Jakera (hello) to the shy, beautiful sisters who live with their parents near our small camp jungle camp / Photo Robin Esrock

According to the overweight missionary with braces, Jesus was coming to save me tonight, deep in the heart of the Orinoco Delta.

Not an emissary mind you, but Jesus himself, and he would save me, and save the primitive Warao people, because even though we’re quite happy (me the travel writer, them the indigenous people of one of the world’s remotest jungles) she knew, she just knew, that he was coming tonight, not in spirit, but in person!

I thought about the practicalities of this second coming, and made a fair attempt at some intelligent discourse, but when faith blinds people, it robs them of more than just vision.

“Do you know much about the Warao way of life,” I ask, “their respect for nature, the gods that make sense in their lives, as opposed to the god that makes sense in yours?”

“Oh, they practice witchcraft, but in their heart, they love Jesus,” she replies, my words bouncing off her head like an over-inflated soccer ball.

The Warao, it seems, will find Jesus whether they want to or not.

What is the difference between these blissed out misguided missionaries, followers of a 2000-year old Middle Eastern guy/Son of God named Jesus, and me, a gringo with a camera taking pictures in an exotic world that doesn’t want nor need me?

We’re both using these people, this place. I came to learn and write, they came to convert.

And stuck in the middle: fragile, timid, lacking ideological filters and completely vulnerable to religious, cultural or physical attack, are the People of the Canoe – the Warao of northern Venezuela.

Back The Beginning

Hugo Chavez and Che look on / Photo Robin Esrock

I’m going to row the boat back, paddle to the start and a frenetic arrival in Caracas, where graft is thick and with a few dollars one can skip the immigration line-up altogether.

It was immediately clear that, although the official currency is the Boliviano, this was not Bolivia. The airport was big and new and when you have the fifth largest oil reserves in the world, money counts for something.

Just don’t use the banks. They’ll give you a 2000 to 1 exchange rate, whereas just about anyone you talk to will gladly give you around 3200 to 1. The black market thrives, 70% on the dollar, despite the best efforts of president Hugo Chavez, of whom I’ll return to later.

There was no time to join in the fun of Caracas on a Friday night. Into a van, and we’re off to the north, a six hour bus ride to a beach town called Playa Colorado, and from here a further five hours (hopefully) to the world’s second largest delta, the Orinoco.

Caracas showed all the signs of a big South American capital: traffic, pollution, insane drivers, desperately poor and violent barrios, sexy mestizo girls, pounding reggaeton, neon-lit love hotels.

After spending time in La Paz, I was desperate to get out the urban jungle and into a real one.

To The Beach

The six lane highway slowly turned to four lanes, and finally into two. It was 11pm, I’d been in transit for 16 hours, but the journey into the jungle was only beginning.

Fat chickens roast on a large rotisserie at the roadside buffet, and like the late night air, the meal is hot and sticky. It reminds me of northern Brazil – the coconut trees, the humidity, women wearing their sexuality the way a yuppie wears a tie on Wall Street.

After a minor altercation with an SUV (a few dollars change hands, we drive off), we’re back on the road, I’m DJ’ing up front with my iPod trying to keep Harold the driver awake.

At last, Playa Colorado, a room with a few beds in a strange house, shown around by welcoming young girls with skin the colour of brown sugar. Mosquitoes are in abundance, a warm-up of things to come. I climb into my sleep sheet, reposition the fan, collapse in total transit exhaustion.

Awake to the sound of kids playing, a camera in my face, we’ve overslept, too late to drive to the Delta, but no worries, Chris has got plenty planned to keep us busy.

And so, enter to the left of the stage, Chris Patterson, the Scot of the Jungle, real-life cigarette-commercial man, host to this lush new world.

The Marlborough Man

After sailing in the Caribbean for ten years, Chris found himself the dream chaser for decadent Russian billionaires, organizing multi-million dollar adventures around the world for oligarchs, from balloons over the Serengeti to castles in Ireland, ice palaces in Iceland, to heliskiing in Whistler.

Chris, Scot of the Jungle, explains where we’re heading
/ Photo Robin Esrock

How do the rich have fun? Chris knows the answer, but after a few years riding the perfect wave, he had made enough to build his Jakera Lodge – backpacker heaven, school of life, one block away from Paradise, and just down the road from Dream Street.

Wiping away sleep from my eyes, I wander over from the overflow house to Jakera Lodge to find a cage housing a dozen Scandinavian girls in bikinis, swinging in hammocks.

“We have mosquito nets around all the enclosures,” explains Chris, “and we call this room, the Bird Cage.”

“You realize, nobody will believe a word of this when I write it,” I tell him in a low voice.

“Want to play with a baby river python?” he moves on.

“Sure, why not.”

“We found it on Google”

The Jakera Lodge is a hostel of sorts (think hammocks instead of bunks), a Spanish school, a Salsa school, a Scuba school, a Climbing school, a Whatever school.

Fishing off the dock

The clientele are mostly European, although all nationalities breeze through at some point, and people stay for anywhere from a few days to six months. It’s about immersion in a culture, in a language.

A few minutes away is Playa Colorado, a beach of red-hued sand, coconut trees, turquoise water. “We had a big night last night,” explains Chris’s partner Brendan, “the guys are a little hung-over.” This explains the tanned limbs poking out of hammocks wherever I look.

Tanya from England has been here for two months, and leaves today. “Everyone thought it would be dangerous to come to Venezuela,” she tells me. “But it’s been totally safe. The locals are friendly and encourage us with our Spanish. The people have been dynamic, there’s always fresh travellers arriving, it’s really a way of living.”

I ask her how on earth she found this place. “Google,” she tells me. “I typed in Spanish and Scuba.”

I speak to some other students – Dutch and Swedish girls. They typed in “Spanish Lessons in South America” and “Volunteer Travel”. I ask my travel partner Julia how on earth she found this place.

“I typed in Jungle Adventure in Google,” she answers.

I make a note to write a story about travelling through the power of Google.

Shark-phobia

Swimming with dolphins. Brendan organizes an old wooden speedboat from an old wooden pirate and we depart the beach, crowded with Sunday afternoon locals.

There is a nigh a gringo in sight. The water has the sparkle of a paparazzi flash on the tooth of a movie star.

“Today’s your day,” says Chris enthusiastically, his thick brown curls an affront to balding 39 year-olds everywhere (the secret is aloe vera). And then we see the curved fin of a pilot whale, breaking the surf just a few metres away from us.

“Mucho queso estente vista tacos boutros boutros ghali,” says the weathered pirate of the Caribbean. “He says it is a good omen for today, and the trip,” translates Chris.

Sure enough, within minutes we encounter a pod of dolphins. Two of them leap in the air as if to welcome us. Chris grabs the knee-board. I’m ready for the ride of a lifetime. But first, two bits of personal information for context:

• 1. I have a shark phobia since I saw Jaws on a beach holiday when I was six years old.
• 2. I have ear problems that prevent me from diving, and have prevented me from swimming in the past. Thus with when it comes to water, I am a water baby.

That’s when I find out that a tiger shark bit half the arse off a tourist just last week. And another attacked a fisherman the week before that. Right here at Playa Colorado.

Hungry tiger sharks, cruising around looking for tasty tourist butt. But, screams Robert Plant, “now’s the time, the time is now,” so I ignore the cello in my head, and jump in. The water is as warm as the kiddies section in a public pool.

“Go Gonzo!”

An Eye With A Soul

The boat pulls off, and I’m being towed behind like a piece of bait on the end of a fishing hook. I read somewhere that dolphins protect humans from sharks.

About to swim with the dolphins.

I know that sharks….a dolphin pops up a few metres to my right. Then another. Then they vanish together.

The boat swings left in an arc. I’m looking this way and that way, and then three more dolphins break, and two of them leap in the air in perfect unison.

We swing around again, but they seem to have disappeared, until a minute later, just as I begin to wander if pilot whales are dangerous, two dolphins pop up on either side of me.

For a fraction of a second, I stare into an eye looking right back at me, a playful eye, an eye with soul.

I know I am safe, I know I am alive, I don’t know what I know, except, I just connected with something, something real, something transcendent, and every muscle tenses up and hair stands up and screams and tears well up and organs chime and it’s toccata and fugue on the strings of my soul and in a flash it’s over.

They’re pulling me towards the boat.

“You just swam with dolphins, as people are meant to swim with dolphins,” says Chris. “In their space, at their welcome. ‘Something else, eh?”

I blubber something in response, to the camera that recorded it all, and after a few minutes, realize I’m wading on my knee board like a big fat turtle in shark infested waters.

Moments after I pull myself aboard the boat, as unbalanced as the old, weathered pirate guiding the outboard engine, as Chris decides he would be a good sport and take me canyoneering off a 28m waterfall in the nearby jungle.

Next Time: Welcome to the Jungle

Feature photo by Tierecke. Photo by Harsh1.0.

I’m on a bus in Israel leaving the airport. It’s very early in the morning. The day is already so hot you can see waves of heat shimmering off the highway.

I feel like I always do at the start of a great adventure: jet lagged, thirsty, excited. The buildings of Tel Aviv are getting smaller the further we drive. Our tour guide, his name is Eitan, is talking into a microphone.

“As we head out of the city you’ll see a lot of countryside,” he says, his blue eyes gazing fondly out the window at his adopted homeland (Eitan is American, you see, and he has “made aliyah,” or taken Israel as his homeland and chosen a Hebrew name).

“Israel is not all desert like you might have thought.” I pay attention now, because this is what I did in fact think. “Look at that field of sunflowers, for example.”

I look out the window to my left and see the tall yellow flowers. I’m thinking they are pretty and picturesque, then Eitan says, “Don’t they look like proud soldiers lined up ready for battle?”

It won’t occur to me until much later, when my ten-day tour around Israel is finished and I’m back in the safety of my predictable, air-conditioned American life, that this comment represents two things I’ve come to understand about Israel and its people.

• One: Israelis are determined to show the world their country is beautiful, not just bombs and problems.
• Two: They have an unwavering belief in their right to belong as a nation and their right to defend it.

Conclusion: Where Americans see sunflowers, Israelis see soldiers.

A Clean Slate

I’m on this whirlwind tour of the Holy Land courtesy of Birthright, a foundation that offers every American with Jewish heritage a free trip to Israel.

The only requirements are that you’re between the ages of 18 and 26 and you have at least one Jewish parent. That’s it.

Birthright gives you an all-expenses paid tour (I’m talking airfare, food, accommodation, everything) around Israel to learn about the country and its complicated past and precarious future.

Although my father is Jewish and I grew up going to Passover at my grandmother’s house, I consider myself more “Jew-ish” than Jewish (as one girl on my trip put it during one of many group conversations on Jewish identity).

At this point in my life I don’t follow Judaism or any religion for that matter. Culturally, I’m kinda whatever, celebrating Christmas and Groundhog Day and any other holiday that seems like fun.

I went into my trip to Israel a veritable clean slate, a sheltered girl from small-town Nevada with no strong political convictions. An agnostic in faith and in life. I didn’t know much about Israelis as a people, and knew hardly anything about the politics of the region.

I came out of my trip with dates and history and passionate speeches rattling around in my head, less sure than ever who should have rightful “ownership” of the land.

Photo by Man United.

The Jewish Experience

On day one we arrived in the Galilee, the northernmost region of Israel. As we drive past the rugged hills and occasional olive tree, Eitan mentions, “Someone famous performed most of his miracles here.”

You might have heard of that someone. His name is Jesus Christ.

The Son of God would be mentioned occasionally throughout the trip as a sort of background player. Like the keyboardist in a band. This surprises me, which makes me realize I’m more culturally Christian than I thought.

We drop off our luggage at the first of several hostels and head directly to hike Mt. Arbel. That night we watched the moon rise over the Sea of Galilee, drank cold Israeli beer, and talked about our backgrounds and what we hoped to learn on the trip.

Most days would be like that first one. Up at dawn for the first hike of the day, museums and synagogues, lectures by intense Zionists and Holocaust survivors, complex conversations in the evenings about the future of Israel.

We float down the Jordan River and hike up steep canyons. We go to a kibbutz in the Golan Heights called Misgav Am, where we have a regional view of Lebanon, Syria, and Hezbollah headquarters, as well as a passionate discourse on Israel’s right to fight by an expatriate American who has fought in four of Israel’s wars.

I especially enjoy the day we spend navigating the steep streets of Tzfat, built into a mountain and known for its artist colonies and as the birthplace of Kabballah.

Photo by E|NoStress|

Everyday Is Like 9/11

There is the salty air in the haunting ocean caves of Rosh Hanikra. There are the tears in the hallways of Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum.

We navigate the crowded stalls of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv’s markets, squeezing peaches and bargaining with our best version of todah, Hebrew for “thank you.”

We wake up at 3am to climb Masada and are rewarded with breathtaking views of the Dead Sea at sunrise. We then swim in the Dead Sea, and are rewarded with stinging eyes and mud splattered bathing suits.

We see Jaffa at sunset (where the human race has had a city since the beginning of time). We pretend to be comfortable sleeping in a Bedouin tent and rise at dawn for a camel ride.

I pick up white chalky stones in the riverbed where David fought Goliath (I later put them on my desk at home to remind me I can overcome any obstacle).

I touch the smooth pillars in a small, non-descript chapel in Jerusalem where the Last Supper took place. I peer down into a deep, dark canyon where babies were sacrificed in ancient times-the canyon that inspired the concept of Hell.

Most significantly: we travel with eight Israeli soldiers who are impossibly exotic in our eyes, though they look just like the Americans we grew up with.

They have the same discussions on dating and pop culture as we do, yet their lives have been punctuated by periods in which “every day is like 9/11.”

Devotional Envy

Like most tourists, we visited the Western Wall during our tour of the old city. But on our trip, we went twice. Once in the day and once at night.

During the night visit, I stood with my forehead touching The Wall, the ground beneath me finally cool after a day of scorching heat. The air around me was filled with the hushed chatter of a thousand worshipers.

I know I’m supposed to be praying or asking forgiveness or in the very least thinking profound thoughts, but instead I’m mesmerized by the women around me, young and old, their hands pressed together, some bobbing rhythmically to the verses in their heads.

Watching them, I feel both disturbed by and strangely envious of their devotion.

For the first time in my life, I felt seduced by the idea of belonging to a religion.

Of belonging to a nation where fighting for its defense is the rule rather than the exception. So many of us Americans create our own problems. Depression. Anxiety.

Maybe having a common enemy, a constant threat to safety, is the ironical path to happiness.

The Value Of Identity

Perhaps creature comforts and national security aren’t actually the ingredients of contentment.

Have we forgotten that humans like to be challenged, have something to fight for, to believe in? We thrive on these feelings because they give us an identity.

I reached out and touched The Wall. I slipped my folded note into the ancient crevices, and I pressed my palm flat against the stone.

In that moment I felt a rush, of hope, of sorrow, of belonging.

And then, all at the same time, I became aware of a Jewish woman to my left reciting verses in Hebrew, and the tall minaret by the Dome of the Rock singing the Muslim call to prayer.

And quite softly but distinct still, church bells ringing somewhere nearby.

Photo by alles-schlumpf

My own spiritual journey began when I picked up a copy of Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist. It wasn’t the first “New Age” book I had read, but for the first time, I felt open to receiving the guidance within those pages.

I don’t know whether I was just in the right frame of mind when I came across this book or whether it was Coelho’s parable about life that spoke to me, but from then on, I felt compelled to take Coelho’s words to heart, and look inside myself.

Similarly, the following ten books have been largely influential for spiritual seekers all over the world.

While some are more timeless than others, each will likely inspire to further your own spiritual journey.

1. The Secret

Written by Melbourne television producer Rhonda Byrne, and based on a film she created in 2004 of the same title, The Secret tells of the laws of attraction: Asking for what you want, believing in what you want, and being open to receiving it.

With a historical basis in the 19th century New Thought movement; Byrne’s book has proven to be a cultural phenomenon, making the number one spot on the New York Times bestseller list.

While some consider the book little more than slick marketing and the re-packaging of many other spiritual beliefs, the book’s cultural significance cannot be denied. It remains to be seen whether Byrne’s The Secret will stand the test of time.

Photo by Rick McCharles

2. The Celestine Prophecy

In 1992, author James Redfield wrote and self-published his first book, The Celestine Prophecy. Since its initial publishing, it has gone on to become the most successful self-published novel ever.

The book is part adventure story (think The Da Vinci Code) and New Age spiritual novel. The book details one man’s journey through Peru as he uncovers nine spiritual insights.

While many have found the plot corny, the insights within captivate the reader into shifting their perspective.

3. The Alchemist

Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist tells the simple tale of a shepherd who journeys to the pyramids of Egypt to find his treasure is truly timeless. The lessons told of the discovery of your personal legend, being your one true purpose, and of understanding omens, are ones that speak to all people regardless of religion.

Photo by Light and Life -Murali

4. The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living

Inspired by the Dalai Lama’s joyful nature despite the political situation in Tibet, author Howard Cutler wanted to write a spiritual book focused towards a Western audience.

The Art of Happiness talks about the importance and attainability of happiness in everyday living. The purpose of life is to find happiness, which is determined by one’s mental state, despite outside circumstances.

This is a book likely to stand the test of time because it speaks to people without the use of spiritual rules or religious guidelines.

5. A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose

In spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle’s book, A New Earth, the author talks about reducing the ego as a means to feeling the abundance of life, because the ego is the source of all inner and outer conflict.

Tolle’s New Earth gained in popularity after Oprah selected it for her book club. Since then, Tolle’s book about the awakened consciousness has influenced millions.

6. The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success

In his classic book, Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, Chopra discusses the importance of success in life. For Chopra, success is defined as happiness and the realization of goals, although success is not limited to wealth.

Chopra lays down 7 laws found in nature used to create spiritual success. These laws include karma (cause and effect) and dharma (purpose in life). Chopra’s popularity lies in the way he is able to take ancient Vedic teachings and present them to a Western audience.

7. The Road Less Traveled

Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck’s 1978 The Road Less Traveled book takes his ideas from his background both as a psychiatrist and as a born-again Christian.

His book details the attributes that Peck feels make a fulfilled human being. Split into three sections, his book talks about discipline (as a means for spiritual evolution), love (as a force for spiritual growth) and grace.

Though this book remains popular, some may find the psychological ideas of the book to be somewhat dated.

Photo by Rick McCharles

8. Jonathan Livingston Seagull

The tale has captured readers’ imaginations for nearly 40 years. Richard Bach’s novella reveals the story of Jonathan, a seagull whose passion for flying makes him different from other gulls.

Jonathan’s wish to perfect his flying results in being outcast from his group. At first devastating, the experience culminates in him moving to a “higher plane” where he meets other gulls like him, and his subsequent return to his flock.

Jonathan is a symbol to all those who refuse to conform for the sake of conforming, instead teaching love, forgiveness, and how to reach your true potential.

9. Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia

After a bitter divorce, author Elizabeth Gilbert took a year off to travel. She visited Italy, where she ate copious amounts of good food. She went to India to learn about spirituality. And finally, ended her journey in Bali, where she was able to discover a balance between the two: love.

Gilbert’s book Eat, Pray Love details the spiritual journey of someone in a tremendous amount of pain, to a balanced, loving human. Her story has resonated with readers everywhere, landing on the New York Times bestseller list, with plans to be made into a movie.

10. Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson

Mitch Albom’s book, based on a series of interviews with Morrie Schwartz, his former professor who was dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease, has sold countless copies and inspired a TV movie starring Hank Azaria and Jack Lemmon.

Feature photo by Flickmor. Photo above by teresia.

Ask Benyamin Cohen, and you’ll find that there’s a 50/50 chance you’re putting on your shoes in the wrong way.

However, the son of a rabbi (whose wife even became a member of the Tribe) and former editor-in-chief of American Jewish Life will also tell you that for a time he wondered if going to church was more fun than a Saturday morning at temple.

What started out as a month in the summer visiting different churches in the Atlanta area for an article for his Jewish version of Rolling Stone soon, with the help of a book deal, became a year full of Evangelical escapades, Baptist benders, and Christian carousing.

Yet beneath the big-picture trip along the Bible Belt was an even larger inner journey for Cohen.

In between Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and the release for his memoir-cum-travelogue, My Jesus Year, we chatted about that journey.

Photo by Thomas Hawk.

BNT: Born into a very Jewish family, how religious did you consider yourself growing up? How religious do you consider yourself to be now?

BENJAMIN: I grew up the son of an Orthodox rabbi who built a 1000-square-foot synagogue onto the side of our house. So I guess you could say I was religious.

We kept kosher, observed the Sabbath, and kept the 611 other laws prescribed in the Old Testament and hyper-explained in the thousands of Aramaic pages that make up the 20 encyclopedia-sized volumes of the Babylonian Talmud.

Odd items, too, like not being able use an umbrella on the Sabbath, or being told to put my right shoe on before my left one. This was how Judaism was taught to me as a kid-as one long legal theories class.

Now as adult, no longer living under the rabbinic roof of my father, I am able to experience Judaism in a new light. I no longer feel forced to do these things, but instead choose to do them on my own.

It’s an invigorating experience and one that came about because of the journey I took for My Jesus Year.

Photo by mudpig.

How did you make the jump from church wonder/envy as a kid to the adult notion of positioning church as an exotic destination (especially to members of the tribe)? Has this been something that stuck with you through the course of your life?

I don’t think our childhood sense of wonder ever really disappears. Not to mention that basic human psyche dictates that we always desire the things we can’t have.

Put those two things together and church became my snake, apple, and Garden of Eden all rolled into one. It simply became something I could no longer avoid if I had any notion of growing spiritually.

What compelled you to continue seeking out the Jesus experience once the article became a book?

I first spent just a summer going to church. While that short exposure to Christianity made for a good pitch for a magazine style piece, it left me unfulfilled in the spirituality department.

Would you consider this your first religious trip, or have you done the Israel tour as well? If so, how would you compare your religious experiences (no pun intended) in the American South versus the Holy Land?

I’ve been to Israel a couple times (my mother is buried there) and, truth be told, the Holy Land never really did anything for me on a spiritual level.

I didn’t have any “Aha” moment there. I guess the reason is because I’ve been on a constant religious journey my entire life. Not a day has gone by where Judaism wasn’t always front and center in my mind.

Even on the most basic level-from what kind of food I can eat to reciting a blessing every time I use the restroom (yet another Jewish law), my religion has never stopped being a strong force in my life.

Photo by Christopher Chan.

In the New Birth mega church story, you mention hoping to blend in (or at least not stand out too much). Ironically, a sentiment shared by many intrepid travelers who want to meld with their surroundings (and the surrounding people). In the end, do you think it was better to blend in or stick out?

Being the only Jew in church is not the most comfortable situation to be in. Having everyone know that you’re the only Jew in church is even more uncomfortable.

Almost everywhere I went, I wore a Jewish skullcap and press pass so I stuck out like…well, like a Jew in church. It certainly ended up being a better situation for me.

Despite my initial feelings of awkwardness, it allowed churchgoers to not only notice the stranger among them, but engage me in conversation as well. It’s how I met many of the people from my journey.

The overarching journey of this trip seems to be an inner journey-the son of an Orthodox rabbi coming to terms with his own religion and spirituality.

However, you have numerous interactions with natives to the Christian/Catholic faith (and a few mentions of invasion of personal space). How did these external encounters influence your internal journey?

I’m certainly a guy who likes having privacy and enjoying my personal space.

But, as I mentioned above, I don’t think I would have met as many people-people who ultimately influenced me on this spiritual pilgrimage-had it not been for these various encounters.

In a certain sense, the book becomes more about them, these religious characters I meet, and I become merely a fly on the wall observing them.

Photo by coda.

On a related note, churches (and other houses of worship) across the world have become tourist attractions (e.g., Notre Dame, the Vatican, St. John the Divine, etc.), yet many people visit when services are not being held.

How different do you think your trip would have been had you simply gone to church as a physical site rather than church as an event?

I don’t think the trip would’ve been the same at all. Going there for religious services-observing Christians in their natural habitat, so to speak-granted me access and insight I never would’ve been exposed to on a mere field trip.

Conversely, I went to a bunch of places that are not known for being houses of worship (baseball stadiums and Confederate memorials, just to name two) that were transformed into a church for the day.

Those instances, where faith and fandom met, made an even greater impression on me in some respect.

There’s a line between over-the-top and wholly spiritual that each congregation (and yourself) define differently between the different interactions.

Is Jesus becoming gentrified in a transformation similar to many urban neighborhoods? Or is there still a line between the physical space and the spiritual space that we occupy?

There’s a famous Jewish joke that says “Ask two Jews, get three opinions.”

What I discovered during this year was that there are more similarities than differences between Judaism and Christianity. And one of those similarities is the plethora of beliefs and opinions within different denominations.

There were some churches I attended that really brought Jesus into the 21st century.

One, for example, was a church that looked more like a coffeehouse, eschewing pews for couches and hipster lounge chairs. But at the same time, I visited churches and even a monastery where modernity was nowhere to be seen.

Each, in its own unique way, makes up the vast and varied collection of Christianity in this country.

Photo by skippy13.

In describing one church, you write in the original AJL piece: “the menorah on the wall, an absurdly placed Judaic symbol, scares the bejeezus out of me.”

Is the feeling similar to running into your boss while on vacation? You also begin the epilogue of the AJL piece with “It’s the following Sunday and I’ve woken up early in a sweat induced state of spiritual confusion. Is today the Sabbath? And whose Sabbath would that be?” Would you call that spiritual jet-lag?

I share many of those same sentiments in the book itself. I’m not sure if seeing a Jewish symbol in church is akin to seeing the boss on vacation.

Since my boss is Jewish, maybe it’s more like seeing my boss in church. I think it was more the shock of finding out that some Christians are a) very interested in Judaism, and b) even go so far as to bring Jewish symbols and even some holidays into their service.

After a year of going to church, I certainly felt some spiritual jet-lag. Besides actually being tired from going to such a myriad of services, I started to feel an odd sense of cognitive dissonance.

As I write in the book, I led the prayer services at synagogue one morning and just the day before I was attending a Catholic mass. I felt like a fraud. Here I was representing my congregation and, little did they know I had been jonesing with Jesus 24 hours earlier.

Well, I guess now that the book has been published, my secret’s out.

I find you make the point that travel is not about the destination as an inanimate object, but rather the experience you have once your there. Was this a deliberate point, or a serendipitous connection?

One of my favorite quotes is “Life is a journey, not a destination.” It’s a guiding principle that lights the way for most everything I do. So in that sense I’d say it was deliberate.

But, by the same token, I never could have planned all that I saw on my church-hopping adventure. The people I met, the places I went, the experiences I had-it was all serendipity played out right in from of me. It was, perhaps, divine intervention.

Visit the official book site for My Jesus Year to learn more.

Portia Remnant

You’ve heard the rhetoric.You’ve seen the ads. You’ve chosen sides, and the other guy has, too. And it’s not your side.

It’s 2008 – election year. And once again, the fate of the world hangs in the balance – as it did four years ago and four years before that.

And here again, the same questions are popping up: Can we afford four years of hopelessness? Can we afford to let it all come crashing down around us, with THAT guy in office?

What drugs are the other guys on, anyway? How much worse can it get?

While they may be the same questions…maybe they’re not the right questions. Maybe we should be asking: why do they believe the way they do? How are we going to work together, if we can’t change each others’ minds? What makes us think so differently, anyway?

And why are these questions the same all over the world?

Contrary to popular belief, politics also happen outside the USA, and for the same reason: there’s a fundamental difference in how liberals and conservatives see the world.

Another Country, Another World

Psychologist John Gray became a celebrity overnight when he wrote “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.”

But at least men and women are in the same solar system – sometimes, people whose politics you don’t agree with seem like they’re from another galaxy.

What values do conservatives, liberals, libertarians and others have in common? How do they differ? Which ones are “right” and “wrong”?

Psychologists Jesse Graham and Jonathan Haidt of the University of Virginia developed a scale called the “Moral Foundations Questionnaire.” After putting it up at their website, www.yourmorals.org, and getting thousands of respondents, they discovered a fundamental difference in how distinct political groups view moral issues.

Even more amazing: the same trends appear in results from all over the world.

Care to find out where you fall on the morality scale? Click here to register, and look for the “Moral Foundations Questionnaire” at the top of the table of studies. Then come back here and see what it all means.

International Morality

Multiple Reagans / Mike Lict

Haidt and Graham believe that humans are born with a natural “first draft” of programming – that we’re not, as Rousseau called us, “blank slates.”

We’ve developed certain inborn traits over the millennia – we learn language faster than mathematics, for example, or our automatic fear responses to loud noises and sense of falling as babies.

Haidt and Graham found five moral foundations that all humans seem to possess, in their study of cultures throughout history and around the world:

• 1. Harm / care.

  This is the ability to feel the pain or suffering of other living things. It evolved from the maternal caring for one’s offspring to feel for others in the social group. People who score highly in this area are compassionate, sensitive to acts kindness and violence; low scores are quite select in who they care for.

• 2. Fairness / reciprocity (including issues of rights).

  This trait is the sense of “justice,” however it’s perceived in your culture. Fairness is necessary for any social group to work together. High scores here show the need to keep group members working together smoothly, and low scores suggest an attitude of “survival of the fittest.”

• 3. Ingroup / loyalty.

  Related to an almost instinctive tendency to form “tribes,” this measures the strength of bond with an organization. We see it in patriotism, heroism – and even (or especially) in sports fans. People who score highly in this area view dissent as betrayal or unfaithfulness, while low scores are individualistic.

• 4. Authority / respect.

  The tendency to create groups of leaders and followers is yet another ingrained pattern. Parents expect their children to “respect their elders” and obey authority figures – in some cultures, to the point of awe. Low scorers here think a little rebellion is healthy, while high scorers think “questioning authority” is close to treason.

• 5. Purity / sanctity.

  A sense of disgust appears in all cultures – some areas reflecting sexual role and behavior, others about cleanliness or what may be eaten, and so on. High scores may feel revulsion regarding sexual license or non-vegan diets; low scores tend toward “if it feels good, do it.”

Right and Left Wing Fly Together

How do political conservatives score, versus liberal mindset? Across the board, from one country to another, the results are strikingly similar.

Liberals tend to rank the first two traits – harm/care and fairness/reciprocity – higher than the other three traits. Conservatives rated each of the five traits almost equally.

What precisely does this mean?

In essence, the points of moral contention between liberals and conservatives reside in which moral bases are emphasized, and which are not. Neither group is more or less moral than the other by definition, but different areas are more pronounced than others.

So who’s right? Apparently, everyone is!

And that’s precisely the problem. We talk over each other because we can’t find the right perspective to understand each other.

The Nature Of Duality

Neither side can exist without the other. Together, they form a balance of philosophies which must work together to accomplish anything beyond partisan argument.

In a video lecture, Jonathan Haidt suggested we can escape the trap of the “moral matrix,” and move to a position where we can view ideas objectively instead of subjectively.

As Haidt says, everyone thinks they’re right – but if we step out of our need to be right, we can see where the other person is coming from. This opens a vastly wider world of potential – where cooperative dialogue can take place instead of pointless bickering.

What life will be like in the years ahead is being framed by a new set of questions. One thing is clear: we can no longer afford to ignore or condescend to people we don’t understand.

In the end, we ARE from the same planet – and it’s facing some pressing issues. We must shed our “self-righteousness” and work together if we’re going to solve them. And we must do this NOW.

This is the essence of inner travel. Anyone can fly thousands of miles, yet never see a thing. And anyone can talk for hours, yet never relate to their audience.

We need to shift our perspective, not just our location. How we approach today’s questions is a question only you can answer.

Real travel occurs when the walls come down.

Photo Anna Brones

It happens surprisingly often that, when we are traveling and are confronted by paradisaical locations and amazing people, we are unable to enjoy ourselves entirely.

Despite our surroundings, there is a certain niggling feeling: the idea that something just isn’t quite right about the situation.

If our immediate physical environment is perfect, then we have to examine our inner emotional landscape to discover what these irritating stumbling blocks are. What inner journeys are we having that are preventing us from really enjoying the moment?

This is a short list of five of the most common barriers to inner travel.

1. The absent ‘other half’

Photo Ross Borden

How often is it, when confronted with a picture postcard view and lots of people busy making friends and enjoying themselves, you have distanced yourself and thought “I wish X was here to share this with me”?

We are all guilty of pining over absent partners, of running up ridiculously high mobile phone bills as we chatter incessantly to them.

In turn, of course, we have been annoyed by friends visibly pining for their partner, whilst they should be enjoying a long deserved break with us. Not fun.

Solution:

When traveling without a partner, pre-arrange how often you are going to be in contact. That way, you won’t obsess about missing calls from them, or have to worry about contacting them unnecessarily.

For motivation, recall how irritating your friends are when they are in this situation- you don’t want to end the holiday on bad terms with any of your traveling partners!

2. The ‘Jaded Long-term Traveler’ Attitude

We all know the types. They’ve wrestled sharks in the Caribbean, lived in the wilderness, and slept in more quirky cabanas than exist in all of Southeast Asia.

As a result, nothing fazes them- every waterfall you see, they’ve seen one twice as big. Every crazy character you meet, they’ve met someone twice as crazy.

It is very easy to adopt this attitude after traveling for a while. Impressed by nothing, the excitement of traveling merely becomes everyday.

Solution:

This can be difficult to shake off- especially as the ‘seen it all’ attitude can earn you awe from other travelers.

But try thinking about the company you keep; rather than gravitating towards other seasoned travel-heads, it can be really refreshing hanging out with people on their first trip abroad.

Their sense of open-eyed amazement can be very infectious. And of course, every now and then will come the moment that suddenly shakes this attitude from you.

One of mine was when I saw my first firefly in Mexico (living in England, they are little more than exotic myths). Glowing green insects like flying led lights- what can beat that!?

3. The Urge to Document

Photo Hawaiibren

All your friends are participating in the indigenous ritual that they will only get to attend once or twice in their lifetimes. And what are you doing?

You’re standing behind the ring of people, nose glued to the camera as you fiddle with the settings to correctly expose the photo. Or you’re scribbling frantically in your notebook, composing beautifully descriptive phrases.

You are so concerned with depicting the moment perfectly that you fail to enjoy it.

Solution:

I’m notoriously bad at this- occasionally I have to rely on good friends to tell me to put my notebook away and look at what is going on! Save writing for those long boring pauses in traveling; those all day bus journeys, for example.

Photographing is a little more difficult to avoid, but I think it is wise to forsake the complicated SLR for a small compact camera, set on automatic mode, which eliminates the pauses for fiddling.

4. Failure to Stay in the Present

You’re not enjoying yourself because you are worrying about the flight you have to catch tomorrow, or the hostel you’ll need to find when you arrive at 2am.

Or else, you’re busy regaling people with anecdotes from past travels, or preoccupied with repeating a past traveling mistake. Either way, your thoughts are not located in the present. But what about ‘now’?

Solution:

Remember this: the best traveling experiences are the ones you can’t anticipate. There is no point in hoping for something in the future, because reality is often better. If you are worrying, close your eyes, take a deep breath and try and let past and future worries dissolve.

When this happens to me, I always take a few minutes to myself to be alone and calm myself down, so I can authentically appreciate what is going on around me.

5. Desire for a ‘genuine’ experience

Photo Anna Brones

This is very common in long-term travelers. As a result, you become surprisingly snobbish about certain towns that are featured in the guide-books, failing to appreciate them because they don’t reflect the desired “look” of the country you’re in.

The company of other ‘tourists’, however like-minded they are, is often disparaged.

Solution:

Traveling doesn’t follow a particular path- sometimes you’ll spend weeks just talking to locals, other times, you’ll only meet tourists.

Often the best travel experiences aren’t remotely related to the culture you’re attempting to immerse yourself in – they may occur through a variety of unpredictable encounters with locals and tourist alike.

When I felt like too much of a tourist, I threw out my guidebook, and now, I rely on talking to people for information about transport and good places to go.

These are 5 of the most common inner obstacles we encounter whilst traveling. I have used my own personal experiences to help me compile this list.

What are your own barriers to inner travel? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Feature photo by bravenewtraveler. Photo above by Jeremy G.

Being fluent in English is like laying on an inflatable raft in the middle of an ocean.

It’s easy; it’s comfortable, and it gets you places. But I’m addicted to the process of looking at a symbol that means nothing and unlocking it until I lose access to that meaninglessness.

It’s a weird feeling, that transition.

Imagine that you are driving down the highway and have no idea that orange traffic cones mean construction. Can’t do it? You’ve crossed the semantic fence, where orange will never just be orange anymore.

I wish I knew what every symbol meant, every tattoo, every weaved garment whose stripes indicate tribe status, every letter of Hebrew and even every corporate logo.

Unlocking them is nothing like lying on a raft. It’s like treading water in a vast ocean, with lots of liquid in your ears.

Photo by el_monstrito.

Spanish

I first started learning Spanish for a relatively stupid reason. I got in a small but friendly fight with a girl from Guatemala in my seventh grade science class, and at the end of the day she slipped me a note on ripped paper.

It said, “Paz, hermana. Soy más linda que tú.” I looked at it for a long time, but the component parts didn’t mean much.

I got home and typed the phrase into Altavista’s Babelfish translator, and her message came up seamlessly (which rarely happens with internet translators, making this somewhat of a lightning bolt experience).

It read cruelly, bluntly, “Peace, sister. I am prettier than you.”

By looking up what this girl had written, I had dodged a formidable attempt by another person to both a) screw with a dumb American and b) become an ignorant player in a snotty girl’s game.

We still became friends after that, believe it or not.

I went through about four years of formal training in Spanish later on, and I realized there existed a realm of verb conjugations, object pronouns, and my favorite grammatical lair, the idea of mood.

In Spanish, talking about hypothetical or non-existent scenarios requires a whole new way of tweaking at words. For example, if you say, “I want you to make me dinner,” the verb “want” actually exists, but the “make dinner” only exists in the speaker’s mind, so it has to be conjugated differently.

All of these implicit complications of communication intrigued me. I began to go to bookstores to look at simple Lonely Planet phrase books, excited by how differently the process of ordering a beer was structured in another language.

Photo by juliadeb.

Portuguese

The next language I started learning was Portuguese. I read an article in “Rolling Stone” magazine about a Brazilian band called Bonde do Role.

Apparently their lyrics were unrivaled in their inappropriateness. I decided that I was going to attempt to translate them. I didn’t want to be a dumb American listening to dance music that was talking about gang rapes, bobbing my head along on the treadmill all the while.

Portuguese enchanted me in a way that Spanish never quite did. First of all, it was harder. The sounds in the words blended together; they were more lackadaisical and less easy to pick out.

Not every letter in Portuguese has a consistent sound, which made it more formidable and elusive, like English.

Photo by Soctech.

English

I think English speakers must have an implicit knowledge that ours is one of the most wacked-out languages on the planet, because for me, learning any language that has a lot of order and consistency renders me suspicious, as if the language weren’t real.

Our words are a mix of Germanic structures and Latin-derived structures, so some verbs we conjugate on the inside, like “sit/sat,” and some we just shove an “ed” at the end of, along with countless other oddities.

But what makes English so unique is that it accommodates foreign words and rarely assimilates them. We leave “tequila” as “tequila” instead of trying to phoneticize it into our own system as “tekeeluh.” (Notice that we don’t have such a system by how strange that looks.)

Taekwondo is left how it is, words like “laugh” are left with rules of pronunciation that could render almost any learner hopelessly exasperated.

Most other languages I’ve learned distort foreign words into their own system. For example, in Japanese, McDonald’s is called “Maku Donarudo.”

Photo by alexandralee.

Chinese

The language that I’m learning now is Chinese. It’s the language I’ve always wanted to learn, ever since I was about five and used to see Chinese symbols engraved on my mom’s bath soap.

I recently learned the symbol for the word “soap” and this odd sense of déjà vu took me over. Learning Chinese is like putting on a scuba mask and entering into an ocean on the other side of the world, where the water and all the coral reefs are different colors.

The meanings of Chinese words, because they are hinted at in their writing, are all the more vivid and immanent, and because they have fewer syllables in general, ideas like “dao” (As in, “The Dao of Pooh” anyone?) are constantly re-used in different scenarios, making its concepts more interrelated than any other language I’ve encountered.

The best moment in learning a foreign language is when you can feel yourself poke your head above the water, and suddenly you can look at say, a “French Vogue” and know what they’re talking about, or use a Chinese menu without peeking at the English.

It’s crossing a path of meaning that you once crossed when you stopped saying “goo goo gag a” and started saying “momma,” except this time you can remember it.

Are you addicted to languages? Or wish you could learn a few more? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Photo: is space travel just around the corner?

Travel has come a long way in the last century.

It goes without saying that the landscape of tourism 30, 40, or 50 years from now will be different from that of today. In what ways will our norms and expectations change?

Here’s a look at 6 predictions for the future of travel.

1. Virtual tourism

Mexico as seen in Second Life

As technology advances, it becomes easier to virtually experience the essence of a place. For example, sites like WHTour aim to preserve UNESCO heritage sites in 3D photography, and then allow web surfers to interact with these images in 360 degrees, “as if you were really there.”

Online communities like Second Life are being used to recreate destinations virtually. While it’s unlikely technology will ever actually replace physical travel, but it can bring access to the world ever closer to us.

2. Changing traveler demographics

As this New York Times article from 2006 suggests, countries such as China have growing economies and a burgeoning middle class with disposable income for activities like international travel.

As demographics of large tourist populations change, popular destinations will begin to cater to their needs. Will aspiring tour guides flock to learn Chinese? It’s a possibility in the world of future travel.

3. New York, Paris, Pyongyang?

Photo yeowatzup

Travel can certainly be an economic boon to a country, bringing in much needed economic revenue. In the future, countries currently viewed as closed to the world may begin to open up using tourism as a vehicle.

An example of this can be seen in Libya right now, although as USA Today suggests, it has a ways to go. Even North Korea allows small (albeit tightly controlled) groups of foreign tourists in to visit.

As the political and economic landscape of the world changes, people may begin to travel to places previously considered to be “off limits,” with this increased openness benefiting both host and visitor.

4. Extinct sites

Photo 14983

Just as travel in the future can open up opportunities, it can also reduce possibilities as well. Over-visitation of popular sites can wreak havoc on the environment and infrastructure.

From “sinking” Venice to the impact of mass tourism on Machu Picchu or the Galapagos Islands, finding ways of mediating the negative effects of travel (such as introducing stricter quotas) is one potential (though undesirable) outcome of travel in the future.

5. Mentality changes

Photo Mannequin Display

Of course, if the current energy situation heralds a new trend, we may have to re-think our assumptions about travel. Just as the “staycation” became a buzzword this summer, we may need to consider the moral and behavioral impacts of leisure travel.

6. The final frontier?

One of the more “futuristic” predictions, space travel could one day become a feasible option for people besides the mega-rich.

As described in a recent New York Times story, both the Russian space program and the private company of Virgin Galactic are sinking their teeth into this emerging niche market.

The degree to which this takes off, both figuratively and literally, has yet to be seen, but perhaps sometime within our lifetimes it won’t be unheard of to receive a postcard from the moon.

Someone 50 years ago would be shocked to imagine a future where one could travel from London to Paris by train, or fly across Europe for the price of a guidebook.

Similarly, changes occurring in the future of travel in the next century, whether good or bad, will undoubtedly surprise us as well.

What predictions do you have for the future of travel? Share in the comments!