The Hills near Mar Sabba

Hey Pilgrims!
We had classes this morning and a free afternoon after one very full week- a good chance to catch our breathe, reflect on our experiences thus far, and hopefully shake off this cold that’s been going around the house. I think most of us will be finding our own supper tonight (which could be anything from the shwarma meat wraps they sell on the street to the Oriental restaurant Sister found yesterday).
Yesterday we went to Mar Sabba (“St. Sabbas”)- an 8 mile bus ride. We quickly found ourselves out in the desert- our bus had curtained windows and swaying fringes and made some nervous on the steep and narrow switchbacks
Beautiful countryside- but beautiful in context, and not photogenic-! The low mountains look as though they were formed by giants trapped under bedsheets punching up with their fists and knees, and they aren't the barren beige that comes through in pictures but rather colored with arid cremes and tans- except for the slate shadows which lie cupped into the hollows or else slide over the landscape following under their swift moving clouds.
Mar Sabba ("Saint Sabbas") is an Orthodox monastary built into a mountainside (kudos for any student who can tell us who the Orthodox are!) - A maze of balconies and stairways and courtyards and domes cling to the cliffside many stories tall. Usually the disappointing thing about interesting places like that is that they're much too small- but you could've explored this place for weeks and days and still discovered new passages and niches. As is, we weren't even there for half an hour-! Looking across the ravine we could see the facing cliff wall honeycombed with hermitage caves where the monks would have lived. These caves are called “Lauras” which means “the narrow way.” At one point more than 500 monks lived in that stone hillside!
Walking into the dimlit church- much bigger than expected- every surface was covered with icons and paintings of the saints. In a glass coffin lay the embalmed body of St. Sabbas, wearing his priestly vestments.

-mike
p.s. One of the teachers in Menominee asked how to ask questions on this site: you can either e-mail Ben or myself, or leave a "Comment" (which is an option you can click on right below this entry- let me know if that works!)