Istanbul has so much to offer the pilgrim traveler. All day I watched your children making connections with all kinds of people: the man selling tops at the cafe, the young art student at our bus stop.. Fadil the Barber...
We have a real early start tomorrow back to Atlanta (550 departure from Istanbul!!)
While we are coming home and all day tomorrow I hope to have a few more entries for you . Our days have been really long and full- your pilgrims will have so many stories to tell. In the meantime- some pictures:
The "Harrowing of Hell" mosaic at Chora church. All of us were very moved by this and we had a nice discussion about the theology behind this mosaic.
Chora church - just inside old town Istanbul- one of the greatest collections of Byzantine era mosaics. (See above)
Cengis giving us the lowdown on Chora- and telling us a great joke...
Joseph trying to win Mary's hand- his walking staff flowered so the head priest let him marry Mary. We saw many mosaics depicting apocryphal stories about Mary and Joseph.
More later....
I always thought it was very decent of Jesus to harrow hell. Now I'm glad to know that that looked like.
ReplyDeleteHope you are sucking the marrow out of every last moment of you trip. We look forward to seeing you safe and home tomorrow.
Liza Boswell