An Angel in Hagia Sophia

I'm reading in the news about the uncovering of a long-hidden mosiac face of an angel in Hagia Sophia. Here's a shot of one of the angels flanking the base of the rotunda. You can see the face is covered with paster and such.

The cathedral’s Christian mosaics were covered up ito comply with Muslim custom shortly after Constantinople, the former name for Istanbul, fell to the Ottomans in 1453 and the cathedral was turned into a mosque.

Clearly Christians in past centuries imagined their angels as being much closer to the biblical description than do contemporary artists, who often depict them like toddlers.

Reading Update

Last week I finished Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Moll Flanders.

The former depressed. Very unhappy ending. I thought that wasn't supposed to happen until the 1970s.

The latter book was a totally enjoyable novel that was basically an extended testimony of "my life before Christ" and a little bit of "my life now that I've repented" at the end. Moll is a likable character who doesn't set out to commit adultery or make a life of thievery, but her poverty and her poor choice of companions keeps drawing her into it. The author provides a fascinating extended case study in the nature of temptation and human rationalization. What disturbed me about the book, though, was that when Moll is presented as having truly repented near the end of her life, she still uses the gold stuff she's stolen to build a new life for herself. It seemed to me that true repentance should mean refusal to gain from crime. Return what was stolen and give back fourfold, anyone?

I'm now forty pages into Emma. I adore Jane Austen. Austen is the capital of Texas! The problem: Since Emma is one of my top three fave movies, I experience no suspense reading this book. Some of the speeches I already pretty much have memorized. Of COURSE she is going to marry Mr. Knightly. And that does sort of keep me from staying up late. Maybe a good thing, since it took my body clock a day per time zone to get back to Central time?

Wordless Wednesday

Holy Moly

"Bible Girl" Julie Lyons has her first book out--called Holy Roller. I got to know her through her husband, Larry, who was in my first preaching class with me. (When I spoke, we called it "emphatic sharing.") For years Julie served as editor of the Dallas alternative weekly paper, The Dallas Observer, where she specialized in investigative reporting. The girl can write and has racked up a case full of awards. She has often come to speak to my journalism class about her experiences. And I was so fascinated with her testimony that I wrote a fictionalized version of it in my novel, False Positive. Here's a little sampling from Holy Roller:

"I was driving on the wild frontier of gangsta-land, a place I'd learn to navigate by the sites where people got murdered. South Dallas always stayed crazy, and I was just getting used to the experience—the occasional kak-kak-kak of semiautomatic-weapon fire, the graffiti tags of the Trey-Five-Seven (.357) Crips, the distinctive choreography of drug dealing, with crack passing invisibly from hand to hand in furtive motions that I came to recognize from afar.

I was twenty-seven years old, white, and quite conspicuous in black South Dallas the evening in late April 1990 when I set out to find a different kind of story for the Dallas Times Herald. Since starting a job two months earlier as a crime reporter, I'd been getting to know the roughest parts of the city, places like this. It was nothing like the small Wisconsin town where I grew up.

I'd tell myself I wasn't scared, but I think I was driving too fast to know for sure. This time I wasn't chasing flashing lights toward Bexar Street, hoping to get there before the witnesses and walking wounded had melted away in the dark. Instead, I was looking for the scene of a miracle.

You can read an interview with Julie here.

You can order from Amazon by using the box on the right--it costs you nothing extra, and a portion benefits our Kenya ministry.

Back on Central Time

Finally! Eight days after returning to Dallas, I slept until 6:45 (as opposed to 1:45, 3:15, 4:45 AM). My mind is still full, though, of all the places I've seen.

I read now with new mental images about the journeys of Paul. Remember when he got to Troas and had a vision to go to Macedonia (Acts 16.7ff) ?

He went from there to Neapolis (v. 11), and then up over the pass into Philippi (v. 12). Outside of town lies the riverbank where he would have met Lydia, the first convert in Europe (v. 14). The agora (v. 19) lies adjacent to the Via Ignatia, and the prison (v. 24)--a dank hole---where he and Silas led the choir is about fifteen steps away.

Here you see the harbor site at Troas, the city of Neapolis from the pass to Philippi, the riverbank near where Lydia and the women gathered, the jail, and the agora remains.

Amazing Engineering

In the past six months or so I've watched a bunch of videos on the Roman Empire as I've explored the context for first-century Ephesus. By far the best has been the 2007 History Channel documentary, "Rome: Engineering an Empire."

If you want to sit with your mouth agape, check this one out. It highlights ancient Rome's engineering feats, and in many cases uses computer animation to show viewers what the aqueducts, the Baths of Caracalla, Hadrian's Wall, Caesar's Bridge, the Coliseum and the Pantheon looked like in all their glory. How Rome built this stuff without modern scaffolding, cranes, or equipment amazes. The frescos, jewels on the ceilings, gold on the columns--stunning stuff. Did you know middle- and upper-class families in Rome had running water in their homes?

Aphrodisias, home of the ancient sculpture school

Aphridisias was the site of the ancient sculpture school, so we see more than the usual number of sculptures, and a few of them are of substandard quality when compared with those in the rest of "Asia" (i.e., archeologists found the dump). Below you see the remains of a reflection pool (oval); a theater; a sculpture that shows women's head coverings (note they are not veils), which can possibly help us understand 1 Cor. 11; a backgammon-like game sometimes found on the back rows of stadiums or near public places (pre-game entertainment, anyone?); and arches from a major intersection in the middle of town.








Ruins, ruins everywhere!

Buried in the News

Newsflash from my friend, Pastor Fred, in D. R. Congo:

Keep praying for our churches in the villages, such as Shabunda Territory, Mwenga Territory, and Kabare Territory. At these places people are in a great trouble of fighting, so families are out of their houses, and many women are being violated in front of their husbands, children, parents and brothers. Things that are a great shame in our society. Please, your prayers are very important, and even if possible some medicines, clothes, etc.

Would you please stop right now and pray about this?

What a Turkey!

Factoids about Turkey:

. Today if you see a bottle (a Coke bottle, for instance) atop a home as you drive through the Turkish countryside, it means “we have a daughter eligible for marriage.” Would-be suitors cast stones at these bottles and try to break them.

. Turks are not Arabs. In general Arabs view Turks as liberals and consequently cannot stand them.

. The Turkish language is a lot like Finnish, Norwegian, and Japanese, but because of the Arabic alphabet, people have assumed it’s like Arabic.

. Turkey has had three military takeovers. In the 19th century Turkey came under a strong French influence. (Often while in Turkey, I felt like I was in France.)

. Only about one-fourth of the Turkish people want to return to the more fundamentalist Islamic state in which women had no rights and converts to Christianity were killed. Today converts are protected by law. The pro-fundy folks currently receive money from Iran and Saudi Arabia.

. About two percent of the population of Turkey consider themselves Christians. Occasionally as you travel through Turkey, you will find a church. But mostly you see minarets.

. In biblical times what we know today as Western Turkey was called “Asia.” The European and Asian continents nearly touch, with only The Bosphorus, or Istanbul Strait, separating them. The European side is Thrace; the Asian part is Anatolia.

. Turkey has seven time zones.

. Nuts are a major export, especially hazelnuts and pistachios. And from Izmir to the Dardanelles, a traveler sees miles and miles of olive trees.

. Turkey also has miles and miles and miles of beautiful coastland overlooking indigo waters.

. Hagia Sophia (or the Church of “Holy Wisdom”; Turkish: Ayasofya) was originally a patriarchal basilica. Sophia is not the name of a saint. It’s the word for wisdom in Greek, and "Holy Wisdom" is a reference to Jesus Christ. The church became a mosque in the 15th century, and today it stands as a museum in Istanbul.

For nearly a thousand years Hagia Sophia stood as the largest cathedral in the world with its massive dome that changed the face of architecture. The current building was constructed between A.D. 532 and 537 on the orders of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian. It was the third Church of the Holy Wisdom to occupy the site (the others being destroyed by riots). While we saw crosses scratched out from the structure’s day as a mosque, we also noticed mosaics with symbols proclaiming Jesus’ dual nature and the Trinity, which apparently its redecorators missed. That made us smile.

Look closely at our Lord's right hand in this mosaic from Hagia Sophia (central figure).

Theodoret (A.D. 393–457), bishop of Cyrrhus, Syria, gave the following instruction:

This is how to bless someone with your hand and make the sign of the cross over them. Hold three fingers, as equals, together, to represent the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. These are not three gods, but one God in Trinity. The names are separate, but the divinity one. The Father was never incarnate; the Son incarnate, but not created; the Holy Ghost neither incarnate nor created, but issued from the Godhead: three in a single divinity. Divinity is one force and has one honor. They receive on obeisance from all creation, both angels and people. Thus the decree for these three fingers. You should hold the other two fingers slightly bent, not completely straight. This is because these represent the dual nature of Christ, divine and human. God in His divinity, and human in His incarnation, yet perfect in both. The upper finger represents divinity, and the lower humanity; this way salvation goes from the higher finger to the lower. So is the bending of the fingers interpreted, for the worship of Heaven comes down for our salvation. This is how you must cross yourselves and give a blessing, as the holy fathers have commanded.

In Hagia Sophia and on Patmos, where John received The Revelation, we found ancient art and mosaics with characters holding their right hand in a variation of this instruction that's basically a way of depicting someone as an orthodox Christian. Do you see the irony of destroying art of crosses but leaving a picture of Christ testifying to the Trinity and His dual nature?

Opinions R Me

Margaret Daley interviewed me about my books and writing and creativity so long ago that I forgot all about it. Then today my name showed up in my Google alerts. Fortunately, I still agree with everything I said! You can check out the interview here.

She Likes Burgers, He Likes Beet Soup

I love it when my students get published! It makes me feel like a proud parent. And all the better when they craft something truly outstanding--something that speaks to a neglected subject with the voice of reason, compassion, and Christlikeness.

When I arrived home this week, I found in my mailbox something I had seen in seed form about eight years ago—Your Intercultural Marriage: A Guide to a Healthy, Happy Relationship by Marla Alupoaicei. Since her days in journalism class, Marla has published a number of other books, but this one has been on her heart for years...

If you’re in an intercultural marriage and are looking for mentoring, encouragement, and practical resources—or if you know someone who is—grab a copy of this well done book. Don’t you think the cover says it all?

Marla provides readers with the practical help and inspiration needed to build an interracial or intercultural marriage on the foundation of Christ. She and her husband, Catalin, met on a mission trip in Romania in 1998, and four years later they married. From the beginning they have had a genuine commitment to building a solid marriage and to helping other intercultural couples thrive in their marriages.

Having completed more than seven years of personal and academic research—right down to lists of popular movies with intercultural couples—Marla has crafted an excellent resource.

You can read a copy of chapter one here: http://www.kingsgatemedia.com/book/chapter1.pdf

You can also find more information at Marla’s web site, http://www.marriageleap.com/.

Wordless Wednesday

More on Athens

Before I move on to the other locations we visited, I want to talk about the populated Acropolis.

The word “acropolis” means “top of the city,” and many cities in the ancient world had them, but Athens has the one that enjoys the greatest fame. On the acropolis stands The Parthenon. The word parthenos in Greek means “virgin,” and a “parthenon” is generally a temple to a virgin goddess.

As the story goes, Athena and Poseidon duked it out over who got what is now Athens, and I’ll bet you can guess who won. Of the numerous structures on the acropolis in Athena's city, the Parthenon is the finest. We capitalize it and refer to it as The Parthenon, even though it’s not the only one in the world, because it’s the preeminent one.

My favorite structure atop the hill is the Erechtheion, a shrine dedicated to the legendary Greek hero Erichthonius, with its famous Porch of the Caryatids—sculpted female figures that serve as architectural supports in place of columns or pillars. “Karyatides” literally means “maidens of Karyai.” Karyai was an ancient town whose women danced with baskets on their heads. Apparently one thing leads to another... you start out with something innocent like a basket of reeds, and pretty soon you’re holding up entire buildings.

Also on the acropolis is the Temple to Athena Nike. You know those shoes you wear? They’re named for the goddess of Victory. She was sometimes a stand-alone goddess and sometimes closely associated (i.e., assumed to be) Athena. This Athena-persona of Nike has her own temple on the hill. When we were in Ephesus, we saw a beautiful sculpture of Nike, and we stuck a baseball cap on her head. I know—where’s the respect?

Upcoming Events

I have some events coming up in the next few months, and I'd love to meet you if our paths will cross:

July 25, 9:30-3:30, "You: Writing at the Next Level" workshop, Roaring Lambs Writers Conference, event held at Chamberlain's Steak and Chop House, Addison, Texas.

September 16-19, American Christian Fiction Writers Conference, Denver, Colorado (attending).




October 5, "Infertility in the Christian Community: offering comfort and hope to infertile couples" workshop, Sacred Sexuality: Casting a Vision for the Sexually Healthy Church Conference, Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas, Texas. Consider bringing your church or counseling staff to this conference. Here's the scoop on my workshop: The church with its family orientation can be a place of increased pain for the one in six couples of childbearing age who are experiencing the marital, emotional, medical, and spiritual crisis of infertility (including pregnancy loss). This workshop will equip attendees to avoid propagating the myths, help strengthen the intimate lives, and assist couples as they wrestle with the biblical issues associated with involuntary childlessness.

November 16, "Increasing Your 'Net Worth" workshop, All about Influence Women's Conference, Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas, Texas. Grab some friends with two X chromosomes, and join us at DTS's women's conference. Here's the scoop on my workshop: Do you have a Facebook page? A blog? Do you Twitter? How do you decide what technology to use, and what pitfalls should you avoid? We’ll explore these questions and also consider content—how you can harness existing technologies for maximum impact.

Today is my day to post over at Tapestry, the women's leadership blog for bible.org. My post today relates to something I mentioned yesterday about how knowing what god a city worshiped helps us understand that city's persona and the mentality of her citizens. Check it out here.

There And Back

In the nine days since I've had Internet access, I've lived an entire lifetime...

I'll start with the latest and work back through the week in the days to come.

Our Saturday in Athens, Greece, included photographing the sunrise over Athens from the Star Clipper, our sailing vessel. Then we disembarked and caught a bus to Mars Hill and the Parthenon. It's easy to see how Paul would conclude that the Athenians were religious. I was impressed anew with the fact that he didn't rail against their Greek pantheon of always-competing and bickering gods. He simply concluded that the Athenians' "altar to an unknown god" was a step in the right direction and proceeded to tell them that the true God was not made with hands--and that he is never far from any of us.

Our guide mentioned that while Americans seem uninterested in talk of gods and goddesses, knowing what god/goddess a city worshiped is essential to understanding it. Athena is the goddess of wisdom, so citizens of Athens wanted their city to reflect culture and philosophy. Corinth was the home of Aphrodite, goddess of love (and not the agape version). That might explain why so much of Paul's letter to the Corinthians focuses on morality (Rom. 6, 7) and love (1 Cor. 13). My hypothesis is that Ephesus, being home to virgin Artemis, had a distinctly pro-independence flavor.

From the Parthenon in Athens we could see the city's ancient theater, the agora, and the temple of Zeus. Afterward we also saw the shopping district (Plaka), Hadrian's Arch, and the site of the first modern Olympics.

With two others from our group, I spent my free time walking to the brand new Acropolis Museum. I enjoyed seeing archeologists' visions of what the parthenon once looked like. I also saw many artifacts--amazing artifacts--found during years of digging. I didn't even know about the museum before the trip, but someone on our group had an article from the Wall Street Journal about it. More than thirty years in the making, it opened last month and was built to house findings from Acropolis Hill. The entrance has floors of thick glass through which visitors can look below and see ruins discovered during excavation for the building. And what a view of the Acropolis! (Plus entrance cost only one Euro--about a buck-fifty.)

From there we all checked in at the Hotel Grande Bretagne, and I had a rooftop swim to cool off. There I enjoyed a long chat with new friends I will really miss. Then we closed out our fantastic week with a dinner banquet, during which Steve Green performed his most well-known worship songs.

We said goodbyes to friends old and new and the trip officially came to an end. I could have squeezed in three hours of sleep instead of just 90 minutes, but I wanted to see the Acropolis lit up at night from the top of the hotel (wow!). Then a few of us headed across the street to see the changing of the guard at Parliament.

Back in the room I packed, took a quick nap, and then rose for my 2:30 AM shuttle to the airport and the long day of travel. Many movies, naps, and stiff muscles later, I saw the welcoming faces of my husband and daughter. After a 45-minute drive home, I fell into bed at 4 PM.

More of the Seven

Yesterday we continued our tour of the Seven Churches of Revelation with a trip to Philadelphia, the original city of brotherly love—named by an emperor who loved his brother. There’s not much from ancient times at the site, only column remains from a centuries-old structure of a church dedicated to St. John.

We proceeded to Sardis, in a gorgeous fertile area that reminded me of Oregon with its produce and lush green trees. There’s a temple to Artemis there that was later abandoned and a church added to the site. Before Artemis, people in this region worshiped Cybele, an ancient fertility goddess, and the remains of her temple are adjacent to Artemis’s. The two cults sort of merged, which is where I think a lot of folks get the idea that Artemis was all about fertility—which I don’t think she was by the first century. A couple of US universities and donors have also worked together to restore a fantastic synagogue site at Sardis, where we could still see mosaic floors.

We proceeded to Smyrna, which is modern-day Izmir—the largest city on the west coast of Turkey. Polycarp was martyred here, and Christians in ancient times were virtually destitute because the business guilds disallowed Christ-followers. Picture a layoff that never ends... The site is in the middle of the city and looked like an outside warehouse full of columns and arches stacked up and stored for future reconstruction. We’re staying at a hotel where the president of Turkey is also staying tonight, and we see security everywhere.

This morning we made a trek out to the city of Pergamum, where we wound our way up, up, up a narrow road (in a bus). A city on a hill, Pergamum has remaining arches from ancient aqueducts, the steepest theater from the ancient world, and remains from a temple dedicated to Zeus—which may be what Jesus was referring to when He spoke of a “synagogue of Satan.”

We ended our time in Thyatira, where Lydia—the first convert in Europe at Philippi—came from. We passed miles and miles of olive orchards, which I was told have been here for millennia. The only remains here post-date the New Testament by several hundred years and as with Smyrna and Philadelphia were in the middle of city blocks.

Turkey has surprised me in that it looks much like France and Greece, and I expected it to be more like the Middle East and barren. It’s lush and modern and I’ve seen only a handful of women with faces covered.

Tomorrow we’re scheduled to see Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque and the Grand Bazaar. From there I’ll say goodbye to Gary as he returns home. I’m set to sail for Ephesus from Istanbul, and who knows when I’ll have access again.

Aphrodisias

We spent the morning in Aphrodisias, the former capital of the province of Lydia, built to honor the goddess Aphrodite. Artemis was reportedly immune to Aphrodite's love-arrows, so I didn't do any research today--just enjoyed. (Artemis was nowhere to be found--these chicks were apparently territorial!)

The city was built in the first century, and because it was the home of the ancient sculpture school, it had statue after statue depicting mythological themes, emperors conquering, and the Greek pantheon (except you-know-who).

The amphitheater ("two-theater") there was an ellipse-shaped structure (as opposed to a semi-circular "theater") that could hold thirty thousand people. I felt like an ant. On the top of the stone seating we found markings similar to backgammon boards, which apparently served as pre-game entertainment.

In the photo above we're standing in front of the tetrapylon, an ornamental gate composed of four groups of four columns. It sat at a major intersection of north-south and east-west streets. A bit fancier than what we have at intersections in Dallas...

The temple to Aphrodite was eventually converted to a Christian worship space and an apse was added. The city name was also changed to Stavropolis.

In the afternoon we visited a Turkish rug factory. We viewed the process of sink-thread-making, women's fingers flying on the looms, and enthusiastic sellers trying to help us lose our buying inhibitions. Nice try.