Call to Prayer

This video is taken from the northern end of the City of David looking east towards the Mt. of Olives, but specifically Silwan Village. This is by far the most dangerous area of Jerusalem and many Arabs do not even go there. As Dr. Wright put it, "don't go there, unless you want to know what it feels like to have a rock hitting your head." I don't go there :) But anyway....here is the Muslim call to prayer, which is heard very clearly in East Jerusalem.

Little Bedouin Girl

A group of Bedouins joined us in the Judeaen Wilderness during our lecture in order to make some money off of us :) They did wait patiently until we finished. The video is of a litle bedouin girl, now more than 4 years old, who was pulling the donkey around, hugging it, and hitting it with the reins. It was really cute and funny at the same time, Dr. Wright had to compete for attention. But anyway, I sneaked this short video in while Dr. Wright was lecturing :)

Psalm 121

I will lift up my eyes to the mountains; from whence shall my help come? My help comes from teh Lord, who made heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to slip; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper;The Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun will not smite you by day, not the moon by night. The Lord will protect you from all evil; He will keep your soul. The Lord will guard your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forever.

Psalm 121 is a Psalm of ascent, which is talking about Jerusalem. Now you have to remember when this Psalm was written that "Jerusalem" was the City of David located on the "Eastern Hill." Now for those who have never been to the City of David, it is hard to describe what the landscape is around the city, but I will do my best. Everyone knows actually being there is the best thing, therefore I put this video up to help.

The Eastern Hill is the lowest hill in the area surronded by the Kidron Valley on the east and the Central Valley on the west with Mt. Moriah at the northern end. The Mt. of Olives to the east is much higher than the Eastern Hill and the Western Hill to the west is much higher than the Eastern Hill. And Mt. Moriah (the Temple Mount) is the access point to the city, where the citadell, to protect the city, and later the Temple would have been. The City of David is not a fortress on the highest hill!!!! And the Psalmist knew this....and anyone reading this Psalm knew that. "I will lift my eyes to the mountain; from whence shall my help come?" The Psalmist knew God was his protection. Also the slope to the Kidron Valley was very steep...."He will not allow your foot to slip."

When one stands in the City of David, this Psalm really comes to life, because it makes so much more sense what the psalmist is talking about. The video starts looking south at the northern end of the Eastern Hill and the little hill inf front of you, that you can barely see and is in the very bottom right hand corner, would have been the entire city of Jerusalem at the time of David. It really is small,hard to see, and moves by quick! Then it pans left (west) toward the Kidron Valley and the Mt. of Olives. Then it looks up at the Temple Mount, close to where Solomon's Temple was (this was the most vulnerable part of the city, because there was no valley to protect the northern end. It then pans towards the Western Hill, which like the Mt. of Olives is higher than the City fo David. It then returns looking south, with once a again a quick view of the City of David. But don't get the location of the City of David wrong. It is the lowest "hill" on the very bottom of the screen and really isn't much of a hill at all.

I hope this video helps y'all appreciate Psalm 121 more and what the City of David was really like.

A humbling Lesson

I am really frusterated today....at people who believe that they are smart, wise, and good thinkers, when they are really ignorant, prideful, and arrogant. Today in one of my classes, a girl who will stay unnamed blurted out something as if it was matter of fact (the subject will remain anonymous as well). But as she blurted it out, almost imediately the entire class including the professor knew she was wrong. A girl behind her tried to explain to her why she was wrong, and for about 1 minute they argued, which seamed like an eternity while the prof continued teaching. She was very defensive in an attempt to defend her views, and at the very end of the arguement she says, "I know what I'm talking about, I went to school for 7 years!" This girl has blurted out "this is how it is, not questions asked" statements like this before. Needless to say, the didn't sit well with me.
Another example today was when me and a friend were in an arguement with a girl of whether Marx's ideas were good or not. Now it was very clear fromt the discussion, that she dispised capitalism, blaming poverty on it, and how she wished we could live in small communities which embraced socialism....but what she believes is beside the point. And this girl argued that we can listen to what people say without accepting them, and have good discussion, which of course she was right. But when she talked about how she loved and appreciated philosophy so much. And she could just sit around and talk about things all day long. And how much education she recieved in her philosophy classes. My impression honestly was simple arrogance.
My point being that it was a academic humbling experience. I love to learn...just love it! But today was a great reminder that knowledge can lead to pride. There must always be a balance of wisdom and knowledge in everything we learn. And it was reminder to me that I will never have all the answers no matter how much schooling. I pray that I will never comeoff to people as arrogant or as a know it all, simply because I have more schooling then them.

London...City of Darkness

I had the priviledge to spend three days in London on my way to Israel. And it was a lot of fun seeing a lot of the sites for the second time and some for the first time that I was unable to see on my first trip to London. It was also very convenient to be able to go from site to site rather quickly, since it was only me and Andrew Davis, instead of a large singing group who do not know the difference between good historical sites and a Falafal! Anyway, what really intrigued me on this trip was not just being able to see so much more, but to see the city in a whole new light. While on my first trip we stayed only a few days "in" London and it was technically on the outskirts. And not only that, but we had a tour bus take us around (very touristy looking...I know, I hate looking like a tourist. I like to blend in as much as possible). But on this recent trip we stayed just west of Westminster off of Earl's Court (for anyone who knows where that is :). Anyway, staying more in the heart of the city gave it a new face. Me and Andrew also took the Underground EVERYWHERE. And for anyone that has been to big cities, you know that you can really tell what a city is like by their public transportant (particularly subway systems) and the people on them.
All of this to tell you one observation I made while constantly on the Underground. The city of London is dead! Spiritually that is. Ironic isn't it, since England has such a strong history of being a country of missionaries and theologians. And it's not so much that the city worships other religions persay. Rather it is apathy that is crippling the country (and Europe for that matter). Also Europe, but particularly London, is dealing with the "problem" of Muslim imigrants. The population growth of Europe is in the negatives, while those Muslims living in Europe have a positive population growth due to not just immigration, but birth rate. Therefore you combine the apathy of Europeans and Londoners, with the increase of Islam in Europe and you have a scary situation. This is not to say that Europeans are inherantly of more value than Arabs, but speaking rather of the religion of Islam taking a foothold on Europe.
There is a very could chance that apathy, laziness, and pride could cripple London and Europe, where the "center" of Christianity once stood....may we learn from this!