We spent out last day in Cappadocia on another tour. All the participants were people we had been with the day before: Charlene and Nancy, from San Diego, who began a three month trip watching the solar eclipse in Libya and, after moving across Turkey, were headed to Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan; and Yuko, a Japanese teacher who had stopped in Cappadocia for a few days after being at a conference in Europe. The new addition to our group was Nezrin, our guide, who was full of both energy and information.

We started our day at the Goereme Outdoor Museum, which preserves one of Christianity’s oldest seminaries. The caves and rock formations are filled with churches, classrooms, and living quarters. There are even stone dining tables carved out of the rock in some of the rooms. Basil, Gregory of Nyziansus, and Cyril were three of the biggies in those days; these were the hills where they trained those who would lead the church in the early years. The location alone created a sacred sense, the grandeur of the landscape pointing to the power of our Creator. The shelter of these caves that have been inhabited by humans for millennia made me think of an old hymn in new ways: “Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee. “

As we walked between the caves, and climbed up into a few of them, I imagined the students – disciples, you might say – walking and talking on the very same paths, turning over the ideas they were hearing in their minds, and dreaming of where God would call them beyond the beautiful hills that surrounded them. From those early days, the churches in these caves were used for centuries; the remaining frescoes date back to the eleventh century. The images on the walls were the same I have studied and am learning to write in icon class. What an amazing thing that the story of our faith has come down, heart to heart, from those caves until now. I wonder if those folks ever imagined such a thing.

We stopped at a couple of places as we moved around the area, looking at the panoramic views and having tea. We then spent some time in a jewelry workshop and made our way to lunch. When we have been with larger groups, our guides have generally used meals to get some time to themselves. Since we were only six, including the guide, Nezrin joined us, which gave us a chance to know her a little better. Like almost all of our guides in both countries, her parents were teachers. All of them have liked to learn and have not wanted to be confined to a classroom, or an office job. Being a tour guide offers them a chance to do all the things they love best.

After lunch, we toured a winery – OK, all we did was taste a bunch of wines – and then we drove to another valley of “fairy chimneys,” this one known as Animal Valley because, as Nezrin said, “If you have imagination, you can see animals; if you don’t have imagination, you can just walk around. It’s up to you.” The six of us spent twenty or thirty minutes describing the menagerie we saw around us, which included everything from a sleeping puppy to a camel to a turtle and even a Snoopy head.

Our last stops were in two old Greek villages, Mustafapasa and the other whose name I can’t find right now. Though the Greeks left with the population exchange in 1924, these villages have kept their own unique charm. They were very quiet compared to some of the other towns in the area that depend so heavily on tourism. We walked around and looked at some of the architecture, some of the ruins, and, of course, had some tea.

In the second village, we saw something we had not seen this whole trip: the ruins of a mosque. All through Turkey we have seen churches that are museums or archeological sites, but this was the first mosque that was no longer in use. Nezrin said the reason was the town had been abandoned after an earthquake and then rebuilt farther down the hill, at the government’s instructions. There were some frescoes of tulips and carnations (no human images are allowed in Islam), and some other decorations. We could still see the pulpit and the place where the priest offered prayers. Of all the ruins, I have found the empty houses of worship the most haunting. Although there is some sadness, I suppose, in the fact that what was once a vibrant worshipping community no longer exists, I have felt more of a sense of reverence and connectedness. Like the giant stone structures that tell the story of all creation, these stones were formed as the expression of one group gathered together for a time. When Seref was summarizing Turkish history at the beginning of our tour on Monday, he said, “In 1922, the Turkish Republic was founded; we do not know who will be next.” We won’t always be here; chances are the stones will outlive us.

When the tour was over, we came back to the pension in time to catch our ride to the Kayseri airport and say goodbye to Cappodocia. Our trip is making its final turn toward home. We drove to Kayseri and then flew to Istanbul for one more night at the Tashkonak; this morning we flew to Athens. Though we were only flying in and flying out, I loved that we were coming back to somewhere we had already been. As we drove from the airport to the hotel, we recognized things; we could almost say we knew where we were going. The night staff recognized us, as we did them, and we knew our way around the hotel. I even got to pick up the shirts I left hanging in the closet when we left for Izmir and Selcuk.

Our world has been expanded by the things we have seen. More profoundly, our lives have been expanded by the people we have come to know. Cam and Rachel are working in Selcuk to raise enough money to travel; Adam and Joel are somewhere in Georgia (and I don’t mean Atlanta); Charlene and Nancy are trekking into eastern Turkey; Aysha, Seref, and Nezrin are walking ground they know well and making it sound like new to their charges; Mehmet is telling someone else how the dinner is made; Benden is making his new customers comfortable; Julia is working hard in her shop and worrying about her father. Our hearts are as stuffed as our suitcases.

Peace,
Milton

Yesterday was a full day.

At 4:45 in the morning, Benden, the same man who let us in last night knocked on our door to tell us it was time to get up: we had a balloon to catch. By 5:15 we were in the minibus on the way to the office of Kappadokya Balloons; by six we were in the field watching our Coca-Cola balloon inflate. Jan, our Swedish balloon pilot took us up, over, and around the marvelous rock formations that make up the Cappadocian countryside. We were not the only balloon in the air. Sunrise is rush hour, as far as hot air balloons in Cappadocia are concerned; there were at least eight other balloons floating around us. We had sixteen people in our basket: Ginger and me, a Korean couple on their honeymoon, and twelve Americans on a tour with the Art Institute of Chicago. We had a great time together, flying as high as nearly two thousand feet off the ground and then low enough to almost touch some of the rock formations as we dipped down into the valleys.

After the flight, they brought us back to the hotel for breakfast. We thought we had the morning to rest and then a tour in the afternoon. We were wrong. Our tour began at 9:15, which was about ten minutes after we finished breakfast. We climbed back on the minibus, which took us — this time — to meet Seref (SHER eff) and the rest of our group at a panoramic viewing spot just outside of Goerme (Guh ER me), the next town over. By ten o’clock, we were climbing down the stairs of the Derinkuyu underground city, which goes eight levels and about seventy-five yards down into the earth. It was a claustrophobic’s dream – and a challenge for those of us who are a bit larger than your average Cappadocian might have been.

Cappadocia sits in central Turkey, or Asia Minor, and was the place you invaded while on your way to invade the place you were really after, regardless of which direction you were going. From the Hittites on down, this has been a place where the folks needed somewhere to hide when the invading hordes arrived. Their answer was to dig holes into the limestone and hide underground. As the population grew, they dug deeper and deeper. We went down seven levels to find a church that had been dug out in the fourteenth century. It was no amateur job; they had figured out a natural ventilation system that still works. We climbed down and then we climbed back out.

Our next stop was the Ihlara Valley, where Seref told us we were going hike the valley floor for about three and a half kilometers and we “would find it was quite flat.” Flat, that is once we got to the bottom. The valley was once inhabited by small groups of people – mostly Greek – until the population exchange in 1924. They lived in the caves, they farmed the valley, and they dug churches. We saw one where some of the frescoes still exist. The walk through the valley was peaceful and gorgeous. The vegetation was lush, the small river was flowing joyfully, and the folks along the trail all seemed to be quite happy. We were too, and quite motivated: lunch awaited us at the end of the hike. We ate outside in a small café in Belisirma beside the water – until the rain started, then we moved inside.

After lunch we drove a bit more to a small village that still uses the caves for their farming and even their houses. We had time to climb around and take some pictures. I became fascinated with the doors in the rocks. Then we stopped at a Caravanserai, which was one of the places traders stopped in the days when the Silk Road was the major trade route.

From there we went to Pasabagi where we could see the “fairy chimneys” up close. The geological history of Cappadocia is clearly spelled out in the rock formations. Part of the story is the layer of basalt settled on top of the limestone in the Way Back There Era. When water flooded the area in the Era After That, the limestone gave way where the basalt did not, leaving these mushroom-looking formations that have been nicknamed the “fairy chimneys.” They are spectacular. Over time they have been used for houses, storage, and even contain some churches. There are a couple of them that have stairs inside for those who feel like climbing.

Our final stop was a pottery workshop. Avanos, the town where we are staying, is filled with pottery makers because of the red clay they can draw out of the Red River that runs through town (the longest river in Turkey) and the white clay they get from the limestone of Cappadocia. We saw artisans making the pots and painting them as well. They even offered an opportunity for one of us to learn a new craft. Here is a shot of a burgeoning artist at work.

We got back to the hotel about seven, which gave us time to clean up a bit before dinner here at the Kirkit Pension. The other guests in our hotel all speak French, so we talked to the hotel folks mostly and enjoyed the live musicians playing traditional Turkish music on a drum and a saz, which is a Turkish instrument that looks like a cross between a long necked mandolin and a pregnant banjo. I loved the Turkish melodies, which follow a different scale than our songs, and I loved thinking that we were listening to the Turkish equivalent of “This Land is Your Land” or “Blowing in the Wind.” The meal was, of course, amazing: yogurt, cucumber, and dill soup (cold); squash and beef croquettes; salad; fresh tomatoes; and apples and oranges for dessert. We finished the evening with some Turkish tea and watched several liquored-up French people dance to the music and enjoy themselves.

More than once during the day, I said to Ginger (or she to me), “I can’t believe we are getting to do this.” We live on an amazing planet and we have gotten to experience a bit of one of its most amazing places. What else is there to say but, “Thank you” – to everyone who has had a hand in making this trip possible.

Peace,
Milton

Yesterday was a travel day. We had to get from Selcuk to Avanos, in Cappadocia, which meant we had to drive an hour to the airport in Izmir, catch a plane to Istanbul (because all planes go to Istanbul before they go anywhere else), catch another plane to Kayseri, and then drive an hour to Avanos.

But first it was open market day in Selcuk and we didn’t have to leave until a little after noon. I walked down to the center of town and decided, as I was walking and looking down at my dusty shoes, to avail myself of the services of one of the shoe shine men along the street. He had a stool and a case full of polishes; what I had to do was stand, Captain Morgan style, with one foot up on the footrest, alternating them at his request, as he polished and shined away. He had just begun when he asked if I would like some tea. I said yes and he called across the street to his friend who ran the café and, next thing I knew, I was standing in the middle of the street, Captain Morgan style, getting my shoes shined and drinking tea. I walked away with both my shoes and my spirit brightly polished.

As I was walkıng, I saw Julia standıng ın front of her shop. She spoke to me and asked how we were doing. I told her we were leavıng ın a few hours. She saıd again how much she had enjoyed meeting us; I told her we would pass her name along to anyone we knew coming to Selcuk. She asked, as she had the day before, that we pray for her father who is recoverıng from a stroke. I said we would. Then she said, “Whenever you return, you are always welcome to stay in my home.”

The market place sprung up overnight where there had been open streets and parking lots the day before. Pieces of cloth and canvas had been strung to create a roof of sorts and each street had become a different department in the town that was now a giant store. One street was shirts and pants, another socks and shoes, another kitchen ware, and another toys and unnecessary plastic objects. At the hub of it all were the fresh fruits and vegetables: row after row of booths with fresh oranges, tomatoes, herbs, and (the thing I most wish I could bring home) fresh grape leaves. Scattered in between them were spice vendors, candy and dried fruit stands, and cheese merchants. I also found a couple of guys selling some kick butt pastry items and had the best cheese and filo pie you can get for fifty cents anywhere in the world, I’m sure.

I got back to the Kalehan Hotel in time for us to grab a bite of lunch and check out. Mehmet, whose name I have finally learned how to both spell and say (he’s named after a sultan) made a special effort to get to work early to say goodbye to us. We loaded our bags, which get heavier at every stop, into the van and drove to Ismir. Turkish Airlines packed every seat and we got to Istanbul to find out our plane to Kayseri was delayed. Ginger and I sat in the airport and watched people until it was finally time to board on what was also a completely packed plane. In the crush to get on board, we ended up in the middle of a group of elderly Turkish people returning home, as best I could tell. They were not frequent flyers. The man standing next to me was perturbed and began to voice his displeasure to me – in Turkish – because he thought I would understand. All I knew to do was try to match his facial expression with mine and nod a lot. The younger man behind me finally engaged him in conversation and the old man turned away from me. I hope he knows I was pulling for him.

We landed at Kayseri to find yet another person standing with a sign with our name on it. We rode with a few other folks, Americans and Dutch (who lived in Germany), through the dark night across landscape we could not see to somewhere most of us had never been. We pulled up in front of a sign for the Kirkit Pension (owned by the family who also owns our travel company) and the driver unloaded our bags. We walked up the small stone alleyway, as a light rain fell, to meet a very nice man standing in the doorway to the courtyard.

“Brasher?” he said in a Turkish accent with a hint of French.

We nodded and he showed us up some stairs to our room, which is in a cave. We put the bags down and he said, “Dinner?” We nodded again and he motioned for us to follow. It was 10:30. We went down some stairs this time and into another cave which was wonderfully decorated. He seated us at a long table and went into the kitchen. First he brought out an amazing soup and then a plate with spaghetti in a wonderful tomato sauce, a small green salad, and a squash that looked kin to a zucchini cooked and stuffed with rice, beef, and tomatoes. That course was followed by a desert of kadifi (shredded filo) that had been sweetened somehow and coffee. During dinner I tried to dust off my high school French to communicate a little with our late night host; we managed a bit of a conversation.

Then came the third of his one word questions: “Balloon?”

That meant our late evening was going to be followed by a very early morning, since we are going to take a hot air balloon ride over the Cappadocian landscape tomorrow. He wrote down the time we had to be ready; I stumbled with my French until I could figure out how to ask for a wake up call. We thanked him and went to bed.

We are now in our third stop in Turkey and the depth of the hospitality seems unfathomable. We have a growing collection of photographs and suitcases stuffed with gifts and mementos, but even better are the names, faces, and encounters we are carrying from place to place. I have no idea where we are or, for that matter, much idea how we got here. What I do know is we are welcome.

Peace,
Milton

When Ginger wrote her grant application for her sabbatical, walking was the primary metaphor. She talked about how important walking had been in her life and how she wanted to walk in the steps of Paul through Greece and Turkey. She wrote as well as she walks and the Lilly Endowment let us take this trip. One of the choices we made as we planned was to schedule a free day every so often to give us time to rest, to reflect, and to walk. Yesterday was such a day.

I got up early and, while Ginger was getting ready, walked a few blocks into the center of town to take pictures of the storks nesting on top of the aqueduct. (The rundown building in this picture is built between two of the aqueduct’s pillars.) On my way back, I stepped into a shop called Moon Light and met Julia, the only female shop owner in Selcuk. She greeted me and said,
“I have good prices and I don’t have any cousins who sell carpets.” We both laughed and continued our conversation. I bought a small copper pot used to make Turkish coffee and she told me I had brought her luck because I was her first customer and had bought something quickly. Then she asked a question:

“Is your wife feminist lady?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Then she will like article written about me by American feminist magazine.” She was quite proud of her accomplishments, as well she should have been.

I knew I had to bring Ginger back to the shop, so I went back to the hotel and got her. Before we went to the shop we walked up the hill behind our hotel to the ruins of the Basilica of St. John, a church built over the grave of John, the apostle. Below the church we could see the rooftops of the village; above the church, the walls of the ancient acropolis. Even in ruins, we could see the lines of what must have been a majestic structure. The stones we saw were actually the second church built on the site, both of which were destroyed by earthquakes. Just in front of what once was the altar, there was a large marble slab with four columns and a small lettered cube marking it as John’s tomb. The location has been marked since the second century. We were the only two people at the site for a good bit of time. It was deeply moving.

When we got back to town, Julia showed us all kinds of wonderful stuff, served us tea, and enjoyed asking Ginger questions about being a woman and a minister. From there we walked the three blocks to the local bus station to take a minibus ride to Sirince (Sheer EEN jay), a small mountain village we heatd about from some folks at dinner last night. The village was historically Greek, but was vacated in 1924 when the Turkish Greeks were repatriated to Greece and the Turks in Greece were sent back to Turkey. The Greek Turks then inhabited the village and continued the traditions of producing olive oil and wine. They make wine from grapes and fruit (more on that later).

On the bus we struck up a conversation with Sedet, who owns the Zeus Pension and Restaurant in Sirince. He gave us a card and invited us to stop by. The eight kilometer ride cut back and forth up the side of the mountain until we came to the quaint little village. Sedet got off at his place and we rode into the village center. It was lunch time, so we wandered down a couple of the narrow streets, looking in the little shops, until we came to a café that looked like a good place for a snack. Ginger said it would be a good idea to get something small so we could eat our way back to Sedet’s place.

Our server was a wonderful grey-haired man who, like everyone else we have met in Turkey, was incredibly hospitable. Ginger ordered the chicken shish kebap she has had at most every meal and our server suggested I come over and look at the mezes (appetizers) and make my own choices. So much for getting something small. I chose sautéed eggplant, peppers and tomatoes; a chili relish I’m still trying to figure out how to describe; cheese-stuffed mushrooms; and a small cheese pie, which was a filo triangle filled with a mild cheese, fresh dill, and scallions. I thought I was going to get one of everything. I got enough to feed us both well. And then, I found out, I had also ordered a mixed grill, which came with kofte (Turkish meatballs) and lamb cooked three ways. Needless to say, we didn’t do a whole lot more snacking.

We walked back through the small bazaar and then turned up one of the tiny residential lanes and wandered around the village until we came out, of all places, at Sedet’s place. He was sitting at a table reading the paper and drinking tea. He gave us a table with an incredible view of both the village and the valley below and sat down with us. We had a wonderful time talking and I had a wonderful time sampling his Turkish coffee and homemade baklava with dondurma, which is Turkish for ice cream (and the one Turkish word indelibly placed in my memory). From our table, we moved to a small counter where we sampled some of the various wines from the village: strawberry, blackberry, mulberry, melon, sour cherry, and red grape. They were small samples – really. The guy who served the wine was convinced I was Turkish.

“Go home and ask your family,” he said. “Perhaps they’ve forgotten to tell you.”

We rode back down the mountain and took a short nap before we went for a walk in earnest. We started down the main road, which we have come to know well, and then turned on the road that leads to Ephesus, which is about three kilometers away. We found a wonderful tree-lined walkway that was filled with all sorts of folks walking and riding bicycles. The sun was hanging low in the sky and the air was nice and cool. It was a perfect spring evening. On our right were rows and rows of olive trees; on the left were the ruins of the ancient city scattered on the hillside. The rich agricultural land on which we were walking would have been the harbor into which Paul or John or Mary might have sailed. We turned around when we got to the gates of Ephesus and walked back to our hotel, ready for dinner.

Mehmet waited on us again tonight and he brought us the olive oil he promised – three kilos of it. It’s incredible. I told him people in the States were going to think I was crazy when I came back to Turkey in a couple of months just because I’d run out of olive oil. Once folks back home taste the oil, I’ll have no trouble putting my own group tour together. After dinner, and saying our grateful goodbyes to Mehmet, we came back to the room. Through our open window we could hear festive music coming from somewhere and a lot of crowd noise, so I went down to the desk to ask what was going on. The clerk told me it was a spring festival.

“Is it OK for us to walk down there?” I asked.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “They would love for you to go.”

So we did. We walked with the masses about three blocks to a nearby park which was packed with several hundred people. At one end was a stage with big speakers blaring out music, some guys banging on big drums, and a host of girls wearing sparkling beaded outfits and doing Gypsy dances. At the other end of the park were several small bonfires. We walked over to the fires to find people, young and old, running and jumping through them. We found a small one and took our turn. Part of Ginger’s family heritage is Gypsy, so both the dances and the fire-jumping were things she had heard about from her grandmother. Our walk to the park was a walk into deep and meaningful memory as well.

We walked home under the moon, below the old city walls, and surrounded by the crowds and the beautiful sights, sounds, and smells of the abandon that flourishes within a celebrating community. We have walked today in the footsteps of our faith, in the heritage of our history, in the delight of discovery, all the time wading in the deep, deep river that is our common humanity. Faith, says Frederick Buechner, is a journey without maps. Ah, but with all these traveling companions, it’s not so hard to find our way.

Peace,
Milton

In the middle of Selcuk are the remains of a Roman aqueduct. Storks come to nest on top of them every April and May. We could hear — and barely see — the new baby storks (storklets?) today.

These pictures are for Amy, who likes pictures of birds from other places.

Peace,
Milton

Yesterday was a day of familiar and friendly faces, even in a foreign land. Cam, Rachel, Adam, and Joel were all on our bus today, as were Keith and Sandra, an Australian couple staying in our hotel. We all signed up for the tour to Pamukkale and Hieropolis, just as we had gone to Ephesus together the day before, so we were looking forward to seeing one another. The biggest contingent of the rest of the people on our bus was made up of three generations of an Indian family with whom we had shared a boat ride on our tour along the Bosphorus in Istanbul a couple of days ago. We recognized each other as well. Here, in a country foreign to us all, we, who came from four different countries, traveled as companions. By the end of the trip, we knew we would all be headed in different directions. But we were together for the day.

Hieropolis and Pamukkale are a three hour drive from Selcuk, so we had plenty of time to talk, read, and sleep a little, too. We wound through the Anatolian countryside, through the heart of the agricultural area, past olive trees, citrus groves, and strawberry fields. Turkey is still a land of family farmers, rather than giant corporate farms. As we drove, Aysha (who was also with us yesterday) filled out heads with historical, geographical, and cultural information. We also stopped for tea along the way, of course.

Our first stop was the largest necropolis – “city of the dead” or cemetery – in Turkey. Only a small portion of it has been excavated; much of it has been broken and looted by shepherds in the area over the years. The graves stood as markers to more than the people who had been buried there. They were scattered across what is now a beautiful hillside, stones that have lasted far longer than the people who stacked them. Though there are some inscriptions in ancient Greek and Latin, most of the graves are anonymous monuments, pointing to little more than the fact that a dead person was laid to rest there. In the cracks of the stones, life is breaking through in the form of wild flowers and lush green grass. The cemetery next to our church in Marshfield tells the same story with newer graves that still bear the names. If life is a sentence, these stones are the final punctuation.

We moved on up the hill to Hieropolis where the stones were stacked a bit differently. The path up to the arena let us enter at the top of it, which gave us an incredible view of the valley below. Farther up the path stood two walls that were all that was left of a church built to honor Phillip, one of the disciples, who was said to have been martyred on that hill. From there we could see stacks of stones in various places all down the mountainside that have yet to tell their stories; only three percent of the site has been excavated.

Back down near where we got off the bus was a thermal pool, fed by the hot springs in the area, that the citizens of Hieropolis even used. Cleopatra was said to have swum in the pool; we didn’t because they wanted fifteen dollars for the privilege. Even though it was raining lightly – it rained all day, we walked farther down to the terraces for which Parmukkale is famous. We didn’t come all this way to miss the sights because we didn’t want to get wet. As the hot water cascaded down the hillside and evaporated over the years, it left calcium deposits that created terraces and pools. Most of them are dry because of earlier mismanagement by the Turkish tourism industry, but the ones that are left are incredible. It’s a landscape unlike any other I have seen.

Adam and Joel headed down the hill into the village to catch the bus to take them on the next leg of their journey before we got to tell them goodbye. I was sad about that. We dropped Cam and Rachel off in the town of Pamukkale where they are going to hang out for a few days – and got to wish them well — and then we started back to Selcuk. In conversations around the terraces, we talked with the Indian family about our mutual connection to Kenya. Keith, Sandra, and I talked most of the way home about all sorts of things. We said goodbye to Aysha when we got to our hotel, went up to the room to change into some dry clothes, and then went back down for dinner.

I haven’t gotten to talk about food as much as I would like so far. (I’m afraid you’ll have to wait on recipes until I get home.) The food here at the Hotel Kalehan is worth talking about. So is our server, Mehmet. He has waited on us both nights and he has been great, especially because of his knowledge of what’s on the plate and how it has been prepared. He is a gentle and kind man who is thoughtful and unassuming and full of knowledge and conversation. He has also been willing to endure my questions about everything he has brought to our table. Last night the menu was vegetable soup, cheese rolls, beef with eggplant puree, and chocolate cake with ice cream (all for $16). With every course I made some sort of inquiry and he answered everything.

I need to back up a step. The first thing that has greeted us each night is fresh bread with a side of herbed olive oil. Aysha told us this is the olive oil producing region of Turkey, so we expected the oil to be good, but the stuff last night was amazing. We asked Mehmet and found out that he is an olive grower and presses the oil the hotel uses himself. (Needless to say, some of it is coming home with us.) He told us his family has grown olives for years, but he just bought an olive farm – 220 trees – and is now doing it himself. He went on to tell of the restaurant’s commitment to buy only fresh organic produce (you should taste the tomatoes) and make everything fresh everyday. I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve seen here in Selcuk, but I’m going to tell you to come here mostly to have dinner.

When we got up from the table, Mehmet asked, “Are you here tomorrow night?”

Yes was our answer. We will be the last of our impromptu band to leave this little town for our next adventure. But we have one more night for one more great dinner, for a couple of hundred questions about Turkish food, and for one last encounter with a friendly face who has made our meals richer by being there.

Peace,
Milton

I never thought I would start a blog entry by quoting the Jackon Five, but “one bad apple don’t spoil the whole bunch, girl.” Aysha, our guide for our tour of the ruins at Ephesus, or Efes to the Turks, was wonderful. So was our tour group. This time the whole group was English speaking, but just as diverse coming from Australia, England, Malaysia, and the US (us). We were a smaller group, too – only ten. Our trip today included Ephesus, the Temple of Artemis, and the site of the house where Mary, Jesus’ mother, lived out the last years of her life.

Diversity comes in many packages. Our tour group in Greece was all from North America, yet covered a wide theological spectrum. Our first group in Istanbul was twenty-two people from ten or eleven countries; we hardly shared language in common, which made it difficult to find out if we shared much else. Our group yesterday was all English speaking and incredibly diverse in age, outlook, and world view. Somehow we seemed to get along with each other best of all. The fun part is eight of us are on the same tour today, as is Aisha. We all seemed quite pleased to find that out.

I didn’t expect what we found when we got to Ephesus. Of all the sights we have visited, this was by far the largest and the one that fed our imaginations the most. We wandered through the ruins for over two hours as Aisha told us about the different incarnations of the city dating back for several centuries BCE. Most of the ruins that have been excavated are Greek and Roman. Several of the main streets have been restored. The site was crawling with visitors, so walking down the marble roads left me feeling as though I had a taste of what it might have been like when Paul walked the same streets, bumping shoulders with others traveling the same path.

The city was a cultural crossroads for as long as it existed, drawing visitors, merchants, and conquering armies from every direction. There were temples to various gods, both Greek and Roman, the biggest of which was the Temple of Artemis, the goddess of fertility, which was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. During the two or three years that Paul lived and worked in the city, it was vibrantly pagan. In fact, the silver merchants who made most of their income because of the worship of Artemis, were the ones who ran him out of town as a fledgling church began to take hold. Some time later, he wrote back to the young congregation with words that are some of my favorite in his letters:

I wonder what it felt to know the dimensions of the Temple of Artemis, with its multiple rows of columns, each one ninety feet tall, and then to read Paul’s prayer that they might have some sense of the unfathomable dimensions of Jesus’ love for them. However tall the buildings, however deep the wounds of persecution, however wide the Roman Empire, however long the wait for the pain of life to ease, Christ’s love exceeded those measurements. I can only imagine they read the letter over and over again.

As the first century turned into the second, and Christianity took a strong hold on the city despite everyone else’s efforts, John, the apostle, and Mary, Jesus’ mother, lived in Ephesus. Some of the materials we have suggest John might have written his gospel from here. He returned to the city after his exile from Patmos and died here. We are going to see his tomb in the next couple of days. We did go to the site where Mary’s house was to have been. It was a wonderfully peaceful place on the top of a hill overlooking the old city. There is now a small chapel built on the ruins of the foundation of what is believed to have been her home. We learned that Pope Paul visited the site in 1967 and declared it holy so that Catholic pilgrims come here every August 15. No one seemed to know why the Pope picked August 15. On the May 3, the area was sparsely populated, which gave us time to walk, reflect, and enjoy the beautiful serenity we found there.

The “us” I’m talking about was Ginger, me, and two guys from England, Adam and Joel. The others chose to go to the museum. The two guys left England several weeks ago with a plan to travel, some money in their pockets, and a promise to their girlfriends to be back by the end of the year. They have tromped through Europe, are headed from here around the Black Sea to Russia, and then across Mongolia to China. They have a skeleton itinerary as they are making things up as they go. They already have more stories than they will ever be able to tell. Another pair, Cam and Rachel, are from Australia and are doing much the same thing. Part of the way they are financing their trip is to get jobs when they start to run out of money. They don’t have anyone expecting them back anytime soon, so they have no idea how long they are going to be gone. They told us today they had gotten jobs at the hostel here in Selcuk and are going to hang around a couple of months.

I imagine Paul traveled with much the same kind of itinerary; he never planned to live in Ephesus for three years. He got here and there was stuff to do and he could make a living while he was here. Then he was off to the next place, so he could discover where he would go after that. The ruins and the stories of our temporary traveling companions made Paul more real. I can see where he walked. I can see what he wrote. I can see how he traveled. All together, it makes for quite a view.

Peace,
Milton