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There is obviously not enough thanks and gratitude that can be expressed to the countless friends who got us there through prayer and support. Sorry it took so long to update you on our experiences. Consider this a lengthy first update. More stories will hopefully be posted over the next few weeks. Some more pictures will be posted too...maybe some audio. We focused a lot on video footage and had many hours of it. Unfortunately our bus was broken into in philly and all the tapes were taken, some personal things, and the video camera. I hope he watches it....there is some pretty good stuff on those tapes.
A lot of ground was covered. Close to 5000 miles of mountains, desert, salt lakes, forests, Mediterranean coastline, ancient ruins, and the ruins of incessant modern construction.
Going in we had our vague goals of befriending some kurds, learning their music, culture, and way of life a bit…maybe connect with the ancient church….and hear the struggles of both communities. All of this happened for us and more.
But I came away with an overall learning experience I was not looking for.
Turkey is a microcosm of modernization.
The country is undergoing massive public works projects. The economy is expanding at a rapid rate, GDP is blooming, exports booming. Integration into the European Union is being pursued aggressively…as can be seen by the prevalence of primo posh cars, clothing, and cafes. The trendiness of western Turkey in some ways is only matched stateside amidst the confines of Manhattan. However, Turkey has not fully realized its intended goal just yet. Transformation to the homogenized chaos of capitalism is still a ways off. It is not truly "modern". It is "emergent". Like the self-ascribed post-modern churches there is a veneer that suggests the upper crust of capitalistic culture. But the undergarments reveal the awkward industrial clumsiness worn by those still in their adolescence. Istanbul and Willow Creek have much in common.
And, like the many mini mega churches feverishly digging out the roots of Christ as they try to match the seeker sensitive conquests of Willow Creek or Lakeside, the Turkish government is passionately bulldozing the way for mini Istanbuls and Ankarras across the backs of ancient villages.
Personally I don't like it.
This transformation of Turkey is very reckless, brazen, cruel, and conspicuous. It seems to me Turkey is going through what America as a whole endured from the 1880's through perhaps the 1950's …only in Turkey it appears like it is happening all at once.
Yet at the time we visited anyway they weren't done yet.
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In the southeastern terrain that reminds of Utah there is a twisting knotted river called the Tigris. Along the banks are many villages that seamlessly mesh with the river's edge to the extent they appear as old as the Tigris itself….as if the river shaped and formed them as it did the round pebbles and canyon walls. Dug into many of these canyon walls are cave houses….thousands of them…..in some places so pervasive the canyon looks like honeycomb. Out of one or two of these holes some wire hangs out to conduct the pirated electricity. One cave home I saw had a TurkTV dish bolted into the side of the cliff.
We stayed in a village called Kesmekopru II. The 50 or so families were all sheep herders and farmers. Ransom spent the day in the mountains tending a herd of about 500 sheep and goats. They killed a young ram for us one night. As was the case everywhere in Turkey, much feasting and chai drinking ensued.
Americans had never visited this village before, and they had no idea who we were. We just showed up and invited ourselves. Yet they were quick to treat us like friends and not just guests. We taught the kids some psalters songs. No offense to all of you but they were the best audience we ever had! We played some soccer and got schooled by kids half our age. The hospitality throughout Turkey was amazing and is something they take pride in; but particularly in this village their kindness seemed extra welcoming and brotherly.
At any moment this village that has been there for thousands of years will be destroyed. It could happen tomorrow or a few years from now. One day the Jandarme (military police) will show up unannounced and our friends will be forced to leave their ancient homes immediately. Proud village leaders in their 50's who have made a life of protecting and guiding and providing for hundreds of his kin, like his father, and grandfathers before, will suddenly be sent to the city streets with nothing…unable to read and write. Unable to care for his family and friends. He'll have to watch helplessly as the women and kids shine shoes, beg, and are forced into making decisions between their moral values and standards, or having food and shelter.
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Throughout Turkey there are the hollows of ancient churches interspersed among the mosques, museums, bazaars, hotels. Many of these were also churches at one time. It was difficult being witnessed to by several muslims as i stood in my hotel and began looking more closely at the walls and ceiling. Standing there enduring the tired phrase "Jesus is a great prophet" being offered into my ears yet again by my muslim friends as a misplaced olive branch i looked and heard greater truth with my eyes. The carvings in the architecture translated the story of this place for me.
My hotel was once an Armenian monastery. It was emptied sometime ago along with much of this city as part of what is known everywhere outside Turkey as the Armenian Holocaust. Hitler got some of his methods and methodology from what took place here, and a few in the city where we were staying unfortunately still had a pride in their past. The city, traditionally known as Urfa, was renamed Sanliurfa (glorious urfa) to comemmorate the particularly efficient success this city had in exterminating the Armenians.
In its 8000 year history Sanliurfa has seen more wars than rumors. There is evidence in the streets and buildings of seemingly every major empire to use the silkroad. The city walls look a lot like the layers of sediment and bedrock exposed by the cutting of rivers or highways, the difference being that in this instance the layers were rocks stacked by slaves of different systems and powers of different eras all preparing the settlement for war and conquest. The Ottoman, Seljuk, Hittite, Roman, Byzantine, Assyrian empires have all had their rocks and mortar on the massive walls.
I found in Sanliurfa particularly a writhing tension between the desire for unity and brotherly love among all; and the painful history, perversion, hatred, and greed that consumed this place with suffering time and time again. This tension was palpable in the hotel one night....a Turkish Night -as the festivity is named for the tourist bureaus. A huge 7 or 10 or i don't know how many course meal was seasoned with dancing and singing and laughing and endless gracious gestures between hosts and guests. On this night the guests, mostly Iranian and Syrian businessmen and women and us Americans, lounged facing eachother on floor cushions. The musicians played at one end and sometimes danced in the narrow isle in between when the food wasn't in the way. At one point all the Americans, Syrians, Turks and Iranians danced together and goofed around. It was a good time. It was a night where everyone wanted to be friends and welcome eachother regardless of any differences. Then, as we all were saying our goodbyes, "peace be with you"'s, "and also with you"'s, the lone Iraqi woman present that night came up to us. A Kurdish lawyer from the oil rich city of Kirkuk, she spoke to us with a quivering voice and tears almost held back. She said, "You must go back to your country and tell them...you must tell them all you have brought us is blood and tears...all you have brought is blood and tears." Then she quickly walked away. Suddenly the pain of thousands of years contained within the city walls, the suffering that trembled through the piled stones of myriad ages, the hurt absorbed and stacked, contained in cold carved rock, plaster...once again it seeped through....like blood through white rags.
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To the southeast near the Syrian and Iraq borders lie the ancient town of Midyat. We were told this is where many Christians still live but when we got there all the churches were boarded up. Just east of there we found the oldest monastery in the world, Mar Gabriel. Founded in 397a.d. it housed a large library and some 2000 monks as recently as the 1960's. Now there are 3 monks and a handful of others left to care for the several large buildings. We met with the Bishop to see if there was a way we could build a relationship with the church here in America and perhaps in some way help. Bishop Samuel Aktash, with a full beard and robes that made him look a bit like an older Count Taboo without dreads, was a kind and resolute man but with the countenance of the heavy burdened and worn down. For most of our questions, including our offers to help, he kind of just shrugged and said, "hmm" or "i don't know"....his answers and manner conveyed more of a solemn perseverance that seemed to fall short of actual Hope. They speak Aramaic (the language of Jesus) yet are banned from teaching the language to anyone. They are "permitted" to be Christian, but are not allowed to share it. At one point he told us, "you have heard the great stories of the martyrs. Here we are not killed anymore, but we are not allowed to live. We as a people are being made a museum like this monastery. We are living martyrs."
Throughout the southeast we were followed by the Jandarme (military police) and they harassed most of the people we came in contact with, eventually forcing us to leave the entire region. Everywhere U.S. made planes, tanks, helicopters screamed and growled at the Kurdish villagers. The furthest east we got was Siirt. This city was the hometown of our kurdish interpreter, Mustafa. A carpet shop owner from the mediterranean coastal city of Izmir, the most modern city in Turkey, Mustafa hadn't been to Siirt in over ten years and he was excited to return. He had heard that life was much better than when he left. For the first time Kurdish could be legally spoken, and pressure from the European Union had suppressed the practice by the Turkish army of systematically bombing or bulldozing villages at will.
Before we even had a chance to stop anywhere the Jandarme led us away from the city to a mountain vista, with no people anywhere. They told Mustafa, "we will be the guides today" and proceeded to take us to worthless museums and government sponsored Kilim carpet makers surrounded by more guards and army personnel.
After a few hours they suddenly told us we were free to go. A little surprised and relieved, Mustafa took us to his favorite lamb chop sandwich shop. It was a lot like being taken to the best cheesesteak place in philly, but not the place the tourists are taken to. The place the locals go. We all sat down in the back, Mustafa got a moment to catch up with a few old friends, and we began to exhale a little. But within a few minutes some guys with cameras posing as newspaper reporters showed up harassing Mustafa and surrounding us. The Jandarme were back and it was time to go. We headed to our van and found the street full of plain clothes officers watching our every move. Our interpreters were getting very anxious to leave the region and head back east. The Jandarme weren't the only people watching us. Everyone was.
We were getting anxious too. We had hoped to go to Sirnak and maybe spend a few more days in Kurdistan. Now it seems we were being forced too early out of the culture and people we had come to be with, to learn from, to walk beside. Months of prayer and work, thousands of miles traveled for a handful of moments. Anymore opportunities seemed at an end. So, while we were all gatheing up to head out I snuck off down an alley a bit, hoping to escape the Jandarme long enough to have one more brief connection with the people. I was immediately surrounded by maybe 50 kurdish men and boys, several standing within a couple inches of my face.
They asked me where i was from. They asked me what my favorite Turkish soccer team was. They asked what i thought of Bush. Then they asked with one word what everyone there really wanted to know. Kurdistan? Kurdistan? As several asked with a low voice everyone else squeezed in closer, as if that were possible. I knew what they were asking, and it was the question we wanted to answer. We are not exactly for Kurdistan or the struggle of the P.K.K. (a Kurdish militia group), and the interpreters with us in fact were very much against both. But looking in to their eyes i could tell that they were asking much more than wether or not i supported their political struggle for a nation of their own. They were asking, "do people outside of Turkey know about all of the suffering we have gone through?" "Do they care?" "Do they stand with us?" "Do they fight for our freedom, our way of life, our right to be Kurdish?"
My heart leaped and sank, my soul wrought, my face wrinkled and eyes darted. Everything in me wanted to shout out, "yes! we are with you! How can we help? We know how you have suffered, it is why we are here!"
But authorities were everywhere, very likely a few of the 50 crowded around were Jandarme, and if i said what i had come to say in that moment, i could have endangered the lives of those associated with us, let alone the people in front of me asking the question. Silence rolled in. Silence so thick if it were fog you couldn't see. Just seconds before the bazaar where we stood at mid day rush was as loud as ever, perhaps more than normal with all the talk about the americans walking about. Now the whole street seemed to stop, crowded around me, leaning in to hear my answer. It was like one of those moments in life when time seems to stop. One of those rare moments when you are at a turning point and fully aware of it. What do i do? For what seemed like forever, probably 5 seconds, i didn't move, speak.....just looked at each of them with a blank stare as i prayed. Finally my gaze fixed on the person i had been talking to most, a young man of about 20 wearing more dirt on his face and worn clothes than Muslims (they are clean freaks) usually allow. I said nothing. Just smiled as articulately as i could trying to say with my expression what i couldn't with words. He nodded as if to say he understood. I hope so.
A moment later the fog lifted, the silence broken by Joshua our guide who had tracked me down. The Jandarme had spooked him plenty and his thoughts were with his wife and kid as he pushed us to leave. As i got on the van i heard from Ransom he had a similar experience as he was invited into a cafe by some locals, only to be pulled away from the conversation before he had a chance to really start one. We left Kurdistan that day heavy with opportunities lost and Jandarme on our ass.
When we thought they were no longer following us we stopped for a moment to have some chai with Mustafa's uncle, only to find Jandarme already there harassing his family. Angry and frustrated, Mustafa left his homeland with a new understanding of what his people are still going through.
Turkey wasn't just sadness and lost opportunities however. We visited cave churches and an underground city built 20 stories down that dated from the 7th century and earlier. The christians used them to escape persecution from muslim invaders and others. It was an amazing and haunting experience walking through the caves. I subconsciously started chanting Sepideh's version of Agnus Dei and it seemed like the caves came to life and sung them back. I know it's called "echo" but i am telling you the echo felt deeper and ancient, as if the liturgical hymn reminded the stone what had taken place there centuries ago. I couldn't stop singing it, except a few times to sing the Trisagion. The caves compelled me to sing almost the entire time we were there.
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One experience that captured and heightened the mystery of God for me was our time spent in Konya. We went there for the Mevlana festival. Mevlana means "guide", and it is the title of the 13th Century poet/mystic Jelaleddin Rumi. He was also the founder of the Mevlevi order of Sufis or the "whirling dervishes". Sufism has fascinated me since I originally learned of it and Rumi's poetry has been a companion and balm for my soul for years. In his writings and devotional practices are the very heartbeat of anything in Islam that is about peace. He has entire divans about Jesus and it seemed that here in these Sufi communities was the best potential for interfaith dialogue. The Mevlevi order uses drumming, traditional folk music, dancing, chant, meditation, and highly symbolic clothing as devotional practices and artistic reminders of our true spiritual state. Very much the same ideas that are rooted in psalters experiments, with different theological and cultural focus of course. The Sema, their main ceremony, which means "the remembrance", represents a mystical journey of man's spiritual ascent through mind and love to the Perfect. Turning or whirling towards the truth, he grows through love, deserts his ego, finds the truth and arrives in union with the Perfect. Then he is to return from this spiritual journey as a man who has reached maturity and is closer to the perfection, so as to love and be of service to creation. And then do it again and again in the next rotation around. The dervishes head-dress represents the tombstone of his ego (dying to self), the outer black cloak, the ego itself, which is flung off as they whirl to reveal a white skirt that symbolizes his birth to spiritual truth. They spin from right to left with one hand open and upward to receive from God, the other open and down to bless the Earth. Alot of very beautiful and intense mystical spirituality that would take a lifetime or more to grasp. There are Sufi orders all over the world with different devotional practices and focuses and many of them were in attendance. We met master musicians from Iran and were able to hear their songs and jam together in "Flying Mehmet's" beautiful carpet and kilim shop, we witnessed a performance of a father and daughter led sufi band from Azerbaijan, there were groups from Bosnia, South Korea, Russia, Syria, and of course the Sema by the Turkish sufis. I even got to meet the 22nd great-grandaughter of Rumi herself. She is currently one of the organizers of the Festival and works with the Mevlevis in Konya. She invited me to sit next to her in the best seat of honor at the Sema. She was very excited and gracious to me and it seemed that it was primarily because we were the only americans. Tens of thousands of people from all over the world at one of Islams most celebrated heroes remembrance celebration, and we were the only americans. (or so it seemed to me.) There was a peaceful, calm, yet pressing urgency coming from our conversations that felt to constantly have the underriding question of ---"do you see?, do you understand? All muslims do not want to conquer. I don't believe that all Christians want to conquer, even though that is mostly what we have seen. Let us throw away our stereotypes and our fear and our hatred and see truth and beauty in each other. Please. Sit in this seat of honor and go back to america with an idea of peace." That happened for me that night. I felt very close to the Holy Spirit after witnessing their ritual, so close that even the massively polluted night smog seemed more like a mystical haze brought down on the city from the focusing of so many spirits.
I remembered Rumi said: "Friend, our closeness is this--anywhere you put your foot, feel me in the firmness under you. How is it with this love that I see your world but not you?' The Qur'an says--'we are all returning.' I agree. This night helped me to become determined on conciously returning to my real home. Not everyone is. It is 4 am. We leave the tavern and walk the town aimlessly. A policeman stops us and asks--'why are you out wandering the streets in the middle of the night?' 'sir', we reply, 'if we knew the answer to that question, we would have been home hours ago."
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One of our main goals in traveling to Turkey was to learn about refugee culture and i definitely learned a lot about that; in some cases in unexpected ways. About an hour south of Konya in central Turkey we spent a week in the small mountain village of Esenler. This was a poor farming village. One or two families had a car, but the rest either had donkeys, or in some cases ak-aks (small tractors that looked like a cross between old modified ATV's and something out of Mad Max). We split into ones and twos and were paired up with different families throughout the village. I was sent alone to an old couple at the edge of the village. Medeneh was a strong, heavily wrinkled, hunched over woman with a constant beaming smile on her face. Ibrahim was a stocky, little guy whose nickname means "never speaks". My host didn't talk much, and neither spoke any english. They were hoping to be hosting a woman who spoke Turkish and were visibly disappointed to get a man who could say hello and not much else. They wanted a woman who could help Medeneh, since the culture generally doesn't allow men to help in the kitchen, and Ibrahim wouldn't let me build the well with him (i found out later it was because he thought i would fall in!). It is impolite basically to do anything less than pig out when you are offered food...but i couldn't even do that well enough because my stomach was still recovering from some bad water out east. Ibrahim soon gave up trying to talk to me and would turn on the TV to the news. Every night i had to watch the propaganda with him about a Turkish soldier who was killed by Kurdish "terrorists" in Sirnak on the day we had planned to go there...the day we SHOULD have been there. The Turkish media used this incident, the facts and circumstances of which were grossly misreported, as an opportunity to further rally hatred towards the Kurdish people and culture that much of modern Turkey never sees in person. Ibrahim was buying every word and was open about his disgust with the Kurds. One night the media even had the theme music from "Braveheart" playing in the background as video of hundreds of family members were flown in to Istanbul to publicly weep over the flag draped casket.
I felt worthless, helpless, and extremely out of place. What was the point? When we were gathered together Count Taboo, dubbed Ali Baba by the locals, helped me see the light. He said, "the cultural awkwardness and helplessness we feel in a small way helps us understand what a refugee experiences all the time." He was right, and the rest of the week i stopped feeling trapped and started learning to recieve all that God was teaching me. It was an amazing week in that village learning from amazing people.
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Despite the racism and political/religious problems all of Turkey was rich with culture, good people, and a lot to say. We were profoundly blessed to experience much of it. Near the end of our trip, as i stood in the theatre of Ephesus where Paul started a riot for compromising the profits of businessmen, i tried to summarize in my mind what Turkey as a whole had to say to all of us in the church, and one theme stood out among the rest. Like the rest of the world, Turkey is sacrificing its God given wealth of beautifully diverse culture, family oriented simplicity, and awe inspiring frontier for a nationalistic system of homogenized, mass produced, greed oriented chaos delivered on mountain leveling, river daming roads and power grids ....flooding out and paving over any village, culture, religious or ethnic group that impedes the polluted progress. The refugees get in the way, the ancient church gets in the way, the ancient rivers of scripture are stopped. Turkey is an emerging first world country. Should the emergent church follow the same path?
His Grace and Guidance be received,
-Captain Napkins and Count Taboo
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