different experiences from a Catholic, Protestant, or Evangelical church. Where Baha’i eschews symbolism altogether, everything, and I mean everything in an Orthodox church is symbolic. There are always big domes in the ceiling, murals on the walls, tons of hanging lamps/incense burners/chandeliers, gold and silver bas reliefs, and a big iconostasis or backdrop behind the altar. And they are unbelievably gorgeous, but very very different. In general, everything about Israel made it the most foreign place I’ve ever been. Nowhere else have I been so thoroughly confused by everything and felt so out of place as I did in Israel.

I left Jerusalem a bit disillusioned the first time (I went back later). The most meaningful place for me was the church built on the Mount of Olives where Jesus looked out over Jerusalem and wept because he had tried so hard to show the people a different way of life and they just didn’t get it (immortalized as well in Jesus Christ Superstar’s “Poor Jerusalem” song; it was amazing to me how often I kept thinking about that musical when I was in Jerusalem). After my weekend in Jerusalem I was in about the same place. Poor, poor Jerusalem hasn’t learned a thing in 2000 years. The same commercialism, violence, and rigid legalism that Jesus decried then is overwhelming in its abundance to this day. There’s nothing inherently holy about this city. Christianity has made it a holy place, but Jesus himself wept for this city. Expecting this major spiritual impact by seeing things like the site of Christ’s crucifixion (which like everywhere else is only a guess) and feeling none of it left me bummed. This did change with time, but I am more convinced than ever that God’s creation, nature and people, is inherently more holy than anything man has ever made. Any transcendent, spiritual experience I’ve ever had has been either during times I felt in touch with nature and in touch with another person. That is where God resides. Which is not to say that churches are buildings are not important. But God is not in a building. God simply is. In this dirty, crowded city I felt drawn to the “nothingness” of the East. Continuing my growing interest in Eastern culture, the simplicity and yin yang understanding of the world is increasingly appealing. Where I was surrounded by throngs of tourists and icons everywhere I just wanted a big open space. I wanted the Japanese garden. I found a bit of respite in Christ Church, the first Protestant church built in Jerusalem in the 1800s. It was the first bit of familiarity I had seen since my arrival (minus the 3 hour service) and was just what I needed just when I needed it.

Jerusalem is split into four Quarters – Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and Armenian. Which one seems like it doesn’t belong? The Armenians get their own quarter because they were the first nation to make Christianity the official religion and agreed to stay on after the Crusaders left to watch the place.

In stark contrast to Jerusalem is Tel Aviv, which is a lot like LA. It’s on the beach and driven by the pleasures of modern life. In truth I think the gap between the two cities is as much self-perpetuated by people’s minds as reality. There was a beautiful dog park I found where dogs just hung out without leashes sniffing around and having fun. It had the appearance of some strange social experiment until one of them started barking and the fun ended. I love architecture, so it is with a heavy heart that I say the world-renowned architecture of Tel Aviv makes it one of the ugliest cities I’ve ever seen. The city is characterized by Bauhaus architecture, created by Germans after WWI as a bare-bones “people’s movement.” The idea was to be completely rid of frills and create absolute artistic equality; less is more. It was also closely aligned with socialism. These are all good things…it’s just really ugly. Maybe part of my disdain is because it was a direct reaction against Art Deco, which I love so much. Hitler didn’t like all that equality nonsense so he had anyone involved with the movement tossed out. Many of them were Jewish so they came to Israel as the Zionist movement was getting stronger and stronger and built up this little seaside village of Tel Aviv into a metropolis. People were coming so fast at the time, however, that buildings had to go up quickly and cheaply. So now most of these buildings look like they’re going to collapse at any second, but more in a Communist USSR sort of way than a picturesque “let’s shoot a band photo here” kind of way. It took UNESCO World Heritage recognition to get the city to start taking care of the few buildings that remain. To give incentive to rebuild some of these buildings, the city let developers build expensive penthouses at top floors (almost all Bauhaus buildings were an equal three floors). One thing I liked about Tel Aviv is a requirement that any company with lots of money and big pieces of land must build some kind of public art on their property. This does what it can to salvage the rest of the city. The beach is a hodgepodge of American chain hotels. The Hilton is built on top of an ancient Muslim cemetery. I did have an excellent city tour where I learned that modern Hebrew, the language of the majority or Israelis, was only invented in the 1950s. When Israel became a country in 1948, Jews from around the world came to settle there. But they all spoke different languages. It was decided to revive the language of the Old Testament which had been dead for centuries. If the word already existed, it was reused, but things like “refrigerator” simply weren’t a part of ancient discourse so new words had to be invented. What a crazy social experiment!

I also visited the Dead Sea. I was silly enough to shave that morning…ouch! That much salt makes you hurt in places you didn’t know you had. It’s the lowest place on Earth at almost 1400 feet below sea level (Death Valley, the lowest in America is only 300 feet below…in fact our kibbutz and dig site were much lower than Death Valley) and 10 times saltier than the ocean (though the saltiest body of water on Earth is an Antarctic pond about twice as salty as that). It’s awesome and you really do float without even trying. They also say you can’t sunburn there, but they don’t know the awesome whiteness of Jeremy Ebersole. Next we went to Jericho, one of a handful of cities claiming to be the oldest city on Earth. This was in the West Bank of Palestine, which I can’t stress enough did not seem at all to be a dangerous place. The poverty level compared with Israel was staggering, but my limited experience found the people to be very friendly. I won’t even begin to pick a side in this ancient war, but I can tell you from the other side of that very big, very imposing wall, it’s not hard to see why some Palestinians claim victim status. Ultimately I think it’s all very complicated. On the way to Jericho, we ran into a goat herd that we had to wait for. This was about the most authentic Middle Eastern experience I had. Much of what I saw around Israel felt very forced, but those goats were the real deal.

Galilee was a different story. Not only is a bit more green, but as the center of Jesus’ ministry it’s also the center of the Christian presence in Israel. I’m sure this contributed to a higher comfort level for me. It was and still is a bit of a backwater. Not nearly as developed as the rest of the country, mostly rural, and far off the beaten path (busses were tough), Galilee finally offered the peace and tranquility I hoped for when I initially came. It balanced out the chaotic but equally as profound impact of the busier towns. I did, however, have my first encounter with snoring at the hostel in Nazareth. Remarkable considering how many nights I’ve spent in the same room as other people. I guess it’s because snoring often comes with age, and age often doesn’t do hostels. But Jesus loves snorers too, even if they make it tough to sleep. I found the people of Galilee to be light years friendlier than those of the rest of the country. Nazareth, birthplace of Jesus and the largest Arab city in modern day Israel, was a feast. What a wonderful town. In this region I saw Christian pilgrims from all over the world visiting the holy sites. Most were from Africa, a telling fact about their faith considering the amount of money many of them had to do a trip like this compared with their American brethren who were largely absent. In Cana, the site of Jesus’ first miracle of turning water into wine, I met a man who showed me into the Orthodox church he held the keys to. I was looking for the big churches in town and he asked to help me. I was wary, having recognized very quickly during my travels that the only people who initiate help do so only to extract some money by the end of it. This man was different. I was shocked. It is the very first time in my 6 months of traveling that anyone has offered my help without wanting something in return. As I was walking down the Mount of Beatitudes where Jesus gave his most famous sermon (which is now covered with banana trees), a Philippine nun offered to give me a ride to the bus station. And she gave me lemonade. And didn’t try to sell me a thing. Looks like Jesus’ message got through to some people. And that’s what keeps me going. No matter how much we haven’t learned in 2000 years, some people have learned something. As long as there is one good there is hope.

The desert is an interesting place. I had lived in the Mojave in California for a bit and was reassured here that there is something poetic, romantic, and decidedly lonely about these vast starkly beautiful places. The dryness also makes you have to pee just about every 5 minutes. Never in my life have I peed so much. Two thoughts consumed the majority of my thought life during this trip: 1) where can I get more water 2) where can I pee once I drink it. Man, the number of times I was so thirsty and had water but couldn’t drink because there was nowhere to pee. The coolest thing in all of Israel, however, was a series of ancient Jewish burial caves at the base of the Mount of Olives that were simply there. Nothing forced, no visitor interpretation, no entrance fee, no big church, just massive stone pillars outside caves where people were buried 3000 years ago that you climb into and walk around. Needless to say, it was one of the most eerie experiences I’ve ever had. The best things are always, always free!

Which brings me with no attempt at logical transition to the requisite paragraph about women. I continue to like women an awful lot. They’re just great. However, they all tend to be a bit unavailable at the time. Perhaps it’s because when you’re in a relationship, you let your “this guy’s trying to get in my pants” guard down because it doesn’t matter what he’s trying to do, those pants are staying zipped. Thus we’re all more willing to be friends; we can be relaxed. But then there’s the unspoken caveat of modern culture that continues to assert that the last person you’d ever date is a friend. It seems backwards to me that many of us persist in putting physical attraction first, no matter how much we deny it. This myth has been built up through movies and stories about finding someone slightly less virtuous but more hunky than ourselves and turning them into a nice person who loves and cares for us. Then we have it all, a nice person and the satisfaction of knowing that we made them that way. The problem is the basis of the relationship will always and forever be misplaced. Relationships can never start on looks alone. It seems more appropriate to do it the other way around. You meet someone you get along with, you know they care about you, they are a friend first and foremost. Then because of the genuine love you know the person has for you, your physical attraction grows. This way the relationship is always and forever based on love. But that’s a topic for a book, eh?

It got me to thinking about how to react to pushy guys at bars. It happens with predictable regularity every time a pretty girl goes to a public place, especially a bar. An unwritten rule asserts that it’s socially acceptable for guys to not take no for an answer when there is alcohol present within a 10 mile radius. So what do you do when 5 nos just doesn’t seem to be doing the trick? And of course as a guy present, you’re horribly embarrassed by your species and want to do something to help. Macho Man Randy Savage says to come out swinging. Assert your superior manhood by challenging Mr. Pushy to check himself before he wrecks himself. But we should all know by the Iraq war that violence only creates more violence. As this situation presented itself in Israel I was finding myself amused at how silly it all was, I thought it would be really funny hero man took the Jim Carrey approach and just started acting nuts. Just completely bonkers out of her mind crazy. Watch how this works – you completely disarm Mr. Pushy. If you come out looking for trouble, suddenly you’ve put fear in the other person by creating a “situation.” Fear causes to people to react violently and selfishly. By acting loco, you take away any fear and also any motivation. The moment you step in, you turn into two male sea lions battling it out for the harem. It’s no longer about the girl, it’s about the manliness. But if you don’t put the other person on the defensive, there’s no motivation; you’re not a threat. In also uses life’s most powerful motivator to your advantage – the opinions of other people. If you’re loud and crazy enough, other people will start to look and see you…and Mr. Pushy. They might associate him with you, which would diminish his social status. There’s nothing serious about a night on the town. It’s all just a game. And if we treat it as such, everyone has a lot more fun!

Another day I spent the afternoon birdwatching. There are so many beautiful birds in Israel. They make absolutely beautiful noises. As I was doing my morning stretches outside under the moon I had a little bird in the tree above me. It would sing a little song and a bird a distance away would answer him. Then it’s sing another little song, a tad different than the one before, and the other bird would sing back. It was more beautiful than any church. But birdwatching can’t compare with G.I. Joe. There are lots of movies about war. But I’ve never seen a movie about birdwatching. I bet if there were more movies about birdwatching, there’d be less divorce.

Speaking of war, let’s conclude with a chat about the modern day state of Israel. As I said before, Israel felt more foreign to me than anywhere I’ve ever been. I think a big part of that is the unquestioned prevalence of war in the national psyche. America is a pussycat compared to Israel. God’s chosen people are militarized to the teeth. I needed to show my boarding pass and passport to buy a candy bar at the airport. Every Jewish citizen of Israel must serve at least two years in the military. There’s no conscientious objection, no alternative service (that I know of), just a few years of mandatory machine gun-toting, border-patrolling service. Many people in Israel aren’t particularly fond if this, but it seems many more are. I know there are pacifists in Israel, and I feel for them. It’s a tough life. The army changes people; it gives you a different outlook on life. There’s no way around that. Humans are not wired to kill one another. To be in the army, you need to rewire yourself. My first hostel in Jaffa had a newspaper article about Western misperceptions of Israeli rudeness, saying that Israelis aren’t rude, they just live in a high-context culture. What we would call meddling they call looking out for one another. They are involved in one another’s life as opposed to our rugged individualism. They yell at each other all the time but rarely get into physical fights. I absolutely believe all of this is true. But at least as much of that hardness I believe has to come from the army. My square leader at the dig laughed as he shared a story about working under an American once who kept complimenting him on a job well done. Finally he had enough of it and told her to quit wasting time and complimenting him so much. Tell me when I’m messing up so I can fix it, he said, instead of telling me what I already know. This is Israeli culture. It’s a bit rougher than our polished British-influenced politeness. It’s the opposite end of the spectrum.

Many people I met initially told me to go back home and tell people what a wonderful place Israel is, that it’s not dangerous, and is full of life. A security guard had a great conversation with me about this (and another one during the most extensive airport security ever, including removing everything from everyone’s bag and making us all repack it, who was eminently nice about the whole thing). But the prevalence of conflict, or at least perceived conflict is everywhere, even if I did feel safe everywhere I went. Imagine an entire age group of a nation’s population completely removed from normal society. There are no 18 and 19 year olds in Israel walking the streets. They’re all in brown uniforms carrying machine guns. The guard at the checkpoint between Jewish Jerusalem and Arab Bethlehem was chewing bubble gum and wearing oversized Dolce&Gabbana shades. If America’s is an army of the poor, Israel has an army of the young and beautiful. One of the most interesting experiences I had was in Jaffa when I saw a mass of Orthodox Jews in full black garb congregated in an area of the city surrounded by barricades and police. There was yelling and swaying and occasional some chasing and hitting interspersed with moments of peace. Never in my life have I had less idea what was going on.

It’s a country of every nationality. There are no native Israelis. Today’s native Israelis are Arab. Arabs were the only people there outside of kibbutzim and Tel Aviv before the 1940s. It’s a very multicultural place united by its common Jewishness. Where America splashes multiculturalism across every ad and college marketing piece in the country, however, Israel is fiercely proud to be a country where all nationalities are welcome…as long as you’re Jewish.

It makes sense. As I was in Israel, I spent lots of time reading the Old Testament, what to the Jewish faith is the only testament. Jewish life is built around a combination of this collection of books and the rabbinic teachings. I helped dig through a city that was no conquered by the ancient Jewish people. It was one of a few. The Old Testament has pockets of peacefulness, but it is riddled through the core with violence. As Jerusalem’s walls are scarred with bullet holes, so is the Old Testament fraught with tales of sanctioned killing. I don’t question the part these tales play in God’s plan even if I don’t completely understand it. But I do know, more than ever before that there has never been a figure in history quite so radical for his time than Jesus. Stepping into a system and culture created through horrific violence, Jesus preached that we are to love our neighbors and pray for our enemies. We still must. We still must.

Jeremy