Dome of the Rock

Yesterday, a few JC chums and I met a man named Amjad under the Damascus Gate, as we paid to tour the old Roman entrance and "old city's" ramparts. (I was really pumped because it was my first chance to spend some shekels. If you, like me, have ever wondered if they're very fun to spend, accept my assurances they are. Other currencies I hope to spend include rubles and rupees.)

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I also need to mention I've had the "Street Rat" song from Aladdin in my head for 3 days and it's all I can do not to buy genie pants and start stealing bread. I can only resist for others' sake. Anyway.

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We chatted in line; he asked if we minded him tagging along; we said "Of course, man"; then he decided to spend the next 8 hours hooking us up. He soon became like a super saiyan (awesome/powerful) tour guide: a Muslim from New Jersey who haggled prices in half with native Arabic (I got a handstitched "camelrider" shawl and coil to keep it down), explained the history and significance of the things we saw, bought us some "awami" sugar-bomb candy, and helped us through some serious hassles that would have taken serious time and pain to navigate on our way to Dome of the Rock, where we suddenly were.

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It was what awesome meant before diluted through invoking it's power in vain. It was that kind of awesome.

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After some group pictures (there were about 12 of us he was leading around now, always deferential, taking our pictures for us and humbly trying to not let us include him just out of obligation, which wasn't why we were), we ascended up a wide staircase towards the one of the world's most singular shrines, and past a tall, freestanding colonnade of Corinthian columns (leaves sprouting at the top). It was about 1 pm. White slashes of scripture from the Qur'an ran clockwise around the octagon's top, which was massive, mosaic, and dark blue: the golden dome blazed like a beacon on top. As I was about to start off for the shrine, I passed the white colonnade at the top of the stairs, and was a little taken aback: there were bullet holes in the columns, where chunks had been chipped away.

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"What happened here, exactly? When were these bullet holes from?" I asked Amjad. "That was from the war where Palestine was fighting for their freedom, in the 40's and later again in 67. This was the last place where the fighting was, the last place to surrender. A lot of people died here."

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That struck me because the thought that had struck me earlier was that this was like the Muslim's Temple Square. Dan (King), my buddy, and I were talking about the splendour of "The Holy Mount" too: "All the investment it must have taken in time, and money, and energy--you can't spend all that and not have this place be holy." All of this came at a price. Whatever the name of this god was, this was a place of true sacrifice, and all sacrifice is sacred.

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Now there's a ton of security because another religion that holds this place sacred also has governing power over the Holy Land, and modern Muslims are afraid that the shrine which has stood since religion governs this nation, and Muslims are helpless to protect the "oldest extant Islamic building in the world"--it has stood since 691 A.D.--through peaceful means if the government fails to preserve it.

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We learned that the Canaanites, destroyed unmercilessly by Israeli invaders, were once a covenant people in our Old Testament class--at least it was submitted to us (based on something in the JST, Gen. 17:3-7, I believe, but that may not be conclusive); that was an answer to a question about God's seeming OT wrath. If they weren't innocent people, maybe it wasn't unfathomable barbarity on God's and Israel's part. So even though it's distasteful, to say the least, God doesn't just have the wicked punish the wicked; sometimes good guys kill Goliath.

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But what this meant to me was, maybe I shouldn't look at the Muslims as being where they didn't belong, here in the Holy Land, with a shrine on top of an old Jewish--God's former covenant-living people--temple. Maybe they had been the righteous ones. Maybe not, too though. I do know that God let the Jews be scattered. And it's for a better reason than most people think (Hel 15:3, Jacob 4:17-Jacob 5).

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I don't ever expect to be able to judge, though maybe I'll get some ideas. All I know is that I saw bullet holes all over walls and colonnades, but I didn't see any in that shrine. And even if there were, there were fewer than there might have been because they hit something else instead, and I cannot but believe that the reason they did was holy, holy--like the ground on which I stood.

*"...A religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things, never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation." -- Joseph Smith

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Today I learned the meaning of the word "Islam": it is literally "submission to God."

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How good a Muslim could I be if bullets peppered Temple Square?

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In case you're wondering how you can help:

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I met a man named Eric and his wife Patrice pushing their baby, Elyza, in a stroller last December. Elyza, it turns out, has hydrosephalace. After I asked about her and the medical costs they told me they were LDS and the Church was helping--I'm not sure how much--but they had wanted to do what they could to pay for some of it, so Patrice had been crafting some bookmarks and headbands and clips in order to raise some money. I told Eric I would put a link to their blog on mine, in case anyone wanted to support them.

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The link is http://carrillosfamilyarts.blogspot.com/. *

A link to their daughter's situation is there too.

I don't know how the church is helping exactly but I'm going to encourage Eric to post it on his blog, and a picture of Elyza too--she's a sweetie--but in the meantime you can call Eric at (801) 548-7617, or email him through a link on the blog. They were very humble and honest people, which is why I wanted to help them.

Saturday's the Sabbath here--for LDS too--not sure why

So from an aquarium-like sacrament room we looked through three 20x30 ft (or so) arches down on a city in which we cannot even mention the Gospel and sang "Called to Serve" to begin Sacrament meeting today. I wasn't sure what to make of it, when the Spirit began filling the room. They have a lot of truth in Jerusalem, but how many know that a God died for his people, and grasp that fact's significance?

Also, our group exodused en masse to Gethsemane and the Orson Hyde Dedicatorial Garden today. I just wasn't feeling it that way, so I made plans to go there another time with a smaller group. When everyone else had disappeared, I went and found the guitars from the Center, then I went up and tried to retrace my steps to the balcony where President Hinckley is standing during the "Special Witnesses of Christ" video, on the Jerusalem Center's highest--floor 8--sandstone-colored portico. The door was locked, and security said that they never opened it except for tours at certain times. I was frustrated, but I wandered around level 7 outside and found a hitherto undiscovered staircase, as far as my group goes, I believe, which led right to it. Really cool view. I wish President Hinckley were still around.

I figured no one was around so I strapped one of the guitars on and played a Vocal Point original song (I think), "He is Born," that my brother adapted to guitar and showed me. It was pretty cool, looking over a city and imagining how all of them were still waiting, and this was the news they had always had the chance to hear, and even though they couldn't hear it, it still felt good to say it. And at least I got to hear it--that always feels good too.

If I were making horcruxes, one would be here

Because part of me will probably stay anyway.

Today we wandered along the Via Dolorosa, where Christ is rumored to have passed bearing the cross, and eventually found a new friend, Hisom (hi-some). We went into his shop as he hawked "Antiques, lamps from the time of King David, ancient coins," and wanted to see the coins. I just hung out with him. He looked like a classy 28 year old. On the way in I said "Marhaba" (hello) to another guy, who was handicapped. Hisom said in a cheerful but almost vulnerable way, "He's handicapped." Another guy with slicked back hair ended up helping my friends while I learned Arabic from Hisom. What's the word for shop?" "Doocan." "Doocan-ak jemele" (your shop is sweet/beautiful). The way people take compliments seems so sincere--I don't think you can humbly take them unless you could just as humbly give them, unless you're humble enough to dare believe other people truly mean them. Charity believeth and hopeth all things. He clearly appreciated this compliment from a stranger. I was touched by the way he cared about that.

Aleah--Slick :)--was showing my friends authentic widow's mites. "These are the best coins in the world, because these Jesus said were worth more than all." These people are all Arabic, by the way. The northeast quarter of Jerusalem is the Muslim, (SE = Jewish; SW = Armenian -- I have no idea how they got here :) ; NW = Christian) so that is the culture we come to first on our way to the "Old City's" ancient walls from the Jerusalem Center. Heading "home" you can see the seashell bright palace high on the Mount of Olives descending like a terraced waterfall. The Jews call it Mount Scopus--we have to learn how to distinguish between the Jews and Muslims so we can refer to everything in non-confrontational terms: "Shalom" to greet Jews, "Marhaba" to Arabs, we don't say Israel or Palestine, just "The Holy Land," for now, etc. I feel like I should recount a small but telling event my friend witnessed so you could feel sympathy for the Arabs--whom I felt least akin too, and perhaps still do--but I don't want to elicit anything negative against the Jews. Anyways, the details are too many to tell, and too complex (and too not understood yet).

As I browsed in the shop I turned to see Dalynn arm and arm with Jaat, the handicapped man--he'd wanted to get a picture with her, apparently. Apparently all the men were brothers too. For a second I was like, "What the heck is happening if she's got her arm around a Muslim guy?" but I saw Hisom and Aleah smiling with warm eyes at them (the expression on Slick relaxed me--I'd initially been a little intimidated by him). Maybe it was different because Jaat was handicapped.

Jaat was gesturing excitedly and Hisom told Dalynn, "Show him the picture! He wants to see himself in the picture." She turned her digital camera back on and Jaat was clapping when he saw it. Slick pinched a bunch of Jaat's cheek and shook it like a grandparent who was too affectionate to help it. Hisom had done the same thing earlier. No wonder Hisom had sounded vulnerable at first.

It turns out Hisom had a degree in sociology and had had a fine job in a more impressive area; so had Slick, who had some other degree; and so had another brother, who was a lawyer.

"So why are you here?" I asked.
Besides mentioning the value of taking care of a family business, he said,
"Because here life is better. Here life is safe." He told Aleah to cut the widow's mite price from 33 shekels to 20, which may have been bartering and may have not, while a few friends were considering still. "Student discount," he joked with me on the side.

"Masalaami"--we left.


I was reading about how the Dome on the Rock, where the Jewish Temple had been before the Romans razed it a few hundred years before the Muslims took Jerusalem (the Jews had been expelled since an uprising in the 2nd century AD). That is the rock where Muhammad said an angel took him to ascend through the seven heavens and into the presence of God. Maybe the place had been sacred to him too, beforehand (maybe not--I don't know). Either way, it made me wonder, maybe everything religious is circumstantial when you compare it to the motive for which you live it.

"Gladly would I die a thousand deaths, to look upon the face of Tash."
--Emer, a young Calormene in C. S. Lewis's The Last Battle

"My strength is as the strength of ten, because my heart is pure."
--Sir Galahad, in Tennyson's telling of the legend of King Arthur

Wow...

So being at the Jerusalem Center is like living in a temple/walking in the Bible. I was sort of stunned ten minutes ago when I heard the Moslem call to prayer for the first time: this is another world. I think, in a way, this is the most foreign of all cultures to me--the Arabic--maybe that's part of why I love this so much.

It's all incredible. We wound through a black labyrinthine passageway, like backalleys etc.--on an orientation tour around Jerusalem today--and went through a tunnel and suddenly a vaulted ceiling appeared and apparently we were in a Christian church. There is no way to describe the complexity of the architecture, and I don't even have a clue about the culture or politics yet. So far I feel like Aladdin and for a second I really wanted to steal some bread but I didn't. Bad for Church PR, you know. So instead I made friends with our security guy, Hidar. He taught me a handful of phrases, including, "Your shoes rock." His happened to.

I never knew how green this place was. I was expecting sand. Period. In fact, I was wondering on the plane and over the last few weeks about a line in Isaiah, where he says "the desert shall blossom as a rose." "Had Isaiah ever even actually seen a rose?" I wondered. Apparently. I saw some on our balcony. Oh yeah, and the Dome on the Rock is right outside our front window and features prominently along the skyline maybe a mile straight ahead of our balcony. The wall from the "Old City" slants down from right to left at about a 30 degree angle; it looks just like the videos you see in Church. The texture of the rock, just the texture of the rock, is about the coolest thing I've experienced. It feels...I don't know. Old. Hebrew. Biblical. Middle-Eastern. Authentic.

Our group is amazing. I'm sure I'll say more soon.

Lastly, at orientation we heard a line from Elder Holland's address awhile ago to students here:
"If you ever become what you were before this experience, you will have become a disappointment to me," or something to that effect. That's cool, because that's exactly what I'm hoping for, so if that's what an Apostle wants from me, and seems to think he can expect for me, I will hope and work and pray for it too. I don't want to be the same, and once I'm not, I definitely don't want to go back.

Masalaami, my friends
(peace be upon you, I think, in Arabic)

Like There's No Tomorrow: Dancing Edition

"Never be a tightwad when your fear is the price for awesomeness."

--Me

I got to my soccer class late today. For the big-numberth time.

Nic Arrhenius, my coach, happens to be an Olympian. He threw discus for Sweden in Beijing. Not bad, huh? He’s probably the coolest coach I’ve had, though I once had a pretty cute coach in basketball--that wasn't too uncool either.

“You’re late, Bentley,” the big guy said.

“I know.”

He’s grinnin' though. I love people that can pick up the “irresponsible kid that really doesn’t mean to do things bad he just kinda does” vibe from me.

“You’ve got, lets see…absence, tardy…tardy, tardy, tardy, absence, tardy today…you’re approaching failing out, man.”

“Shoot…yeah. I was wonderin' about that.”

I asked him how bad my grade was getting docked, since usually you drop after a couple absences (and a few tardies add up to an absence), and about how making things up worked again. I figured it must be pretty bad if I was already approaching total failure.

“Well,” he smiled, “actually because of the swine flu going around this semester the entire department cancelled all docking penalties having to do with attendance.” (As if other people having the swine flu had made me move to class in slow motion--lol.) He laughed cause he knew exactly how much I was getting away with and didn’t deserve to, but also because he was glad I was. Mercy can’t rob justice, but the best people wish it could, I think. Coach is the best. “You always feel like he’s on your side--probably because he is,” I mused once in my notebook after he didn’t count me tardy when I was “pretty close”--haha (for probably the third time at that point). I just love it when people are cool like that.

“So, uhh, where am I at then?”

“Well, there are three classes left, and you’ve got 4 absences” (counting the 6 tardies that count as 2 absences between them, besides my real absences), “and there are only three class periods left.” Then he started laughing out loud. “Basically, if you can make it to class on time for one of those three class periods, you won’t fail soccer.” “And I’ll get an ‘A’?” I asked, grinning. “Yeah, you’ll get an ‘A’.” A well-deserved one. Heh.

Pray for me my friends--with your help I can make it. And for those of you who've already borne the swine flu just to help me out, thank you--you've done enough.

Speaking of suffering, I’ve always wondered about how to feel about blessings that come because other people have suffered or done something wrong. Kinda weird. Sorta like the time I was in O’Flaherty’s Pub in Dingle, Ireland, and it looked exactly like the Shire everywhere outside on the Emerald Isle and the inside of the pub was wooden and quaint and had mugs and tables whereon lively spry hobbits would certainly dance and I wanted the people there to do so more than anything. A local band was even playing authentic Irish folk music and singing ballads. THIS WAS THE SHIRE SO HELP ME. But no one would dance. A few people who’d stayed at the hostel longer than my friends Emma, Whitney and I had come down with us for some traditional Irish pub-tales--I asked them if people ever danced. “Not usually.” I furtively watched the old people drinking their ale. I knew they had it in them. They’d dance. If they’d keep drinking.

“So shoulder the sky, my lads, and drink your ale!” I thought, but then I felt bad. That’s not a good wish. But it’s not like I could help anything. Well, I suppose I could stand on a table myself and quote scraps of D&C 89, but I figured that wouldn’t do much but irritate people and engender opinions that the church was narrow-minded and ludicrous in that scene. Maybe I was wrong. Whatever the case, I stayed another hour and a half nurturing the guilty hope that they‘d drink themselves into dance. If it wasn‘t wrong for them to do it (where there is ignorance there is no law), was it wrong for me to benefit from it? Nah.

Like the way some other BYU chums and I would pay our non-member, Korean roommate Jae so he could buy Little Caesar’s for us on Sundays. He wasn’t sinning. And we were just giving him the opportunity to serve, and bring others joy, and be a Christian. “Give the gift of giving” as a recent BYU devotional speaker calls it. So all of you judgers out there, I ask you whether you have given as much as I. Probably not. And you didn’t get pizza either--we did because we did what was right (3 Ne. 13:33). For those who didn’t judge, I confess we actually didn’t pay him off but it would have been funny and probably the right thing to do.

But anyway these Shirelings wouldn’t DANCE. They drank for hours and wouldn’t DANCE! I wanted Hobbit-time! What's the point of all that alcohol, all those spirits, if it doesn't put any spirit in ya? Anyway, my masterplan failed and someone finally me if I wanted someone to dance so bad then I should. So I did. All by myself.

It was pathetic, but it was semi-bold. I imitated the bit of LOTR scenes I could remember, which didn’t work because I mostly remembered two hobbits carousing arm-in-arm in circles (and no one was dancing with me) raising mugs to the hearty cheers of onlookers (except my audience was just staring awkwardly); then I tried some postmodern moves that definitely didn’t go down; then I threw in a shimmy; and then I called it quits. It was all I had. But right before I slunk away in shame--which I definitely did--I stuck me neck out a little further to see if I could entice some old English lady onto “the dance floor” with me. Cold-blooded. Grandma was an ice queen. How often do you get a lively, brawny, visionary American inviting you to dance a jig? The call went unanswered, but it did not go unissued. I did what I could.

I had dreams of rousing the entire tavern into a scene no less merry nor glorious as I do not doubt but what Merry and Pippin would have done--boots stomping, hands clapping, chandeliers swinging, fires roaring, ale pouring, and laughter bursting from every looking-on heart. I wanted to be like my heroes, but I failed.

I think I failed because I feared. I think the onlookers could sense that lack of total commitment. I was willing to stick my neck out, but not to go down on the ship burning. In the end, I was just a little bit bluffing.

When I go back someday, I’m not sure what I’ll do, nor how it will “go down in Hobbit town.” Maybe I’ll learn a few moves to legitimize the dance floor as such. Seriously, what if I just jumped on a table and started jigging in my heartiest most happily abandoned way? Could they resist that? Maybe. But maybe then I’d bust out an irresistibly lively song on guitar (which I haven't learned yet :), an invigorating folk song that will have all the lads and lassies looking at each other with romantic volatility (even the older ones). Maybe that will fail too.

So the songs and dance steps I'll learn won't be a foolproof masterplan but that isn't my real hope for next time. My hope is that next time, when they call my bluff, I won’t be bluffing, and then before they know it they won’t be dancing in my dreams alone but on their tables as they always should have been. Why? Why, well haven't you heard Merry and Pippin's warcry? “For the SHIRE!”

And if they don't, I'll dance on my burning shipdeck, saluting, until it sinks into the grim-bluest grave. "Oh Captain, my captain!"

But fear not, my friends: they'll probably dance. And I'll probably get to class on time--at least I'm going to try.

Epilogue

And if for some inscrutable reason you desire a more eminent/credible source to cite, try this powerful quote by Murray often misattributed to Goethe:

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.

A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets:

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!"

- W. H. Murray, from The Scottish Himalayan Expedition (1951)

Thoughts of a Man

I wasn't surprised to find the top 35 moustaches of all time at theartofmanliness.com, but I was surprised to find some authentically sincere wisdom, particularly on how a man knows when he has "found the one." The guy quoted his father-in-law as saying,

“Marriage is not about finding a person you can live with, it’s about finding the person you can’t live without.”

It's true. Not that I speak from experience, but I think this expresses what I have always felt. So thank you, ye manly men, for enlightening your comrade.

Also, my roommate Kent was cleaning up other people's leftovers the other day: he said it was training to be a good dad. I nodded in approval and said, "Indeed: Patriarchal." Not a bad thing to be. So far the only thing that rivals it are "epic" and "mythic" and perhaps "megalithic."

Subway Saga: 2009

Perhaps my favorite hike with Old Glory flying above it: The Subway.

Dave and I had talked for years about it. It wasn't until we made friends with a business major (Sir Evan Fitzpatrick) that someone took care of business and organized an expedition. Fortunately, I had done it before, so we didn't need a guide. Unfortunately, that was over a decade ago when I was in Teacher's Quorum.

Drew + Jenny, Evan, Dan King, Curtis Crabtree, Hillary Schmutz, Tyler Winterton, Dave Carter, me. = awesome.

We carpooled.



The Subway starts in desert, then dips down into an amphitheatre of white rock, then a gully and sandy trail, then a red rock amphitheatre (you'll note the British spelling), then eventually a 300 foot almost vertical descent off a ridge into the gulch.



Fun was had; friends were made; casualties were avoided; adventure was embodied.

Also the night before we went to Cedar's Shakespearean Festival and saw "A Comedy of Errors," which was ruddy brilliant and hilarious. We bought some tarts: blackberry and cream are the best, I say. It feels like a little pocket of England with its gabled concession stand, Globe-ish outdoor theatre, cross-laid brick courtyard, and ivy creeping up the occasional sign or lamppost. "Wench up, lads, there's tarts to be had!" Dan King and I made a merry time of it, I must say. Evan and Hillary were exemplary models of propriety and not being as merry as me and Dan. Just kidding.














So anyways, the Subway boasts an underwater tunnel.




Some heroic-stance provoking scenery (all of those are bona fide hero-poses, except one--what is Tyler doing?).



Some slip-n-slides. (Tried to upload but file problems)

And random other cool waterways and falls.





It's just a beautiful place. 8 miles of it.