This is my friend Abe. We met a year and a half ago on a bus in Vietnam.
Some of you may remember him and his friend Adam from posts about how they protected me from a chopstick attacker and how they helped me get to church.
The three of us only traveled together for about four days, but I cried a little when they left me in Cambodia and went back to Boston.
Abe was in the Northwest for some grad school interviews last week, and our shared Seattle experience was quite different from our shared Asian experience:
- Instead of eating rice and tropical fruit, we ate Mexican tamales and red velvet cake.
- Instead of watching the sun rise over Angkor Wat, we watched the sun set over the Olympics.
- Instead of sweating ourselves into a state of dehydration, we wore coats.
- Instead of traveling by tuk-tuk, we made illegal U-turns all around town in my gold Honda.
- Instead of scaling ancient ruins, we hiked an urban park.
- Instead of getting full body massages, we... hmm. There is no parallel.
Just pray that I run into more nice Jewish boys.
2 comments:
As a true Jewish Mormon, one who has NEVER qualified as a gentile under ANYONE'S definition, I would like to make a few comments:
1. Although I often get stares of disbelief from people when I try to explain this, there is a very large community of secular Jews in this country who are Jewish in the same way that some people are Polish, Irish or Italian. They completely identify with the culture, but see no requirement to be practicing the religion or even believing in God. This enables them to join with other Jews of all different levels of belief without judgment.
In the Mormon community, we also have a strong sub-culture, and if we had a way of thinking and talking about it separate from our religion, we might have an easier time participating in a community of Mormons that was not based on religious belief. However, that is a little harder than for the Jews, as the Jewish community has been segregated and persecuted for their ethnic heritage and bloodlines for thousands of years, not only for their religion and beliefs.
2. For anyone who is interested, there is an organization called B'nai Shalom that meets twice a year on the Thursday night before General Conference in Salt Lake City. It can be found at www.mormonsandjews.org. It is for Jews, Mormons, and anyone else who has an interest. Many of the attendees are Mormons who have discovered Jewish roots in their family history research. My daughter Liz and I have been trying to introduce them to Klezmer music and Jewish folk dancing. It is pretty amusing.
3. I agree that a nice Jewish boy is almost as good as a nice Mormon boy, emphasis on the word "nice". ;)
4. I have confidence in your ability to both take care of yourself when traveling and use the power of discernment to find suitable traveling companions on the fly. Have fun!
Mira
An elaborate stroy to cover up the obviousl problem that you lack a companion for your next perilous adventure. Find one..or many. Pops
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