June 30/July 1 2008
Imagine a teeter-totter. On one side you have your GPA and on the other side you have one of the most spectacular cities in the world. Then imagine trying to balance the two. Future educational and career options with a once in a life time opportunity of storming ancient streets and walking where the greats have walked. Yeah, that is the difficulty I face in my current life. I know, I know, tough decision. The flip side is, although born with an ingrained sense of responsibility from my Father, my mother raised me with a keen ability to turn any and every circumstance into an absolute party. In light of my current situation, I would just like to say: thanks momma. Thus, my tales continue… Today we hit up The Dome of the Rock! Good golly miss Molly! The only thing I have to compare it to would be the Taj Mahal. Anyone out there relate to that one? Yeah, the Taj trumps it, but it still is sweet! The Dome is on the Temple Mount, the same place where the Temple of Solomon once stood. What is crazy is that Solomon’s Temple was like twice the size of the Dome which can already be seen from almost anywhere in the city. Isn’t that crazy? The Temple Mount is really cool, the Muslims totally control it now, so it was more of a cultural experience this time around viewing Islam worship at the Dome, but I loved it. Rusty and I got involved in a soccer match with some local kids at the dome. It was amazing! Here we are, at the Dome of The Rock doing headers and bicycle kicks! I also touched it. I filmed both the soccer match and my hand touching it for future posterity. Yeah, that was our main adventure yesterday. I ended the evening just studying on my porch overlooking the entire city. Just as the sun was setting, the Prayer call came. There I was, sitting on Mt. Scopus, overlooking the Holy City as the sun descended upon it with the echoes of probably 100 mosque prayers floating on the wind and mixing into a beautiful song that I simply did not understand. That was one of those moments. One of those moments you never forget, one of those moments that you know God is real, you know He created this world, and if you happened to be sitting where I was sitting, you knew He was once here. Oh I loved it.