September 20, 2001

The Shrine of the Baab at the Baha’i Gardens.

After checking to make sure that all of the teachers arrived at school, Marthame (who does not have classes on Thursday) made his first foray out of Zababdeh in over a week. Some folks from the Arab-American University of Jenin headed off to Haifa to take care of some business and also to relieve some cabin fever. First stop was the Baha'i shrine and grounds, which we've visited several times before. But just like before, the shrine to the Baab was not open to the public. This time we could peek in, but there was no entering (the tour guide posted at the door said it was because of the many tourists, but we were hard-pressed to find them).

Megiddo.

After some big city errands and admiring of the view, we grabbed lunch in the Arab section of town and bought some mangoes (none are getting into Jenin these days). We then made a tourist pit-stop at Megiddo hill (or, in Hebrew, Har Meggido - Armageddon). Interesting to visit, but it was a lightning stop. For thousands of years, the place had been a center for the various civilizations that made this place their resting grounds - from the Canaanites to the Israelites and beyond. It was then that the writer of Revelation - as it is widely understood - predicted that this would be the place of the final "great battle" (Revelation 16:16). Now, it's a national park, full of old stones and signs - a million miles away from the destruction in New York and the impending chaos of Afghanistan. Maybe there's another meaning for Revelation than this. The main thing to be understood, it seems, is from the layers and layers of archaeological digging done here - kingdoms come and kingdoms go, and the new ones build on the ruins of the old ones. Politics is not a constant. Maybe this is the lesson of Armageddon.

Games and snacks.

We joined together in a game of cribbage with some others from the University - it is nice to have the ex-pat community here.