2024 Turkey: Hierapolis (I)

The city of Hierapolis (Turkish Name Pammukale, or Cloud Castle) in Central Anatolia has a long history(like almost everything else in Turkey, it seems).  A cult center of the Phyrgians from the 7th Century B.C. (a form of which we saw in the museum in Ephesus), the site became known for two things:  its mineral baths and as a portal to the Underworld, emanating from a cave from whence toxic gases emerged (The Plutonion, which we will visit tomorrow).

The Greeks arrived here (as they did so many other places), in this case during the Hellenistic Period.  Originally founded as a city by Antiochus I (281 - 261 B.C.), the city expanded its status as a polis under the Kingdom of the Pergamon during the reign of Eumenes (197 B.C. to 160 B.C.). The city was known at this period for its Jewish population, which may have been up to 50,000.

Based on its springs, it should be no surprise that it became a center of healing, similar to the Askeplion, where doctors prescribed treatments in the hot springs.

As part of the Kingdom of Pergamon, it passed to the Roman Republic in 133 B.C.  Unlike other locations (such as Ephesus) it never became fully Romanized, largely remaining Greek in nature.

The hot springs of Hierapolis.  Viewed from below, one can perhaps see how the Turkish name "Cloud Castle" came to be.

Earthquakes are a part of much of Turkey, which impacted many of the ruins we saw overall.  In Hierapolis, the city was destroyed in A.D. 17 and A.D. 60.  The city was rebuilt in the Roman fashion, which is largely reflected in the ruins present today.

The apostle Paul preached in Hierapolis and founded a church. The apostle Philip is traditionally said to have been martyred in here in A.D. 80.  Epictetus, one of the great Stoic philosophers, was born here as a slave in A.D. 50. 

The city at its height:

The Springs of Hierapolis.  One can just take one's shoes off and walk in the water.  Interestingly, a recent earthquake cut off the water flow to 50% of the cliffs.  To keep them from drying out, a sprinkler system has been built.

Under the Roman Empire, the city reached a population of 100,000. It passed from Roman to Byzantine control, but eventually it was abandoned,  devastated first by the Persian Wars of the 7th Century A.D. and then the Seljuk Sultanate in the 11th Century A.D..  It fell to the Crusaders in 1190 A.D and was then  retaken from the Crusaders by the Seljuks and a castle built there - which was abandon in the 14th Century A.D.  An earthquake in A.D. 1354 finished the job, and the city was abandoned.

Over in the hills yonder are the remains of the city of Laodicea, mentioned in Revelations 3.  Like Hierapolis, it was famous as a center for treatment (eye salve, in that case).

Armistice Day 2024

In Flanders Fields

 In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place: and in the sky

The larks still bravely singing fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead: Short days ago,

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved: and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe

To you, from failing hands, we throw

The torch: be yours to hold it high

If ye break faith with us who die,

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

Lt. Colonel John McCrae 03 May 1915

God Never Abandons Us

 

Eulogy Of The Master Sergeant

 (This was the eulogy I delivered for The Master Sergeant last week at his funeral)

Good morning.

On behalf of the Mr. and Mrs TB Families, we would like to thank you for being here with us this morning. Some made a journey to be here; all of you are deeply appreciated.

The Master Sergeant was one of three sets of twins and ten children total born to his parents in the Midwest. On growing up as a large household in <Midwestern states> he would share periodic stories, seemingly out of nowhere: capturing a raccoon, trips to the creek with his brothers, at least one Winter being so bad and so poor that they ate nothing but corn mush for most of it.

Upon graduating high school, he had two choices: to farm or to join the military. He joined the Air Force. His specialty was as an aircraft mechanic, something that was both a blessing and curse: a blessing in that it kept him largely in the US and for many years at Near Old Home, a curse in that it denied him the ability to perhaps have more postings elsewhere.

On a blind date, he met his wife the Future Mrs. Master Sergeant. Things went swimmingly and they were married . They had two daughters, The Ravishing Mrs. TB and The Ravishing Mrs. TB’s sister.

The Master Sergeant retired from the Air Force after 20 years. He and the now actual Mrs. Master Sergeant bought a house in Near Old Home at 1806 San Jose Place where they lived until his passing.

The Master Sergeant had several interests. He was a man of gardening and landscapes: his yard was always perfect, his garden full (his tomatoes remain amazing in my mind), and he built a backyard pergola and pond where he kept koi. He enjoyed fishing and for many years went on the bays and sloughs around Near Old Home. He enjoyed grilling and smoking and was an expert long before television chefs traveled long distances to find that “someone” no-one had heard of. And he was a long time coin collector, something that (from one of his brothers) had been a passion from when he was young.

Thus far The Master Sergeant the man. Now the harder part: The Master Sergeant as I knew him.

There is no manual for the meeting of your possible father in law and it is not something that young men seem to discuss among themselves: in that sense it remains very similar to the process that has been happening since before recorded history: one has a smattering of what your-then girlfriend tells you (and what they have told their father about you) and you go in, hoping against hope that things go well and your first meeting is not a mis-step of Biblical proportions.

Fortunately for me it was not: that I recall, things went pleasantly enough and I did not die. In retrospect I wonder what The Master Sergeant thought of that meeting: I was undoubtedly rather nervous and sweaty and probably stumbled a lot. He never held that first meeting against me that I know of, being as welcoming as a father can be to someone who is both dating and at some point possibly marrying his daughter.

I wrote of The Master Sergeant’s gardening skills: they stunned me. I had never seen someone do so much with a relatively small space and the citrus trees in his backyard were a marvel to me; many was the time I would come to visit, grab a chair, and sit out under the tree and read, surrounded by the fragrance of the blossoms and the sound of the waterfall he had built.

His grilling skills were something unlike anything I had seen either: we had barbecued growing up, what The Master Sergeant did was something else. It was easily ten years under his tutelage before I was “allowed” to grill ribs on my own – and even then it was under his strict supervision for another five. Another skill he held which left me in awe was his ability to tell what wrench I needed to use merely by looking at the bolt or nut instead of putting up a series of wrenches to it to see which one fit.

Otherworldly, I thought it. College kid without experience, he probably thought back.

I had never met a coin collector of any kind before The Master Sergeant. The most impressive thing to me about it was not the albums and albums he had of silver rounds and wooden rounds in bookcases and file cabinets, it was the number of contacts that he had throughout the U.S. of people with a similar interest. He knew people all over the U.S. long before social media and even cheap cell phone calls were thing, keeping in contact with them via letters and phone calls with exchanged coins and the typing up and sending out of newsletters that he did for more than one coin club. There were many time early in our marriage we would stop at their house and he would be in the back bedroom, working away on a typewriter for one of the various newsletters for which he effectively served as reporter, editor, and publisher.

Our relationship was set on a series of principles that, like that initial meeting, we never really discussed between each other but simply evolved the way these things seem to. Part of that was a realization that we were very different people with different backgrounds and different interests which are thrust together by a relationship that one chose and the other came along with. Our conversations tended to be of the safe sort that one has to pass the time: how work is going, college football (something I was not at all good at), some techniques at gardening or grilling. Once or twice I went with him to a coin show: he directed me to the vendors with the historical coins he thought I would enjoy

One thing I found in my relationship with my own father is that I did not understand the extent to which his early life impacted his later one. I suspect the same was true with The Master Sergeant. He could be cross sometimes, but then would buy you dinner or help you rebuild your retaining wall or support you financially. And the only time I can think of when we had a verbal disagreement, he never held against me later.

As time went on, two things came to dominate his life: his grandchildren and the diabetes which, in the end, took his life.

In his grandchildren, he took great joy. He managed to pass his love of fishing on to his grandsons. To all of five of his grandchildren he remained involved, although for our girls it became harder once we moved to New Home. Still, even then he loved to see them and speak with them on the phone about how things were going in their lives. He also had a stock of what are now known as “Dad jokes”, which he would roll out for them upon occasion.

In his diabetes, the skill that had worked for him to that point – commitment to not changing course until a thing was done – did not work as well. It becomes relatively easy to look back on someone in that position and wonder “Why can he not change?”; it is much harder to realize that the habits and skills that got one to that point can be very difficult to change or abandon.

The Master Sergeant’s religious beliefs were probably the most private thing about him and something that we (to my reckoning) never discussed more than once or twice. That he did not discuss them does not mean he did not hold them: sometimes those things that are most precious to us remain the most private. But private, of course, is different from not having them at all.

If I have a favorite memory of The Master Sergeant it is less of The Master Sergeant himself than of the atmosphere that he created: sitting under the lemon tree with the scented blossoms in full bloom, looking at a deep green well manicured garden with the water bubbling down the rocks and the smell of ribs cooking drifting by. And in this, perhaps, lies The Master Sergeant’s greatest gift to myself and really anyone who knew him: memories of things that both bring us the joy of who they were and what they did and the sorrow of the fact that, at least in body, they are no longer with us.

The Day After

 I thought, as a post election note, to give a view of The Day After - because it was completely unremarkable from where I was.

There were no mass wailings or tears.  There was no gloating or shouts " USA!  USA!" filling the hallways.  There was no post-election paraphernalia being worn or dangled from clothing or backpacks (everyone has a back here, I assume because rain is a thing so often).

The company put out a somewhat expected "Many of us are feeling stress and this is where to find support" e-mail - which was not a surprise to me in the least: it is a very large company and ticks all the current modern thinking boxes.  But it was a restrained e-mail, not even mentioning why people were feeling stress (the election, of course), and so was pretty non-offensive.

What happened instead?  People worked.

To be fair, it was the end of a manufacturing day and a 24 hour day at that, but none the less we had a task.  People worked in the facility.  People went to meetings. 

People did their jobs.

For the rather large amount of wailing and cheering I have seen on the InterWeb, it was not indicative of my experience.  For all one would have known, there simply was no election at all.  And honestly, that is how it should work.

I am mulling over the non-political lessons of this election - I think there are several - but one of the biggest to me is simply the fact that I wonder if this election represents a potential turning point in our culture on the cult of attention.  I have pondered on it before, this need to make everything about one's self to every extent possible - but in the post days after election the only people actually paying attention to such things were the ones publicly having breakdowns or the ones publicly gloating.  Neither is particularly helpful of course:  one election is not a reason to make one odious to one's friends or one's enemies.  

If I have any wish over the next two months, it is that people simply move on with the work that needs to be done.  I realize that is unrealistic of course, but public screaming sessions or public victory laps do not solve any of the rather large problems facing us as a country.  

And that, at least for me, is what I care about.  Solutions and getting things done.  I saw that at my place of work The Day After.  Would that all adults could actually act like adults and, as Steven Pressfield says, Do The Work.

2024: House of Mary (And More Kuşadasi)

 One of the lesser known (but still interesting) sites near the ancient city of Ephesus is the house of Mary.

One reaches the house by driving on the valley floor ....

And driving up a mountain.

The historicity of Mary following the Gospels is, historically speaking, a bit thin.  At the Cross, Christ gave John the task of caring for His mother ("Woman, behold your son.  Son, behold your mother").  Early church historians place John in the city of Ephesus, especially in his later years. It would make sense that, if John was to care for Mary, Mary accompanied John.

The discovery of the house dates back to a vision by a Catholic nun, Anne Catherine Emmerich, who saw a vision of a house on a hill near the city of Ephesus (which had not been rediscovered at that time), sometime in the early 19th Century.  In A.D. 1881, the foundations of a house were found based on the description of Emmerich's vision by a French priest and confirmed by two other priests.  

The foundations of the house are consistent with time period in question.  Since then, the house has been rebuilt into a chapel.

I can neither confirm nor deny the legitimacy of this site (frankly, we do not know what happened to Mary following the Day of Pentecost).  It is not hard for me to believe, however, that John would have done everything to protect the mother of his Saviour and his Friend, up to and including hiding her from the persecution of the day.

One more round of pictures from Kuşadasai.  In this case, taking a staircase down to a private beach.

2024 Turkey: Rug Factory

 One of the things that the tour company we have used for all of our tours for the last four years does is make stops at "trusted partners".  Part of it is to display local traditions and crafts (like, for example, the coffee plantation in Costa Rica or the Icon Factory and Olive Farm in Greece).  I suspect there may also be some sort of "advantage" to the company to do this, or at least to its tour guides.  I do not really mind:  the stops have always been interesting, the pressure to purchase low, and it has really been a great way to see local practices and crafts.

In this case, it was a rug factory.

Traditional rugs being woven in wool, wool and silk, and silk.  Silk is obviously the finest, can be woven to the greatest detail, and takes the most time.

A loom with a partial and finished rug:

Part of the tour was demonstrating traditional rug making.  Pots for dyeing:

Dyed yarns:

Traditional herbals used for dyes:

Bobbins and silk rollers (and some random things I have no idea what they are):

The undyed silk:

Silk cocoons being soaked for unwinding:

If this works [I sure hope it does], it should be a video of a machine that de-cocoonizes (is that even a word) the cocoons into thread:

The finished pre-dyed product:

After the demonstration of course, comes the sales floor:

The rug below is the one we bought. Yes, it was probably more money than needed to be spent, but it just makes me happy.  (Interesting note: You can tell a traditionally woven rug versus a machine woven rug in that the color of the fibers will vary to the sight when brushed one way or the other).  And I am finding overall that I would rather buy one "larger ticket" item from a trip than many small ones, both from the "not leaving too much for my heirs to deal with" as well as the quality of the purchse.

This is that same carpet in the living room of our apartment.  Every day I see it - and I see it every day - it makes me happy.  Much like the icon I purchased in Greece, it is a daily reminder of a grand adventure.

05 November 2024

Today's post, happening as it is on the quadrennial festivities that occur this time every November, owes its premise to that wily poster and man-about-town Eaton Rapids Joe, who in his own post of yesterday noted the fact that, in the midst of "The Season", he was brought to Matthew Chapter Six, where he notes that Christ dealt with four different things:  fasting, performing acts of charity, and praying all in a manner to attract attention and praise rather than actually fast/be charitable/pray and our concern the wealth and planning for the future (he breaks into five sections; he is far better at this than I).

But the last portion of this chapter really came across to me this evening (the night before) beyond just the subjects of wealth and planning (after all, the Bible often speaks of such things):

"Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on.  Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not of more value than they?  Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?

So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow:  they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.  Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

Therefore do not worry, saying 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'  For your heavenly father knows that you need all these things.  But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.   Therefore do no worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things.  Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." - Matthew 6: 25 - 34 (emphasis mine)

Yes, it is specific to worrying about food and clothing.  But taken more generally - and there are more general applications elsewhere - the message is plain:  we are to trust God, not worry about the outcome of things, especially things which are largely out of our control.

Pray?  Yes, of course.  But whatever the outcome, it will ultimately redound to God's glory.  Which is the real purpose we should always strive for.

Be Like A Tree

This upcoming weekend promises to be a big one in terms of things:  The Ravishing Mrs. TB and I are meeting at The Ranch and looking through things one last time.  I say "looking through things".  What I am (selfishly) hoping to get out of this is either a verification or retaining or get rid of things I have currently set aside for saving.

Moving as I have has been a very eye opening experience in any number of ways.  One of the biggest - and most surprising to me - has simply been my changing view of the things I own.

While most of my things are here with me, a few remain back in New Home - in this case among them, almost 30 years of journals (those, of course, are coming).  But things scattered about a largish home are very different from those same things in an apartment.  And it is not just the nature of the things filling up every space - they do not (although my bookshelves might argue otherwise).   It is the question of "do I use the things I have now?"

A simple example.

Prior to the move, I easily had 60 or more T-shirts of various types from sporting events and colleges and just "ones" that had been purchased for me.  I agonizingly let go of about 20 of them but consoled myself with the 40 or so that I kept.  Upon arrival at New Home 2.0, I discovered that closet space in an apartment is quite different than closet space in a house.  The T-shirts went from hanging in a closet to being carefully folded in a drawer.

An odd thing happened over the Summer.  Turns out that you can only wear one T-shirt at a time, and the T-shirts that make "the cut" are far less than the T-shirts in the drawer.

I am being fair with myself as - given the advent of "The Coldening" which I am reliably informed lasts from now until March or April - likely few of these will be worn. I will give myself another full Spring and Summer cycle.  But if they are not worn then, off they go to the donation pile.

I like to believe that other than books, I do not have a lot of "stuff".  But that is a bit of misnomer.  I have multiple training weapons for iaijutsu, a few random bladed weapons that caught my eye, and the sorted through kitsch that we all seem to get over time, the sort of thing that means a lot to me - but not necessarily to my heirs.

Sort of like the stuff at The Ranch.

Like the tree that Rumi speaks of above, I am trying to let things fall away instead of holding on to them, especially things that no longer mean once they once meant.  It hard - far harder than I anticipated.  And likely it is going to taking far longer than I anticipated. 

But maybe that is okay.  As long as I can slow the acquisition, I can hopefully reach a balanced state where I have what I need, perhaps what I even enjoy - but no more.  After all, trees have all the leaves they need, but not one more.

Fix Yourself

The Mists Of Autumn

 The Mists of Autumn
swirl among dying leaves
in morning silence.

A Recipe Book Of Memories

(An update on my Aunt:  Apparently she has two tumors, one in her duodenum and one in her pancreas.  The hope is that they are two separate cancers in their early stages instead of Stage 4 pancreatic cancer which has metastasized.  Thank you for your kind thoughts and prayers.)

This past weekend Nighean Bhan sent me a text:  Could I find Grandma's recipe for meatloaf in the church cookbook?

"Grandma's meatloaf recipe" is really my maternal grandmother's recipe (so really "Great Grandma's meatloaf recipe", I suppose).  It may something between 80 and 90 years old at this point or even older, a Depression-era recipe that was easy to make and used a minimum of ingredients.  It remains one of my personal comfort foods, a thing I associate with family dinners at home on cold nights.  It was always a treat when we had it.

Not even being conscious that we had such a recipe - I still picture all such recipes on recipe cards - I rifled through the collection of cookbooks on our shelves - a combination of "365 ways to prepare X", fancy specialized cookbooks, and the random sorts of cookbooks that show up over the course of a lifetime of children, food festivals, and random cuisines that catch your eye.  Sure enough, just as Nighean Bhan had said, there was the cookbook: "The Joy of Sharing:  Old Home Lutheran Church.

The cover was a hand drawn pictures likely drawn by someone in the congregation, the binding spiral bound, the whole thing put together by a fund raising organization.  The sections were organized into the typical sorts of recipes:  Appetizers, Soups/Salads, Sauces, Meats & Main Dishes, etc. etc.  "Meats and Main Dishes" sounded pretty promising.

Going to that section, I was initially annoyed by the fact that the recipes were all out of alphabetical order (and, there was not index).  So I started wandering through, scanning from page to page for something that said "Meat Loaf".

And then I started to look more closely. At the bottom of each recipe was a name.

I knew many of these names - they were mostly people that would have been in their 50's and 60's at the time this was published, about the generation of my parents.  Lots of them - mostly women - were faces that I could picture as soon as I saw them.  My second grade teacher was there, as was her aide.  At least two pastors and their wives.  The guy that lead my youth group.  Numerous church friends of my parents. 

Suddenly this was less of a recipe book and more of a time capsule to a place and people long ago.

Most of the folks in this cookbook are now passed on, like my parents, enjoying a far greater Feast in another place.  A few still linger here, faint remnants of my own life long ago.

Part of me wonders if they still make cookbooks like this or, like the church directories that we sat for pictures against beige backgrounds, they have passed out of common practice due to cost, technology, mobility and privacy concerns.  That is a bit of a pity, honestly:  yes, the recipes are not always adaptable to today (I have no idea what a "pretzel salad" is, but it sounds very much 1950's), but the memories and the comradery and the homeliness (in the best sense) that such things represent truly do seem like some of another age, the likes of which we will not see again.

Bonus Round:  The recipe:

Grandma's Meat Loaf

1 1/2 lbs ground meat

1 medium onion, chopped

1 1/4 tsp poultry seasoning

1 tsp salt

1 egg

3 slice bread, torn in pieces

Pepper to taste

Milk to moisten (canned milk, undiluted)

Mix together well.  Put in greased loaf pan and draw lines on the top, filling them with catsup.  Bake at 350 F for about 1 hours.  Meat loaf draws away from the pan when done.

Toirdhealbheach Beucail's Addendum:  Best served with new potatoes which have been sliced, put in a pan, had butter added over them with salt and pepper, and baked.  Add additional ketchup as needed.  Green items could appear as a side dish, but are not required.