Like most things do these days, this story starts with a text message: “I’m thinking about the Holy Land-- My brother works for the State Department in Jerusalem, but not for much longer. You in?” The Holy Land...that's an exciting thought. I’ve been teaching the Old and New Testament to gaggles of freshmen and sophomores at Saint Peter’s Preparatory School for the past two and a half odd years. Over that span I can say I’ve learned a lot about the biblical world, set east of the Mediterranean Sea as far north as modern day Turkey and as far south as Egypt. But as the saying sort of goes: the more you know, the more your curiosity balloons. Such is the case for me, which is why this proposition made my insides flutter. I didn’t take another moment to think about it: “Without question.”
The text came from the esteemed Adam Baber, one of the main characters in this developing story. Adam and I first met during my junior year through Canisius High School’s Campus Ministry’s Companions service-immersion program. We traveled to Slidell, Louisiana, a community northeast of New Orleans that at the time was still recovering from the effects of Hurricane Katrina six years before. The strong teacher-student relationship we developed during that experience has evolved into what it is today, a happy friendship. Intelligent, shrewd and worldly, Adam is the ideal companion for venturing down uncharted roads. Aside from Slidell, Adam and I have rendezvoused many times in various places like Washington D.C and New York before I lived in Jersey. We even hopped over to Zambia together a few summers ago, visiting folks connected to the Jesuit network of schools, parishes and orphanages there, and to see the lions and elephants of course! All told, this wouldn’t be our first go on the road together.
Adam and my Buffalo roots grants us a lot of common relationships. Yes, we've traveled together before, but never with it solely being the two of us. We needed a third. Somehow, someway we came around to Kevin Reiser, whom you can refer to as "Kev." My cousin by blood and another one of Adam's former students, Kevin recently graduated in December with a bachalor degrees in Mathamatics and History from Marquette University, a Jesuit school in Milwakee, Wisconsin. Kevin also met Adam at Canisius High School wheras he and I have known each other for as long as we can remember. Our ties to Canisius unite us, but unlike Adam and I, Kevin finds himself in a transitional period of his life, discerning how to proceed from a formative and rich undergraduate experience at Marquette. What better way to do that than take a plane over to the Holy Land? Practical and perceptive with a sense of humor similar to my own, Kev rounds out our party perfectly.
While Kevin, Adam and I have never caught much adversity in our time traveling together, the prospect of me traveling to far flung lands has always generally been received by those closest to me with well-intentioned weariness. My brother Pete’s reaction is only one of many like I received when breaking the news I was doing this. There are a panoply of reasons why someone like me ought not go to Jerusalem. For one, the food. Food allergies have somehow amusingly assumed a notable part of my identity. Every nut and peanut you can conceive of in God’s universe will try to end me-Why God would do this remains one my greatest personal theological questions. I’m talking pistachios, pecans, Brazilian nuts, almonds, pine nuts, macadamia nuts, chestnuts, hazelnuts, walnuts, goobers, peanut butter, peanut oil, peanut flour, boiled peanuts (do people boil peanuts?...wouldn’t know), diced peanuts, dry-roasted peanuts, peanuts served on airplanes, peanuts on the ground, peanuts in cups, peanuts sprinkled on top of itty-bitty cupcakes with peanut flavored frosting, mashed peanuts, peanut pie, those stupid imitation peanut and nut based spreads typically sold at Trader Joe’s, peanut pudding, peanut ice cream, peanut pastries, all of it is to be avoided.
Certain members of the legumes family aside from nuts are also off-limits, such as lentils, peas and chickpeas. Which means lentil soup, traditional shepherd's pie, piles of pita and hummus served at parties and occasionally at faculty lunches on Tuesdays are a “No, no.” And then there’s the fish. There’s fish the size of my hand that could send me under water if you know what I mean? A raisin-sized nugget of Haddock, salmon, tilapia, white fish, sardines, shark, mackerel, cod, all would give me the shock of my life, perhaps the last shock of my life, like the shock of a stingray to the heart Steve Irwin style. Shellfish, from crab to lobster, oysters to shrimp, octopus to squid, are not only game changers but potentially game enders. And whenever it comes to me traveling, health insurance companies are warned, epipens are refilled, and my mother’s “worry-meter” gradually dips deeper into the red.
Now considering the extent of other people’s allergy profiles I’m fortunate for my incapacities. Avoiding these sorts of foods is relatively easy despite Israel being practically the chickpea capital of the world. Finding food that won’t send me into an anaphylaxis fit in modern day Jerusalem and other places we’ll be visiting shouldn’t be difficult. In fact, it was one of the first things I researched after impulsively giving Adam an enthusiastic thumbs up. What really worries me is...me.
The most awkward situations seem to befall me when I’m on the road. I remember when I was in the Orlando airport as a teenager waiting for the tram to take me and other travelers over to the checkout area. It was taking forever to arrive and I became impatient. To my left was an inviting glass doorway with a long winding walkway along a sort of parapet leading to the other side of the complex. In the distance I could see a group of workers walking toward me. Looking back, my rationale stands that it was March and my skin was screaming for Vitamin D after a long Buffalo winter lacking much sunshine. Nice day for a stroll in the sun, I thought. With a cool confidence I shuffled out the doors, leaving the suckers waiting for the tram behind. A few steps and I heard a muffled buzzing sound but thought nothing of it, proceeding down the stretch of walkway. The workers coming toward me began waving. That’s odd...I waved back at them in a friendly manner. When we finally reached each other, they turned me around and led me back to the door I had went through. Red lights were going bonkers, buzzers screaming throughout half the airport.
I invaded federal airspace that day. Luckily I got off with a gentle warning from the TSA official who detained me. “Next time keep an eye out for big, red, really obvious signs that say ‘DON’T ENTER’ above doors,” he said shaking his head. Sickness was another issue that seemed to find me when away from home. I’ve fought common colds en route to Alaska and a near heat stroke walking the docks in Dubai. Not too long ago I was in Taipai, Taiwan with an army of fifteen students from St. Peter’s. My colleague (Mr. McGovern) and I organized a study trip to the island to learn more about Eastern religions and art, the first study-travel program to go to that part of the world. While I thought I was hydrating adequately against the unforgiving ninety degree heat and sticky one hundred percent humidity, I wasn’t. Around mid week I woke up from a restless night of sleep with a lump the size of a tennis ball swelling under my right ear, hard to the touch. “You gotta be friggin kidding me,” I said. Actually it probably sounded more like, “Chew gocha bee frigin’ kriddin meh.” Within hours we penned the kids in the National Palace museum and hitched a ride across town to a crowded hospital. To students reading this, try to imagine being reclined in a dentist’s chair with your jaw throbbing and eschew, looking up at Mr. McGovern chatting casually in Chinese with some masked doctor, your diagnoses hanging in the balance. Fortunately, I was given antibiotics for an infected salivary gland and a pat on the back. I trusted my colleague that day, but on the same token, talk about leaving it in God’s hands!
The first person I told about this venture to Jerusalem was my brother Pete. “Why the hell would you wanna do that?” mumbled my younger brother, Pete, with a hint of sarcasm but also alarm. We were sitting in a shadowy corner of a bar ironically named “Kelly’s Korner,” one of North Buffalo’s long standing havens for some of the finest chicken wings in the city. Kelly’s has become our favorite place to catch up whenever I come home from Jersey City. A steaming hot plate of Buffalo wings come to rest on the table in front of us along with a six inch thick stack of napkins. The aroma of Kelly’s renowned house-made wing sauce, a mix of Franks hot, butter, garlic, pepper, and Worchester sauce, sends our salivary glands in a frenzy. “Pete, this is, like, connected with everything I teach. Why the hell wouldn’t I go?” Enraptured by the fresh batch of heaven before him, Pete plucked one of the sauciest skateboard shaped chicken wings from the pile. Before digging in he replied dryly, “Welp...be careful...The world's kinda crazy right now.” We ate a lot of wings after that.
Similar comments have echoed throughout the months leading up to now. When I told my sister, Christine, about this unique opportunity, all she said was, “Well make sure you bring me something cool for me back with you...oh and don’t get forget to look before you cross the street.” “Don’t inhale any peanut dust when you are over there, Russ!” quipped my one friend Brian. “Is it...safe Musty? You better bring that nebulizer, you forgot last time remember?” asked my mother, (“Musty” is a nickname deriving from my severe asthma-let’s not go there). “Well hopefully it’ll be quick and relatively painless.” “What’s the hospital situation like over there...I mean for your case, ya know?” I remember disclosing the idea of going to the Holy Land to my uncle (and one of Prep’s former presidents), Fr. Bob Reiser S.J., a few weeks after booking our flights. “Just be safe” was all he said.
As much as my hard luck in past situations on the road gives friends, family, and my students reason to remind me to be on the lookout for danger, I sense our contemporary context is very much at work here. Humbly, I think technology is perpetuating this loss of affection for what is sacred, holy, spiritual; God. God is found in what is real and ordinary, in the mysterious and imaginative, in objects and buildings, in nature and other people. Our interactions with the real world and real people is happening more and more in indirect ways. If the sacred requires being in intimate touch with the real, then experiencing the divine warrants direct experience with reality. Simple as that. While this applies to us living in Jersey City, but I wonder if it's the same case in Jerusalem, the "Holy" City?
Before I get carried away, let’s round out this post and look ahead to the next entry. I wish to explore many questions pertaining to religion and the “sacred” while on the road. From what I’ve come across in my preliminary reading, Jerusalem is boiling with a thick tension, prompting the occasional explosion motivated by matters of faith. Which leads me to wonder how this experience will further shape my understanding of religion and the sacred.
Some other questions...
-How will this adventure enrich my faith and vocation as a teacher?
-What does faith and holiness mean for those visiting the City of David and those who live in it?
-What will you, my students exploring Moses and the Isrealites in the desert and the travel narrative of Jesus walking to Jerusalem in Luke's gospel, take away from our experience?
-Truthfully, it does not matter if the road is safe. Because the questions draw me, there's no turning back.
Again I invite you to join me as I travel to this place and ponder, with humility, my entries. Most likely I will set aside time each evening or every other evening to compose a reflection on my party’s latest experiences. Longer versions of entries like this one will be posted after the trip. Finally, I ask for your prayers, for my companions and me, as we journey to these sacred lands.
Jerusalem is the most famous city of the East. - Pliny The Elder, Natural History
“Jerusalem would become the superlative place for divine-human communication on earth.” -Simon Sebag Montefiore, - Jerusalem: A Biography
(Image taken from https://www.silicon.co.uk/workspace/paragon-penmetrix-handwriiting-121429)
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