by smelarvie | Mar 20, 2019 | Uncategorized
The Church of the Nativity that holds the birthplace of Jesus, the caves of Joseph, and later, St. Jerome, who transcribed the Word of God from a dying Greek language to Latin over the course of twenty years; the Rock of Ascension on the Mount of Olives; the Church of...
by smelarvie | Mar 17, 2019 | General
The Sea of Galilee from Capernaum When we were sitting under the olive trees in Capernaum a couple of days ago, Rauf was talking of how Jesus was not the first Messiah claimant, he said there were eleven others, all killed by the Romans, all false prophets. That was...
by smelarvie | Mar 17, 2019 | General
“Don’t use the elevator on the left,” Rauf said, “You won’t like it because it goes to the top floor and stops at each floor on the way down for 30-40 seconds.” I didn’t know the purpose of that but didn’t say anything because it seemed like something I should know or...
by smelarvie | Mar 16, 2019 | Uncategorized
The road to Damascus On the third day of our not-a-vacation pilgrimage, I find myself standing on the elevation of the foot of Mount Hermon, looking down into Syria. In the image at the top of the post, you see what I saw. Syria is to the left, and the border is...
by smelarvie | Mar 16, 2019 | Uncategorized
It seems that God does not want me to sleep. I have been up since 0230. Thinking. I don’t get up to write because I think I should try to sleep, so I keep trying, to sleep. I have three blank documents I’ve started: The Road to Damascus, The Reality of...