That One Time I Lived On A Kibbutz

Mt. of Beatitudes

I never thought I would enjoy the kibbutz life so much…But part of that could be that I wasn’t on the working end of things, just the lounging aspect of the kibbutz life.  Though my Provo apartment had nearly twice the shower space, the view from my little porch beat any view from any window in Provo.  Our journey in Galilee was crammed with a myriad of holy sites, classes studying the New Testament, Hanukkah donuts, swimming in the sea of Galilee, hammock time, bonfires, lots of churches and quite a few sessions of quiet reflection time on the shore of the sea.  The atmosphere there harbors a peaceful study, and I liked to take advantage of that.  Jerusalem is its own entity and provokes a different kind of peace, but Galilee was very centered on the quiet whisperings of a coastal breeze.  I think my favorite moments were swinging in the hammock gazing up at the stars between the leaves of a palm tree, or a walk on the beach I took late at night as it started to pour. 

  As I mentioned, we visited about a dozen churches in just under two weeks.  That’s a lot of churches to keep track of, but each of them commemorated such a sacred occasion in the mortal life of Jesus Christ.  The first day we went to Nazareth and saw all the mosaics that dozens of country’s donated to show their depiction of Christ.  The contrast between Italy’s portrayal of Mary and the Christ Child 


How's the snow, Utah? 

compared to India’s made for an interesting walk.  Trips later that week whizzed us through sites such as the Mt. of Beatitudes, Capernaum, Beitsaida, Tiberias, Mt. Tabor, Mt. Carmel, and then up to coast to explore Akko, Haifa and Caesarea Philippi.  Top that off with classes and papers and you can understand while the slow pace of going down to the beach for a snooze or some personal study sounded like heaven.  My apartment was only a few steps away from the shores of the Galilee and I went to the beach every day in between classes.   I even will be taking a little bit of a tan home as a souvenir from Galilee.  

One afternoon, we were set loose
to explore the Crusader Castle,
Nimrod.  We had way too much fun.

The room to spread out on the property was a welcome relief from the sometimes crowded Jerusalem Center.  Evenings were very unstructured, and allowed lots of time to slip away with a book, lounge on the beach watching the stars, or grabbing a hammock after watching the Hanukkah candles being lit.  The whole experience was rather surreal, and put me a little out of my element.  Maybe that was the kosher rules of the kibbutz.  That frothy pink frozen stuff was not ice cream. The very enjoyable aspect of all this coastal beach time was the occasional glance at Utah’s weather-cold and snowy.  I tried not to rub it in too much when our day trip to Haifa ended at the seashell-instead-of-sand beaches at Caesarea Philippi.  The Mediterranean aspect of Israel was a side I really loved seeing.  My friend Brooke and I decided that the coast should definitely be an aspect of each winter season.  Homemade ice cream on the ancient port of Akko beats scraping ice off my car.  

 I suppose I did get a taste of winter one morning when the mist and rain was so thick that we skipped one of our outlook sites because we couldn’t see a thing.  Luckily it cleared up and we could view the grounds at Haifa.  I enjoyed my little snippet of a California Christmas and enjoyed the sunshine for the rest of the the day.  A long bus home with headphones and napping got us to Jerusalem.  I woke up in time to see the Dome of the Rock lit up and to see the Jerusalem Center shining on Mt. Scopus.  It felt good to be home, but I can also feel that I’m ready to be almost home, home.  Flying into the Salt Lake Terminal will be great, even if there’s snow.