Because It Was There

November 4-5, 2010

We headed to the Sinai Desert and Mount Sinai, which contains Mount Catherine, Mount Moses, etc.  Long bus ride (7 hours).  Interesting scenery.  Sheer desolation.  We arrived at night so we couldn’t see the mountains.  We had a quick meal (like every other one we have had – buffet) and went to bed to prepare for our 12:45 am wake-up call.  That’s right.  Forty fine minutes after midnight.  Why?  Well, to hike up Mount Moses and see the sunrise, of course.  Duh.

As you can imagine, 12:45 came very early. We gathered outside, got on the bus and drove a short distance to the monastery at St. Catherine, which is at the base of the mountain.  There, we met our Bedouin guide, named Muhammad interestingly enough.  Off we set for what was billed as a “strenuous” hike followed by a 750 step climb to the summit.  But, don’t worry.  Tthere are camels that you can ride at least part of the way.  For some reason, the idea of riding a camel, one of the world’s ugliest and smelliest animals, on a tiny saddle up a mountain did not appeal to me.  I guess I’m just funny that way.  So, I was determined to hike it. 

The hike started gently enough.  Gently enough to take in the incredible stars spread out across the sky like something from the ceiling of a Las Vegas limo.  I have seen stars in the desert in the desert Southwest in the U.S. and that had made quite an impression, but I have never seen stars like this.  And, the shooting stars.  Too numerous to count.  It was beautiful.  But, soon the trail turned rather rocky and the incline intensified so I spent the next few hours looking mostly at my feet or at least the ground where my next step would land.  Yes, if I had been awake enough to do the math, I would have realized that this was going to be quite a hike, seeing as how we started at about 1:30 and the sun rises at 6.

A few people opted for camels from the get go.  As the hike progressed, the number of camel lovers began to increase, and it wasn’t because they were getting any prettier or less smelly (and they make the most foul noises).  Leave it to the insightful Bedouins.  Somehow they knew the best places – the places where one’s willpower and determination was at a lull -- to hit you up out of the darkness for a camel.  “Mister, good camel.  I take you to the top.  Good camel.  Just twenty dollar.”

I had decided to hang at the back of the pack to make sure that no one got left behind.  Of course, the Bedouins assumed that whoever was at the back of the pack was the weakest person to prey on.  Once they figured out that I could carry on a conversation with them – that I wasn’t winded – they would move up in the line.  This created the very situation that I wanted to avoid:  hiking up a mountain with a smelly, stubborn, obscenely grunting animal who cared very little for my personal space.  I had to get pretty rude a couple of times to get them to leave us alone.

I know what you are thinking.  How do you see to hike at night?  A small flashlight of course.  After all, you only need to know where your next step is going to be.  Sort of like life isn’t it?  We always worry about where we are going instead of just taking the next step.  Anyway, I had my trusty little mini-Maglite.  I was so proud that I had planned ahead and had put new batteries in it before I left.  Well, halfway up the mountain, it went out.  Really?  My trusty mini-Maglite had failed me?  Of course not.  I assumed that it was the bulb.  It was.  Fortunately, it happened just as we neared a little coffee shack on the mountain side.  About the time that we were going to start back up (and I realized that incessantly shaking it wasn’t doing any good), I remembered that there is a spare in the base of it (you forgot too didn’t you?).  Mohamed helped me change it at one of the little coffee houses on the way up (I couldn’t see the darn little wires that had to be threaded through the light base).  A Bedouin guide’s duties are extensive. But, will I remember to replace that spare bulb?

A strenuous hike.  An understatement of biblical proportion.  The slope increased.  The number of uneven rocks and steps increased.  The number of loose rocks increased. The number of people opting for camels increased.  My heart rate increased. And then came the steps.  750 steps.  That’s roughly 75 short stories.  No big deal right?  People did that at the World Trade Center.  But, these weren’t nice even steps with handrails.  They were irregular, uneven, sand-covered, winding stone “steps”.  I thought my heart was going to explode and that my lung capacity had suddenly decreased by half.  My thighs were burning like I was wired to some sort of sick medical experiment.  But, I had to make it to the summit before sunrise and the sky was starting to lighten.  I was no longer at the back of the pack.  “Go on without me”, they said one after another.  “We had to make the summit”, I said to myself in my Sir Edmond Hillary voice. “It was difficult leaving them behind on the mountain.”  Sounds like a dramatic movie.  I lead the charge to the summit.  Not that I was better prepared than everyone else.  I just had momentum.  And make it we did. 

We made it before sunrise.  There is a small church at the summit of Mount Moses.  There were a few landings on the rock there.  There were people from all over the world.  And then, the sun began coming up over the smaller mountains in the distance.  People began to sing and pray in all their different beautiful languages.  What an incredible experience.  To think that we were at the summit of what tradition held to be the mountain where Moses received the Ten Commandments and there were all these different interpretations and expressions of people’s relationships with God being expressed in the same spot.  I know that there is no proof that this is the same mountain where the law was laid down for Moses, but somehow at that point in time, no one on the mountain top seemed to care.  After all, it wasn’t about Moses.  It was about them and their God and his sunrise.

The Mosque, the Museum, the Man-Shopper

November 3, 2010

Cairo.  Today we visited a mosque, hit the Cairo Museum, visited the Coptic section of Cairo and did a little shopping. 

I have never been in a mosque.  There were no prayers going on.  It would be pretty neat to be there when prayers are going on, if they allow that sort of thing.  You cannot wear shoes in a mosque. Who knew?  If you take your shoes off and carry them in, then you place them sole to sole and place them on the floor on their sides, so that their soles don't touch the floor.  We put these little baggies on our feet over our shoes that vendors sold at the door for $1.00.  Everything is $1.00 here from relentless vendors at every stop.  There was a comical toothless character outside of the mosque who tried to get everyone’s attention by calling out famous names.  His knowledge of famous people was rather limitedhowever.  “Hey, Madame Obama!”  “Hey, Mr. Obama.”  “Hey, Sophia Loren.”  “Hey, Yankee Doodle.”  “Aloha”.  For some reason, when you are American, the Egyptians say “Aloha” or “Yankee Doodle”to you.  Really?  Of all the American phrases in circulation in the world they choose these two?  Hawaii hasn’t even been a state that long.  It would be easy to become irritated at the vendors.  I have had any problem with them though.  I simply ignore them.  No eye contact.  No verbal communication.  If they sense even the smallest crack, they are relentless.  I have enjoyed watching people negotiating with them.  I thought it would be neat to bring some trinkets along and try to sell them something when they are trying to sell me something.  Maybe we would wind up with a simple barter trade.  Don't worry, honey.  I didn't.  Oh well, I digress.

So, the mosque.  The neatest thing was the very succinct and passionate explanation of Islam that our guide, himself a Muslim, gave us in the mosque.  Incredible.  It is amazing the similarities between Christianity and Islam.  And to hear it from a practitioner was fascinating.  The Muslim population here is tremendous – a huge majority.  The Egyptians are by and large very traditional and religious people.  A number of men, I noticed, have dark marks on their heads.  This is from praying five times a day and putting their forehead to the ground.  Perhaps they are proud that their righteousness is visible to all.

The children that we have seen are very friendly.  I met a young man and his sister on the way home from school.  I assumed that he spoke English when he said, “Hello, what is your name?”  I told him and then asked him what his name was.  He had no idea what I was talking about.  He had probably just learned this phrase.  His sister giggled.  A few charades later and I learned his name.  No, I cannot spell it and it was quite difficult to pronounce.

The Cairo museum was fascinating.  30,000 pieces of antiquity, most of which were not behind display cases.  They were just sitting around, leaning up against the wall or sitting on a shelf.  Part of the beard and part of the nose missing from the Sphinx, just lying around.  There wasn’t a single piece that was created any more recently than 3,000 years ago.  Three thousand years.  Think about it.  Think of the great strides to which we go to preserve things in our country that are less one-tenth that old.  Displays included the items recovered from King Tut’s tomb.  That stuff was under glass.  Lots of gold and jewels.  To see this craftsmanship up close was truly remarkable.

We also went to the church where tradition has it that Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus hid out for a few weeks when they were on the run in Egypt.  The church was built in the 7^th Century.  The artwork that was on display there depicting that plight was equally ancient.  I think I have seen pictures of some before.  Pretty interesting.

Of course, we also did a little shopping.  I experienced the universal shopping condition experienced by most men – the energy was sucked right out of the sole of my feet when I entered the bazar.  Some things are international.

Finally...The Pyramids

11-2-10

Cairo.  Today, was sort of like Spring Break for us – we got lots of sun and sand.  Only for us, there were no wet bikini contests or funnel parties.  The only other similarity was our sitting in never-ending traffic at the end of the day.  Well, it wasn’t really cruising, but work with me.

Today, we visited the famous pyramids of Giza.  This included one of the seven wonders of the world  -- the Great Pyramid  of King Keops.  We also saw the “Solar Boat” – the boat that was excavated from beside the pyramid and reconstructed.  And, the famous step pyramid – the first one.  You can learn more about the pyramids and how they were constructed (theories, etc.) on the internet (and with correctly spelled names) than I could possibly regurgitate at the end of a long day (don’t blame my lack of detail on our guide, who is excellent by the way).  So far as the pyramids are concerned, like you, I’ve seen the National Geographic specials, the “How’d They Do That” episode, and what could only be described as an ironic stretch for “Modern Marvels”.  However, I learned something very interesting today – why they were built.

Perhaps you already know this.  Me?  I must have been asleep that day in school or making popcorn during those segments of the television shows.  It all has to do with practicality, immortality or resurrection, and, of course, egos. Here’s the quick and dirty.

 The ancient ancient Egyptians merely buried their dead in the ground in a shallow oval grave, in the fetal position, facing the sun.  You see, they worshiped Ra the sun god.  He rose in the East.  So, he must know something about immortality because he never dies and is resurrected each morning.  Problem was the jackals would dig up the bodies and destroy them.  Not good when you’re planning on being resurrected – you needed the body.   So, they began putting sun-baked (you know, healthy) bricks over the grave – to keep the jackals out.  Problem with the bricks was that they didn’t last forever.  Since no one had actually ever seen someone resurrected, they didn’t know how long it would be before it happened.  So, one of the kings (Zoser) wanted his grave to be better protected.  He asked his chief architect/designer/adviser to come up with something.  He did.  Stones.  There is a huge deposit of limestone in the area.  First they used one rectangular one.  Then three – one stacked in the middle on the joint between two laid side by side.  That was the first pyramidal shape (which represents the sun’s rays when they come down through the clouds, remember the sun god Ra?). 

When the king’s family members started dying, he had them buried under stones arranged in this manner.  The graves were fairly close together.  After there were about 6 there, well it didn’t look so cool anymore.  So, they built some more stones on top of those there and filled in between them.  This was the first couple of layers of the step pyramid shown below.  The top was too flat, so they added some more layers.  This resulted in the first pyramid (see photo below, and no, the scaffolding hasn’t survived for 4,000 years).

The famous pyramids of Giza are simply the grandest surviving burial pyramids (so far, 111 pyramids have been discovered in Egypt).  They believe that only 30% of the ancient structures have been uncovered.  The kings were always trying to out-do their predecessors.  I’m not really sure what they thought would happen if they all came back at the same time.  I guess there would have been a tremendous power struggle.

But, the most fascinating thing about the whole idea of the pyramids and their accompanying buildings and other funerary (stuff they were buried with and things that were built around them) was the people’s anticipation of resurrection and thus immortality.  They believed in an after-life but believed it to be here.  They believed heaven was where the gods lived.  The kings (and their peeps) believed that the king would become a god when he died.  They also believed that resurrection and immortality was not limited to the king, but that everyone would/could be resurrected – depending on their conduct in the present life.  The pyramids were not built by slaves, but by highly skilled, highly regarded craftsmen, who were treated like professional athletes.  They were well compensated, well fed and very good at what they did.  And they did it because they thought it would increase their chances of a successful resurrection (as opposed to an unsuccessful one?).  Fascinating.  Too bad we don’t spend so much time and energy focused on our afterlife.

See... i really am here. :)  Wish you were too.

Point me in the right direction

November 1, 2010 – later.

On the way to the hotel from the airport, we passed lots of mosques.  You know the ones, with the tall spires and the loudspeakers.  These also have not-so-tastefully-placed lights on the towers or spires.  Not spotlights lighting them up and not strings of lights outlining them, but rather what looks more like neon.  Like something on an American Indian casino.

On closer inspection, they aren’t neon but fluorescent lights.  You know, the simple tube ones.  Like the yellow ones we used to see growing up under the eaves at the drive-ins (not the movies, but the places with the hamburgers, onion rings and awesome shakes).  Only these lights aren’t yellow.  Some are simply white.  Others are green.   Very odd.

 I haven’t heard the prayers over the loudspeakers yet.  I think they were at sundown.  We were stuck in traffic or perhaps queuing up in the lobby of the hotel awaiting our room keys.  If they were broadcast, I missed them.  I’m glad God never gets stuck in traffic or misses ours.

Wait . . . I can hear a prayer now.  And the horn blowing of frustrated drivers.  And the incessant barking of an irritated dog.  Or, at least I assume that this is a prayer.  It certainly has a prayerful tone.  Well, not really, more like a mournful tone.  Granted, I have no idea what he is saying, but the tone. . .   It doesn’t sound very joyful.  What part of the Lord’s Prayer would sound like that?  The forgiveness part I suppose.  I wonder if they ever pray a prayer of praise or thanksgiving over the loudspeakers.

Speaking of prayer, there is an arrow on the ceiling in a corner of our room.  We’ve concluded that it points toward Mecca.  Hmmmm.  Imagine that! 

 

Imagine what we as Christians could do with something like that.  We could all use some prayer help and direction sometimes.  What if we put arrows on our walls pointing up?  Or maybe hung mobiles made up of arrows pointing up?  How about an arrow hanging from our rear view mirrors? Or, we could create one of those trendy oval stickers for our rear windows, with an arrow pointing up instead of letters which stand for some vacation spot or band or store or that people can’t figure out. 

Or, are our arrows more like the spinner in the Twister game?  We aimlessly and desperately spin it hoping for some direction, some purpose, something that energizes and motivates us.  We invest our time and energies in whatever our arrow may land on – whatever we may have lined the spinner card with – career, money, power, position, appearance,  clothes, shopping, stuff, addictions.

My spinner card is more like a marquee, it changes from day to day, week to week, season to season.  Which way is your arrow pointing?  What have you lined your card with?

Cairo, here we go...

November 1, 2010

Cairo.  What a stark contrast!  We left Zurich (mountains, lush valleys, chocolate) and a little over 3 hours later, Egypt.  Cairo, with its burgeoning population (now over 22 million), its stark and desolate landscape (broken only by the large apartment buildings being constructed) and dust, dust, dust, smog and smoke.  Cairo (or at least what we have seen of it between the airport and our hotel) is very dirty (dusty, litter-filled, etc.), crowded and un-inspiring.  But, the pyramids are right here!  We feel as if we are close enough for them to cast a shadow over the hotel, but I am sure they are farther away.  To think, they were built over 4,000 years ago.  Wow.  No wonder it is dirty.  People have been here for a very long time. 

Tomorrow, we start hitting the sites.  Would you be able to sleep?

Zurich, Switzerland

11.1.10

Zurich, Switzerland.  Funny how we left one of the newest and wealthiest countries in the world on the way to one of the most ancient and traditional regions of the world, by way of one of Europe’s old yet modern countries.  My wife, Christine, would say that they are probably the most advanced civilizations on the planet simply because of the large role that chocolate plays in their society.  How is it that the Swiss are so fit yet chocolate is so prominent here?  I think that they make it to distribute to foreigners and that they don’t actually eat it.  Or, perhaps its all those strenuous national pastimes, like mountain climbing, hiking, and watch making.

What a beautiful country!  I watched about 2 hours worth of Swiss tourism films on the flight from JFK.  I’m sold.  Christine and I loved our brief foray into southern Switzerland when we ventured to Italy last year.  I thought it was the stark contracts between the cultures that was evidenced by their respective train systems, but then again I had forgotten the beautiful scenery.  We must come back here.  Surely there are some mission opportunities here!  Well, maybe just a pleasure trip.  There are mission opportunities everywhere every day.  Right?

An irony in the newsstand reminds me of the narrow-minded fluency of our American culture.  Seems the rest of the world appreciates (and probably more readily needs) the ability to speak other languages.  The Swiss are partial to French and German, and of course speak English for those of us who don’t bother to learn their languages.  Anyway, there was a magazine in the airport newsstand about the Holy Land.  A beautiful, glossy edition devoted exclusively to the history and archeology of the region – including Egypt.  Or, at least that is all I could make of it.  It was in German.

I have also been reminded of how spoiled we are.  Of course, it doesn’t take much to be reminded of that.  I was envious at JFK of the flights leaving directly for Cairo and Tel Aviv.  I was also frustrated when I saw a Delta flight arriving here in Zurich from Atlanta.  Afterall, we flew from Birmingham to Atlanta to JFK to Zurich, and now on to Cairo.  How inefficient!  But, then again, how amazing that we can travel half way around the world so quickly.  Our flight from JFK was only a little over 6 hours long.  Wow.

Oh well.  I don’t know the connection between the Swiss obsession with clocks and time pieces (Swatch and Rolex have facilities here) and chocolate, but it could be that it enables them to know when its time to eat some more.  Tobulene.  I think its time for some more.

Well, here we go....

I know, I know.  Blogging.  Finally.  This is relatively new for me.  Perhaps it is for you too.  Its one thing to read blogs.  Its another to write them.  I'm new to both.  Regardless, I think that a trip to Egypt and Israel is the perfect excuse (or opportunity) to add to my list of things to do everyday.  Being without email, telephone, cell phone, texts, etc., while overseas should make it easier.  But, will I be able to keep it up upon my return?  Heck, I don't even "status" on Facebook.  If folks wonder what my status is or what I am up to/thinking/etc. they may as well consult a psychic as my status updates are about as frequent as total eclipses.  Who knows.  And, as we are yet to see, who really cares?
I'm leaving tomorrow morning at Marine Corps time (5 am) for the airport and an anything-but-direct flight(s) to Cairo.  Not only will the many interconnected jaunts mean little REM sleep, there are also way too many opportunities for bags to get lost or delayed, mechanical breakdowns and delays, delayed delays and then again there are the possiblities of delays, and more delays.
So, I've titled this blog "Perspectives".  If you have heard much from me, that comes as no surprise.  I think that perspective (a change of perspective) could right much of what is wrong with our lives -- or at least what we perceive to be wrong.  More to come on that subject.  When I find time to write a book (that will have to be a very long trip), it will be about "perpective".
Stay tuned to see how adept I am at blogging and finding WiFi in new-to-me foreign countries.
Meanwhile, if you blog, add a comment with a link.
Let's stay in touch.
Shalom.