Tag Archives: Dead Sea

International news, local news

Goofy mug shot offers warm memory

Every now and then I get asked about this picture.

It appears on my Facebook profile. I haven’t changed it since I posted it around 2010. A member of my family has told me that in her view “It’s the best picture ever posted in the history of Facebook.” She has ordered me to never change it.

I appreciate her comment and I’ve told her so … many times. I’m not sure whether I’ll keep it forever. I do intend to keep it well past the foreseeable future, though.

But here’s the actual reason why I like displaying it: The picture reminds me daily of one of the most glorious experiences of my working life.

It occurred in May-June 2009. I was selected to lead a Rotary International team to Israel. The program once was known as Group Study Exchange, which enabled our Rotary district to assemble a team of young professionals to interact with other professionals from another Rotary district. In 2009, our district interacted with a district in Israel.

I received the high honor of leading that team. I helped select four of them from our West Texas district. We met for several weeks preparing for the four-week tour of Israel. We departed in early May 2009 and spent the next month touring that country from top to bottom — from the Lebanese border to Eilat at the southern tip of the country — along with another team from The Netherlands; we forged friendships along the way with our Israeli hosts and with members of the Dutch team. Indeed, just a year ago my wife and I caught up with two Dutch team members on a trip we took to The Netherlands and to Germany.

Oh, the picture? It was taken at the Dead Sea. We drove through the Judean Desert to this remarkable body of water on the Israeli border with Jordan. It sits more than 1,000 below sea level. Its salinity is many times greater than the ocean. Swimmers’ buoyancy is beyond description.

We slathered ourselves in this Dead Sea mud. From the waist up we covered ourselves in it. Our Israeli friends told us the mud contained some sort of “restorative value” contained in its mineral content. The idea is to let it dry. Then you wash it off with fresh water.

It’s supposed to make you look and feel younger. I remember washing it off and asking our team members, “Do I look younger?” Many of them laughed in my face. For what it’s worth, I felt younger … and that’s all that mattered.

The picture reminds me of that glorious adventure and the enduring friendships I made with the young people I accompanied across the ocean and with those we met along the way.

That is why I don’t intend to change this picture.

environmental news, International news

How do you bring Dead Sea back to life?

dead-sea-sinkholes-1024x576

This story caught my eye, not because it surprised me, but because it portends potential tragedy for one of the world’s great treasures.

And I’ve had the high honor and pleasure of seeing it up close.

I refer to the Dead Sea, a small inland lake at the mouth of the Jordan River between Israel and Jordan.

I got to swim in the Dead Sea in May and June 2009. Take it from me: You haven’t lived until you’ve taken a dip in water that is 10 times saltier than the ocean, and which contains natural oil that prevents your skin from wrinkling up the way it does in normal salt or fresh water.

Public TV’s NOVA documentary series is going to look at the future of the Dead Sea, which according to the producers of the program isn’t looking too great … at the moment!

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/earth/dead-sea-dying/

According to NOVA: “The lake has a storied place in history. The biblical Sodom and Gomorrah reportedly overlooked its shores, while King David allegedly sought relaxation there in 1000 BCE. A few paces away, on the mountain top of Masada, Herod the Great built palaces, and in 73 CE, a thousand Jewish zealots chose death in their fortress over surrender to the Romans. Centuries later, Byzantine monks lived in monasteries overlooking its shores, and Crusaders built their castles.”

That was then. The future looks bleak.

The lake levels are receding. We were told that while we swam in the Israeli side of the water.

The culprits are dams, as NOVA reports: “But since the 1960s, the sea has had a more troubled history. That’s when Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel started building dams and diverting the rivers for drinking, irrigation, and industrial use, the same waters that have been feeding the Dead Sea for millennia.”

The lake has lost about 112 feet in depth; its volume has dropped about 30 percent.

What to do? It’s interesting to me, as NOVA points out, that a joint Israeli-Palestinian environmental group is seeking to call serious attention to the danger of continued depletion of the Dead Sea.

Does the world allow this treasure to disappear? Does it continue to stand by while its water evaporates?

Perish the thought. Perish even the hint of a thought that the world could allow such an international tragedy to occur.

john

OK, I’m biased. I’m one of those who has enjoyed the water. I’ve slathered myself in that mystery mud the Israelis and Jordanians tell you has restorative qualities. You smear it all over your body, let it dry and then wash it off with fresh water.

I can’t say it made me look younger, but I felt great just being able to say I did it.

Check out the story attached to this blog post. It provides tremendous detail about the ancient history associated with the Dead Sea and the myriad problems that threaten this holy body of water.

The Dead Sea must not die!

International news

Not exactly a 'bucket list' item, but …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLgdb6r0MQ4

I’ve kept this link filed away ever since I got it about a year ago.

It’s of Israel. It’s a promotional video, about 5 minutes in length that shows the best of one of the world’s most fascinating, complex, enduring and loveliest countries.

I spent five weeks there in May-June 2009. Most of that time was as part of a Rotary International professional exchange. Four young professionals came with me and we interacted for with others as part of Rotary’s effort to build bridges among cultures. Five folks from West Texas got an education that they will keep forever. And all of these wonderful young Texans have become four of my very best friends.

What’s more, together we forged friendships with our Israeli hosts — and a Rotary team with whom we traveled from The Netherlands — that will last our entire lives.

The final week was spent as a tourist, with my wife who had come to join me once the Rotary portion of the trip had concluded. We stayed at a bed and breakfast in Jerusalem. We took tours to Masada and the Dead Sea and walked all through Jerusalem, visiting holy sites and then booked a tour to neighboring Bethlehem in the West Bank.

As I look repeatedly at this video it occurs to me how vibrant that country is in a region riven with strife, bloodshed, hatred and suspicion. But watch the video and you notice it’s a land of intense religious diversity, with Christians, Jews and Muslims literally praying next to each other.

We visited a site, for example, in the old section of Tel Aviv where a mosque and an Orthodox church share a common wall, which we were told is a huge sign of unity in a region known for religious violence.

My wife and I intend to return there. We have many more holy sites we want to visit.

Call it a variation of the “bucket list.” We’ve been there once already. But there’s so much more to see and experience. Check out the video. You’ll see what I mean.