"Healthcare" at Lenox Hell

Last time I posted, I talked about my dissatisfaction with my weight. After much prayer, fact-finding, and wrangling with insurance companies, I finally underwent weight loss surgery at Lenox Hill Hospital in NYC on July 28, 2009.

The surgeon was Mitchell Roslin. He's awesome.

I can't say the same about the hospital . From what I've understand, there is a dedicated bariatrics practice, and I did see some people who appeared to be bariatrics people in much nicer surroundings, but such was not my fate. I spent most of my time at Lenox Hell on a cot in the corner. After talking with other friends who've been confined there, we've decided to call it "Lenox Hell." This is to take nothing away from the doctors and nurses who consistently make themselves available to care for patients. No, this refers to the pompous idiots who are there only to practice medicine and could care less about treating actual patients.

My stay at the hospital was miserable. The first night, I was in a room with a woman who'd apparently had a double hip replacement. She slept comfortably for a while, but in the middle of the night, the pain hit her. She yelled and screamed and pleaded the blood of Jesus. At first, I was praying with her and praying for her, but after what seemed like a couple of hours, I just wanted to move. She was with some relative who kept changing the lights and the doors and the temperature as if no one else was there. I'd ask the nurse to close the door, and she would; 10 minutes later the relative would open it.

So I moved. There's this phrase about staying with the devil you know versus the devil you don't. I next got a woman who'd had a knee replacement. Now, while her 20 relatives were visiting her (showing off their new blackberry storm, their new Kindle, and all the rest of their shopping swag), she was alert and active and talkative. As soon as they left, she was a litany of sighs punctuated with "Ay, Dios Mio." I told her that perhaps she should see the nurse if she was in pain, but she just kept sighing and moaning. If the phone rang, she answered it in a normal tone of voice, but as soon as she hung up, it was sigh, "Ay, Dios Mio."

That wasn't the kicker, though. The kicker was early on the morning of July 31 (3:30 am, to be precise). The moaning lady and her relatives had moved out, and I had the room to myself. I was able to close the door and cut out the lights. Since I'd finally had the upper GI test and my new stomach wasn't leaking, I could have something by mouth, so they gave me my Ambien. I went to sleep, thankfully, about 10 pm on Thursday night. It didn't even bother me so much that the cleaning staff came in and cut on all the lights to sweep. At least they weren't yelling up and down the halls like the aides had been that morning.

At about 3:30 am on Friday morning, a team of doctors brought in a new patient. They cut on every light in the room, including those on my side. They were loud, and appeared to have some sort of conference. I put a pillow over my head and tried to turn away from the light, but that just made it worse. They brought in MORE people who apparently didn't know it was the middle of the night. Now, maybe I'm wrong, or maybe it was the aftermath of major surgery, but I thought hospitals were supposed to be places of healing. I thought a calm, restful atmosphere was conducive to healing. It became apparent to me that I wasn't going to get any rest at Lenox Hell, so at 4 am, I gave up. I got up, disconnected from the monitors, and wrote them a note. Before I could finish dressing, some kid came in to tell me he couldn't allow me to leave. I gently reminded him that he couldn't exactly force me to stay (interestingly, I later heard some med students/interns/kids coerce a patient into staying by telling her that her insurance wouldn't cover her stay if she left Against Medical Advice. I wonder if they ever take a look at how many patients are attempting to leave AMA, and why?). Anyway. I told him he couldn't force me to stay, and reminded him that I wasn't trying to be difficult, just trying to get some rest. He then started talking about how he understood sleep deprivation (newsflash, kid: the stakes and the environment are different for patients than for the medical staff). We compromised, agreeing that I would stay in the lunch/chapel/meditation area until the next morning, when I'd be discharged.

But here are my thoughts about my stay at Lenox Hell: No one seemed to take ownership of patient care or for patient relations. Everyone had a very specific purpose, but making the patient FEEL better was never among them. I can't help but think that this is a result of our current managed healthcare system. At the end of the day, it's all about profit, about what you'll get paid for. You don't get paid to teach aides not to yell up and down the halls about their weekend plans, so they do that. It's more cost efficient to have the cleaning crews operate big noisy floor cleaning machines in the middle of the night, so they do that. You get paid to treat diagnoses, not to treat patients, so that's what happens. It seemed to me that all patient interactions were REactive, not PROactive. This doesn't leave a patient with a comfortable feeling. But again, feelings aren't quantifiable, and no one pays you for the patient to FEEL good.

I suppose there are screamers and moaners and farters in every hospital. I just don't understand why other people have to share in their discomfort. Have I covered the noise, the noise, the noise -- and the noise? Allowing patients to have an unlimited number of simultaneous visitors is unfair to other patients in the room. Not only is it annoying, but it has the potential to be unsafe. Lenox Hell is supposed to be one of NYC's better private hospitals, but the noise and visitor levels exceeded what I would have expected at a public hospital. I routinely disappeared from my room just to escape the chaos brought on by the other occupant's visitors. Imagine: I'm laying in bed, not able to have even ice chips by mouth, a tube has been pulled out of my throat and I can't even get a sip of water to stop the burning -- yet I'm sharing a room with people who are passing around sodas and fruit and chips, and .... it was just torture, and I couldn't help but wonder if it was a planning failure that allowed people with no dietary restrictions and all their ffamilies to share a room with people who had just finished major adbominal surgery and were not allowed anything by mouth to be in the same room. It seemed like poor planning at best; torture at worst.

While I have workied in hospitals, and have an MBA,I do not have any course training in hospital administration and efficiency managment. It's hard for me to bel ieve that I could go into this hospital with a salary of $150-200K/year and fail to show tremendous improvements. I could aqt least get it to meet goals as a private hospital should, and not as a publick hospital.

As a matter of fact, a couple of weeks later I had the opportunity to visit Lincoln Hospital, a public hospital in the South Bronx. I found both the visitor control process and the noise control efforts to be far superior to what I experienced at Lenox Hell. Lincoln Hospital, in the middle of the South Bronx, was actually QUIET, and had signs posted reminding staff to be quiet because patients needed to recuperate. Lenox Hell could learn a lot from Lincoln Hospital.

Some specifics:

• I was hooked up to a monitor, something called a DASH 3000. I unhooked myself from it, which set off an alarm. This alarm rang (with audible and visible indicators) for FIVE HOURS STRAIGHT with no response from anyone. I finally cut the machine off, and then a nurse came in and cut it back on! If you're not going to respond to the alarms, what's the point of having the machine on?
• When I came off the Foley catheter, my urine output had to be monitored, so I had to pee in a tray. Now, I'm not a racehorse, but I put 32 ounces of urine in this tray, in 2 or 3 separate visits, and no one loooked at it or emptied it until I asked them to. How, then, were they monitoring my urine output?
• I think I mentioned how the staff walked the halls having loud personal conversations and how, at 3:30 am a medical team came into a room with a patient, turned all the lights on, and had a full conversation, awakening the patient who was already in the room. Can someone explain to me how this is acceptable?
• What appeared to be a fire alarm light began blinking after a fire code (I'm not sure what it was, just more alarm-type noises that were ignored). These lights continued blinking for more than 24 hours, with no acknowledgement from anyone. For all I know, they may still be blinking....
• There was a loud audible alarm ringing somewhere on the hall. I could hear it from my room, but I could never hear anyone responding to it.

At the end of the day, it seemed to me that the patient was some sort of accessory at Lenox Hell. I saw no evidence (except by the nurses, who were literally running around trying to attend to patients) of patient care; as a matter of fact, except for the nurses, I saw no evidence of courtesy or consideration exhibited towards patients by the staff. This is epitomized by my experience the day after surgery. I was awakened at 6:30 am and told to start walking. So I did. The nurse told me to sit down if I got tired. I was much weaker than I thought, and after walking down one hall, I needed to sit down. I'm doddering along with my IV pole, unsteady on my feet, and no one would lift their heads for me to ask them for assistance. So I grabbed a chair and attempted to sit in it. Some guy yells at me from down the hall "Excuse me, you can not sit there." "OK," I told him, "I'll just pass out here and you can pick me up." He never thought to offer assistance; his only concern was to prevent a patient from sitting in his chair.

As I told them in the post-visit survey, the only way I'd ever return to Lenox Hell is if I were unconscious and had no choice in the matter. I've had some postoperative issues, and my surgeon told me to go to the Emergency Room to be evaluated. I declined. I'd rather risk death than willingly return to that hospital.

The saga that is my body

There are more important things going on in the world. People are killing people. Iran is in Chaos. Natural disasters are everywhere. But what's going on with me is a very personal battle, one I've waged my whole life. This one is with my weight.

Long ago, I suffered from the obsession and the compulsion to use drugs or anything that would alter my miund or mood. Thankfully, I got past that era, and am clean and sober for 14 years TODAY! YAAAAY! But I remember the obsession and compulsion to use drugs. I remember that, for the first year, after acknowledging that I had a problem and wanted help with it, I still struggled, mightily, with the desire to use drugs. The high they provided was like some kind of super emotional palliative. For someone whose emotions were as frayed as mine were, a normal palliative would have been ok. A super palliative became instantly addictive.

But a lot of prayer and confessions and internal work and a whole lot of meetings and support helped me recognize the danger signs, made me aware of my self-destructive patterns, and allowed me to come to a place where I could first help myself and then be of help to others.

Fifteen years later, I'm still fighting the obsession and compulsion, only this time it's with food. My stomach is stuffed with two days' worth of food I haven't wanted but haven't been able to stop eating. Greasy spoon Mexican is the gastronomic equivalent of crack. It's cheap, there's nothing good in it, it's ultimately damaging to your body's systems, but it gives some momentary pleasure, so you continue to do it. And do it. And do it. I had some guac in here that was brown when they brought it to me. I should have given it back to them. Instead, I ate half of it before tossing it. And it wasn't even tasty.

All of which are things I consider as I contemplate bariatric surgery. I've lost 68 lbs and, as I said, losing weight is not the issue. Keeping it off is the issue. As soon as I started looking almost normal, that obsession and compulsion came right back, and suddenly I couldn't control my eating any more. Even if I journaled, I just didn't care. It was like the disease of overeating had repossessed my soul I had to eat at all costs.

I've now gained back at least 60 of those lbs. THis is the third or fourth time in my life I can remember doing this. I can't go though it again. I'm gonna let them cut my stomach. I was praying about it, and remembered the scripture that says if your eye offends you, then pluck it out. Well, my stomach offends me -- it makes me sick on many levels -- and I'm going to have it cut out. I'd like a sleeve gastrectomy, but not sure insurance will pay for that. If they won't, I'll try for a Roux n-Y, but Proximal, which will, theoretically, allow me to not suffer the maladies of malabsorption (I won't lose my hair, I 'll get more vitamins). It's important to me to be able to work out -- to swim and to lift, and to max out on the bike. I'm thinking that if I can stay hydrated, get enough vitamins into me, and get enough protein into me, that I can do this. Maybe I'll go with the gel shots. Mauybe I'll invent some nutritional source and make a lot of money from bariatric patients and sports people.

At the end of the day, I want to walk upright and not waddle. I want to be tired from a monster workout, not from just the warmup. I don't want to have to take a needle and a dozen pills to keep my blood pressure and blood sugar, and cholesterol within normal limits. I don't want to have to use a machine and pills to sleep. God gave me a body that functions quite well, but I haven't been a very good steward of it. If I can do some damage control, repair it a bit, then maybe I can do a bit better with what's left.

So that's where I am. More about this later.

Tuesday, February 17

Today is our last day here. This has been an awesome trip. We got up early this morning and headed for Petra, a city carved in solid rock by the Nabataeans, an ancient Arab people. The city jhas become one of the new wonders of the world. It is simply incredible, especially when you consider that it was created out of solid rock and created in the first century.


Unfortunately, it is WAAAAY overcommercialized. Jordan is not a wealthy country, especially as Arab countries go (despite the fact that one of their kings donated the money to cover the Dome of the Rock in solid gold...). They don't have any oil money, the whole country's population is about 6 million people, and over 2 million of them live in Amman. The rest are spread out over the country and seem to make their living off the land. There are other people besides Arab people here -- there's a Bedouin population, and they were the ones offering the horse, donkey, and camel transports at Petra. They also have store after store after store of tacky tourist stuff.

The internet crashed on me at Larsa, so I wasn't able to post this. I know I wrote more, but now don't remember it, so I'm going to submit this post....

We're in Amman, so it must be Monday, Feb 16?

Wow. It seems like just a few days ago we had another week left, and now we only have another day left. This has been a grueling and exhausting several days, but much fun and well worth it.

We started our day by leaving the Alexander Hotel in Bethlehem. Yvonne, Joseph, and Joey are wonderful, and I hope we can go back to see them some day. Joseph was so funny last night, coming to take me by the ark and usher me into his son Joey's place. I'd promised to buy something from Joey, although Joseph's brother (Joey's uncle) Johnny (whose gift shop is on the other side of the hotel) had a bigger selection and better prices. Anyway, Joseph ushered me into Joey's place and gave me a 50% discount. So I did a bit of shopping.

I've just come back from Amman's City Center Mall where I picked up another bag. I weighed my bag and it comes to 22.5kg. Since the weight limit is 23kg per bag for each of two bags, I decided not to make the mistake I made coming back from Senegal. Buying a second bag is cheaper than paying extra weight fees. When I'm older and smarter, I'll take two bags packed inside one. That will give me less of my own stuff and a second bag for souvenirs.

But I digress. After we left Bethlehem, we headed for Qumran. We'd seen an exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls here in Jordan, and I'd seen the traveling exhibit in San Diego at AAR a few years ago, but it was a whole nother level looking at the actual caves.

We left Qumran and stopped at Ein Gedi, the Dead Sea. It's the lowest point on earth, and because of the salinity of the water, the flotation is amazing. In the commercials, you see the man floating in the water and reading the newspaper. It's really like that. I wore my goggles, but it is incredibly salty. Milton, Gail's husband, got some good pics of me. There's one where I'm just laid out on the ocean as if it were a table. What a great experience! The tide was coming in, and being so bouyant, it was hard to get my legs under me. It felt like I scratched up my butt on the rocks (and I forgot to take some salt), and I later found that I had actually scraped the top of my foot pretty nicely. It's been bleeding off and on all day. It doesn't hurt, it's just bleeding.

After the Dead Sea, we went up to the top of Masada. I'm not putting in the historical significance of most of these places because if you're interested, you can just Google the names. Great views from there. I took pics with my iphone and sent them to a couple of people I thought would like them. We could see the mountains, the Dead Sea, and desert all from the top of Masada. The cable car ride to the top was similar to the cable car ride to the top of Sugarloaf in Brazil, except that Masada only has one level.

After that, the group headed to Egypt said their goodbyes. They got into another van and headed south. We stayed in our bus til the Allenby (King Hussain) Bridge. Mike, our Palestinian driver, took us through the Israel departure. We went through Israeli customs, then had to get our bags and transfer them to a Jordanian bus. After about 500 yards, we had to then go through Jordanian customs, so we had to take all our stuff off the bus again, take them inside to let them go through customs, give the guide our passports so passport control could inspect them, then get back on the bus.

We were all tired and hungry by that point. Our guide said we could stop at a sandwich shop or he knew a souvenir shop that served free tea and cookies that would hold us over til dinner. We voted for the souvenir shop. It was ok in that we got to get souvenirs from Jordan, but I think we're all growing weary of jacked up prices and knowing that the drivers and guides are getting cuts for steering us into these places. Still, since I speak neither Hebrew nor Arabic, it's a workable solution.

When we finally got back to the Larsa hotel in Amman, it seemed like a palace compared to where we'd been staying! This place is lined in marble and mirrors, and has a little health club (a treadmill, a stepper, maybe an elliptical, and a multi-purpose weight machine), complete with sauna, steam room, and jacuzzi. The jacuzzi was HOT! and the steam room was really pumping! I hit them before dinner.

Dinner was wonderful. In addition to kebabs and a variety of salads, there was chicken, fish, and spaghetti. The presentation was nice (this is a hotel rather than a hostel) and after the last few days, it was quite welcome.

I would like to share some reflections, but tomorrow's another long day, and the day after tomorrow will be even longer, since we'll leave at 7:30 am for the States and I won't get home until nearly midnight.

But it's all good.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

We started our day with a trip to the Haram Al-Sharif, which houses the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. From there, we went back to the Western Wall and had more opportunities to pray and, this time, to take pictures.
We got back on the bus and headed back to Bethlehem. Every time we go from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, we pass through the 35-foot high wall that surrounds the city. There are checkpoints to go through, and repressive laws that limit Palestinians' abilities to travel freely. In a moment I'll comment on my thoughts about the reasons this wall exists, but in short, I think it's a monstrosity and an affront to God and to humanity.
So we crossed through the wall again and came back to Bethlehem. We attended the church next door to the hotel. I don't remember the name of it, but it's a Christian church and they worshipped in Arabic. They were like any fundamentalist church: lots of high-energy singing, lots of prayer, and a preacher exhorting the people. There was a praise band with guitar, a small drum like a djembe, and keyboards. One very nice touch was their translation service. As we entered, they provided wireless headsets for us. During the service, a woman translated the liturgy, sermon, songs, and Scriptures into English for us. The translations were free and loose, but they existed. The songs and music were typical praise music with an Arabic feel to them -- it was easy to get into the spirit and worship together, although I have to say that this was a new experience for me: usually we have European visitors coming to our church on Sunday mornings for a "Gospel" experience, so it was different for me to be a visitor. The only downside was that we left the service halfway through, and before the offering. I would have welcomed the opportunity to have contributed.
We left their church and walked about a half mile through Bethlehem to the Church of the Nativity. It is actually three churches: Palestinian Christian,Greek Orthodox, and Catholic church—all built alongside each other. The oldest one, the Palestinian Church of the Nativity, was built in 400 AD. The entrance is through a door called the "Door of Humility," which was built low so that you have to bow before coming in. The main floor was built in 600 AD, and has sections in it that allow you to look down and see the original mosaic floor below.
We must have waited in line for nearly an hour. At the end of the church is a stairway that goes downstairs. The walls are covered with silk rugs, and on some of them you can see the same colors in the covering and the stitching as you could see on the pillows in Jesus' tomb. As you go down the stairs, you see a little spot. People are stopping (this is what's making the wait so long), kneeling, venerating it, and the guards are trying to both be respectful and move the people along. There is a 13-pointed star on the ground, and what it commemorates is the spot where Jesus was born. The 13 points represent the generations between David and Jesus, the number of disciples at the last supper, and the stations of the cross. Just behind this is the stone (not wooden, you guys) manger where Jesus was laid after He was born.
We came back from the Church of the Nativity and had lunch at some place called the Dollar Restaurant. It was chicken schwarma.
Then we were off for the Palestinian refugee camp. While the conditions here were better than those at the Liberian refugee camp we saw in Ghana in 2000, it is still a refugee camp. The UN provides refugees a "temporary" home and basics such as elementary school education. What was once several thousand people has now mushroomed to a few hundred thousand people living in the same area. Conditions are deplorable: dilapidate buildings, inadequate water runoff, lack of mobility, living behind barbed-wire fences -- the list goes on and on. As I've said before, the situation of the Palestinian people in Israel reminds me of African Americans in the US 50 years ago, or South Africans in their own land a couple of decades ago.
Perhaps to provide a counterpoint to the Palestinian issue, we then went to an interfaith center for a couple of lectures. Our first lecture was with Dr. Hagi Ben-Artzi. Although he was not introduced as such, I'm told he is the brother in law of former PM Netanyahu. He started the presnetation with Gen 29:10-15. This he believes is the word of God stating that the dream of Israel being a sanctuary for the Jewish people has finally come true. That is because of a coveenant ouutlined in Gen 15:18-21.
So I thought the guy was making sense at first. But the longer I listened to him, the more I realized he was a nut job. Not only was he a nut job, but he's a dangerous nut job. He really believes that God has given Israel (which will expand to the Euprates River) to the Jewish people. He thinks it's because the Jewish people were not obedient to God that the Holocaust happened. He thinks it's because of God's word being fulfilled that Jewish people "have to kill children" (his words, not mine). He thinks that if non-Jewish people want to live in Israel, they can, but with no political rights. His interpretation of the Word is based on a series of proof texts -- he would expound on one sentence, then disregard the sentence after it, then jump back a few chapters ....
He's a self-admitted fundamentalist. I tried to ask him the following question, but couldn't get a clear answer. My question was this: If you are fundamentalist and believe that might makes right based on your covenant relationship with God, then since I have a New Covenant with God and there are more Christians than Jews, shouldn't the New Covenant replace the old one? He didn't answer that for me. If he had, I would have asked him if, according to his way of thinking, if then the Muslim fundamentalists are correct when they wage wars against ideas that do not agree with their theology?
He made my blood boil, and I had to calm myself down and realize that I was dealing with a head case. Problem is, thinking like his appears to be what's resulted in atrocities like a 35-foot high wall around a sacred city for my faith. Thinking like his appears to justify racial oppression.
AFter the nut job, we heard from Bill Dockerty, the director of the Society of St. Eve. Mr. Dockerty is an attorney and an naturalized Israeli citizen. Born Catholic, his father was the shabbos goy. He moved to Israel in pursuit of a female (don't know her religion). Thirty years ago, he found himself about to fire a gun at a young Palestinian who was throwing Molotov cocktails at him. Thankfully, he did not fire. He chose to drink instead. When he finally stopped drinking, he became an atty and started working for civil rights for Palestinians. He's had more than 500 cases appear before the Israeli high court.
There's more to write, but I'm exhausted and still need to get packed. Tomorrow we're back to Jordan...

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Happy Valentine's Day! Today was another unbelievable day. We started very early, about 7:30, with a trip to the Mount of Olives. From there we could look out over all Jerusalem, seeing the Dome of the Rock, e Church of the Nativity and more stuff than I'll ever remember.

We came down from the Mount of Olives and went into the old city of Jerusalem. We went in through the Lion's Gate. I remember that we went to the pool by Bethsaida where Jesus healed the paralytic. We went into a church outside the pool site where we gathered together and sang a couple of songs. The church had wonderful acoustics. We walked through the old city, and along the route that Jesus carried the cross. We didn't do all the stations of the cross, though we did get some pictures of a group doing them. As I struggled to navigate my way along the narrow, uneven cobblestoned streets, and their hardness made me feel the weight of my body on my every joint, I could only imagine how Jesus must have struggled to carry the very cross upon which He was to be crucified.

We went to the Lithistratos in the Sisters of Zion Convent. The Lithistratos is a section of pavement preserved from Roman times. It has a board game on it, "The King's Game." It was a game that Roman soldiers played with condemned prisoners. They moved them in various places around the board, and toyed with them, doing things such as putting on a purple robe or a crown of thorns on them, slapping them around, and generally belittling them until it ended in them killing the prisoner. The pavement also had grooves in it from the chariots the Roman soldiers used.

On this Valentine's Day in Jerusalem, there in the Lithistratos, it was my turn to deliver the morning devotion! While it wasn't exactly preaching, I did get to speak to our little group (from behind a lectern, no less) here in Jerusalem. That was good, but it certainly was not the highlight of the day.

We continued on to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. (I think four of the stations of the cross are here). We got to see the slab that Christ's body was laid on and annointed in preparation for burial. I got a picture with it. Then we went on and spent much of the morning waiting to get into the place where Jesus was buried. We must have stood on line for over an hour. But finally we did get in! It was awesome to be able to enter in (we had to stoop down to enter and my pack scraped against the opening). It was great to see that the Greeks had put inside a pillow embroidered with the words "Christos Anesti" (Christ has risen). I got this silly smile as I responded to the pillow: "Alithos, Anesti!" (Surely, He has risen!) who'da thunk I would remember my Greek so automatically after all these years?!? We wandered through the old city somemore, and stopped for lunch. Another Falafel shop. I had the schwarma this time. Sorry, but both the falafel and schwarma are tastier (and less greasy) in NYC than what I've had here in Jerusalem.

We continued on through the City, and went to the Western Wall. It's often called the Wailing Wall, but the proper name is the Western Wall. We had the opportunity to pray and speak to God there. It was the Sabbath, so we were not allowed to take pictures. Despite all my prior plans, I was obedient and not only did I not take pictures, but I also went to the women's side and didn't try to go to the men's side. There's no real difference in the two sides (except that from the men's side you can see another archaeological site), and it was good to be in the company of women for such a sacred moment. Somehow, it actually seemed right. What I noticed was manyh of the Orthodox women left the wall walking backwards. My assumption is that's because they would not turn their back on the presence of the Divine. While I would have liked to have shown that sort of respect, I was concerned that I might fall voer backwards if I tried that, and decided that the most respectful course of action was to cause the least interruption. It was AWESOME! And yes, Cheryl, I remembered you by name at the Wall.

After that, I believe our next stop was the Garden of Gethsemane. We went into a private side and celebrated the Eucharist there. Then we took a few minutes to explore, have some teaching, and have some photo ops. By this time, I think everyone was in their own special spiritual space. It's hard to describe -- it was just great. Our group of 20 pilgrims has become a family.

We went to Herod's tomb for a quick minute before going to the shepherd's field. This is one of the fields where the shepherds received word that Christ was born. We went inside a small, cavelike church and had Scripture, prayer, and song.

There's probably more, and if there is, I'll edit it in later. My knees are absolutly killing me, but I got some Jordanian stuff called Voltaren that is quite good. Supposedly it helps treat the arthritis by reducing the swelling. As an example of how the economics are here, this stuff cost 3.9 Jordanian dinars, which was maybe 6-7 dollars. It cost 37 New Israeli shekels, which is over 10 dollars. The reason is because I'm inside a Palestinian area and the Palestinians have to pay extra taxes on all their goods. Life is so unfair for them. I realize that the view I'm seeing is only from the Palestinian side -- I'm not seeing the Israeli side for balance -- but what I see is really quite horrible. I won't repeat yesterday's rant....

I also got something called isofen, which is like an ibuprofen gel. I'll try to get some rest tonight. But it's finally dinnertime, and I'm pretty hungry, so I'll stop here.

Happy Valentine's Day once again! I hope your day was as awesome and as full of Love as mine was!
But for now

Friday, February 13

Today was a great day! We started with a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee. We had praise songs in Hebrew and English by a guy named Daniel Carmel. Daniel was born out of wedlock to an Orthodox Jewish woman. She gave him up for adoption, and he was adopted by "the greatest parents in the world." When he was an adult, he sought out his birth mother and found her, along with several other siblings. He moved to the town where they lived.

He describes himself as a "typical Israeli" -- school, army, etc. After the Army, and after moving to be near his birth family, he found himself in the nautical trades and since he was living near the Sea of Galilee, he became a skipper on the tourist boats. That's how he got saved -- being on the boats and feeling the Spirit.

So now he has a music ministry on the tour boats. It was pretty awesome, especially where he's translated some popular praise and worship songs into Hebrew. What a great way to start the day!

Then we moved on to the Mount of the Beatitudes, and to the Church of the Beatitudes. From there we went to Caperneum, and then we stopped by the Jordan River. Not only did I get a bottle of water from the River, but I got my foot in and got a picture of me squatting down beside it. I sorta "baptized" myself with water from both the Sea of Galilee and from the Jordan River. I believe in One Lord, One Faith, and One Baptism, so the act was purely symbolic, and I did it myself, but one of the most awesome feelings during this whole trip has been seeing remainders of history from the time of Jesus and knowing that you've walked in the same places Jesus walked. With the old Roman and Greek remains, you know that your eyes have fallen on some of the same physical objects that Jesus' physical eyes fell on. That's pretty awesome for me.

After we stopped at the Jordan, we came on through Jerusalem to Bethlehem. Here we're staying at the Hotel Alexander, which is really a hostel. It's owned by a some Palestinian Christians. They have a couple of gift shops, and finally we were able to unleash our shopping beasts. Although I spent a good sum of money, much of it was on an 18K gold cross (my obligatory gold from every country I visit). It's not a Jerusalem Cross, but a simple, hand-crafted, solid 18K gold cross. I like it. I got gifts of anointing oil and holy water and earth for a lot of people, and will probably end up getting more. It's difficult to get stuff for everyone, though. Things are really expensive. But you're helping out Palestinian Christians.

Now, this Palestinan thing. I've blogged before about it. My concern is with the civil rights of the Palestinian people. I've gone through checkpoints, I've seen this humongous wall around Bethlehem, I've learned that there is legalized segregation in the school system, I've seen inequities in housing -- all things that remind me of the segregated US and of South African apartheid. And it's all propagated against people whose land was seized from them, by the people to whom that land was given through the authority, advice, and with the assent of former colonialist rulers .... it just stinks to me.

As I went through Nazareth and Galilee, and I saw the assembly-line way that tourists are pushed through the holy sites, I can't help but wonder how much of the division has economic motivations. After all, Jesus -- like the Palestinians -- is from the south of Israel. If that land were given back to the Palestinian people, what would be the economic impact on the State of Israel? What would be the economic impact on the People of Palestine?

It's just wrong, IMHO, that Jewish people from all around the world can come to Israel and have a right to live there and to discriminate against non-Jewish people who are born and bred there. How is that different from the atrocities of the second world war? With the current state of Israel, people are still being singled out and being afforded a certain status because they are Jewish. The only difference is that they are getting preferential treatment instead of subhuman treatment. But they're not being treated fairly nor impartially in either case. And if you say that they deserve special treatment because of the Holocaust, then I guess I'd wonder, as an African American, why the US spends money supporting the state of Israel rather than providing preferential treatment for African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and all other AMERICANS who've suffered through AMERICAN-made holocausts (6 million Jewish people perished between 1941 and 1944 in Europe. 26 million African Americans perished in the Middle Passage, and the vestiges of social and economic inequities in America still linger). Or if Jewish people deserve preferential treatment in Israel because of the Holocaust, then what do the Palestinans deserve as restitution for the treatment they're now receiving from the State of Israel?

I don't get how a people who have suffered the effects of oppression and discrimination can turn around and then consciously and systematically oppress and discriminate against others. I just don't get it. And I don't buy into the whole "Christian" view that these things have to happen in Israel so the end of the world can come. I don't get that from the Bible I read nor from the God I serve.

*****end rant*****

Thursday, February 12

This morning we went to Sepphoris where we saw mosaics from early Roman synagogues. We saw other stuff too, and I toiok lots of pictures. We went to Nazareth and to the Basilica of the Annunciation. We went across the street to the Sisters of Nazareth. They have beneath their church part of a house from the time of Jesus. They said that Jesus lived in Nazareth for 30 years and there were 40 houses in Nazareth, so there was a good chance that He entered that house. We were all thrilled and delighted, bothin Sepphoris and in this house, to walk along the same paths that Jesus must have walked.

Also at the Sisters of Nazareth, we saw a tomb of the approximate size and from the same time as Jesus's. The stone had been rolled away, and this stone was much smaller than we often think of JC's tombstone as being.

The day was long and full of walking, but the most significant things were being in the same places as Jesus.

We had a discussion this morning about effective and productive mission. That will be outlined in a paper.

Going to bed now; excited about tomorrow and our planned boatride on the Sea of Galilee.

So here's my question

I've been here seeing lots of Palestinian people in Israel. They look like the people in the countries surrounding Israel. I see lots of European-looking people in Israel who don't look so much like the people from this area. Lots of people were brought back or came back to Israel after the Holocaust, and I believe it's a good thing that the world community was able to get together to offer some sanctuary after such a horrific event.

But what about the people who already lived here? What about their homes, their lands? Why are they now living as if they have no right to be here? I don't understand the logic behind that.
By what authority was this land given to the Jewish people? If it is by the authority of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, then should not that authority logically be extended through the rest of the world? If the authority of those Scriptures is ultimately not binding on the world community, then how/why was this nation created, and more importantly -- what about the people who were already here?

Are they now to become wandering refugees, exchanging status with the former refugees who now inhabit their land? That doesn't seem quite right. How do we approach an equitable, peaceful solution? Is every person of the Jewish faith entitled to immigrate to a Jewish nation? Why? Under what circumstances? What does it mean to be a Jewish person? To be an Israeli? Are the definitions by ethnicity, by religion, by someone's definition of race?

Somehow, the whole situation seems to be built on good principles, but I'm not sure the implementation has been well thought through. My concern is with the civil rights of non-Jewish people inside Israel. From what I've seen, there exists an apartheid-like environment here, and I can't help but think that if modern day Israel is based on a social system set up and implemented accoring to the norms and mores of 1940s and 1950s Western and European society, then a) it's possible that it's seriously flawed, and b) at the very least, the thinking should be examined in light of civil rights concerns of the present day.

Off to explore Nazareth now -- the place where Jesus embarked upon a world-changing ministry for the rights of all humankind.

Tuesday, February 11 - Amman to Nazareth

We started out the day in Amman, then went to Madaba. We looked at St. George's Orthodox church and checked out all the mosaics there. From Madaba, we went up to Mt. Nebo, passing by the place where Moses is said to have split the waters. We went up Mt. Nebo and, just as Moses did, looked out over the Promised Land.

We looked out, and then went on down into the Jericho Valley. Jericho is the world's oldest continuously inhabited city -- people have been living there for 10,000 years. On the way down, we saw camels and sheep and goats and donkeys. We watched the terrain change from dry and sterile to the green, lush valleys.

To get to Jericho, we had to go acroos the King Hussein bridge (the Allenby bridge if you're Israeli). We entered the West Bank, crossing through Jordanian border patrols, then Israeli border patrols and finally through Israeli customs. Not sure what the big deal was with getting off the bus, getting our luggage and getting back on a different bus, since customs didn't look at our bags. They did have us do biometrics, though -- much like the Clear Card, with the left and right index fingers.

In Jericho, we saw the sycamore tree Zaccheus climbed up. We revisited the Scriptures, since the original Greek does not specify who was short of stature; some English translations imply that it was Jesus who was short of stature, though most of us have lived with the idea that it was Zacchaeus who was short. The point was to be careful -- very careful with one's biblical interpretation. While neither that point nor the thought that archaeology may not confirm the existence of the Jericho walls was a dealbreaker for me, it seemed that there was a little discomfort on the bus.

While we entered Jericho from the south, we intended to go through the city and depart from the north entrance. But the northern checkpoint was closed, so we had to turn around and come back through the southern checkpoint. Most tourists don't go through these checkpoints -- they are just for the Palestinians.

After Jericho, we stopped at a falafel shop. I ordered a falafel salad, and got four falafel balls, some Turkish eggplant, some hot stuff, and some babaganoush. I think Amir's Falafel has better falafel. We saw lots of street urchins and peddlers; Peter explained how incredibly hard times are for Palestinians -- some may have lived in Israel all their lives, but unless they join the Israeli army they're not able to work or have access to normal Israeli society.

Then we came up to St. Margaret's seminary. It's nestled in the hills above Nazareth. I can't wait til tomorrow morning, to see the sunrise and to see clear views from the hill. The Basilica of the Annunciation is on the hillside, so we'll see that tomorrow.

I hate that Google in Israel is right-formatted. It's all in Hebrew and I can't find the setting to switch the captions and formatting to English. At least in Jordan, I could switch it to an English page....

Tuesday evening, 10 pm

Can't believe it's already 10 pm! I wanted to be in bed by now.

Got up at 6 this am, breakfast at 7. The food here is good and healthy -- fruit and yogurt and eggs and chicken sausage and hummus were all in the breakfast buffet. We took off early and headed up to Jabbok, the place where in Genesis 32:22 Jacob wrestled with the angel.

Then we took off for Jerash. There are some who say that the Gerasene demoniac, the one who was chained up in a graveyard, the one who, after his encounter with Jesus was "clothed and in his right mind" -- there are some who say this guy was from Jerash. There are others who say he was not. There is no disputing that Jerash was a Middle Eastern city under Roman occupation, so it was interesting to look at the vestiges of Roman culture -- the huge columns, the amphitheaters, the stone streets, the temples to the various gods, and so on. It's even more impressive when you consider that these are the conditions under which Jesus lived.

And what conditions they were! We must have gotten to Jerash around noon, at which time it began to rain. One minute it would be sunny, the next minute it would be windy and rainy -- and when we were at high altitudes it was cold, as well. At first I felt a little odd having brought my winter coat, but by day's end, I was quite happy!

One of the temples, -- I think to Diana, but I could be mistaken -- was set up around the divine number seven. So there were seven sets of seven steps up until one could see the temple -- then a couple more sets. I don't do enough cardio.

We saw a Byzantine church reconstructed over --- something -- and an old Muslim graveyard and a Jordanian museum of antiquities. We saw the old city of Amman, which used to be called something else before it was called Philadelphia. We saw an old palace. We did lots and lots of walking around in the rain, on hard streets, up hills, and up steps. I have tons of pictures and a new appreciation for the conditions people must have lived in centuries ago.

There is more, of course. i'm just too tired to write down my reflectuions. But I think it's interesting that I started the day at a place where Jacob said "I won't let go til you bless me" and ended the day wit a renewed appreciation for the power of history to inform and then to transform.

It's thundering and lightning outside. I don't trust the electricity here enough to keep typing, although I know I'm leaving out something really important. But I have to pack. Tomorrow we're off to Madaba, then into Israel. We're due to have lunch in Jericho. I'm excited.

Tuesday Morning, 6:50 am

We're in Amman. Amazingly, I got up at the first alarm, got a shower and got on the internet. I checked in with work, whose response was "Aren't you supposed to be on vacation?" I think they'll live without me. Today we're supposedto go on a field trip to Jerash (see MArk 7:31), on a driving tour of Amman. We were supposed to meet with Jordanian Christians, but I don't think that's going to happen.

So I'm headed downstairs to breakfast, and then off to my new adventure!

Post from JFK and from Amman

More for the blog. So it's 9:13 pm, and we're in Kennedy airport, waiting to board. Most of the group is here, except for the guy from Rhode Island. When he gets here, we'll all get together and pray. Been playing a lot on my iPhone, so I found a samsung charging station and am charging it up. I also have electricity for my laptop here. There's a wireless signal, but it's from something called Boingo and you have to pay for it.

The guy with Verizon said that for him on the bb, international roaming is only $30.00 extra per month. Of course, it's only 24.99 wikth ATT, but that's for only 20 MB. which I think kinda sux.
Not too much to say; I'm just excited that there's electricity and I can charge up my laptop. I'm going to put it up now and socialize with the group.

From the Larsa Hotel in Amman:
Not sure what time it is or what day it is. I'm told it's 11:08 on Monday nite, which is 4:08 Monday afternoon in the US. I've been in transit since 6 Sunday evening. The flight was uneventful, and didn't seem as long as the 10.5 or 11.5 hours it took. I sat beside Charles Lippse, and across from some guy (not with our party) who was drunk out of his mind. He ran our colleague (the gujy with Verizon service) out of his seat with his talking and stretching out, and actually dropped his used water bottle onto the people behind him.

It was after 5 when we landed here in Jordan, so there's not much to tell. We were whisked through customs and taken on a 40+ minute bus ride to Amman. We are at the Larsa hotel; not great, not bad -- it suits our purposes. Dinnner was a lovely, fairly healthy buffet, and we got together in a conference room afterwards to all introduce ourselves. We are a group of 22, mostly from TN. My roommate is Makeba D'Abreau, fellow NYTS alum.

My iPhone doesn't work, and we didn't have internet service in the first room we had. The hotel guy had to go out to the repeater to get us a signal, but it was so weak he ended up moving us from the 4th floor to the 2nd floor. We now are completely wired.

I'm tired and sleepy, and we have to get up at 6 tomorrow am to do a tour. So I'm going to stop here.

Israel Trip, February 2009

So I'm about to embark on the trip of a lifetime, but I can't seem to get it together.

Well, that's not absolutely correct. I did my taxes this morning, went to the memorial service for Mrs. Weeks, had a not-very-intensive workout at the Y, did laundry again, and called my credit card companies to let them know I'll be out of the country. I have cash and my travel documents. I'm charging my spare camera batteries -- I need to take extras for the flash and the digital recorder -- but I STILL NEED TO GET PACKED. I have a list, and I've packed my carryon and have assembled my meds, but I need to get up, get off the computer, and put my clothes in the spacebags and put the spacebags in the suitcase. Then I need to take out the garbage and go to bed.

The Supershuttle comes at 6 tomorrow evening. I have to go weigh in at like 10 tomorrow morning, then hit church (I hope I asked Rev. McFall to lead worship. I don't think I want to), then come home, grab a Subway salad and sub, and just chill til 6 pm.

So I'm going to get up and do that. My iPhone keeps crashing on me. Ever since I had international service added, it seems to just die when it's inside a steel building or in the subway -- in places where there's no signal. I tried several times yesterday to resuscitate it, but was unsuccessful, so when Janet and Didi came over to buy my Ming, I hustled them off to the apple Store with me. We walked in and the genius just hit the home and power buttons (which I'd done for like 30 seconds straight) and the device turned on. I felt like a complete idiot.

But it was fun going downtown and watching Didi with the mp3 player I got him for his bday. Can't believe the kid's 13. On the way home, there was this theater group in the subway. They got on with AV equipment, a tuba, a guitar, and people in dress from the 20s. They put red paper over the lights in the subway and while I'm not exactly sure what their point was, they were very entertaining on the #6 train from 59th street to 125th street.

I have to go pack now.

Israel, Feb 2009

Before going to Israel, I'm going down to DC for the inauguration, so I guess this should be titled inauguration, Jan 20 2009. It's going to be terribly exciting, but I've been excited about that for the last four years now.

i'm starting to get excited about Israel.