January emerged in spite of media-driven eschatological misrepresentations of Mayan culture. "End of the world" prophecies and media marketed a notion that resonates internally with so many people - a strange expectancy that this whole cycle could mysteriously and imminently end. Sure, different variations spell a different end-date or end-drama, regardless, endings have a curious way of reminding us all that we are human - transient and short-lived.
This, I don't think, is such a terrible thing. And, its seems to me, this is what makes January so meaningful for people. A stretch of so many failures and inconsistencies meets a pause in apathy or downward spiral. It follows that new resolutions fit the occasion for people counting time together from beginning to end. Out with the old, in with new sentimentality runs the holiday and gives people a opportunity to try again. I am not arguing that this is a helpful cycle... more just suggesting this is why people have grand celebrations 'round New Years Eve.
My new year started in a rather anti-climatic way because on Jaffa Street in Jerusalem there wasn't a massive kind of celebration on; big enough to hear a small crowd count off 2012's last seconds, but that's about all. It's not that folks there are acquainted with the Gregorian calender, for all practical purposes most folks use it concurrently with two other civil calenders, one Jewish, one Muslim, respectively. Maybe it's just that the Western impression hasn't holey swallowed up Middle Eastern schematics and all that includes or overlooks.
Students arrived on campus for their short-term program on December 31, so I had a few chores before I could leave campus that evening. Immediately into the swing of short-term, our small JUC staff manned different responsibilities to make sure things went off according to plan. My twenty hours I owe the school were used up in these ways, so I now have a lot of catch up work to do in the garden, but so it goes.
Inside the reigns of JUC responsibilities, I had to manage and care for two private tours: one set up through the school, the other through the Olive Branch Institute (OBI). This occupied a good portion of two separate weeks. You can imagine the rush, given the need to keep up with my commitment to the school and then to tailor two tours: a three-day and a four-day.
All said and done, I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to teach and guide. Israel is an incomparable classroom dynamic and one I will miss when I leave. While both groups were full up with a wide age-gap, 50 years or something, it was helpful to see how different folks processed similar information. It was also helpful to test the depth of my knowledge, here. Even more, tours take folks from wildly different backgrounds and enable them to engage a setting that they typically know about, but one they have never seen before. To see lights come on and connections made as my students interface a familiar text with an unfamiliar context, this is what makes teaching fun. Its as if their entire frame of reference resurrects into something more realistic - a move from flannel-graph to a real physical setting... fun to watch, meaningful to be apart of.
The month, as it was, ran-on according to schedule with a lovely interruption in the sequence. January 9th, it began to snow. It continued into the tenth and by the time morning came around the whole city was covered in white. They say, it snows here once every three years. It snowed a little last year so I didn't think that it would happen again, but it did! And it came down heavy. Everything closed and people found ways to enjoy the snow. Random snowball fights and snowmen littered Jerusalem. I built my own snowman to stand a bit taller than myself. It was amazing. Its one thing to see snow in the states, but its quiet another thing when you can stand in approximately the same location as biblical writers and think about impact of the use of snow in metaphor and simile - the way its referenced to describe leprosy or a clean heart.
Short-term students left campus January 19th, give or take, and then we began immediate preparations for the long-term semester. Only a few days in, the campus is a bit quieter than normal having only thirty JUCers on campus; but its a lovely mix of folks intentional in trying to make sense of modern and ancient histories. This, to better appreciate God's word.
I have found myself caught between activities with a need to focus more intentionally on my paper. Work requires quite a lot of attention, but I am thankful that this is how God has chosen to provide for me while I am here. Your prayers are warmly appreciated as I engage the semester looking to finish work I have started and to find a path after I am done. The month has had its mysterious successes and foibles, all which have helped me trust that everyday God fashions new mercies and new opportunities to discover what is the impact of Christ's work. May you be encouraged to live more earnestly and resolutely until He comes again. Thank you for your prayers and support.
Love,
Seth
