The Jerusalem Experiment

Surreal. This is the first word that comes to mind when I think about being home. I feel as though I’ve been running hard, breathing deeply, and squeezing my heart out like a wet rag these past five months. Now, I find myself sitting in my favorite Caribou, looking out across the suburban landscape that [...]

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Having returned Thursday evening from a six day tour through Jordan, I’ve found myself scrambling to finalize preparations for my return trip home. Yesterday afternoon I left JUC before making my way across town with my friend Ryan. I had been graciously invited to stay the night at the ministry where Ryan volunteers, a home [...]

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Today has been by far the hardest. The unfinishedness of my redeemed heart is staring me in the face like a cracked and flaking urn some ancient potter meant to serve as a gold plated home for spring flowers. Six days in the Jordanian wilderness stand between me and a return trip to the place [...]

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Familiarity is a funny thing. Our hearts naturally grow accustomed to familiar surroundings: smells, traffic patterns, and wardrobes of passing pedestrians. Jerusalem has, over the course of these past four and half months, become familiar. I know where to get the best falafel in the Old City. I’ve discovered the city’s best used book store. [...]

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There have been days over the course of the past four and a half months when while sitting in class or standing atop some precipice overlooking the Biblical landscape I thought my head would explode. New information raced along electrified neurons like speed skaters atop an Olympic track. But most of the time, my interaction [...]

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I’ve long feared my heart is like an angry freight train churning downhill into oblivion. Sometimes, amid moments of clarity, I stop and ask myself, “Why?” I’m convinced that the fall of humanity purchased a consequence especially applicable to me, …cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all [...]

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My plane skipped and sped down the runway, dropped her arms and climbed. I gazed out the window at my snowy home, said “goodbye” with a full heart and watched as clouds slowly bled across backyards and housetops until I was blind and my 4 1/2 month separation from the place I know as home [...]

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There is good reason to be afraid. Sin has marred our frame and carried us far away from the Creator. Adam’s curse is an ancient poison that has seeped its way into the very fabric of our DNA, informing our race of death’s inevitability and our culpability is the mess spread out before us. Sin: [...]

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In Jesus’ day, the Galilee region constituted a meeting point of cultures from all corners of the known world, a place where orthodox Judaism collided with the pagan rites, and Jewish zealots clashed with Roman legions, often times with tragic consequences. From the very beginning of his earthly ministry, Jesus was making it perfectly clear [...]

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There are a myriad of ways one might express the beauty of this place. On coffee shops and in tiny parks scattered on lonely street corners, pilgrims pour words into journals, paint limestone landscapes and snap photos with bulky black cameras. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been welcomed into a group of fellow students [...]

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