Singing Along the Journey
Thoughts about faith and wholeness set to the soundtrack of life

Living the dream…

Each day on our journey here in Israel has been, for me, a day of dream fulfillment.  But none so much as the last two days, and in particular today.   I can still see the room where the orientation meeting for my first try at going to Israel was held at the University of Missouri - Kansas City when I was 20 years old -- I can see Dr. Schulz and Dr. Klausner talking about what the trip would be like.  And I can remember the feeling of disappointment when the trip was cancelled for some reason that I do not recall.  And I can remember just this last fall my feeling…
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A day of remembering…

Most of a pilgrimage trip like the one that I am on is about remembrance.  So each and every new day we walk places that were mentioned in our Scripture or are contemporaneous with our Scripture or are traditional in the history of our church (that is church with a small "c", as in church universal).  And yesterday was like the Olympics of remembering, as we prayed at the Western Wall, visited the Temple Mount, and walked the Via Dolorosa up to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, then continued our pilgrimage to the City of Hebron, visiting the tombs of Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and Leah, and ending our…
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I hear music in the air…

Today we have continued our journey with the most amazing places:  first, the Western Wall tunnels, then a walk down the Palm Sunday Road from the Mount of Olives to the Church at Gethsemane, followed by a visit with our colleagues in faith at the Bethlehem Bible College, and then a visit to the Church of the Nativity and the Shepherd's Cave.  And all day long, at each and every place, there was music -- in my head. As we walked through the tunnels dug by Rabbis seeking access to the Western Wall when none was available, as we stared at the gigantic stones that are the foundation of that wall…
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What I’ve Learned So Far…Part 3 — The Movie

I had the opportunity to pursue some independent study this semester along with my more conventional classes.  And as my chosen project to explore the use of new technologies in faith development and congregational life, I decided to make a movie.    Susan, a movie?  You decided to make a movie?  Yes, indeed. Why, you might ask?  Well, for a lot of reasons.  First, I like to stay current with technology and I live in world now where every time I turn around someone is taking a video of something and posting it somewhere for the world to see.  Second, of all the technologies that are "current", video was the…
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And it was all good…

The past couple of days on our Israel journey have been spent in the desert:  Jericho, Qumran, Masada, the Dead Sea...and En Gedi (or more correctly, Ein Gedi -- the spring of the goats).  If you are a Hebrew Bible geek like myself, the name En Gedi conjures pictures of an oasis amid the desert, where vineyards grow (as in Song of Songs 1:14) , where warriors rest (1 Samuel 24), and where battles are fought (Genesis 14:7, 2 Chronicles 20:2, and Joshua 15:62).  Today, En Gedi is surrounded by barren desert and forests of date palms, but the waterfalls still flow and the craggy rocks are climbed by tourists and…
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Let your light shine…

The opportunity to commemorate the day of Pentecost in Israel was an opportunity beyond my imagining.  Why?  Well, because I am one of those people who, if I could only attend church one day a year, would choose Pentecost over Easter and Christmas or almost any other day in the liturgical calendar.  So the chance to stand on the land of the peoples who gave birth to my faith, a faith that in many ways was really born this day -- well, that was a great gift.  And if you want to read about the events of the day, no one can tell you that story better than my friend…
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It’s all about the water…

It’s all about the water… It is late at night after a second full day of visiting Israel with the Bible Study Tour from Campbell University.  What a great experience so far – and how much I have learned. You see, I’ve spent a lot of my life thinking about Israel and this region in a lot of different ways – historically, culturally, politically, and theologically.  And when you have devoted so much of your attention to a place, you really think that you know something about it, right?  In a short 48 hours, most of what I thought that I “knew” about this region has been swept aside with…
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Good morning, Galilee…

Greetings, one and all, from the shores of the Sea of Galilee.  After a very long day of travel (well, more than a day), I am here safe and sound, and, after a great dinner and a decent night’s sleep, I am ready for our first day of exploration.  It is hard to call it sightseeing and I don’t feel quite holy enough or at the moment theological enough to refer to it as a pilgrimage. But what I can tell you is that I am here…and true to form, I feel nothing that I expected to feel.  As usual, it took some sleep and a little exercise to bring…
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It all happens at the gate…

Having spent these last weeks deeply immersed in learning to translate Biblical Hebrew by translating the entire book of Ruth, the word sha'ar or gate has become a regular part of my Hebrew vocabulary and my thinking about community life. You see, in the ancient world, the gate of the town was the most important place (that is, in Near Eastern culture -- once the Romans came along that would switch to the marketplace or forum).  Everything happened at the gate -- that was where important contractual business happened, where news was shared (or gossip, depending on your point of view), that was where you went if you needed help,…
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Shh…it is finally happening…

I'm sitting in the Starbucks at the Raleigh-Durham airport right now, with my first year of seminary behind me and a great adventure before me, an adventure I have waited many, many years to undertake.   I've been so busy with school and my own formation and a bit of singing here and there, that I just haven't mentioned it much.  And I must confess that even as I boarded the plane at Reagan National this morning,  I wasn't clear enough from the fog of study and preparation to be sure that it was real.  But as I sit here, waiting for the rest of my travel group to arrive, it…
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