Hi everyone,
It has been a blessedly quiet week, time to recover after three weeks of illness with a virus and infection, and to clear my desk so I can settle down to more serious work.
Winter has arrived, the rains have begun. I really appreciate the new Mazda now, feeling much safer on the road in bad weather than I did with the Charade. The Mazda Lantis is a heavier car, more stable and powerful, but of course I pay the price in fuel. In crowded city driving and climbing the mountain to home, I'm getting about 9.3 km/liter (translates roughly to 21 miles per gallon), while the Charade did at least 10 km/liter ( 24 miles to the gallon) in the same driving conditions. I anticipated this, and it is not as bad as I feared. The gain in safety on the road is probably worth the hole in my wallet.
All the critters are healthy at the moment, thank God, since they need their health and fat for the coming winter. I'm also making winter preparations, ordering a ton of wood for the woodstove, putting away the summer clothing, taking the winter clothing out of storage. The rains seem a bit late this year, and if global warming is really affecting us, I anticipate a mild winter. However, at Har Gilo that can still mean a few days of snow, and plenty of cold evenings. I'm still trying to figure out the most cost-effective heating for my cottage. The woodstove is the cheapest for constant heating, but I only need that on weekends. For the few hours I need heat in the working week (a bit in morning and at night), I got a second ceramic heater. They seem the best electric heating. I hesitate to use oil or gas fires because of my cats, who get their paws in everything.
Western holidays are approaching. Some of us Anglos will make a Thanksgiving dinner (we have to get a whole turkey from the Palestinians, since it is next to impossible on the Israeli side to buy one). After that comes the Weinachtsmarkt (Christmas Market) at the Lutheran Church next to Holy Sepulcher, where handmade items are sold for charity. This is an annual event, a tiny but authentic version of the Christmas markets that spring up all over Germany at this season. It is a time for Palestinian and Israeli Christians to get together and have some fun—and I hear quite a bit of Hebrew at the market too. I have posted my Christmas presents, including to the Greenland branch of the family. They will be getting probably the only Kiddush cup in all of Greenland ….
At Christmas, I'll tag along with the Catholics. My Irish friend Breda is planning a Christmas dinner complete with plum pudding. A Jesuit archeologist, Fr. William Fulco (he did the Aramaic for Gibson's "Passion" and the more recent "Nativity Story", but does a lot of other stuff concerning Near Eastern religions and languages) is a mutual friend who will join us at that time. We plan some road trips around the area, and I plan on learning from him. Since I'm working on a case study on the Chalcolithic Temple at Ein Gedi for an international conservation project, I think we will drag him down there and get his take on it. Beyond that, Christmas with the Catholics is beautiful.
Meanwhile, I have to finish a manuscript that has been gathering dust on my desk for months. It's a long term study but if I don't beat it into shape, it won't be published. These winter days are the time to do it, before my EU grant becomes active (probably March) and I have to throw my time and energy into that.
I'm settling into a new level at my congregation. Having given up on Shabbat services altogether, I'm committing to Sunday services instead. (Shabbat is highly liturgical; Sunday is more informal, with a Bible lesson). With the new car, I feel more secure going home after dark, so it's less of a problem although Sunday is our longest work day in the office and I'm usually pretty tired by the end of it. I've given up responsibility for the work group that prepares lunch after the Shabbat service also (not much sense keeping that if I am not usually there).
After ten years of doing a lot of service work, it feels a bit strange not to have commitments, but this seems to be a time to fall back and figure out where I am going. I spent years doing service rather than thinking about what I'm doing, and find at the end of it I'm running on spiritual "empty". Now is a time for listening and seeking my way in the next few months at least, and instinct holds me back from picking things up again until I am sure of my way. One thing I'm sure about—whatever commitment I make in the future will have to be something that has real spiritual meaning for me. So, I have to listen to the inside as well as the outside….an unusual situation for me but seems necessary at the moment.
That's about it for now.
Shabbat shalom,
Linda
Linda
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