happy ninth birthday, max

yesterday was our english bulldog's 9th birthday.  his name is max.  well, it's actually maximus drake milinovich.  but you can call him max.  hard to believe he's been enriching our lives for so long.  we love you max!  even though you snore and track mud in the house, and like the smell of your own pee, and slobber everywhere and cost us a fortune in vet bills and shed like it's your job.  we love you anyway.  no matter what. 

he named him apple

in the midst of shoveling the equivalent of 35 jobba the huts in snow yesterday, i found a few minutes to make a mini-snowman with cade.  he named him apple (i guess caedmon's a huge coldplay fan).  here he is:

and now i'm tired, like a toyota mechanic.  but the snow is stopped, and (i kept thinking as i launched shovel-loads of heavy duty industrial-strength snow) at least i have a driveway to shovel - a driveway which leads to a nice warm house that protects me from all these inches of snow and howling winds.  i am blessed indeed, so no complaints from me.  even if my muscles feel worse than lindsey vonn's. 

no mere mortal! (sniffle)

wow.  just wow.  its been snowing for more than 24 hours now, without much of a stop at all.  i can't tell how much we have right now because it is so windy that the drifts are pretty high, but i can tell that its still snowing with an arctic fury.   i have seen estimates from 12 to 24 inches.  who knows?  all i know is that it's been a crazy winter.  maybe hell has frozen over? 

at least i'm not sick.  that's right: everyone in my family was diagnosed with strep throat, and i never got it.  the reason for the world dominance of my immune system?  my propensity for eating things that have fallen on the floor.  as i type this, it occurs to me that i might not have shared this with some of you.  if you've known me for a long time, you can probably skip to the next paragraph - you already know this stuff.  but if you only know me as your pastor whom you see on sundays and other occasions, you might want to prepare yourself for a bit of a shock.  i'm very comfortable eating things that others would squirm at.  i have eaten a live earthworm.  a piece of fudge off the boardwalk.  a piece of candy off the floor of the theater (that was there when we walked into the theater!).  a gummi bear from a puddle in a parking lot.  one of my life mottos has been "God made dirt, and dirt don't hurt," which, if it isn't scripture, sure should be. 

i know, i know, this is all disgusting.  and you're entitled to your opinion, but, first of all, you've never been a youth pastor (unless you have been, in which case you might understand.  probably not, though).  i have found that a great way to get fun conversations going with a teenager is to eat something disgusting.  secondly, and this is how i got started on this topic, consuming so much dirt and bacteria and dust and oil and small bits of stone and hair have given me an uncanny ability to ward off disease.  i am no longer a mere mortal!!!! muahahahaha!  well, that's not quite true, but i do have a pretty strong stomach and immune system.  also, a baseball-sized hole in the lining of my stomach, but that's not the point.  the point is that eating food out of the garbage (i've done this) and off the floor has made me a stronger person, and helped me to avoid getting strep throat this week.  (or i could just be a strep carrier, but i prefer my hypothesis). 

however, looking at mount saint snow in my driveway makes me sort of wish i did have strep throat.  **cough...sniffle...groan***  "honey, i'm not feeling too well, i think i'm going to go back to bed..."

doctor greg

anyone who knows me well knows that i would make a terrible doctor.  i dont do well with physical discomfort of any kind, let alone bodily fluids like mucus and vomit, to name a few.  so, anyone who knows me would find it humorous that i've been forced into the role of doctor in my house this week.  shannon has strep throat.  the boys might have it too (i'm waiting on a call back from the pediatrician).  so, needless to say, i've been doing a lot of nurse-related activity the last couple of days, which is not my forte.  all of that to say: please pray for my family because it is unlikely in the entire history of sickness that any family has had a less capable nurse attending to them. 

for example, i find it difficult to get someone (my wife) a few ibuprofin without wondering aloud (and with so little amount of agitation) what is the difference between aspirin and ibuprofin and acetaminophen.  "why does it have to be so confusing?" i shout to the pharmaceutical gods, shaking my clenched fists clutching those little brown nuggets of pain relief.  and another thing: how does the little pill know where the damage is?  i mean, if i have a broken toe, i take an ibuprofin.  if i have a headache, i take an ibuprofin.  how does it know where to go?  the whole thing amazes and confounds me in a way that makes me a bit dizzy, requiring me to sit down for a bit.  this leads to conversations like, "greg, can you please get me something to drink."

to which i reply, "yeah, just give me a few minutes, i'm not feeling so well.  i got all lightheaded trying to think about how the medicine works." 

"are you serious?  just get me some gatorade!"

"in a minute, hon.  they're in the tenth end in the women's curling match and the hot canadian is about to throw the rock.  maybe jack will share with you, i think he's got some left."

and so forth.  so, please, pray for my family.

i jest.  sort of.

i don't really need a hug that bad. seriously.

my birthday is officially one week away.  please do NOT buy me this:



but you can, if you feel so led, buy me this:

lent collages 2010: you are/you shall be

as a pastor, i get several people asking me about what i've given up for lent (i joked in the pulpit yesterday that i gave up short sermons for lent).  i have mixed feelings about giving things up for lent, which should be a topic for another post altogether, but what i have decided to for this lent is not to quit anything, but to do something.  i decided to continue the discipline of connecting my faith with my art (which so often ends up being little more than a hobby), by working each week to create a collage that goes along with what we are focusing on in worship that week. 

at church this lent we are focusing on simon peter, the brash and impulsive disciple who left a fishing career to follow Jesus.  we started this week by focusing on his first interaction with Jesus as recorded in the first chapter of the gospel of john.  when his brother andrew brings him to Jesus, Jesus looks at him intently and says, "you are simon, son of john, but you shall be cephas (which means rock)"  i preached about how Jesus both confronts us with the reality of who we are and challenges us with the possibility of who we could become.  Jesus looked at the strong-willed fisherman Simon and saw the one who would preach at Pentecost and walk on water and be the foundation of the church! 

and so i made a collage that (somewhat heavy-handidly, i'm afraid) communicates this same message, connecting with the idea of already/not yet that i had in my sermon.  i'll be posting the others in the coming weeks of lent as the season unfolds.  i pray you listen during this season to hear the voice of Jesus naming you as you are and calling you to what you might be.

"lent 2010: you are/you shall be"

paper collage on hardcover book board

february 2010

gregory a. milinovich

saturday song: swim

i shared my playlist from israel yesterday, and so today i thought i would go back to an old tradition i had of providing a saturday song.  this one is from jack's mannequin, which is the project of andrew mcmahon (who you may also know as the frontman in the band 'something corporate').  right before jack's mannequin's first album releasted, mcmahon was diagnosed with a kind of leukemia.  he was able to fight the disease and survive and their second album, the glass passenger deals with some of the themes of a survivor.  one of the songs is called swim, and i just find it to be a very powerful song for encouraging us to keep going when we feel like throwing in the towel.  it reminds me of galatians 6:9 - so let us not grow weary in doing good, and at the right time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

israel playlist

some of you more musically minded folks have asked me about what i ended up with as my playlist for israel.  so i thought i would share.  i plan on doing a post of recap about my experience in israel, and this isn't it, but i know some of you were interested, so...

please understand that just as jerusalem is a city that is full of interesting juxtapositions of sacred and secular, my playlist is also a grab bag of styles and genres: i had over 350 songs in the playlist, ranging from ancient hebrew music to contemporary pop; from modern middle eastern techno to 80's christian music.  from the boss to bono to bob marley, and from cash to crowder.  this isn't the full list, but here are some of the highlights:

winter song – sara bareilles and ingrid michaelson

where the road meets the sun – katie herzig and matthew perryman jones
three little birds – bob marley
secrets – one republic
lullaby – one republic
not alone – seabird
rescue – seabird
‘til we see the shore – seabird
symphonies – dan black
odds – mutemath
swim – jack’s mannequin
ghost (the whole album…very mellow and good) – radical face
storm – lifehouse
effigy – andrew bird
big red machine – justin vernon and aaron dessner
so far around the bend – the national
say please – monsters of folk
his master’s voice – monsters of folk
contra (whole album) – vampire weekend
foolin’ – devendra banhart
shame – the avett brothers
silence – jars of clay
can I lie here – david crowder band
two hands – jars of clay
closer – jars of clay
love is here – tenth avenue north
the beggar who gives alms – downhere
jerusalem – steve earle
o little town of bethlehem – over the rhine
waters of nazareth – justice
moses in the desert – lost dogs
jericho – the imperials
i’m bound for the promised land – johnny cash
maybe there’s a world – yusuf islam
holy sunlight – steven delopoulos
blessed to be a witness – ben harper
coming home to me – patty griffin
were you there? – the innocence mission
hoppipolla – sigur ros
samskeyti – sigur ros
the rebel jesus – bebo norman
Jesus was an only son – bruce springsteen
Yahweh – u2
enter this temple – leeland
i and love and you - the avett brothers

ash wednesday, 2010

"ash wednesday 2010"

mixed media collage

gregory a. milinovich

here is my ash wednesday collage this year. 

i pray you had a great beginning to your lent,

one in which you humbly remembered

not only that you are merely ash and dust,

but also that you, like me,

are broken at best,

headed for the trash heap

if not for the One who

makes beauty from ashes.

documentation/have a blessed lent

i know, i know.  some of you have been wondering where the heck i am.  sorry.  its been a crazy week.  between recovering from jetlag and spending the night with cade in the hospital, between shoveling snow and trying to catch up on work, and with the added element of our annual documentation weekend, i just haven't had the time/energy.  but i'm back today.  thanks for checking back in on me.

that's right, i said "annual documentation weekend."  that's because "scrapbooking weekend" leaves too big a bruise on my machismo.  so we'll go with documentation weekend, which means that we spent the long weekend with a huge pile of all of our pictures from this last year, and we organized them and sorted them and cut them and glued them along with various momentos and every other sort of paper, all in an effort to tell the story of our 2009.  for who?  for us, i think.  and for our kids, too.  i have this ongoing need in my life to leave this trail, a modern day hansel and gretel, to see where i've been, i suppose.  not so much so that i can get back, but so that i don't forget who i've become through all the me' that i have been.  the past is a colored map that shouts out: "you've been here!  don't forget it!  remember who you are!"  and so i joyfully spend the weekend with gluesticks and "cute" scrapbooking accessories, all in order to not forget. 

so that's where i've been.  not particularly manly, i know. oh, but i did watch the olympics a bit, too.  women's curling and couple's figureskating.  okay, nevermind. 

today, of course, is ash wednesday, one of my favorite days of the Christian year.  today we begin the journey of lent, a journey of passion, if you will but invest in it.  will you?  will you take the time to set yoiur face towards redemption, even as you walk through a broken world that clings to hopelessness like so much dead weight?  will you be willing to face your own brokenness as you walk toward the one who was ultimately broken for you?  will you be willing to dare to believe that audicious and unbelievable claim that it will all be made right; that healing will come from all the broken pieces; and that love and light and life will, in the end, live and shine and win?  will you?  i pray i will.  and i pray you will, too.  have a blessed lent.

greg vs. the snow blower

well, snowmageddon hit this week.  i love snow, so i'm not really complaining, but one of the things snow requires is snow removal.  which has never been that big of a deal for me, until we moved into this house.  our driveway is fairly long and plenty steep.  this is our fourth winter here and when we moved in, we were excited to see that the house has a snowblower. 

what we failed to consider was how inept i am when it comes to machines. 

i have a sneaking suspicion that when i use the snowblower, it's supposed to look like this:

but that's now how i look.  instead, i look more like this:

you see, the problem is that a snowblower includes things called "an electric start," "a throttle," and a "speed dial."  there are words all over the thing, but it would be no more helpful for me if they were in japanese (which i do not read).  there are various levers and switches and gears and pullstrings and places to put gas and oil and probably other industrial liquids which require a high school vo-tech certification to be able to remember.  twice i've had people come over and show me how to use the thing.  it all  makes so much sense as they show me what to pull and how to push and just how much to turn and so on.  until they leave.  then i can't remember if the throttle is supposed to be on the rabbit or the turtle when i start it.  or is that even the throttle?  what does a throttle do?  and really, why would you ever put it on the "turtle" setting?  who wants to go slow?  i always put it on rabbit. let's get this thing done, baby!  jackrabbit style.  like a snow-flinging arctic rabbit ninja.  and then i try to start it. 

epic fail.

however, with the help of an old fashioned snow shovel (which thankfully does NOT have a throttle switch or gauge or dial or lever or whatever its called), i got the driveway and sidewalks all nice and snowless.  yes, i'm a bit sore in the back, and i am humbled again in the face of machines, but i at least have a clean driveway.  oh, and these sweet pictures from the snowstorm.  where's the ben-gay?

a painful change of plans

this was not supposed to be my post today.  when i left work yesterday, i knew that a blizzard was coming in, and so i felt pretty confident that i would get a nice snowy day at home today, full of shoveling snow of course, but also full of warm fires and maybe a movie. 

not exactly.

when i got home shannon told me that cade had been playing with my irish penny whistle, and that he was horsing around with jack and he ended up falling on it, cutting the roof of his mouth.  i didn't really think much about it, until he was acting like this at dinner:

so i got a flashlight and looked at the roof of his mouth.  ouch.  it didn't  look good.  it looked pretty scary, actually. so we called his doctor's office who advised us to go ahead and take him to the emergency room.  i arrived there with him around 8:30, just as the beginning of the snow began to fall.

we didn't have to wait long until we had a bed, and the little man was already proving his meddle.  despite an abundance of nurses and doctors and students and janitors and just about every other cast member of scrubs, he just took it all in stride, even though it was already way past his bedtime and his mouth must have been really hurting. 

the e.r. doctor took a look at his mouth and decided that it was a sensitive enough area and a big enough laceration that he needed to call in a specialist to take a look.  so, dr. schwartz, an ear, nose and throat doctor, was called in through the snow.  he arrived quickly and took a look at the wound.  he advised that the cut needed stitches, but that it was in a tough spot, so the only way to do it would be to put him under general anesthesia.  there was only a question of how soon we could do it.  so we got him in his gown (with clowns on it!?!) and got him started on his respitory treatment. 

it wasn't long before they wheeled him into the operating room, where i was amazed at his bravery and continued willingness to face this with his head up.

i sat in the waiting room while the performed the operation, which required 4 stitches to the soft pallette.  apparently he was pretty lucky, as the severity of the cut could have made it quite dangerous if it had been a few centimeters in other directions.  after the procedure, the doctor came and got me and i got to be with cade as he came out of the anesthesia.  he was groggy and kept wavering between sleeping and crying.  as a father who was just apart from his little boy, i was just glad he was alive.

after monitering him in post-op for about an hour, they took us to the pediatric unit and got him a room, where they continued to poke and prod and measure and ask questions, and every nurse was amazed at his calm spirit and courage.  here he is at about 12:30 in the morning, just ready to go to sleep.

he finally got to sleep around 1:15, and i tried sleeping on the pull-out cot they had there.  that wasn't very successful, but i was able to sneak in a few z's here and there.  i woke up around 5 and saw cade in his favorite sleeping position, so i took a picture

the doctor came back around 7:30 am to check him out.  he said the cut looked great and that we could go home this morning.  cade will need to eat soft foods for at least a week, and will have to be on antibiotic to ward off infection, but otherwise things went well.  we just had to wait for all the iv fluids to drain.  while we waited, he watched scooby doo and ate breakfast.

we were finally given the ok to drive home.  which was perhaps the most stressful part of the whole ordeal, because the snow had really picked up by then, and i could barely see the road, and really struggled to get the car through the snow. 

but we finally made it, and once he was in his own evironment with his mommy and his brother, he returned to form and you wouldn't even know that anything had happened to him. 

so, it wasn't the night/snowday i had expected.  it was a rough night, actually.  but i was amazed at the strength and courage of the two-year old human who is my son, who bravely faced the less-than-ideal circumstances that were thrust upon him and made the best of each moment of the long night.  and after all that, we've got a foot of snow outside (and still snowing), a fire in the fireplace, and maybe even a movie on the way.  that's more like it.

it's over

this was how i felt last february. 

sigh. 

how a year changes things.  as those of you who faithfully read my blog know, i am a huge steelers fan.  but i am also a huge football fan, and so when the season finally comes to an end as it did on sunday, there is a sense of loss for me.  it's even worse this year as i have not only lost football season, but i have also lost the ability to say the words "superbowl champion pittsburgh steelers."  that title now goes to the very deserving new orleans saints, who i am very happy for.  still, the 2009 football season left me with a bitter taste in my mouth, and with the uncertainty about the immediate future of football (players and owners fighting over contract agreement stuff), i'm left with a disappointment.  so, football, here's to you.  thanks for being there for me week after week, monday after monday.  i'll miss you bigtime, and i can't wait to see you again in august. 

until then, congratulations to coach lebeau, the defensive coordinator of the steelers, who was elected to the pro football hall of fame last week.  you deserve it, coach lebeau. 

israel: day 6

for those of you who are wondering, we are home safe.  we got up at 1:45 am on saturday morning in jerusalem, and were home by 9pm on saturday night in new jersey.  of course we were traveling west, so it was actually more than 24 hours.  needless to say, it was a long day, and we're happy to be safe at home, even if it is covered in snow. 

i never got a chance to write about our last day in the holy land, so i thought i'd give you a quick recap.  we had friday morning free, so shannon and i (along with several others) decided to head back within the old jerusalem wall into what is called "the old city" for some shopping.  there are "streets" there that are really just paved sidewalks lined with tiny little shops, full of vendors trying to sell you their goods.  many of the shops were just clothes or shoes or religious trinkets, but we found some cool shops, including one that sold all kinds of interesting spices, at really good prices.  this picture shows how beautiful the spices look.

there was also a fish store that we walked by in the morning, when it had some fresh fish lying out.  when we walked by later, they had added their most recent catches, including this guy:

after the old city, we went to the holocaust museum in jerusalem, which was a very difficult expeience.  it is an amazing museum that thoroughly tells the history of the whole terrible ordeal, complete with videos and personal stories and pictures and items.  it was emotionally straining to say the least. 

from there we headed to ein karem, the traditional birthplace of john the baptist.  once again it is a site of ancient christian worship (there are christian markings there from some 1500 years ago), that has now been covered and marked by an extremely ornate church.  here is a painting from inside the church:

the weather on friday in jerusalem was awful - rainy and cold.  but we all really wanted to go to the garden tomb, which is another possible location for the crucifxion and resurrection of Jesus.   there is much dispute among scholars about the actual site, but this location is often focused on because of a rock formation there which resembles a skull. 

there was a tomb found there that looks exactly like what a tomb from that era would have looked like.  who knows if it was really the site or not, but we were able to celebrate communion as a group there, which was very moving. 

an ancient roman entrace to the wall around jerusalem, near the damascus gate

i want to bring some closure to this trip, by writing one more post about the whole experience, but i think i'm going to need a couple of days to sort of process everything and let it all sink in.  i looked through so many windows this week: windows into the past; into scripture; into the social situation there, and the need for peace with justice.  windows into myself, and my own spiritual journey, too.  so give me a few days to continue to make peace with what i've seen and heard this last week, and i will try to sum it up.  for those of you who have been following along and reading, thank you.  i hope you enjoyed your participation in my trip.  may God - the God of us all - bless you. 

grace|peace,

greg.

israel: a note as we prepare to depart

a amall opening in the old jeruslaem wall just above the zion gate. 

my friends, as i write these words, it is 6:30 on friday evening here in the holy land.  we have finished a rainy day of touring here, and i look forward to sharing it with you, but our flight leaves tel aviv in the morning at 7:30.  which means that we will be leaving the hotel sometime around 3am.  and we still have dinner and two meetings to go yet tonight!  so i won't be updating day 6 of our trip until after i am back in the states, and likely not until i've had several hours of sleep in my bed (this all hinges on whether or not new jersey gets dumped on with snow the way the forecast suggests it might).  so, in any case, i hope you've enjoyed my updates, and i will, of course be sharing more in way of pictures and insights as the Spirit leads.  until then, peace to you. 

israel: day five

today was a day of extremes, in a way, or at least a day of earth, wind and…water. strangely enough, it all started with ice. we woke up to a threat of snow in jerusalem, which turned out to be hail. this hail came down in huge chunks of ice and caught fire as soon as it hit the ground. okay, not really. that’s in egypt. but seriously: hail. i didn’t really come to israel for falling ice.

we drove east out of jerusalem into the judea desert. this is the very wilderness where john the baptist lived. i, for one, have never been to a desert before, so this was a new experience for me. but this isn’t your run of the mill desert (although i did see a tumbleweed blowing across the road in what must have been the most cliché moment of the day). no, this desert has no sand! it’s just rocks and dirt. you can see from the picture that it is just hill after hill of dirt and rock. this is also the desert where Jesus went after his baptism in the jordan river, and where he was tempted three times during his forty-day fast. the tempter told him to turn all the rocks into bread, and, if you see this terrain, you soon realize that this was not just a temptation for Jesus to sate his own hunger, but to use his power to make enough food for the whole world to eat because there are rocks everywhere! Jesus, of course, realized that the world needed more than just bread, and he continued to set his face against the desert wind for a more difficult future, one that allowed him to be the very bread of life.

speaking of the desert wind, while we were in the desert, we read the story of the temptation and of the good samaritan (this is the area where those travelers would have traveled), and some bedouins came over to us trying to sell us some of their goods. while we were all there hearing the word read aloud in the desert, the wind began to build bigger and bigger until it was a strong push against our bodies. it felt as if the desert just wanted to give us a small glimpse of its fury, a thumbnail sketch of what it must have been like for Jesus for those forty days, and what it must be like for the bedouins all the time.
if you’re keeping track at home, we’ve had ice (hail), earth (stones), and wind. what could be next?

camels, of course. we arrived in jericho, and after seeing the traditional zaccheus tree, we stopped for some lunch where there was a camel that you could ride. his name was sami. Shannon got to get on him and go for a quick ride. sami even smiled for the picture.

later we got to go to qumran, the site where the dead sea scrolls were found. in case you’re not up on your archaeological facts, the dead sea scrolls have been very very useful in our continued work of translating and understanding the hebrew scriptures, or what we call the old testament. for scholars they are a priceless treasure. and the cool part of it is that they were discovered by a desert bedouin goatherder who was throwing rocks. he heard something break after he threw one of the rocks in a cave, so he went it to see what had broken. hoping to have found some treasure, he was disappointed to see that it was just a bunch of parchments in old clay pots. he sold them as antiques and, of course, they ended up becoming a major factor in old testament translation and scholarship. all because of some rocks thrown into a cave. it kind of reminds you of how our lives are made up of so many little moments, many of which do not seem meaningful at all. but who knows, a great treasure could be behind any traffic jam or fast food employee.

we ended the day at the dead sea, where only three from our group of fifty decided to get into the water. i was one of the three. the dead sea is the lowest elevation on dry land on planet earth (some 1,400 feet below sea-level), and one of the saltiest bodies of water. since it is 33% salt, the water allows matter to be more buoyant, and that matter includes human bodies.

so if you go into the dead sea, and you lie down in the water, it holds you up. in fact, it is very difficult to sit down. just be careful not to get it in your eyes or mouth. just take my word for it, okay? good.

and the day ended with a sunset. a day of extemes: from the violent desert wind, to the supportive salt water of the dead sea; from the percussive staccato of the morning hail, to the quiet holiness of qumran; from the memories of the shouts that crumbled the walls of jericho, to the beautiful peace present in the sun setting over a land in desperate need of some peace. and as if to top it all off, before the day was over, a rainbow descended right in the desert near the dead sea, as if a reminder that the One who created heaven and earth is still the God of day and night, of earth and rock, of water and wind. and this is not a God who delights in the violence of a broken creation, but one who delights in redeeming it.

israel: day four

let me start off today by saying how glad i am to know that many of you are following along here on my blog and on facebook, sort of sojourning with us through the holy land. i appreciate your company as we look together through windows into the past, windows that reveal to us a clearer, brighter picture of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and which help us understand the scriptures left to us. i’m certain that i’ll be returning to these windows time and time again in my ministry, using what i find here to enhance my ability to tell the story of this Jesus.

and i was able to look through some pretty amazing windows today. we started the day off real early because we had a long drive north out of jerusalem through the jezreel valley, towards the mountains of the north. our first stop was nazareth. as we entered the city, we passed these huge rocky cliffs, and we learned that these cliffs were very likely the ones that the people wanted to push Jesus over after he claimed to be the fulfillment of prophecy. according to luke 4, this was the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry in this region in the north known as galilee, where Jesus had also grown up. he had been away for some time, and when he returned he came to nazareth, his hometown, to gather with his friends at the synagogue. by the end of that day they were trying to throw him out of town, and, as you can see from these cliffs, probably kill him. this is how Jesus set his face towards jerusalem, even as he began his ministry here in galilee.

in nazareth we went to a really cool church believed to be built on the site where mary received the annunciation, the news that she was going to be the mother of the Messiah. the church there now was built in 1969, but there is evidence of early Christians worshipping on this site in nazareth as early as the 1st and 2nd centuries! the church there now celebrates the universal nature of the church by displaying large mosaics and other art from various nations around the world depicting the virgin mary. of course i particularly enjoyed the one representing croatia.

after nazareth we stopped briefly in cana, where Jesus attended a wedding and turned water into wine after the hosts had run out of wine. from there we headed to capernaum, the town where Jesus probably went to live following his “eviction” from nazareth. at the very least he spent a great deal of time in capernaum, which was a prime location as the best fishing on the sea of galilee was in this area, and local fisherman and farmers would probably sell their goods here. picture capernaum as a fairly busy port community, smelling strongly of fish and filled with the noise of merchants doing business. this is where Jesus called many of his disciples. as you can see from the picture, archeologists have been able to find ancient remains of the homes in this area. these homes were very small and packed closely together. we can tell that they did not have stone roofs, but probably had palm tree roofs. since this region gets very hot much of the year, the people of capernaum would have been able to go up on the roof and put the branches across the stone wall in the morning, to keep out the heat of the sun, and then remove them at night to allow for the cool breeze off the sea. they were able to do this because there were steps leading up to the roof on the outside of almost every house here. remember the story of the paralytic man, and how his friends weren’t able to get him into the house where Jesus was because it was too crowded, so they went up to the roof and lowered him in that way? we see here in capernaum how they would have been able to do this! they would have simply used the steps on the outside of the house.

following capernaum, we stopped briefly at tabgha, the traditional site of Christ’s miracle with the loaves and fishes. then we went right down to the sea of galilee and got on a boat, which we then rode across the sea on. during the ride across the water, we celebrated communion. when we got on the boat it was a little windy with a few sprinkles, but as we moved further out it got darker and darker, and we all were remembering another group of people out on this very body of water so many years ago, when another storm whipped up. we were hoping not to have to repeat this story! as i sat there with the galilee wind in my face and the sound of the water underneath, i looked through yet another spiritual window. we all prayed the Lord’s prayer, and when i said the words that i have said thousands of times, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” i was moved to tears. after all these centuries and millions of people, here i am. and i, too, want to be a part of this kingdom that this itinerant teacher taught about in galilee.

after that experience we went to the traditional site of the sermon on the mount, where i met Sister Vivi, who asked me to send a message to her blood sister living in new jersey. so, Sister Bianca, i will call you when i get back to the states, with a great message from you sister in the holy land. if you are reading this, she’s doing well and, as you can tell, she looks great!

we ended the day by the jordan river, where we all got to see and touch the water in which Jesus was baptized. Bishop Devadhar, our bishop, who is traveling with us, sprinkled us with water from the river as we remembered our baptisms in Christ.

and so it has been another full day. one thing that really struck me today as we were up north in the region where Jesus did so much teaching is how this was not just a jewish thing. there were both roman and greek cities in this region during the time of Christ. in fact, many of the inhabitants of nazareth were people who were only there temporarily since there was work in a nearby roman city. what this tells us is that Jesus wasn’t just teaching the jews. he was rubbing shoulders with greeks and romans, too. they, too, would have seen his miracles and taken his message to their families and friends in their homelands to the east. once the apostles and paul started writing their letters (which now comprise much of our new testament), there were already churches in rome and ephesus and corinth and phillipi. these were greek and roman cities, where Christ’s message had spread, probably, in part, because of his ministry here in galilee. from the very beginning, Christ’s message was not just for jerusalem, but for samaria and greece and rome, and for the very ends of the earth. thanks be to God!