From Elijah to Elmo

For as long as I can remember, people and places like Elijah, Ahab, and Solomon, Caesarea and Megiddo have merely been familiar names and vague images from the Old Testament. They are part of childhood stories that I’ve heard told again and again, recounted in Sunday school by teachers whose names I barely recall.

But today, all these names became real. Today, I tread upon the same path, the very same stones, leading to the city of Megiddo that the ancients walked and that King Solomon built. I stood where Elijah likely took his stand against the Baal priests. I passed through the remains of ancient halls where the apostle Paul was once imprisoned. In the distance, I saw the same mountain upon which Barak the army general went to Deborah (gasp! A woman!) and asked for her help going into battle. (She must have been a pretty kick ass woman). Now, how *cool* is all that?!

However.

(And there is always a “however” in my life).

I’m traveling with a bunch of geriatrics. Not only have I been reminded why I never travel with tour groups, the average age of this group is about, ohhhh, 68. I kid you not. One of our guides is 75 years old. When my parents told me this was going to be an “older” group, I was not at all prepared for this old. Now, I give these folks a ton of credit for hauling all the way out here to the Middle East and when I’m their age, I hope to do the same thing. But the absolute worse part about traipsing about Israel with the AARP crowd is, well, there’s not much traipsing. It’s more like tottering. Slowly. Veeeeeeeery slowly. They dismount the bus slowly. They take pictures (fiddling with their brand spankin’ new digital cameras) slowly. They eat slowly. They talk slowly. But it’s super hard to stay annoyed with people who have names like Henrietta, Anita, Marjorie and Elmo. Seriously, how do you stay irked with a tall, Southern man named Elmo!?

Tomorrow promises to be just as enlightening -- we head up to the Mount of Beatitudes (of sermon on the mount fame), visit a kibbutz, and take a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee. All slowly, I’m sure.

Happy New Year!