Cooking the NYTimes and Other Assorted Retirement Activities

In the first Homework for the Holy Land post, I mentioned that I was a bit concerned about being part of a tour group.  All such concerns have dissipated.  Clearly I am blessed to be with the right group of people with whom to share this experience.  Two of today's events solidified that. I jumped into this trip primarily because I would be traveling not only with My Friend Jeanie and her Spousal Unit ™ , Bill, but other members of St. Timothy's who I have come to know over the years.  Going to your faith cradle is a pretty big deal.  Going with people you trust to stand along side you during that journey is an even bigger deal.  I believed that the St. Tim's group would see this as a way to expand their commitment to being the hands, feet and voice of Christ in the world.   This morning we started at the River Jordan.  Evangelical Christians requested from the state of Israel a secure, peaceful place to conduct baptisms on the river; the...

My head is exploding and I am tired, so this may be short and sweet, although we had a day jam packed full of historical and maybe/sorta Biblical sites. The weather was just perfect today--sunny, blue skies, light wind, temperatures moderate.  We began at 686 feet below sea level and climbed to 1174 feet above sea level, enjoying amazing views on the way up and down.  Our first stop was Caesarea, built by Herod the Great (yes, THAT King Herod) in 22 B.C.  Caesarea was quite the enclave; it included a harbor, Roman theater and a Hippodrome where chariots were raced.  The Hippodrome was also used to torture Christians before Christianity was legalized by Emperor Constantine in 313 AD (remember him?  I'm telling you, my head is exploding trying to first remember what I learned and then, attempting to tie it all together with the current new learning).   All signs are in Hebrew, Arabic and English.  Approximately 80% of Israelis are Jewish; 20 %...

Israeli history has been dated back to 3600 B.C.E.  It's hard to wrap your head around that when you're strolling through ruins.  Not unlike other countries, any building excavation has the potential of turning up artifacts that continue to shed light on the other component which, for me, is hard to wrap your head around when you're strolling through ruins.  This is the land where Christianity began.   Jesus sailed back and forth across the Sea of Galilee as an itinerant preacher.   This was sunrise this morning over the Sea of Galilee, as taken from my hotel room.  I mean, COME ON.  Hard to wrap my head around. Today's touring took us to sites around the Sea of Galilee.  Yesterday I mentioned I liked the approach our guide indicated he was going to take to these historical sites.  He proved himself to be knowledgeable, scientific and factual which our entire busload of Episcopal pilgrims seems to appreciate and enjoy....

It's been a long day of travel and an early wake up call in the morning, but I wanted to jot down a few preliminary observations. I always wanted to go somewhere where I couldn't make hide nor hair out of the language.  Hello, Israel!  It's disconcerting not to be able to make sense out of any of the signage; looking at the accompanying graphics or photos, at least so far, isn't of much help because there is nothing familiar to me about the written language.  On the plane, the menu was printed in both English and Hebrew, so I spent a little time trying to decipher the Hebrew by comparing it to the English.  For example, I chose an English word used multiple times and then went to the Hebrew to see if I couldn't figure out what that English word might be in Hebrew.  Failed.  I'm guessing there's context and syntax at work here, as there is in English which is reputed to be one of the most difficult languages to learn.  It'll be interesting to see if I...

I do all the travel planning for myself and the Spousal Unit ™ --investigating where we will go, stay, how to get there, etc.  In the process of doing so, I get a pretty good sense of what there is to do and see in the area or while we are traveling.  An afternoon spent noodling around the world wide web, checking out various sites and lodgings gets my travel juices flowing. When we stay with friends or family, I tend to less world wide webbing as I anticipate our loved ones will provide guidance about the area.  I particularly appreciate their recommendations on what tourist traps to avoid and which we should get sucked into.  Eating out at some of their favorite places make for memorable experiences.  In those situations, I really love the "push me around" travel. Tomorrow I head out on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with 20 other pilgrims from St. Timothy's Episcopal Church in West Des Moines, Iowa. My Friend Jeanie ™  is a Deacon at St. Tim's.  ...

I'd been feeling rather peckish, emotionally, the past week or so.  Yesterday I decided to write a blog post about what I thought was precipitating these feelings.  Fortunately, good sense prevailed and I chose not to publish what I wrote because it was, frankly, pretty damn snarky. Since I'm on a never ending quest to learn and apply life's lessons, I gave that decision some extended thought after not hitting the publish button.  It boiled down to a couple things and these I think are worth a share, as opposed to the rant yesterday's blog turned out to be. First, everyone is entitled to their own feelings and emotions, including you.  In this case, including me.  All those negatives that had been boiling and percolating and bubbling and causing toil and trouble--they were, still are, authentic.  While I am not a "I have a perfect right to..." type, I will ascribe to having a perfect right to feel this way.  Until feeling this way starts to get in ...

I suppose this could just as easily be titled the joy of going home but no, not really, because I’m not going home.  I’ve lived in the Twin Cities twice as long as I lived in Chicago so home is Minnesota not Illinois.  Yet I will always be from somewhere else. As I compose this draft, the Spousal Unit   (™)  and I are riding the CTA Orange Line  with a transfer to the Blue Line  from Midway out to, well, where I was last from before moving to Minnesota .  I screwed up our plane reservations and booked us into Midway rather than O’Hare.  When my sister noticed, my only option was to repurchase the ticket so I decided we’d take the CTA out to O’Hare.  This will take us longer than it did to fly from MSP to MDW.  I’m not upset about it, though.  Because there is joy in being from Somewhere Else. When you return, every sense is assailed by the somewhere else left behind and indelibly etched in you.  For me, it begins as a small...