Home again, home again

And she's back! Back again, from the wilds of wherever she went!

Where did I go?
Right there!
I was there! Isn't that awesome?
(I love travelling!) I came back and stared at the cover of the Istanbul Grill's takeout menu, at the picture of the bridge over the Bosphorus and thought, Hey! I've been there! And, indeed, I have!
So yes, I was in Turkey for a bit over a week, travelling around and being all interfaith and save-the-world-through-dialogue-y. The group of us from the seminary were sponsored by a magnificent group of Turkish Americans who feel that it is essential to their understanding of Islam to help others outside of their faith to better understand their native land and their faith...so they sponsor these trips to Turkey for leaders from America in that spirit.
These people renew my faith in humanity.
Everything was taken care of for us, and everything ran smoothly. We saw everything. Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, Suleiman's Tomb(a really big deal for me. He was on index cards for a year for me. Suleiman the Magnificent! Suleiman the Lawgiver! The Turks called him Suleiman the Significant, which I found amusing. Such a nice empire, the Ottoman one, as these things go.), Rumi's Tomb (another huge deal), the caves of the Cappodocian Fathers and Mothers (now I know where the Nicean compromise happened!), so much stuff. We even saw a newspaper which decided that it would start writing the news without political influence or bias for the first time in Turkey (and what would that be like, I wonder?). And had dinner with a Turkish family, who were the most gracious hosts I've ever met. Oh, and we met the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Orthodox Church, which was pretty awesome.
And no, I wasn't on the hijacked plane. We were on an earlier flight out of Istanbul that day, and a different gate!, as we told ourselves proudly. So no mortal danger for me on this trip. Whee!
So now it's back to the grindstone. Classes start the day after Labor Day--my last year of classes. Ever. I am having trouble believing it, on one hand, but on the other.....
I've been halfway around the world several times. I've been held at gunpoint several times. This summer, I've held down the fort in a church where I wasn't expected to do much, and rose to the occasion (and corralled two of the front-runners for Most Onery Clergyman of the Year Award.) I've pulled an effective "Yassir Arafat" on my CPE peer group, and hey, I have my very own dog, who is almost unpastorally cute at times. So maybe I really am ready to be out in the world on my own.
Maybe.





----------------
Now playing: Rilo Kiley - Under the Blacklight
via FoxyTunes