postcard from #myJordanJourney: #4, Mount Nebo

a serpentine cross sculpture on the summit of Mount Nebo,
symbolic of the bronze serpent created by Moses (Numbers 21: 4-9) for healing

"Everything about my specific reality is part of God’s divine and merciful plan to show me that he is already with me. God is the path itself. Just as something transforms a trip into a pilgrimage and a tourist into a pilgrim, the awareness that God is The Longing transforms my life-quest from mere self-knowledge into a true pilgrimage.  In the words of the German philosopher Meister Eckhart, "No man desires anything so eagerly as God desires to bring men to the knowledge of Himself.  God is always ready, but we are very unready.  God is near us, but we are far from Him.   God is within, and we are without.  God is friendly--we are estranged,” he said. “Whoever seeks truth seeks God, whether he knows it or not." This is what it means to have a pilgrim heart. It begins with self-knowledge. It demands a constant awareness that God is already with us. It is nourished by the sacraments and by daily prayer. It is focused on our inner journey home, to the God already living within us. It is a conscious decision to call our daily journey a pilgrimage, whether we never leave our living room or we travel physically across the ocean to a remote destination."

~from my book "The Journey: a Guide for the Modern Pilgrim" 

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“[T]he LORD said to Moses: Make a seraph and mount it on a pole, and everyone who has been bitten will look at it and recover. Accordingly Moses made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole, and whenever the serpent bit someone, the person looked at the bronze serpent and recovered.”

~Numbers 21: 8-9

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The day we went to Mount Nebo our group of Catholic bloggers and journalists began the visit by meeting with one of the Franciscans in charge of this holy and significant site.

Mount Nebo, in what was then called Moab and is today Jordan, is the place where Moses stood overlooking the Promised Land. It is where Moses anointed Joshua as his successor—and where Moses died and was buried, although the exact place for that remains unknown.

With great enthusiasm and zeal, Father Fergus Clarke greeted our small group and smiled, “I am yours until the next group arrives. Let’s hope they are late… Would you like to start by celebrating Mass?”

I somehow missed the announcement that –since the mosaic-laden 4^th century Basilica atop the 2,700 foot mountain is currently undergoing renovations, celebrating Mass meant entering the beautiful, small chapel within the rectory grounds where the three Franciscan priests living there worship daily.

Instead of the day’s readings, Father Fergus had us listen to the story of Moses, who stood right there — on top of that mountain — and heard God’s voice reminding him how He had fulfilled His promise to bring them out of the desert and into the Promised Land.

“God always fulfills his promise,” Father Fergus paused. “Always.”

Moments later as I stood on the platform in front of the church and took in the landscape before me, I was suddenly overcome with emotion… I was seeing the same scene Moses witnessed thousands of years ago—the Dead Sea, the Jordan River Valley and the lavender stone mountains surrounding Jericho.

God always fulfills his promises. 

I sat down, took a deep breath, and closed my eyes, hoping to be able to write down a few thoughts, describe in some way the strong wave within me, but I had no words.

I put pen to paper and waited.

My prayer was instead silence, hearing only my name in the wind, and saying yes with my heart and tears.

postcard from #myJordanJourney: #3, at the Jordan

Now the people were filled with expectation, 
and all were asking in their hearts 
whether John might be the Christ.
John answered them all, saying, 
“I am baptizing you with water,
but one mightier than I is coming.
I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor
and to gather the wheat into his barn, 
but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
Exhorting them in many other ways, 
he preached good news to the people.

~Gospel of Luke, Chapter 3, verses 15 - 18

Listening to the readings on this third Sunday of Advent made my mind wander back to my recent press trip to Jordan and, specifically, to our visit to the very site where John the Baptist baptized Jesus on the River Jordan.

When our group of Catholic Bloggers and Journalists first arrived at Bethany Beyond the Jordan, I was surprised when our first stop was a secluded area with wooden walkways – an active excavation site – where the remains of a 2^nd century church have been found adjacent to hermit caves.

As our guide, preservationist Rustom Mkhjian, explained, finding the remains of the chapel serves as confirmation for archeologists that these are, indeed, the caves where John the Baptist and his followers lived and carried out his mission. That is why an early Christian community developed there.

Visiting the caves made even more sense when I saw how close the cave dwellings are to the Jordan River.  

 Our guide, Rustom Mkhjian, explains the site's history

No, Pope Francis was not with us -- this photo from his visit to Jordan

Our guide Rustom Mkhjian was also Pope Francis' guide!  

A personal visit by each of our last three Popes validates Bethany Beyond the Jordan as the place where John baptized Jesus—as much as the archaeological excavations that have taken place on this east bank over the past two decades. 

Although the Jordan River serves as the border between the countries of Israel and Jordan, the Jordan here is maybe 20 feet wide—truly more a creek than a river!

But for me, it is precisely the river’s dimensions—as well as the preservation of its natural habitat, that made Bethany Beyond the Jordan a solemn site, genuinely mystical.

That afternoon, sitting on the banks of the Jordan River by myself during our group’s free time, it was not difficult to imagine Jesus meeting John there…  As I prayed and listened to the stillness, the most consistent sound I heard was that of the breeze blowing through the reeds.

With my feet dangling into the water, my heart felt giggly with joy… which made me sing out loud for almost an hour!

I took a short video that I’d like to share with you here. No, it’s not of me singing:

"Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him."

~ Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 3, verse 13

Like a sculptor eagerly awaiting the beautiful image that wants to be birthed from the plain slab of stone, all of us have a one-of-a-kind spirit created by God that is waiting to burst out. God created this unique spirit inside each of us for a reason. God needs us to live out who we are in the world in which we live. He needs me to be me, fully me, truly me––for my family, my neighbors, my work mates, my parish community, my city, my state. There are no coincidences, so everything about who I am––even my past, my experiences, my family––was given to me for a reason. And I have been placed within this reality for a reason, too.

           

Living with the heart of a pilgrim requires that I allow my spirit to be birthed into my world. And it demands that I trust the map that God has created for the pilgrimage of my life.  My pilgrimage is not random or generic or communal, but personal and specific. I was birthed into this moment by a Creator whose vision for the world not only includes but requires me. I am an explicit part of his plan!

~from my book, TheJourney: a Guide for the Modern Pilgrim

[all photos and video © Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda -- 

except the Pope photos, courtesy of Jordan Tourism Board]

postcard from #myJordanJourney: #2, my fellow refugees

Photo courtesy of Jeffrey Bruno

On my recent press trip to Jordan I arrived in the capital city of Amman eager to meet with and interview Christian refugees who have escaped ISIS militants, the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

It was this desire, in fact, that drove me to apply to participate in the Catholic Bloggers Press Tour of Jordan this year.

What I wanted was to give faces and names to the label “refugee,” a description that too often seems far too distant and extraneous to most of us living a comfortable middle class American lifestyle.

Yet as a Cuban refugee myself, I felt a strong urge to travel to the other side of the world and bring back – by writing about them – some of the stories of these families, my fellow refugees. 

I could have never imagined the many graces and surprises that God had waiting for me there—and the powerful witness of faith I was able to experience first hand. 

Sami, a refugee and volunteer at the Pontifical Mission Library, tutors a refugee 

At the Pontifical Mission Library in Amman, our first stop in the Jordan tour, we encountered dedicated, generous volunteers and staff who daily give their lives to helping in any way they can the thousands of Christian refugees still arriving regularly with nothing but what they could carry.

I met young refugees full of faith who still trust in God’s plan for their lives—such as 15-year-old Marios, who confidently told us, “We were forced to leave… if we wanted to survive. This [Bible] is the only thing I brought with me,” he added, holding out the small book covered by a plastic shopping bag.

Through an interpreter, I learned that Marios’ hometown of Batnaya was one of many thriving Christian villages on the Nineveh Plane, a vast area in Iraq that had been home to Christians since the 1^st century after Christ.

“Our villages were made up of all Christians, and we were able to practice our faith without any harm or trouble,” explained Sami, an Iraqi refugee who was a teacher in his previous life and now volunteers as a tutor at the center. “When ISIS came, everything changed. All those villages are now empty.”

In Fuheis, just 12 miles northwest of the capital city of Amman, we celebrated liturgy with parishioners of St. George Greek Catholic Church, a community of Catholics that has become a welcoming hub for Arab Christian refugees.

After the liturgy, we were invited to the church's Social Center, where refugee families gathered and waited to meet us and tell us their stories.  

Some held up pictures of the destruction they left behind. Others showed us their family's official United Nations certificate granting them official "refugee asylum status." Everyone thanked us... for coming, for listening-- and they encouraged us to tell others what we had heard and experienced. 

Father Abud and the refugee families that are being aided by St. George Greek Catholic Church in Fuheis

photo courtesy of Jeffrey Bruno

40-year-old Arthan, his wife Walaa, and their five children, are a Syrian Catholic family from the village of QaraQuth. They had been living in Jordan for only 40 days when I met them.

“We lived in fear. My wife had to cover herself like a Muslim hoping to hide the fact that we are Christian,” he explained through an interpreter. “Our Muslim neighbors marked our house with a Christian symbol, so that ISIS would go to our houses first,” Arthan said.

“For the Christian, there is no place left. That’s why I came here. To provide a future for my children,” Arthan explained, as he rested one hand on the shoulder of his youngest son, Arthin.

“What’s happening is unbelievable. We can’t speak of it simply in words,” explained Ra’ed A. Bahou, Regional Director for the Pontifical Mission, the papal agency for Middle East relief and development.

“These refugees didn’t come because they are poor,” Bahou said, “They came here because they were cleaned out of their country for their faith, entire villages, because they are Christian. Many are educated, middle class people who now come to me for a $50 certificate to feed their families.”

And while other Middle Eastern nations are losing Christians, Jordan—a country roughly half the size of the state of Oklahoma, continues to absorb more Christians.

Although 92% of Jordanians are Sunni Muslim, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan prides itself on being a tolerant, Islamic state that welcomes all religions. And its king, his Majesty King Abdullah II, remains committed to welcoming refugees, and to working towards peace and stability in the region.

In the meantime, the numbers are quite staggering. According to Jordanian government estimates, since the beginning of Syria’s devastating civil war four years ago, Jordan has taken in 1.5 million refugees. That’s 22% of the country’s current population in a nation of 6.8 million people.

“We need to do what we can to support Jordan,” emphasized Regional Director Bahou, “and hope that it continues to stay safe and stable.”

[An edited version of this blog post was originally published at CatholicMom.com 12/3/2015]

All photos © María Ruiz Scaperlanda, 2015

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