Travel

Bethlehem, how it looked about 2,004 years later
I took this photo of trash-strewn Bethlehem, then under a security lock-down after a fatal bombing in next-door Jerusalem that killed Israeli citizens. The alleged bomber came from Bethlehem.

I visited Israel and the Occupied Territories in February 2004. It was a tense time. There was a terrorist bombing in the Jewish area of Jerusalem, and the Al-Aqsa Intifada was taking place.

Bethlehem, the purported birthplace of Christendom’s name-sake savior, Jesus of Nazareth, was under lock down. I had to walk through the Israeli security perimeter, and there was almost no traffic getting in or out. Security forces almost prevented me from reentering back into Jerusalem.

Tourists were no where to be seen. Tourism businesses were shuttered. A pervasive gloom prevailed. Merchants were pleading with me to buy something, anything, when I came to see the supposed birthplace of Jesus, which is located in a grotto beneath the Church of the Nativity. Trash was everywhere, as the Palestinian Authority had no money or capacity to pick up the garbage. So this is what it looked like on my visit to the holy city we all sing about in carols around the world.

Today, Bethlehem and the West Bank remains isolated by the security perimeter, and tourism that supports many in Bethlehem is still suffering as a result of the last war in Gaza. All is not well in the Holy Land this Christmas season, again.

Manzanita, Oregon
Taken with a GoPro.
Taken with a GoPro.
Taken with a GoPro.

Manzanita is a lovely beach community in the Northwest corner of the Oregon, and just south of the more famous Canon Beach. I have come here many times over the decades and still love it. Here are some shots in the first half of November. I plan to go back again soon.

Grave of Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce
This shot of Chief Joseph’s grave was taken in August 2014.

The story behind this photograph is a long one. It involves ownership and secrets, legacies and histories. Who has the right to tell this story? Who has the right to publish this photograph? Is Chief Joseph‘s legacy only safeguarded by his people, or a larger circle who care about his people’s story of leadership, exile, pain, loss, and conquest? I do not have the answer.

Chief Joseph was born in what today is the Wallowa Valley of Oregon. He and other Nez Perce warriors led his band of just 700 men, women, and children on a 1,400-mile march that even received taciturn praise from their military pursuers seeking to place them in reservations. The group held off more than  2,000 U.S. soldiers and Indian auxiliaries in four battles and numerous skirmishes, before surrendering in 1877. His speech at his band’s surrender is among the most famous of all made by Native American leaders in response to their subjugation by the young United States and its people:

I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead. Toohoolhoolzote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say, “Yes” or “No.” He who led the young men [Olikut] is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are — perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.

The Nez Perce were relocated and broken. Half, including Joseph, were taken to a non-Nez Perce reservation in central Washington, becoming one of the bands of the Confederated Colville Tribes. Today the area is known as the Colville Reservation, where I shot this photograph in August 2014 when passing through. I found his final resting grounds to be a serene place.

Last of the San Luis Rey Mission Photos
Shot with a GoPro
Shot with a GoPro

Here are two more, and I think my last photos I am publishing, from pictures I took at the San Luis Rey Mission, in San Diego County. I took these with a GoPro. I guess I liked this mission, as it has cropped up now in three different posts I have published on my trip to southern California. I particularly liked the cemetery, which was a peaceful and introspective place to contemplate the lives of the many diverse residents who lived in this desert region, dating back to the late 1700s. (Click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

Impressions of southern California
Shot with a GoPro
Shot with a GoPro.
Shot with a GoPro.

I love traveling to places I know nothing about, in my own country or overseas. What you see is all new, particularly if you have no firm pre-set notions or biases. I spent a few days in San Diego and Riverside counties, specifically in Temecula (home to Native Americans for about 10,000 years), about 60 miles northeast of San Diego and the same distance southeast of greater Los Angeles. It is now a bedroom community, in the middle of the coastal ranges that once were dry and mostly arid spaces and are now home to freeways, Indian gaming casinos, agriculture businesses, shopping centers, miles of car-oriented subdivisions, strip malls, and also beautiful mountains and natural spaces. I was struck by how utterly and completely dependent the entire local economy and the built environment are to cheaply priced energy, notably petroleum.

The beaches of north San Diego County dazzled me. Numerous historic and scientific landmarks also impressed me, particularly the San Luis Rey Mission and the Palomar Observatory. I also was able to get in some hikes in Palomar State Park and the Santa Rosa Plateau. All provided excellent opportunities to enjoy the high desert mountain ecosystems. (Click on each photograph to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

Spanish-Mexican colonial heritage in San Diego and Riverside counties

The San Luis Rey Mission, in Oceanside, Calif., was founded in 1798, when Spain still claimed all of California and much of the American West. Today it offers a retreat center and a peaceful setting to contemplate a different era. The old church is filled with what I consider to be classic American Baroque paintings of the passion of Christ, reminding me a lot of similar ones I saw in Cuzco, Peru–lots of pain, lots of intensity. That was also visible in the bronze life-size statues in the courtyard. It is one of many missions on the West Coast, and called “Rey,” or king, because of its size.

Further northeast, in Riverside County, sits the Santa Rosa Plateau, which still contains original adobe structures granted to the last Mexican governor of California. The ecological preserve offers miles of beautiful trails through Oak meadows, providing sanctuary for wildlife like coyotes, mountain lions, and badgers. (Click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

The ruins of the Sumela Monastery
Taken in 2001.
Taken in 2001

The Sumela Monastery is among the most magnificent Christian monasteries I have visited in the Near East, and there is a lot of competition for magnificence in this great category of monastic facilities. The monastery is located in beautiful mountain foothills, a short bus ride from the major Black Sea Turkish port Trabzon. Two Athenian monks during in the fourth century had visions and founded the monastery on the cliff’s face. It was run by Greek Orthodox clergy until 1923, having received special dispensation from Ottoman rulers because of the place’s sacred status.

During the violent period of ethnic cleansing following the war between Greece and Turkey after World War I, which saw up to 2 million Turks and Greeks change borders, the monastery was abandoned. I could not find an accurate account upon first look of who actually was responsible for the defacing of what should be a World Heritage site, but the ancient facility provides a good example of cultural devastation, particularly along religious lines. (For details on what happened to many Christian sites in Turkey following the creation of the modern Republic of Turkey, I would recommend reading William Dalrymple’s From the Holy Mountain, in which he talks about the upheavals in Turkey during this time and later.) I strongly recommend anyone in Turkey take time to visit this very special place. You cannot help but feel something other-worldly here. I did, despite the obvious damage done to the ancient art and buildings.

Recently, Turkey’s government has allowed a few Greek Orthodox services at the monastery. That is a great sign of reconciliation and progress, I believe, between Christians and Moslems in this great country, Turkey.

University City seen through my GoPro
This shot is actually taken in St. Louis, but most of the “Danforth Campus” of the university is located in the municipality of University City, my old home town.
According to Washington University, the school’s new Music Center was built in 1930 as the Shaare Emeth Temple. It is an Art Deco style building that was once home home to CASA, the St Louis Symphony Community Music School.
This place has been a center for the arts for decades and is still going strong.

I grew up in University City, Mo., a municipality due west of St. Louis. Its roots date to the turn of the 20th century. Today about 35,000 people call it home. It has undergone a lot of changes over the years, but during that time the Loop area has remained the community’s heart and soul. One can find former synagogues converted to cultural facilities, beautiful stone churches, my now-abandonned elementary school, eateries, shops, the world-famous Blueberry Hill club and restaurant, and the St. Louis Walk of Fame–stars with the names of famous St. Louis area residents cast into the cement.

University City also is home to a good chunk of one of the nation’s wealthiest private universities, Washington University in St. Louis, with assets valued at more than $9 billion. As a 501(c)(3) corporation or non-profit, the school pays no property taxes to University City, and is engaged in a development strategy to acquire and develop property in University City and the surrounding area. Washington University recently completed a beautiful student housing facility and store in the heart of the Loop that provides a strong anchor of stability. This also has created friction in the past. The school remains the bedrock that provides the wealth to the area, and which draws many people who want to live and settle in the community. It is the penultimate golden goose that makes the place a beacon to the world.

Finally, University City is home to many houses of worship, including Bethel Lutheran Church, where I attended with my family until I was 18 years old. This church is famous because of its role in a divisive controversy that split faculty at the nearby Concordia Seminary, pitting conservatives against progressives and leading to the departure of faculty that were in the Bethel circle. Today it is an ELCA Lutheran church, and I always have great affection for the beautiful building and the good people who I got to know there.

(Click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

The crown cultural jewel of St. Louis

The portico on the entrance to the St. Louis Art Museum reads “dedicated to art and free to all.” That is a simple, elegant, and powerful mission statement. It remains free to this day. The structure, designed after the Roman Baths of Caracalla, was built for the 1904 World’s Fair. The museum contains some great treasures, including classic American oil paintings from the 1800s (think George Caleb Bingham and his Raftsman Playing Cards), a large collection of paintings by Expressionist painter Max Beckman, a superb gallery of Polynesian art, a dizzying array of West African art, and so much more. A lot of money from a lot of rich people has enabled this institution to amass this collection.

I always visit the building during my trips to see family there. No trip to St. Louis is complete without standing under the statue of Louis IX, for whom French settlers named this once great American city. Here are four views of the entrance to the museum and the statue any St. Louisan knows. (Click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

Some St. Louis Art Museum treasures, seen through a GoPro

The St. Louis Art Museum was built for the 1904 World’s Fair. It replicates the Roman Baths of Caracalla. The museum is free to all who enter. I have been coming here for decades now, now just on the family visits. Today I brought my GoPro to capture some of the more well-known pieces in the museum’s great catalogue, modern and ancient. If you come to the city, put this on your to do list. (Click on each photograph to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)