It’s not clear to me what to call this thing we are about to do. “Trip” is obvious, but one makes trips to the grocery store as well. This trip seems to hold more import than picking up a few things at SwIngles. Then again, a jaunt down to the grocer’s has more direct bearing on one’s survival than a trans-Atlantic flight. That is the hope anyway.
And while we are on the subject of trans-Atlantic travel, I want to register my belief that no matter how much they want us to believe it, airplanes are not buses. I used to do the dog from Nashville to Asheville and while they managed to stretch a five hour ride into nine hours in a way that made it as long as some flights across the pond, Delta and Greyhound are still two different companies. I am doing my best to pretend that this will be a glamourous crossing (down to the point of using the British spelling.)
I know it won’t be, but it for damn sure won’t be a 48 passenger Americruiser through the Pigeon River Gorge either. The difficulty in knowing how to think about the plane ride comes down, as most things do, to thinking about how to dress. Mostly I want to be comfortable while looking like I respect the occasion. For that matter, I would like to approach the whole trip this way.
Yes, of course Jerusalem is a city with more historical and spiritual weight than anywhere I have ever been. All those stories that I grew up with of Jesus teaching on the shores of Galilee are about to be put into very real perspective, and that’s cool. But I don’t really think my God or my religion can be limited to one place and time. Nor do I want to heap expectations on these travels that any number of regular, mundane issues could upset. Perhaps the best approach is to be aware of me, this person, on a journey to this place that is. Who knows what we will find out once I get there.