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I put walnut brownies in the oven before I started to write tonight. I know I'll need some comfort food by the time I step away from this topic. Step away ...Right. I've flown back across the world and still can't manage to step away from the experiences I encountered. I can't step away from the idea of "walls." In fact, I see walls everywhere now. I'm preoccupied with them as symbols - sometimes positive but mostly not. I can't help but notice literal walls in all their various forms. And I find myself searching out figurative walls without meaning to - in my interactions with other people, in the interactions I observe that don't involve me. I see walls everywhere now. While reading up on Israel prior to the trip, I became familiar with two walls. There's the Western Wall (often mistakenly referred to as the "Wailing Wall") and there's the wall being built by the Israeli government. For the rest of this blog - and in

Okay, I've been doing a little ruin-minating (...I know), and I'm ready to share some thoughts about all the ruins I saw on my (now slightly less) recent trip to Palestine and Israel. It's strange that this section seems to be giving me the most difficulty. Part of my trouble comes, I think, from simply not feeling as though there was enough time anywhere to really delve into the historical narratives. I was really looking forward to the archeological sites on our itinerary - and each one was breathtaking in its own way. There's also the striking difference between the slightly mythical nature of the religious sites juxtaposed against the clear, visible proof of historical events that the ruins provide. There's a sort of dizzying quality to the experience of walking through rubble that once made up a town thousands of years ago. I had the same sensation in Rome when I happened to look down a side street in time to catch a glimpse of the Colosseum - just casua

I've been putting off the process of sitting down to write about my recent trip to Palestine/Israel, and I'm not entirely sure why. I'm a procrastinator by nature, but this feels like something different. I feel a strong inclination to do the piece, yet I find myself holding off. Other tasks are given priority as justification for not diving in and putting words to my feelings. Maybe I've just needed longer to find those words this time around. It's interesting - I realized the other day that the last time I traveled to another country with part of a church-related group was when I was in the 8th grade. My father and I went to Guatemala - and what's interesting is that trip was also in February. And it also left me struggling with the task of trying to live my regular life in a world that had been unexpectedly changed forever in my heart and mind. Sometimes we experience things and don't realize the profound ways in which we've been changed until muc