This is the ‘River Jabbok.’ In modern times we call it the “Zarqa River”. This is the river that Jacob camped at when he wrestled with God and received his new name (Gen. 32).
Some friends and I visited this place today. It was great fun, and real warm. I didn’t wrestle with God. I did laugh and sing a fair bit, though.
My friend’s father needed some photos of this site for a project he is working on and asked if we would drive up and do this for him. It was our pleasure. Then we toured around the ancient city of Jerash where much attention was drawn to us being foreign. This was received with much cheer at our attempted Arabic.
We finished the day with delicious Arab barbecue outside, argileh and tea. My kind of Saturday.
It has been some time since I last posted. The reasons are too many to list, but were largely technical.
Today is a new day and I will begin posting again. Hope you are well.
Sometimes I have long layovers in Milan and decide to go into the city for lunch. Then I stumble across Native America playing live music in the middle of the freezing city. They wear traditional leathery chaps. And they try to sell me CD’s in Italian, but I don’t know how to tell them that I speak American.
Yesterday I was given one of the greatest Christmas gifts. A copy of Kirk Franklin and the Family Christmas. Surprisingly, I had never owned this before.
So yesterday I decided it a nice idea to stop by my favorite coffee shop and go on a pleasant country drive. Well, I only made about ten minutes into the second part of the plan when Christmas was almost ruined.
There I was singing, quite loudly, along to this song and all of a sudden a giant pheasant hen flew straight into the windshield shattering the glass.
Needless to say I screamed embarrassingly loud and suffered a bit of whiplash All is well, though. Now I am enjoying some nice Christmas eve pasta and wine.
Well I’ve been back in the US for almost two weeks now. It’s been nice.
Seeing friends and family combined with the ease of being in my home cultural have blended into a wonderfully restful time.
Yes, I’ve been listening to much more One Direction and watching much less reality television than I had originally hoped to, but that is all part of a good holiday.
The tree looks great. My contribution to the decorating process was largely as DJ and commentator as I watched my mother hang the ornaments. I have never been much for the assembly of Christmas decor, as I consider myself to be more of an enjoyer of the final product.
All in all things are well. I no longer have an iPhone so haven’t been able to snap many photos, but with Christmas and my birthday fast approaching I do expect this to change.
Yesterday I took part in the great American tradition of cutting down a perfectly fine tree in the wilderness with the intention of wrapping it in lights and draping old decorations from it’s branches and slowly letting it dry out and die in the family living room.
It’s traditions like these that make me love the holidays. I drove up the mountain with my good friend Sean. We listened to Cee-Lo’s new Christmas album, as well as some of Justin Timberlake’s Justified album. What else do you need to raise the Christmas spirits on a snowy mountain drive.
After searching around for an hour or two we were finally led to the perfect tree. Really, it’s perfect. I, along with my mother, are still in the process of decorating the tree proper like, but as soon as this is complete I will post more photos.
PS
All these photos are from Sean Parsons photography. I know. He does one heck of a job.
Today I was driving around thinking and I posed the question to myself, “What are you going to do when you become friends with Beyonce?”
“Make a Christmas album” was surprising high on the list.
