Mt. Nebo and beautiful people

Last night was the second time we visited Margie's former next door neighbors. They're a beautiful Egyptian family, Heron and Hannah are in their early 30's/late 20's respectively and they have 3 children, Stephen is 9, James is 6, and baby Margie (named after Margie) is 1.5. They are so loving and so generous. They feed us shawarma and pepsi until we cannot possibly put another bite into our mouths (especially last night when it was liver instead of the usual lamb), then we play card games (I can now play an entire game of Uno in Arabic) and teach each other Arabic/English, then they of course serve us tea. Last night Stephen sat next to me and practiced his English. He's painfully shy and afraid of making mistakes (particularly when his father is around), but he talked about liking basketball and football (soccer) and studying math in school. Then he taught me how to respond when people ask me how I am. James is a clown and apparently he just learned how to ask "what is your name?" in English. After finally figuring out that, "Amy, whasooreem" meant "Amy, what is your name?", I answered. Hilarious. He then proceeded to ask about 10 more times in the same way, "Amy, what is your name?" Uh... James, apparently you already know my name! Hannah insisted that I should stay in Jordan and learn Arabic. With beautiful people like this around, the prospect is appealing (especially because I just got my financial aid statement from Columbia - the numbers on those loans are SO big!).

Yesterday was my first time venturing out alone here. Two of Margie's friends had been traveling around with me before they left for the US, but they left on Monday night and so I am now on my own (until Friday - not that long, really). I decided to be a bit adventurous and borrow Margie's car for an out-of-Amman trip to Madaba, a city with impressive and famous mosaics, and Mt. Nebo, the mountain where God showed Moses the Promised Land and then Moses subsequently died. I got decently lost on the way there and on the way back (the way back was a bit of an adventure - Amman is NOT easy to navigate and I got detoured into who-knows-where. Thankfully, I know the downtown area and how to get to Margie's from there, so I followed every sign I could find pointing to "City Center" - labeled in English, mercifully - and ended up in the balad, the street market downtown), but I made it and had a good day touring around on my own. Madaba was interesting but not awe inspiring, but Mt. Nebo was very impressive. The mountain itself has a monastery and church on top and is quite the tourist location... I paid 1 JD, walked through for 10 mins, then headed down the road about 100 yards to a taller, empty hillside with better views of the Holy Land... the entire thing. At the bottom of the hill, I ran into an enthusiastic German man and another, much rougher looking man. The German asked me to take his picture with this other man and then proceeded to explain that the other guy is a Frenchman who walked here from France. A real-life pilgrim! He told me he began his journey on August 1. Incredible! As I headed up the hill, the German shouted after me that I was headed to a site much holier than the one across the road. The other is for tourists, this is for meditation. Good point, Mr. German.

The mosaic of the Holy Land in St. Gregory's Church, Madaba:


A statue of Moses carved to commemorate the Pope's visit:


The "real" Mt. Nebo from the more impressive hilltop across the road:


At the top, I could see the Jordan River valley from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea and the mountains beyond. I could also look back at the "real" Mt. Nebo and see the tourist buses lined up in the parking lot and the clusters of camera-clad people milling about on the paved paths and looking at the sculpted monuments to Moses and the Pope (who visited in 2000). It all got me thinking about the way we do spiritual journeys - either by consuming them, checking them off, and moving on like the people on the Holy Land Tour buses with their matching hats and fanny packs; or by slowly plodding our way through, being in the experience, taking the time (8 months!) to let the journey shape us, challenge us, strip us down to the essentials (his pack was 50 lbs... he walked for 8 months with a 50 lb pack!), and leave us with experiences rather than mere visual memories. I am seeing the sites much like the fanny-pack clad masses in their bug-eyed tour buses - although I crave the ability to hike through, to strip down and slow down and simplify so I can hear God (I have some desert-filled days ahead of me - desert castles tomorrow; Wadi Rum, Petra, and the Dead Sea this weekend. Margie and I have talked about trying to make it a bit of a retreat - we'll see what we can do).

The Holy Land (see the Sea of Galilee?):


The Jordan River Valley with the Dead Sea to the left (out of the picture):


This morning I found this in the NYTimes. That would be incredible! Let's do it! But then again, we can't because we have this gosh darn God-given call to love his people, and that doesn't happen in the isolation of rural Texas.

I want to learn to live my life like the French pilgrim. To move at a slow pace and to put myself fully into what is occurring at the moment. I want to walk through life and to find people to walk with me. I want to love other people where they are more than I love myself and my accomplishments. I want to make my life about God and about his people and not about me... but I'm so incredibly bad at that.