Leaving on a jet plane

I'm not a very good blogger - on the producing or receiving end. I don't seem to have or find time to consistently read blogs, even when I'm interested in them, and I only occasionally update my own. But a friend told me some time ago that if I were to blog about my engagement with Israel, which is the focus of my doctoral study, she would read it. At the time I thought it was a pity that I didn't have anything really interesting to say. But a month-long trip to Israel may change that. And I've decided to share my journey with anyone who cares to join me (in the spiritual sense, of course). I intend to write every night, as I am able, to report on and contemplate the personal meaning of my experiences.


Thirteen years ago I studied for a semester abroad at the BYU Jerusalem Center. It was a trip that profoundly changed me, so much so that my heart yearned for ten years to return and learn more. Three years ago I finally began to fulfill that dream, but I haven't been able to scrape together the funds to return physically to Israel/Palestine. Now, as a PhD student studying the State of Israel, and, as might be expected, American Christian relations with the Jewish State, I am just throwing fiscal responsibility to the wind, and I'm getting on a plane bound for Tel Aviv. Thirteen years is long enough!


For years I have had various of dreams of this moment - quite literally. I dream that I am missing my plane for Israel, or that I have arrived and am somewhere near my destination, but some kind of body of water separates me from it. I don't know if these dreams have any real significance (if any of you care to offer your interpretations, I do enjoy a good session of dream analysis - and I have some doozies!), but they have kept my interest in Israel and Palestine close to the surface, even when it wasn't the focus of my every scholarly endeavor. Yet, I'm keenly aware that Israel/Palestine is a different place than it was in 2000, and I am, in many ways, a different me. I admit to some nervousness as I make my final preparations to enter the Land that has held a sacred place in my memory for more than a decade. I am no longer part of a large school group, traveling on a large bus, with the guidance and protection of the program. My understanding of the profound conflicts that divide the country and region is much more nuanced, yet all this time I have studied from afar. At this juncture, I don't know what my impressions will be, how they will differ from my 13-year-old memories, or if I even know how to navigate and find the the places I want to see. But I have always been up for a good adventure, and this is one I have been anxious to embark on for over a decade.


Perhaps my excitement is why it is almost midnight and, despite the fact that I got only three hours of sleep last night, and I feel tremendously exhausted from finals, I can't seem to drift off now. This is somewhat alarming, since sleep is my coping mechanism, as well as my gift. I consider it one of my highly-developed skills: I'm a sleeper. I relish it like Julia Child does a good French omelette. I'm very good at it. And yet it eludes me at the moment. But no matter. In a few days, I'm leaving on a jet plane.