So...

I got into grad school! My mom just forwarded me the acceptance letter from BYU's new MFA program! I'll probably end up getting to teach a freshman English class, besides studying exactly what I have realized I love most in school--personal essays (among other types of creative writing). I love the fact that I'm headed towards what I love; I guess it's cool to have found what I would want to do whether I got any credit for it or not, and then to have the chance to do it for credit and to progress towards a worthwhile job through which I could contribute something I believe is meaningful to the world.

Just wanted to letcha know :).

mmm

Under the center we all write our names. Sometime I'll have to tell you about how we started the Mustache Militia here, and how I am sure that I finally have the final ingredient needed to convince Heidi Hatch to kiss me. Ahh yeeah.

Lachish shall not fall again.
Yo soy Rambo.

Un poquito mas

This wasn't like Moria; Moria was like this. Now I know why it was supposed to be impressive. Welcome to the Karnak Temple, folks.



For all you Dragon Ball Z fans: Ka-me-ha-me...


Moroni 10:3 "...Remember how merciful the Lord hath been..."

y mas - Egypt

Here's to you, Communism. A fine meal at the Kibbutz. Felt like I was in The Giver. The Giver + great ice cream.

Hatshepsut's funerary temple. She was a psycho-pharaoh. At the top of the mtn. you can see a natural pyramid shape. On the other side of it to the right is another valley system sort of thing--The Valley of the Kings. That was probably the coolest thing ever, except we couldn't bring cameras in there. It was epic. EPIC.Pyramids. Gotta put 'em up there.


Felucah ride on the Nile. Way chill. I leaned off the masthead like Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet would have done but then got reprimanded.

Don't eat the fruit they say. It'll give you dysentery (or at least diarrhea--"Pharaoh's Revenge"/"the Cairo quick-step") they say. Pah.

I live on the Nile; I get whatever I wish--I'm Pharaoh. Get it?

But the real Pharaoh was only biding his time. He later struck at 3 am--on Sinai. Course, the food was worth it. DELICIOUS. This is the view of the Nile we had from the Sheraton. INSANE, man. Egypt alone was worth $10,000. That is not a joke. No. Oh no.


This is what me and my homeys do on Saturday afternoons.

Und mehr

I just thought I'd better post this one too--just found it in Dan's photos he lent me--because it is mighty in formidability and hallowed in memory.

Dome of the rock with Dan Jones, Amjad--whom I mentioned in an early post--Dan King, and John Wiest.
This is a view from the battlements over Damascus Gate (the main, north entrance to the Old City; the battlements were built by Suleyman the Magnificent in 1500 something). It looks down onto the classic market you first start walking into. I figured every student who's ever been there would love to see it. Go ahead, find great filafels on the right; a little further, and it forks: more market stuff on left, Shabban's etc. on the right (and gummies!).

More photos

Meet Elias. Jovial. Spanish speaking. 92 yrs old. Lives around the corner. Lived through the Holocaust.
Lord of the Flies in the Kidron Valley. Potatoes and onions smoked at least partially on a trashfire.
Gonna blow these walls down baby. Lowest city on earth: Jericho. It rains once a year there. It started raining about five minutes after we took this picture. What are the odds. Then I biffed trying to bring the biggest rock I could possibly carry to the pavilion in the background for an object lesson. Hahaha.

Gallery of Long Awaited Photos

Southern Utah boys at Nabi Samwil (Jordan Mulford and I)




Gethsemane. There's a little cross in the center of the picture if you look close.
My favorite view of Jerusalem, for some reason, or at least the part that ... yeah, I think it is my favorite--rivaled only by Dome of the Rock.
Colgate.
Dan King and I, looking jemele.

Living Scriptures Presents: David vs. Goliath

In the valley of Elah, none dared face the giant...none but one.

A Lively Tale of Spitting in Darwin's face in the name of Admittance to Grad School

First of all, I don't know what I clicked on to accidentally become a follower of myself (you may have noticed that). Second of all, I don't know what to click on to stop it, so I guess that's going to stay.

Third of all, here is the writing sample I submitted with my grad school application to BYU's MFA in creative writing program. Just in case anyone's interested. Not sure when I hear back.

Cheers,
Bentley

“On Nothing”

You’d never believe how good it felt to jaywalk across 8 lanes of rapid Parisian traffic, the ones that surround the colossal Arc de Triomphe. And it wasn’t a fluke either: my co-jaywalking life-buddy Justin felt just the same way. Describing the jaunt is pretty easy: explaining why we loved it is a horse of an entirely different color. Not that I ever understood what that really means.

So, like a lot of people live in Paris. Like 11,769,433. Lots of these people have cars. Lots of these cars drive along the Seine River, down Le Champs-Élysées—that’s main street, if you live in Paris. And as it turns out, Le Champs-Élysées leads right to a monumental Arc, or rather to, on this occasion, “us.”

And by the way, technically I suppose we were jaysprinting-for-our-lives, my man Justin and I. We’d plunged in during a brief gap of traffic, which, for being undoubtedly Providential, gave sort of stingy odds on survival. I mean, it’s not like the Red Sea was bursting out and engulfing odd Israelites here and there, back when Moses and Aaron were crossing it. The Black Sea me and “J” were walking across 229.65 feet of unlaned chaotic speed. We were only thirty feet into it when a few dozen Egyptians (who looked more than a little French) caught up to us and tried to PWN us before we reached the Promised Land. A few swung by, and orbited safely behind us, but a new herd of chariots was coming counterclockwise in the distance, and I wasn’t sure if we’d win our race or not.

Now I don’t want to bore you if you already know what this sort of thing is like, because you’ve navigated lots of asteroid fields or something. And of course, if you’ve ever cast yourself across a lifesize, rushing Russian roulette wheel, and plinked along for dear life while a best friend plunked for his, this description really isn’t necessary either. But if you haven’t, let me tell you what it was like—and this thought almost stopped me dead in my tracks, there on Le Champs-Élysées: “This is like living the last level of ‘Frogger.’”

Step. Step. Step. The thought just kept thudding into my head, like a frog into a semi. “Well, probably anyways. I guess I’ve really never seen the last level,” then I started laughing helplessly, “because I always died on level five or so in the middle of Trig in high school.” It was a beautiful irony, so even though it threatened my life, I gave into it and laughed, ironically.

Despite this deliberate frog-duel with Darwin, I had some sort of belief that Justin and I would survive. Maybe it was irrational—a self-nominated candidate for natural selection, thinking he’d survive—but that is what I thought. The scariest moment was probably seeing a rush of cars cutting off our retreat, and another blocking our progress ahead. I experienced a thought: “This is dangerous.” Then my survival instincts kicked in—panic became adrenaline, adrenaline became speed and mental clarity. And hindsight.

I was eyeing the formation of the next wave for gaps to run in when I saw a huge contingent detour east down Le Champs-Élysées, before they reached us on the north side of the Arc. Suddenly (I know the word’s overused, but it’s still the greatest “adverb of revelation”) the ridiculous possibility of making it seemed probable. A sensation of glory and elation mixed with a word much stronger than relief, one probably too perfect to exist. What it means though is a feeling much, much stronger than relief, the one that comes with the release of desperation, like the license to totally collapse. I had all I wanted, padding down the homestretch. We were actually out of breath at this point because the 229 foot jaystroll was further than it had looked, so we gasped our laughs and cried with glee and met eyes and definitely agreed: “We are idiots.” It was really funny.

Maybe you just had to be there.

The last danger came as Justin slowed waaay down because he was laughing so hard right then. Three or four or five cars were approaching along the two inner “lanes,” and I feared the gene pool might just get wiser after all, since Justin was far too close to them and moving slow and—honestly, dude—not even watching just shaking his head while he laughed, so that just made me start laughing too. It was like a tickle fight with the Grim Reaper. And I didn’t know he was ticklish, ‘cause somehow, we won.

Those last few steps across the asphalt I wanted to hold my arms up like an Olympic sprinter in first. Maybe I did. All I remember was the feeling. Nike! Victory! It was glory, and it was worth it. Justin was still closing and wiping his eyes. If we’d been offered all of the world right then, we’d have refused and just kept what we had. That was all we wanted. That was a surprise for a demanding Me. But somehow, I’d scattered my greed and my “needs” along the way, and felt nothing but lucky to be there alive. Which is exactly what I was. And maybe no more than usual either—it was just more obvious. But if obvious is what it takes, I’ll risk my life every day. I hope you’re not thinking, “Don’t push your luck, kid,” but if you are, you should try feeling lucky.

*

Justin and I had spent the whole morning looking everywhere for sewers. How many people have seen the sewers of Paris? Better yet, how many have seen the sewers instead of the Eiffel Tower? I wish I could say we did, but we never found the sewers. We foreswore every other pursuit for their sake, and failed the entire day. We also failed to fail at everything else, too, by accidentally sighting ol’ E. T. off in the distance. Admittedly, I was glad to have glimpsed it—not that I’d lost sight of our quest.

We were questing for the sewers because it struck Justin as hilarious that anyone would go to one of the most beautiful cities on earth and look for its sewers. I am dead serious. That is why. Because you people would be appalled. And I was too, at first. As a disciple of the liberal arts, with no certain chance of returning to their great Temple, Paris, sacrificing the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame and the Arc de Triomph and especially—what I had wanted to see most of all—the Louvre, sounded like heresy, but the idea sort of grew on me, you know? And I supposed since Les Miserables was my favorite book, and we’d heard there was a tour to show where Jean Valjean “would have been,” that I’d at least get that out of it.

It was like cultural masochism. Like a syndrome, Justin’s transcendent nonchalance, and it was infectious. At first, we just planned to dump the touristic rites of Parisian passage until we found the sewers (and even then, we never planned to use maps or plans after), but the suspension felt so good that we decided to make it permanent. We would seek nothing, and only gratefully accept everything. Worst case, if we got hosed, we would laugh. Soon, we only wanted to miss more. Even water and bathrooms. “Pain is good. Extreme pain is extremely good”—I finally got those silly Navy Seals. They’re just preaching a sort of negative self-definition. A man’s greatness is negatively correlated with his needs: he is only as great as he is independent. So every loss proved who we were, and that we were enough. So we chose not to need. We chose, then we felt free.

So even finding the Arc de Triomphe, you see—let alone getting across to it—only happened by accident. Sure it turned out to be on main street, out there in total plain sight—but we hadn’t known that. We’d only known we could go on without it.

We went wandering first among black lanterned tridents, gothically ornate poles posted like sentries along Le Champs-Élysées; they guarded bridges like the Pont Neuf, which I’d seen long ago in a Renoir painting and pocketed as a permanent dreamshard, one I’d seek until I found. That’s what I’m about, and that’s the sort of stuff that hit me there in Paris: I never guessed I’d breathe the living spirit of the French Revolution, but I never guessed it was still living in Paris. And I don’t mean its terror, the dark side of it, either, but the idealism of the time: the Scarlet Pimpernels who saved the innocent; the spiritual nobles who fought for those with less; the exaltation of the still soul stirring cry, Liberté! Egalité! Fraternité!

I once read a letter from that period by a young woman. She recorded a young French noble’s plea that inheritance laws be altered so his failing father could die in peace, knowing all his sons had been cared for, instead of just the oldest. This noble was the oldest. “What others may think of this young man I cannot say,” said the girl, “but as for myself I am violently in love with him.” Bangarang, I say, and hope to be nobler myself.

Maybe there was a touch of nobility in the patent stupidity of Justin and I. We were going without, trying to forsake everything, to stand by ourselves. The young noble gave up money and status for ideals; we gave up E.T. and Moulin Rouge and the Louvre for ours—everything, that is, except the sewers. But they were just our symbol for nothing. What could symbolize nothing better than a sewer? Nothing. Fortunately, that’s what we found.

*

Justin’s not much for religion lately. We’ve always been best friends, but I think it’s even more important to be a good one now. I wanted nothing in Paris more than the Louvre, but I wouldn’t have even been there if it hadn’t been for him—I was there to be and be with a good friend. So who was I to object when in beatific splendour the sewer quest appeared yonder in the heavens, and Justin obviously hankered on the pious crusade to go? As if France should trump camaraderie.

Well, so that was cool, but of course the sewer quest failed. Not to fear! All was not in vain. Justin was quite content with total failure and was beaming like a sunned peach pie, and I found the French Revolution, like I said before—at least its elevating spirit.

It hissed out of the stately portals facing the cobblestony Champs-Élysées; their columns and Neoclassical façades were endless. The same spirit poured from the lips of heroes, monuments of the old France, guardians immortalized in stone and glory—even Thomas Jefferson was there. The true France embraced all who’d fight for freedom. Every detail of the scenery seemed to bring me deeper into the vision. It was everywhere and everything.

It was the wind that whipped about the tricolor: red, white, and blue broad vertical stripes streamed proudly over the Seine; it was the memory of that hero Enjolras, an idealist to the end, wrapped in those colors on the barricades, back during Les Miserables in London; it was the dreamshard that I’d finally found. It was the true spirit of France, and it was alive, and while we felt it we were.

For Justin’s sake and with his help, I had hoped for nothing; but then I found all this. It was as if life had slapped and told me, “This is how you dream.” And during these kaleidoscopic visions of enduring, classic glory, revolving refractions of Le Champs-Élysées, we looked down the miles ahead, and somehow saw some more: an arch—could it be?—Napoleon’s, over his twin triumphant towers. That feeling: it’s something far too rare. It’s the joy known exclusively to those who’ve had their very brightest hopes fail, like candles do in daylight.

*

I wasn’t typically like that—free to find nothing as enough. I typically dream perfect dreams and then insist that life measure up, and in my demanding I become the slave to myself. I’m trying to see the quality of the sewer quest, my most liberating dream of late.

In order to verify I’ve “lived” my burdensome dreams, I rely on checklists: as a tourist in London pre-Paris I depended heavily on these to reassure me I’d enjoyed myself. Had I been to the National Museum? Had I seen the remnants of the smuggled Parthenon? Had I brushed the daub, wattle, and thatch of the new Globe Theatre, with my reverently quivering fingers? Had I got myself into Parliament like a spiritual corset, and been gratefully asphyxiated by its smotheringly formal air? Check, check, check. I could say I had. Therefore, I had enjoyed London. How could I not have? Yes, I had enjoyed London, because how could I not have? But somehow not missing felt like much less than finding.

Maybe that’s why so much of what I did didn’t matter to me. But that didn’t make sense, because they should have. I was supposed to do them because they were supposed to be good. Maybe I shouldn’t have tried to plagiarize other people’s lives, the way I just plagiarized that phrase of my friend’s.

I probably would have followed my own taste, my feelings, myself, but another alien, artificial feeling—composed of scholarly duty and touristic expectations and Heaven knows what else—kept me from feeling free to. It happened all through my study abroad in England.

Wordsworth’s home, Rydal Mount, was a boring place, other than his garden. Not so the nearby stone and ancient chapel, and its medieval crenellations, which encased me in a reverie. The point of crossing Coniston Water was of course to visit Ruskin’s mansion and his gardens, so why were the two jovial ferrymen the best part of my week? Chaucer was supposed to be the greater author, but it was reading the intimate essays of my friends that flooded me with feelings. But these feelings didn’t make sense. Why should my friend’s words mean more to me than a master’s? I thought I was listening to reason when I prioritized what was “supposed to be” important. Weren’t these things on the checklist and hadn’t they good reason?

I was stunned to learn in France that I should have gone to war with these voices, the tyrannizing dreams. I should have fought for freedom. And in France I saw I could have won the war, because I did without. I finally saw when Justin showed me. I could do without.

*

By the time we’d exited the isle of our boy ‘Leon (as in, Napo-), I was wholly in the groove with Justin and his program. We’d wandered past Notre Dame Cathedral, which was near our one star hotel and its unforgettably buttery bread, near scalding breakfast cocoa and jam and hazelnut spread; then wandered among artisans and street vendors backlit by the sunny rippling Seine; then jay-conquered Napoleon’s Arc in our own triumphant fashion; and were now headed we knew not where, ready to love Paris however it came to greet us. That we had no checklist, directions, or even destination—that much was certain—but what we did have, that I do not know. I am still trying to articulate just what Justin’s—and then our—program was.

The best I can say is that Justin’s joy was independent of other things; in fact, it was probably in being independent of other things. The external world was nothing but something to transcend. We almost hoped for a backhand from fate, because we wanted the chance to not flinch. Maybe that’s why we kept tempting it, almost trying to ruin our day into glory.

*

By the way, the kindly French policewomen cleared up a very confusing matter that spared us the trouble of beating “Frogger” twice. Longsuffering smiles and fingers pointing to a tunnel illuminated everything: I’d been so mystified by those women pushing strollers on the memorial island orbited by 8 lanes of asphalt: “They must just run really fast,” I had thought. “Like, really.” We looked as sheepish and apologetic as we could, but frankly, we preferred our way. I think they thought we thought that, because we kept laughing. So contritely.

I think that was the moment I really stepped onboard with Justin. I was not so keen to take the fun way over the first time, but as we looked back across the asphalt, I realized I wanted something. I wanted to run back across. Unfortunately laughing stupidly and nudging my friend and facing the roaring roundabout again was a little conspicuous. If not the cops might not have floated over and given us the eye—it’s as clear in French as English—which invited us to consider using the tunnel, which we did, neither of us wanting to.

*

We exulted in our freedom, wandering no less happily than haphazardly past a museum under construction; sharpish businessmen swooping like a biker gang, except they were on balancing scooters; an impressive public square—a seeming sanctuary of the Enlightenment in its architecture, with countless ordered windows gazing from several floors towards the center; an intricate, sculpted pillar in the center of the classical square—a story winding up it like a procession of Egyptian hieroglyphs (I thought I’d heard of it in Humanities 201, that it was inspired by Trajan’s column in Rome, etc. and so forth, but truly didn’t know); and displays of all the avant garde in fashion, which Justin definitely would have whimsically purchased had the stores not all been closed—neon green sweaters under blue suit jackets. This was tourism.

And it’s not that I didn’t love London, but it didn’t feel the same. With such a unique chance, standing in the heart of my literary homeland, I came to feel I had to have it all, then I expected it, and then I got just a little less. But the problem was I was in the negative, and the gap between the “it” I didn’t get and what I finally got was my total sum of dissatisfaction: the surplus good I hadn’t expected in Paris summed up my gratification. My sights had been low, that is to say, no higher than “number 2,” to children, or than “feces,” to the scientist. And yes, I can say in the midst of Paris’s glory I had hoped for nothing more. I wanted diddily squat. And once I set life up to exceed all my expectations, it tipped its hat, “Monsieur,” and cordially obliged.

*

Anything is everything when nothing is expected. Imagine nothing. Now imagine that it’s gone. Everything is a black void, but the void is not absence, because there is no such thing as presence to be missing. There is simply nothing; it stretches on as far as the forever that there never was. What is the worth to that world of a single, searing candle?

I think I am blind to everything beneath my expectations. Anything less than them is nothing, nothing more than dues. Maybe London wasn’t dark because it lacked candles, because it didn’t, but because I expected chandeliers. I need to need less or I’ll always feel entitled, but how can I do that? All I know is that somehow in Paris I felt different—and I know there wasn’t more light, just more courage in the darkness.

I faced the darkness for this first time in a long time because Justin did. Could I go without? Could I handle nothing? I opened up my eyes and discovered that my existential abyss wasn’t as empty as I thought. Maybe I had enough inside me to handle nothing after all. That was the glory of it all. And then, clinging to that revelation, my friend and I saw the Arc. It was adorned by many figures. The first and highest was a fearless, flying angel—she must have been the spirit of old France. Her eyes were fire and her sword shot forward; her waxy voice sent out the call for other men to follow. Statues beneath her did. The megalith towered and shone, by the unknown soldier’s everlasting flame.

*

We came to a park after the Arc and the great square and the balancing scooters. It was beneath the street, like a gargantuan sunken living room, as wide as several city blocks. Just the wall of trees surrounding it made for walking trails and picnic spots. We descended through them on white steps, then started at the sprawling circumference of a peaceful, almost stationary pool; its gelatinous water slowly reflected disturbances like a fiery, mellow mirror. It was crowned by a fountain-like pedestal in its center. It felt like we’d found the fountain of France, the spring of that deep culture’s essence.

Not uncomfortable wiry chairs were scattered around the contained lake, occupied by ordinary citizens who lounged mingling cigarette smoke with communal ruminations on art and life and deep stuff. Scruffy faces and classy clothes worn with abandon bespoke the philosophical preoccupations of the three or four late twenty-something dudes. Cool. They didn’t look too appreciative of our unappreciation of life’s tragedy.

At least a dozen pillars, capped by vivacious statues, composed a large concentric ring around flat stones which in turn surrounded the pool. The statues alluded to Greek and Roman myths, and I did my best to recall and recount them for Justin, he being a wealthy computer networker and not a liberal arts student who was just let inside his personal Elysium (incidentally Le Champs-Élysées refers to the ancient western heaven).

What I’m trying to depict are a mere half of the things we referred to at once as the intensity of our elation melted words into inefficacy, compelling us to summon the forceful diction of sign language, by which we indicated, or rather, painfully slap-shouted, through that venerable American tradition and token—that is to say, the high five—a single, enthusiastic word: “Jackpot.”

For so it was.

*

We second-hand smoked the angst of the twenty-somethings. We took pictures of the statues. Then we saw that from one direction, looking across the pool, our old friend, the Arc de Triomphe, was a mile or two in the distance, down a gallery of trees which chivalrously proffered protection the entire journey down. The anticipation necessary to plan such an achievement staggered me. This was a culture of taste. Birds bathed on the fountain of France and on the dying sun’s reflection; clouds were piercing the golden orb and its purple-orange gore was falling on the forest; it hovered almost perfectly above the glowing Arc at the far end of the gallery. Almost like candlefire. Except it was about a candle to the left—almost infuriatingly close. I sort of tried to look at it sideways as if that would help. No. But there was something hilarious about the irony of it being that close to serendipitous perfection and then failing so unbearably. I showed it to Justin and we laughed. “Heck! I mean, seriously, we’ve had everything go our way”—or nothing, anyways—so it was so easy to gracefully handle this one. “It’s totally close enough!”

I never thought you could exceed perfection, but maybe that’s what that moment did. It felt like perfection was what we’d already found, and everything else was just a bonus. Life was just a bonus. I had a wonderful revelation: in the mode I was, my initial thought hadn’t been how far away the sun was from perfection, but how much closer than it had to be. Like I had said, everything had gone “our way,” but maybe that was just because our way was nothing. About then I remembered E.T. He must have been moping somewhere beyond the trees, utterly transcended, his absence a reminder of just who he’d been transcended by.

Somehow though our success’s secret was wanting nothing, what I wanted most was to want nothing more; meaning, I wanted to know how I could do it all again.

I think the way it works is joy is a formula; life is a fraction. It numerates my circumstances, and I denominate my demands. I want “more” like anyone, I believe, but too often I forget that the quotient is the point and focus on the numerator. “If only life would give me more.” I’m no whiz at math, but I know that life could give me tenfold what I have now and the total would still only be a number.

But what quotient will I find when I transcend the earth, and stand upon it free, a whole number over zero?

What will I feel then?

*

Joy jerked us about like a taze charge: we visited and revisited half the statues. Honestly, despite all the time I’ve thought, I don’t know why we were so thrilled, I just know we were; we just were. None of the details were right, but this was the dream I’d had for Europe. The dream was feeling how I felt. This was what the checklist would supposedly produce; of course, now I wasn’t even checking it.

Half our pictures that day were of our garden: pictures of the statues; of the guys smoking and forlornly philosophizing (whom we cleverly captured by posing near them as if they were, by strange coincidence, there, and we just loved the pool—a trick pioneered on mullet-hunts); of the Arc at the end of the forested gallery; of the single, searing sunset still flickering above it.

And then it was time to go. It was dark—just past ten. We looked at a model of the park on the far side of the garden, up out of the sunken living room again, and turned to scan the field of our triumph for the final time, such fine and impressive work. There were jaw-bustingly big grins, and lots of hearty American shoulder slapping. Also there was a psychotic statue called “Cain and His Sons” which scared me in a way that Darwin never could. But even that was fine. Nothing could have not been.

So we couldn’t leave. We ran back down for one more picture, wanting to baste in our blessedness just a little longer. We walked directly away from the Arc this time—East—up strong white steps that were as broad as the pool. As we ascended, a large building materialized, its classic architecture as beautiful as the public square we’d found earlier, but more regal and overwhelming. I had no idea what it was: it looked like a small scale Versailles; its four-floor palatial wings gradually flanked us like pincers.

Our approach was inevitable: we couldn’t resist adventure at this point, though exhausted from hours and miles of travel, mostly walking. Justin had even done it in dress shoes and his ridiculous suit—Italian, with reflective pinstripes (“I got it as a joke, then lost all my luggage on a train,” he laughed). Getting hosed is the best.

We would have had no clue what the palace was had I not read The Da Vinci Code. Thank heavens for the classics. An unusual shape appeared which I only remembered from the book because it seemed so weird to me then. Seeing it in the flesh stopped me like a slap. “No,” I thought, “No way. Could this really be?”

After wandering with total abandon through the fifth largest city in Europe, like disoriented six-year-olds swinging at piñatas, somehow we’d connected. I just couldn’t believe it, and burst out laughing. Justin chuckled, almost a bit impatiently, until he finally got me to tell him why.

We’d been celebrating for an hour and a half, fifty meters from El Dorado, because we’d found silver dollars in its parking lot. And despite that, we still could have made it in—fifteen minutes earlier. We definitely could have made it in if we’d realized the party wasn’t in our park, because our park and gallery were just miles of cultivated royal carpet—they were just the entranceway. But life was great as martyrs, because we lived for irony.

The weird object was a pyramid. The building was the Louvre.

Long for the following reasons: a visit to Gethsemane, and the Garden Tomb, and Mark's House, and getting to know a Holocaust survivor

*Hey, this was going to be a letter to my mom but I thought I'd let it turn into a mass email (the thought occurred halfway through, perhaps?), and journal and whatever. Well, this is more just tale relating style. Maybe I should blog more this way. I'll put this on my blog too. Anyway, here it is, if you've ever wondered what it was like to wander around Jerusalem. And sorry Mom, that this started personal and then I meant to tell you about it and had it change and never got around to making it personal again at the end--I'll just tell you soon. Bent

Mom,

Thank you for the email and update :). I wanted to write you a big response so I didn't write right after I read it, but now I think I gotta just reply as well as I can.

Yesterday was wild/awesome. Sunday is our free day, which is really, really weird. It's weird when Church hits you right after you are in school (as in no day between routine work/school and church), and it might be even weirder on Sunday when you're lost, running on the rooftops like Aladdin trying to get back before sundown because East Jerusalem is dangerous--which is what we did yesterday. The Kidron Valley (spelling?), is on the east side of the old city of Jerusalem; the Jerusalem Center is on the Mount of Olives (or Mount Scopus, if you're Jewish--or talking to a Jew :). Gethsemane is within walking distance of the Center. It's about a mile to the south, just south of the Orson Hyde Memorial Garden (or whatever it's called: he was the Apostle who dedicated the Holy Land for the preaching of the Gospel in the 1800s). The caretaker at Gethsemane lets Mormons in a private part of the garden--the main part is fenced off and commercialized--because the students before us were so stellar. We had a neat chance to meditate in there for awhile on last Thursday or so. We read in the Gospels about the Atonement, then 3 Ne. 11. It was cool to feel not just the sense of a deep price being paid but the reward coming which had made it all worth it--it was cool to get out of that slump that most of Christianity seems to still be in, all those pictures of "The Passion" etc. that are so disgustingly painful and dreary. Afterwards we sang a few hymns and it was wonderful. "Alive"--that's about the coolest word I can think to describe a church, and it's cool that that's the most prominent feature of ours--well, "true and living," but maybe those are the same thing.

We also went to the Garden Tomb--on Sabbath (Saturday). There were some hilarious and irresistibly winning old British men running tours there. So cheerful--and they'd (at least our guide, whose name was Roy) testify all the time. "But the tomb is empty now--Amen! Right?" Then he told some joke about how Joseph of Arimathea's wife was upset with him for giving away the tomb and he said, "Don't worry darling, it's just for a couple days!" We laughed, then he answered, "It wouldn't be funny if it hadn't been." Hahaha. Later I overheard another guide talking about how he still used feet and miles etc. (He was pretty old.) "If the Lord would have wanted me to use the metric system, he'd have had ten disciples!" They were quite a hoot--over and over and over.

It turns out scholars believe the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to be the real resting place of Jesus during those three days after his crucifixion, but all the videos we use are of the Garden Tomb, which is still a possibility, because it's so much more beautiful. I think I actually heard once about President Hinckley or someone saying, "It was here," but that might have been on where he was born. Not sure.

Regardless the coolest part was actually singing hymns after. I'm not sure why it was so cool--several reasons, I guess. It was cool to be singing there, but I think the coolest part was being there and realizing that it was the singing, it was the hymns, that really made the experience--those things that I've been doing all my life, they're the things that really bring the power. It doesn't matter where he died; it doesn't matter where I am--where he died or not--it just matters if he has my heart with him or not. We just sat there and sang--for about 40 minutes. Hymn after hymn after hymn. He is Risen. I Believe in Christ. I Know that My Redeemer Lives. In Humility Our Savior (mine). Nearer My God to Thee. Be Still My Soul. Other tour groups just stopped to listen. I really felt like we were teaching, even though technically we're not supposed to, and technically we weren't. But maybe the letter of the law isn't the most important way to reach a people anyway. If the Spirit of the Gospel is the most important thing to follow, maybe it's also the most important thing to convey or to share. I feel like all who heard that will know there is a people out there who worships God in sincerity, who believes he lives, who are happy. I do not know that I am worthy to be one of the few people who gets this experience, but I knew I was supposed to come and am doing my best to experience it all in gratitude and awareness. I wish, like Elder Holland, that everyone could come here. I'm glad, as I said earlier, that not everyone needs to to find the best part of the Gospel, to know the truth, to feel alive. I noticed a man sitting on the bench as we were singing. He stayed the entire time, just watching us. I felt sort of like a beacon, right then. This guy is seeing something that maybe he's never seen before. Maybe he's been wondering what more he could find. I certainly felt like I was living life right then. It's like Ulysses says in my favorite poem of all time (Ulysses, by Tennyson): "As though to breathe were life!" We were doing more than breathing.

And the gardens were just beautiful anyways--I would have loved it even if it hadn't been in the Holy City. I never suspected there would be so much green growth here. Turns out, winter is the rainy season here, so we scored the most beautiful time of year. That's something that really matters to me; I don't know why, I just really feel elevated when there is a lot of natural, flourishing life around me. Maybe that's why I love England so much. It just feels right. Anyway, it was really nice to find some of that here.

It was green in the Kidron Valley, which Jesus crossed on his way over to Gethsemane. I plucked a twig to bring home. The part that's cool is that seeing that these sites exist shakes you up at the scriptures--"Wait, the Kidron Valley is real. So the stuff the Bible says happened here..." The Bible ceases to be abstract, it ceases to be theoretical, or fictional. The places become real, so the events, tethered to that reality, become more real themselves. They're not just stories; they're History. They happened. Man that's cool.

A Holocaust survivor came and hung out with us last night. Rather, he spoke to us for an hour--he's 92--then couldn't tear himself away to go to his world-class piano concert, "because he loves people," as his caretaker said to us. We weren't just holding him hostage--he held us. He was a darling old guy with windy white hair and a nose that drooped a little when he smiled, which was usually. He told us his story for an hour, then said he wanted to keep talking with us after if we had more questions, and would just go to the concert late. It came and went. All he wanted, he said, was for everyone to believe in God. "I don't care what you call him, just believe in him," essentially. It was amazing to me. He had been to both Auschwitz and Dochau. I have been to Dochau. It all flashed back through my head like a very morbid nightmare. This guy, Elias, the loving, merciful, energetic jokester had been there--he had been there when it was Dochau. It was a moment of horrible truth when he first told us he'd been sent there (to Auschwitz first): he said it, then he reached for his sleeve. I knew what it was. I just thought, "No. No that can't be real." But it came--the deepest, darkest scar you've ever seen: it was green. "B 1259." That's who he had been. "I just want people to know what happened," he repeatedly said. "They have to know or they won't learn." He was an amazing man. Apparently he'd always been able to forgive the Germans--as his friend, Brother Allen, our doctor, told us--even when he was in the camps. We looked to him for an explanation and he just said, "I love people. And it happened, there was nothing I could do about it, so I moved on." It was pretty wild.

It was wild to see the other side. It was wild because I've seen so many instances of Israeli (seeming) unkindness here in the Holy Land. "Settlers" will move into Muslim neighborhoods, essentially just because they can, to slowly and unviolently push their boundaries further--it's essentially the war being continued covertly. And it's not like the Muslims were the ones to kick out the Jews in the first place, either--we didn't take Israel from the aggressors and give it "back" to the Jews; we took it from another innocent people and gave it to an earlier (innocent) one. There are too many good men on too many sides. Things are black and white, but there are three dimensions. One side of Judaism is greedy; another never for a moment didn't forgive the Nazis. One side of the Muslims here is violent; another is warm, humble, and hospitable, and watching what is their homeland (and Holy Land) too, now, slowly being stolen while talks of reconciliation are dragged out. What would I do if everyone I loved and everything I held sacred was being threatened, being slowly being stolen away, blatantly, in a "legal" way that was, at least in terms of the spirit of the law, infuriating--and I was helpless to counter it through legal ways? I don't know. I guess I'm just saying I can see much better where they're coming from. If only they could work together: but it's just like in Gandhi where the Muslims and the Hindus couldn't trust each other: sad. And hard.

Ok, well I've turned that into a rambling soap box for far long enough. What I also and actually originally wanted to say was this: we met a tribe of 7-year-olds playing in the Kidron Valley north of the Silwan Village on the East and City of David on the West (both of which are very, very Muslim, and have been for many, many years--kind of a surprise, to think of the City of David like that, huh?). There was a ridge about 1/3 of the way up the green valley's slopes. We had just passed (Dan King, Alyson Shamrell, and I) Absalom's Pillar, and finished reading his father, David's lament over him: "O Absalom, Absalom, my son, my son. Would that I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son." Powerful. I always wondered about that. I just don't know if I can see a murderer-never-to-see-the-highest-Heaven ever feeling like that. Maybe he's not as lost as we think. Maybe he is, but I hope he isn't. I really hope he isn't. We saw his tomb later that day too, and read 1 Sam 17:45 (paraphrased): "And David said unto the Philistine, 'Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a shield, and with a spear, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel whom thou hast defied. This day with the Lord deliver you into my hands...and David hasted to meet the Philistine..." So cool. It was a holy site, the sign said. Jews were praying there and touching posts with scriptures on them as they left, and wearing phylacteries (I can't recall if those are the things on their foreheads or wound around their arms--either way I saw both).

Ok, anyway, the Lord of the Flies crew there in the Kidron. It looked like they were committing arson. Turned out they were roasting potatoes and sweet onions on a fire that may have been somewhat or muchwhat started and sustained by burning trash. They called us down and we went to hang out, even though we're not supposed to have any real contact with kids now because of H1N1 going around (hideous--I was so excited for meeting kids on the street and hanging out with them, talking to them in Arabic, playing soccer, etc.). We decided to make it really, really quick, and avoid contact. First thing that happened was they swarmed around us all excited and their leader offered us a mostly peeled onion. Here, there are several layers left, tall white American "Onion boys" (or whatever Donkey calls Shrek). I couldn't believe how nice it was of them. We tried to take a picture with them and one kid jumped up yelling, "No NO NO" for a reason we couldn't at all tell why. "Shekel! Shekel!" they started chanting. Oh. Yeah. Now it makes sense. So we gave them one (hardly anything, but two of us really didn't have anything), but when we tried again they still shout-protested "No!" or at least their main PR guy did. So, out of respect for the rural lifestyle of the indigenous (7 yr old) Kidron people, we decided not to take pictures, in order to preserve their natural, unexposed state. We laughed and thanked them then left.

We also stumbled onto Mark's house, just within the Old City's wall, on the south side of Jerusalem. Totally random. We were winding down whichever street looked most aesthetically pleasing to us, or exotically arabic and aladdin-esque. When I read the sign though it hit me: "Mark's House" and above it: "The Upper Room." Whoa. I know what happened there: and the scene from The Lamb of God flashed through my head. The Last Supper. That was where Jesus instituted the Sacrament. Wow. Wow. It wasn't like most of these places. It actually looked less like the video than you could imagine; it was probably one of the least correct looking places I'd seen or been to here, but it felt better than most, or almost all. I don't know why. But just as soon as I read that sign, I felt it. A man gestured us into the service that was just concluding there. Men left. We read the account of Jesus washing his disciples' feet sitting on benches in the back of the church. The father patiently waited, apparently (I wasn't sure what he was up to), and then left too when we were done. "Not my feet only but my hands and my head also." It is so cool to reconsider every single story in light of a physical reality, the physical reality of the place where all of it happened.

Too cool.

Well I must go, but I rather wish that all of you could come.

Love,

Bentley

Gettin' Jiggy wit the Jews

It was like ring around the rosies, except for I was in a circle with a bunch of jews, and we were moshing--after all, it was the Sabbath coming in. "Shabbat shalom!" people kept saying. And actually, we weren't really moshing (mosh pit--not sure how to spell it), but people were drumming on their Torah bestrewn portable tables set up west of "the Wailing Wall"--the largest remaining portion of the Temple, just one wall of massive stones that used to bear up something holy. So now that is all they have: they come every Friday to wedge prayers of scrolls into cracks between the ancient Roman stones that are at least 2000 years old. "Come back." They come to welcome in the Sabbath Friday evening.

Even though it's a ruin, it's the holiest thing they have. This is the world's most sacred ground of all, if you're a jew. My friends and I were wearing kipas, the small round woven caps, to respectfully come here ourselves. I touched the wall and prayed, myself--it was moving. In the mid-2nd century they were scattered by impatient Romans who were tired of revolts, and almost two thousand years of exile later--2000 years which include almost perpetual, universal scorn, if nothing else the Holocaust--this was all they had left, but still at least half the jews we talked to turned out to be from the States, they were here on a pilgrimage. That must have been what an older man took my friend to be on when he kindly approached him and said, "Welcome home."



I'm not sure how to explain why or how I suddenly found myself in a de facto mosh pit with them. I guess it was just a lot of revelry to welcome in the Sabbath--way too much enthusiasm about it, in my opinion. Maybe they were just enthused about the chance to welcome it, whatever it might be.

There were now worshippers three layers deep against the wall, bobbing like people falling asleep in class with gusto, in order to show they loved God with all their hearts, might, minds and strength (Deutoronomy 8, I think). The Wall is at the bottom of a slope that's secluded sort of by two flanking walls. Fifty feet behind those praying, singing began around tables. Then dancing in rings. Then the music got crazy and the yells got raucous and the invitations got plentiful and somehow all 9 of my buddies and I ended up running around, arm in arm, in a ring with our new friends whose favorite language was Hebrew. I had declined at first, out of respect for what they should have had respect for, I thought, but then it just felt like I ought to join in: so I did. And maybe the enthusiasm was fervor or something. I saw a man who liked like my grandpa walk by--right after I'd danced a few rounds (oh, and males and females are segregated: this was a brothers' night out)--and he was singing along with the yahoos. A five or so year old was holding his hand, and clapping his other hand onto it as they went, in tune with the song--maybe I just didn't know how to rock religiously. "So darn cute," my buddy said as they passed. It really was. It was like a party too. It didn't turn out to be very deep, but it was a good experience, and I'm glad, just once, I got jiggy wit the jews.

But that's really the most minor of the things I'll take away. The two things I'll remember are touching the wall, and one teenage jew I saw before things got hectic. He looked like a simple kid--normal face, roundy cheeks, very much just ordinary. The wall wasn't even full of people praying near it yet; of course, this kid wasn't trying to get closer.

I tried, but I could only guess what it would be like to have my identity wrapped up in a culture who waited for a god who had not delivered them for 2000 years. Moses led them through the desert for 40; now they had no one, and they'd wandered much more. And now another major world religion had one of its most sacred sites sitting squarely on top of what used to be the most sacred of all to yours. What are the odds you'll get that back? 2000 years and one Dome of the Rock later, how much hope is there now?

Maybe we can hope even when there is no hope--I don't know. I do know that while everyone was observing letters of the law that I'd never even heard of and performing rituals with obsidian-edges of exactness, that my favorite part of the night--and maybe even week--by far, wasn't. Just a teenage kid, so inobtrusive behind the milling, murmuring, surging crowd that I can't believe I saw him. I sort of got it then. It was like I saw the whole history of his people in his eyes, the trials and utter exile and feelingly one-way prayers. But he still prayed them, and I think he really meant them. I don't know how to say it in a way that is convincing enough, but I know it was convincing enough for me when I saw the kid stand anonymously and cry.