There is something about the steadfast nature of God that brings such peace. I think that’s what the magic of this trip might be.
Day 5: Mon, Mar 31
Monday was the 90th day of the year. As such, we started our pilgrimage today with the 90th Psalm. Excerpt:
Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
(Psalm 90:1-2)
As I look out at these beautiful mountains here in Türkiye, I appreciate the imagery in these verses of mountains and an earth that is not new. This environment with all of its ancient civ relics and archaeological findings—is not new.
I have contemplated the idea that so much of what is documented in the Bible was lived through eyes in or close to this region—and from so long ago. And yet God is the same…and dwelling in God has been the same for those biblical forefathers as it is for me, here, today. And it will be for generations to come—‘from everlasting to everlasting.’
The Squooshy feels so very many feels
I have felt a ‘connection’ here somehow—since we arrived. Though nothing is familiar, per se, and I know not one lick of the language, I have not once felt my typical vacation discomforts. Yes, I have felt annoyed. I have felt sad. I’ve been pensive and I have felt longings. But, I have not felt the feelings I usually feel on vacation—which is out of place and a desire to return home.
It’s been hard to put my finger on it. At times it feels like I want to stay here; at times it feels like I’m already at home here. And sometimes it feels like I want something more from here. But as the week starts to play out, I think the longing I feel is taking a clearer shape—and I suspect it is related to what the Psalmist is probably also describing*: *Dwelling in him—but more specifically doing so in community.
It may not be what the Psalmist is talking about, but we are going to go with the idea for now. #NotATheologist
Charged Community
We talked about how loud the voices of hatred and division are today. I expressed how disquieting it was to hear a voice so noxious and so loud and let it go unanswered. I felt as though I had an obligation to speak up—but every time I did, I felt a voice tell me to pull it back. And then, of course, We had the “great shushing incident”.
Sunday was so tough with my grumpiness and the desire to keep people at a distance. I’m not sure if the desire for community I had Monday was a reaction to that, or if, in some mystical plot twist, God also gave me the Sunday grumpies so that I would be able to access a deeper desire for community organically on Monday. Maybe that’s the point? 🤯
Either way, we 34 perfect strangers have had some amazing and intimate spiritual conversations. Not all—but many of us. And I don’t know how that would have happened if we hadn’t been able to connect in a fairly intimate way very quickly. I cannot fully explain how we did that—what the secret sauce was to creating that intimate space. It is amazing what can happen in community, is all I will say.
Faith Out Loud: I needs it
This craving is one that I come back to over and over again. There is a spiritual closeness—an understanding—to this kind of community interaction that I find myself looking for and not always finding in communities around me at home. I am not saying that I find my communities to be defective; it is more that I often feel that I am awkwardly connected. I’m not entirely sure.
And I can’t seem to scratch the same itch in my one-on-one or contemplative time with God. He shows me all the time that he understands the most private and vulnerable me—the me that I have a difficult time explaining or describing.
I just need to discuss what I am experiencing or questioning or wrestling with…with other people who are similarly (and perhaps relentlessly) inquisitive (But, you may say, there are no such people, Rhonda 🤭). Okay. Maybe I am more inquisitive than most some. But we all wrestle. Perhaps it is because I process out loud.
Spiritual Transformation is absolutely what I am most excited about discussing and sharing. It feels like oxygen sometimes. But, for whatever reason, though this mystical traveling tour bus of ‘pilgrims’ seems to have built some basic level of comfort with each other seemingly overnight, I don’t believe I have found similar as of yet in my own journey at home.
When I picture the ‘OG’ disciples, I picture people that are as close as siblings—people who trust each other enough to be transparent and in that transparency, ‘sharpen’ each other naturally in their conversations and interactions. I don’t think they sharpened each other by a forced accountability—I think it was more like how a river naturally shapes the stones it flows over: Community takes up the space that it needs and it helps form you.
Outside the Walls: Inside the Christology
On Monday morning, this newly formed ‘community’ visited the Chora Church (or Kariye Mosque). How was that for an abrupt transition?
Chora church is so named because Chora means ‘outside’ and it was originally built ‘outside’ of the city walls. It is most known for its mosaics and frescos—there is an entire series of mosaics, for example, that depict the life of the Virgin Mary and her parents. Quite honestly, what was depicted there included more narrative about the life of Mary than I have absorbed, during my entire life.
The Anastasis
The highlight of Chora, for me, though, was the “Anastasis”—an icon from the Orthodox East about the resurrection—and the discussion we had about it prior to seeing it. Before this trip, I had little to no understanding of what an icon even was or how it was used within the church now or during church history. I better understand, now, that the definition, at least, need not be more complicated than a visual medium used to tell a biblical story. Unlike art, however, this imagery is always meant to draw the viewer’s attention back to God—not necessarily to the artist or to a statement.
In the Anastasis, Christ is depicted as pulling Adam and Eve out of the grave and the gates of hell are broken with death bound and defeated at his feet. In the west, the resurrection is often depicted as taking place at the tomb. In the east, and in this icon, the resurrection is depicted as taking place in Hades—which mirrors what is reflected in what Paul says to the Ephesians:
This is why it says :“When he ascended on high, he took captivity captive and gave gifts to his people.”
Eph 4:8
Christology of the Resurrection
As BZ put it, to be human is to be captive to our mortality; we all die. But when Christ—being not just human but also divine—submitted to death, he did not do so as a captive, but as a conqueror. As such, Death itself becomes the captive and death’s former captives become the “captives” of Christ.
Ecumenism for Beginners (i.e. Me)
The next visit was a stop at the Venerable Patriarchal Church of Saint George, the principal Eastern Orthodox Cathedral in Istanbul. Whereas the Hagia Sophia, in its grand opulence, was intended to be the seat of the Patriarche in Istanbul, Saint George became that seat when the Hagia Sophia became a mosque.
It was at St. George’s that BZ spoke to us about of ecumenism and introduced me to that concept. I didn’t actually know what that word meant—though I had read versions of it before. So, the discussion was not only eye-opening but, as I continued to reflect, actually became another key moment for me.
Thinking of the Christian church as a whole yet fractured body gave me the opportunity to see it as a diverse body of people, cultures, and theology whose very differences could lend themselves to fully understanding the love of God. It’s the same concept that I am being shown today from my own local community of believers:
(Eph 3:17-19)
Without the lens of ecumenism, I had only been able to see the factions of the church as “rivaled” at best and “tribal” at worst. I could see the negative—i.e. which faction I thought was wrong about what theology (in my most self-important and untrained opinion). #NotATheologist
It was a blessing to hear the many manifestations of the church described as custodians of various ‘treasures’:
- Eastern Orthodox: Mystery
- Roman Catholocism: Beauty
- Anglicanism: Liturgy
- Protestantism: Audacity
- Anabaptist: Peace-Making & Ethics
- Evangelical: Energy
- Charismatic Pentecostal: Experience of the Holy Spirit
Benefit of the Doubt, Burden of the Cross
The visit to the Church of St. George offered up one other key moment for me. There was a relic there—the Column of Christ’s Flagellation—that I had an opportunity to see (and touch). It’s not that I believe relics hold power per se; frankly, I don’t have a way of knowing that this or any relic is authentic. For me, though, it was what it represented—an idea—the place where Jesus was beaten before the crucifixion.
As I laid my hand on the stone, I had this moment where I thought about these wounds that I carry—the “Squooshy” wounds (and, certainly, by comparison to a ‘Flagellation Column,’ these are “lower-case-w” wounds). Regardless, I began to think about them in a new way. I began to hear “by his stripes we are healed” over and over again.
Having a “Squooshy” heart means wearing it on my sleeve; I love ‘bigly’ and somewhat indiscriminately and in all kinds of ways*. And it hurts just as ‘bigly’ when I do hurt. One of my sensitivities is to not being shown the benefit of doubt. When someone assumes ill-intent and creates a narrative for me about some horrific reason I did something instead of asking me why I did it, that wounded little girl inside of me says: “See? No one ever understands you. All they see is what they want to see.”
*Note: I am not self-identifying as a loose-moraled woman. I mean “love” far more broadly than the Mae West kind of love.
As I stood there with my hand on that stone, I thought of Jesus being beaten for sins he did not commit. I thought of how it must have felt to feel the hatred and mocking coming from the very people he was there to redeem. And I realized—this (little w) wound I have is not novel. He has been there and felt even this—though exponentially worse. And once again, a little piece of my “no one sees you” wound was healed and I wept at the Patriarchal church of St. George.
Straight Talk on the Bosphorus Straits
After visiting these churches, it was time for some lighter fare: we took a cruise along the Bosphorus. It was surreal to cruise down a body of water, wholly contained within the same country (Türkiye), and see Europe on the left bank and Asia on the right. The cruise was just lovely and fun. There was the perfect amount of sun and it was neither too hot nor too cold.
The ship had a photographer on board that specialized in shaking down the “squooshy” and slightly vain passengers (🙋🏻♀️ ✅) to purchase photos of their someones or purchase fab glam cover shots of themselves. But still. So much fun. I also had a neat opportunity to sit in conversation with BZ and talk about the state of the world.
BZ and I talked about unification again and finding the treasure in each of the other factions of the Christian faith. We talked about how hard it might be for people who are hurting and unchurched to look for solace in a church only to find that it has turned its ire on itself in disunity.
Christ unites. He does not divide.
And also, there is something I need to recognize about politics and “empire”. I think we have so conflated the cause for country and the cause for Christ that we can’t see which is which. And I think it’s time to be clear what we are talking about. Being an emperor and being a Christ-follower do not appear to be good bed-fellows. If one must compromise when they are combined into one—perhaps I need to be asking: are the compromises we are making worth it?
I think that’s why I was shushed. There is no need to play the political game. Right for me is right for me regardless of which political party sponsors it that week.
After our cruise, we had a lovely stop at one more church—Church of St. Anthony of Padua. This is the church where Pope John XXIII preached while he was the Vatican’s Ambassador to Türkiye. Unlike me, he actually learned the language.
Until the next post…sooooooon!
The Squooshy 
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