My Jordan

It would be a shame to be here in Jordan and not share something about this remarkable land. The picture above is taken from my hotel window in Sixth Circle. In it, you can see how the white stone buildings stretch on and on and on. No picture, however, can provide the feeling of standing anywhere in the city of Amman and seeing the seven hills strewn with houses that, for the most part, look little different today from what they have looked like for time immemorial. Even more difficult for a photograph to show would be the feeling that many report, the one I felt a little more than six years ago when I came here for the first time: a sense of belonging. Not to the city; the belonging is greater than that. Not to the country; the belonging is greater than that, too. Not to the land, for the belonging is greater than even that. The belonging is more than simply to a place, it is to a time. And it is more than to a time; it is to all time. As I stood for the first time, looking out over the ancient hills that comprise and surround Amman, the sand and dust beyond that will eventually turn into the Wadi Rum desert, the crumbling stone artifacts that represent the old Roman Ampitheater or the Citadel, the modern cars that swoosh past with seeming oblivion to the holiness of this land, and the people dressed in anything from total-cover garb that goes back to the days before those modern cars and modern buildings to Western t-shirts and jeans, one suddenly understands where one belongs in this life. Amman joins the past, the present, and the future into one time. Where one belongs is in the middle of this mixture, in the "now." We all have a place in this universe; it just can be felt a little more strongly and a little more clearly in Amman than in any other place on whose soil I have trod. Many visitors have told me that they have felt the same thing.

I suppose there are other cities in the Middle East that might awaken similar feelings. Damascus is one of them. I have been there. It is a great, ancient city, but the lightness of the stone in Amman and the lightness of being that it awakens is, for me, more comforting, more enticing.

There are some wonderful places in Jordan besides Amman. Most are fairly well known, but just in case, let me share my favorites and the reason for that.

There is, of course, the Dead Sea. I have a special relationship with the Dead Sea for in 2004, when I first visited it, my arm had had been bleeding every day for more than two years from a dermatofibroma. A cancer surgeon had done a biopsy and declared it benign, but it created a malignant mess on all my blouses. After swimming (or bobbing) in the Dead Sea, I fell asleep under the warm, soothing sun, awakening only when the sun climbed higher into the sky and began to bake me like a pie, literally, for by that time, the salt and minerals had encrusted me. Itching from salt on skin, I walked over to one of the many spigots available on the beach and washed off all the salt I could find. I was still partially encrusted and decided to take a shower in the hotel day room that friends and I had rented on the beach. After a leisurely, cool shower, I noticed quite by chance that there was no blood on the towel. There was always blood on the towel after a shower. I looked at my arm. What the heck! I could not find the dermatofibroma. I trotted over to the mirror for a closer and fuller look. By golly, it was gone. All gone! No sign that it had ever been there. Unbelievable! So, indeed, I will always have a special relationship with the Dead Sea.

Then there is the great desert of Wadi Rum. One can easily understand why the Israelis were lost here for 40 years whether by Divine plan or simply by the nature of the terrain. Watching the Bedouin navigate the sand dunes in their contemporary four-wheeled vehicles is quite a contrast: the land of old and the people of new. Not that new, though. Many old traditions remain. I love Wadi Rum. I have a special relationship with the desert, as well as the sea, for Donnie and I spent a blissful week living with Bedouin desert dwellers during the Eid of 2005. Donnie would spend early morning and evening hours photographing the desert at the time when it was most fully clothed in splendid colors while Sabah, the youngest son in the Bedouin family, would lie on the desert sand, watching him, not moving so as to encourage the birds that would gently settle down near us to stay just a little longer, and marveling at the caravans of riderless camels making their way back home to their Bedouin owners. I particularly adored the baby white camel that Sabah's parents owned. I knew that some day she would grow up to be as ornery, even vicious, as the camels that we were gazing upon from the safety of our piece of desert sand, but for now I enjoyed her willingness to let me sit nearby and observe her relaxing in the sun and chewing on grass, completely oblivious of any needs except those of nature.

Other places for which I have a special fondness in Jordan include some of the expected places: the Red Sea, Jerasch, Mount Nebo, the Madaba Church, but not Petra. That is only because I have not been to Petra (I know; that is scandalous), but Donnie has and is love with that place. I would provide some additional pictures and words for those places, but I am out of time and space, so I will leave to your imagination, if you have not visited this charmed and charming land, just what is so special about each of them. (Oh, uh, yes, there is always Wikipedia if you cannot stand not to know!)

Healings

Following up on the post below about answers (and seeming non-answers) to prayer, I would like to share with you three interventions in my life, only one of which came as an answer to prayer. The other two seemed to be gifts given without request, and for those amazing and unexpected gifts I am highly grateful.

While I have read much literature on the topic, unexplained (miraculous?) healings become much more meaningful when they happen to you.

The first incident happened as I was driving to see my gynecologist for a determination of surgical date to remove my 27-year-old IUD, the last 10 years of which it had been so entangled in uterine tissue that no doctor had been willing to remove it because it would have required removing the uterine lining as well. However, now the decision had been made that it simply was time (about 22 years past time) to remove the thing, and the doctor I had found was considered the best of the best and able to handle such things. So, I was not really focused on the medical problem at all but thinking about life and work and children and other things in general as I drove through past open fields enroute to the doctor's office. Suddenly, a streak of blue light appeared out of nowhere, ran through the entire length of my body, and disappeared. I was startled but not enough so to drive off the road. I arrived at the doctor's office on time and had pretty much put the incident out of my mind as perhaps my imagination--except that it was too "real" to be imagination. The doctor did a quick check prior to hooking up a scanner that would help him determine just how complex an operation he was in for. He looked at me, startled, and said, "We don't need an operation. The IUD is exactly where it should be. I can just pull it out in two seconds," which he did. Clearly, the blue light was not my imagination since I have medical records of long discussions with four doctors in two states about the entanglement of the IUD in tissue and now I have a second entry in a record from from a very surprised doctor who found the IUD all of a sudden totally free of tissue.

The next incident I want to relate here was not documented by anyone other than by me, but that is enough for me. I was in a very rural area of Russia, hours from medical care, when I developed a urine infection. It became worse and worse over 4-5 days and on the fifth evening my bladder seemed to shut down. I collected a urine specimen because I knew doctors would need that, and it looked very infected. (Having had a UTI before that sent me to the emergency room, I knew the symptoms.) There was no option for local care, and regional care was not only hours away but would not be available in the middle of the night. I tried to fall asleep, but the pain was too severe for that. After two hours of tossing, turning, running to the bathroom in the hope that my bladder would start working again, and trying hard to ignore pain that kept increasing in intensity, I prayed for the strength to tolerate the pain until morning when I could seek help. Suddenly, I was not alone. A male figure in a brown robe and sandals was with me. He laid his large hands on my abdomen, and I felt warmth spread through my body. Nearly immediately I was asleep. I awoke a few hours later, totally refreshed, and in no pain. Even my bladder was working. I collected another urine sample--perfectly clear. Convinced that I must have been dreaming the infection, I double-checked the urine sample from the day before. It was clearly infected.

The third incident, like the first, is medically documented and occurred very recently. I had fallen and injured the rotator cuff of my right arm, an injury that, I am told, rarely fully heals and often requires surgery. The local clinic sent me to a specialist in the city. The city doctor took two more x-rays, confirmed the diagnosis, and set me up for an MRI the following week. Saturday I attended mass with my youngest son. I often feel God's presence at our mission church; many people do. However, this time, while kneeling, I felt His presence right beside me along with a brief touch on my right shoulder. I leaned over to my son and asked if he had just felt the same presence, and he said he had. When we stood to say the Lord's Prayer, I noticed that for the first time in three weeks I felt no pain in my right arm. Then, during the kiss of peace, I hugged a friend who was in the pew in front of me. "Be careful for your arm," she warned me, knowing that I had not been able to lift it about waist level since the injury. "It doesn't hurt," I told her, "and it is moving now." Once I walked out of the church, I rotated my arm in all directions with ease and no pain. Nonetheless, I followed through with the MRI, the result of which was that no injury showed up on any of the scans. The orthopedic specialist was really spooked. I thought he might want to know what happened, but he did not. He offered no explanation and seemed eager to have me leave his office as soon as possible. Even though I am an extravert, I was unable to engage him in any conversation, and he had difficulty even looking me in the eye. I thought it a very odd reaction, but then, I suppose, he is not used to rotator cuff injuries simply disappearing.

All of these incidents were surprising because I did not ask God to heal me at any of these times. (Of course, who does not want to be healed, whether or not one asks?) Essentially, God answered an unexpressed request. Amazing! Moreover, in all cases, I was given hard evidence or medical documentation of the healing. (God knows I am a skeptic at heart; without evidence, I am not quick to believe.) I guess this is why my Sufi friends tells me that God spoils me. God does. I don't ask why. I just say "thank you!"

I know my experiences are not unique; I have met some other people with such experiences--and we have had such experiences among family and acquaintances in my prayer group, as well as at church and at my work place. However, I never tire of hearing about God's amazing grace. So, I invite you to please share your experiences with me and the readers of this blog!