Well, we are headed for Egypt. Who would have thought??
When it became clear that our journey to Egypt was likely, the restrictions of the Covid-19 Pandemic having eased, we informed our adult children and a number of close friends that the trip was "on"-- our tickets had been purchased!
Everyone we have told expressed a desire to go to Egypt . . . someday. Several said, "Take me with you!" Others noted, wistfully perhaps, "Egypt is on my 'bucket list'."
It is not surprising that Egypt is an enviable destination for many people -- any five year old can identify pyramids and sphinx and, likely, the picture language of hieroglyphics as well. Egypt conjures up for us thoughts of the ancient ruins we have seen in picture books. We think of the gold death-mask of King Tut. For many of us, too, stories featuring Egypt from the Bible are part of the narrative of our formative years. The Egypt we picture is unique, storied, exciting, mysterious, and somehow out of reach. Who wouldn't want to visit Egypt given the opportunity?!
Once in full research mode, I dug out my fifty-year-old, archaeologically-detailed, photograph-heavy, coffee table book from under a pile of similarly large-formatted books that we have accumulated. Apparently the wonders of many ancient civilization have attracted our interest over the years.
With a journey to Egypt just around the corner, I have finally been motivated to read the book. The photographs I have examined many times, of course, so my mental images and impressions of these ancient wonders have already been burned into the grey cells. Images such as the three sampled here are the images I will take with me as we head for Egypt to see the real things.
Being there, the experience itself, will replace those photographic familiars with sensations of an entirely better sort. They will be vivid and all encompassing. I expect, as we say, to be "blown away."
Apart from these ancient wonders that draw tourists, those of us who grew up in North America know very little about modern Egypt. Our information is partial, haphazardly accumulated, and, I'm afraid, badly remembered. And it's not just our famously short attention span. What we learn when Egypt makes the news here mostly concerns "events" of importance to us. What is "news worthy" has a narrowly North American focus.
What we think we need to know nearly always centers on the dramatic, the noteworthy, the violent or the cataclysmic as well. This is true of domestic news as well as international news. For these reasons, what I know about modern Egypt consists largely of assassinations, protests, popular uprisings, disruptive changes of government, and catastrophes that might affect us, such as the huge container vessel that found itself wedged across the Suez Canal this last March. We seldom want to learn the larger context or to know the whole story. And tomorrow's news quickly displaces today's.
When we add to these current events the fact that I know virtually nothing about how Egypt developed between the ancient Egypt of the Bible stories and the Suez Crisis of the 1950s, well, one can see why my learning curve is necessarily steep. My ignorance is great.
None of this is "fair," of course, but it's what we are working with. It is within this context, then, that my wife and I were asked to travel to Egypt with a North American church delegation to join in a centennial celebration for the Standard Wesleyan Church in Egypt. We were asked to represent our local church at commemorative services. We will bring words of greeting and encouragement. And we will learn.
Significantly, we will see a side of modern Egypt we have never seen, a dimension we had not known before. What has lacked detail will be overwhelmed with new sights and sounds and faces. We will begin the process of changing the mental images and attitudes we bring with us -- replacing them with real people, real places, real culture -- newly instructive sights, sounds, smells, and sensations.
There are many things we would like to do, places we would like to go before we are no longer able. There won't be time to go or to accomplish all these things, of course, and eventually we won't have the energy. The Covid-19 crisis has brought our limitations into sharp focus.
The idea of a 'bucket list' with items to be ticked off, however, is not for us. It is too limiting. One trip to Egypt will be great, I am sure. As teachers we know that the experience will surpass the information from books. But once can hardly be enough. If this journey to Egypt is at all like our experiences with other journeys, we will be overwhelmed by how much more there is to learn, by how much more still lies just beyond, just beneath what we are able to see this time.
