Day 22: Following Jesus past Mount Precipice to His Transfiguration on Mount Tabor!
The Penthouse ion Top of the Palace!
I woke up in the ‘Penthouse on Top of the Palace’ in Cana outside Nazareth after a splendid night’s rest! This day was another day of exploration simply going where Jesus went and finding Biblical Moments to contemplate and absorb into my being. This was my third visit to this area; the first was a drive through orientation on my way to Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee and the second centered around the Virgin Mary as this was her hometown and where she learned of God’s plans for her life!
No Joshua found in Mash’had but did find this beautiful Islamic Cemetery!
First though after talking with my Muslim hosts last night I learned that I was very close to Mash’had which is said to be the site of the Prophet Jonah’s birthplace and grave (2 Kings 14:25). Mash’had was called Gath-hepher in Biblical Times, a village in the tribe of Zebulun (Joshua 19:10-16).
Today Mash’had is an Arab town located 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) northeast of Nazareth in Israel’s North District. The name Mash’had in Arabic means ‘the grave of a holy man.’
McDonald’s and a Parking Ticket on the Horizon!
I drove around and around, up and down, and even asked some folks but nobody had a clue who Joshua was or where his tomb was located. I did see several Muslim Mosques and even a cemetery.
Oh well, onward to my next stop whatever it will be. Now I am in some sort of planned community and see I McDonald’s! So I stop for an iced coffee, come out and have a parking ticket on my windshield! Literally parked about 50 feet in front of the McDonald’s which had to be free parking right? Not right.
Now I am beginning to think what will happen next as I could not find Joshua and now have a parking ticket!
Mount Precipice is a Holy Place!
I see a sign for Mount Precipice which is where I think I was going and take a right as indicated. This is where the good folks of Nazareth chased Jesus too after he revealed to them, via reading Isaiah 61:1-3, that he was the Messiah. In the Bible it says Jesus somehow tricked and eluded the crowd but a sign here says that this is where he jumped! Precipice means Cliff to me and this one is very, very high!
Nice view rom Mount Precipice and in the view I see my next stop, Mount Tabor, the sight of the Transfiguration of Jesus! Seeing it 15-20 miles off in the distance and getting there are two different things! I have a good sense of direction and it is even better with GPS and Israel has great GPS coverage!
Church of the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor!
Although going through town and finding the entrance wasn’t that easy!
Soon I was back on top of the world at the Church of The Transfiguration on Mount Tabor outside Nazareth—where Jesus took Peter, James and John his brother for an awe-inspiring experience with Moses and Elijah!
A bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!”
God The Father; Our Lord and Savior Jesus and The Holy Spirit were certainly present in this place!
Sunset coming down off Mount Tabor!
On the way out there was a small gift shop where I saw a book that was not for sale no matter how hard I tried to buy it. I found it on line when I returned home. It is a treasure—“Sight from Above” by Asaf Solomon (Photographer) and Avi Hartmann (Writer)–whenever I open it the pictures and words take me back to Israel and Palestine!
The sunset coming down off Mount Tabor were more glorious than ever before! I found my way to my Muslim home in Cana arriving well after dark. My hosts and I had some more beautiful conversation. I was learning so much about the world, about Jesus and about myself. Life was good. I knew I was very blessed!
Move—Out Day; Moving—On Day after two nights in the luxurious ‘Penthouse on top of a Palace’ in Cana! First though I have to pay my parking ticket! So off I go to find the DMV! LOL, no DMV in Israel! Sort of a Ground Hog Movie sort of day but this time I pass by Mash’had on my way up the hill out of Cana to the South. 
So the adventure continues. People are out walking, I am taking my pictures, minding my own business, driving along a nice parkway and trying to find the Post Office of New Nazareth to pay my parking ticket! Then I get pulled over by Israeli Police. I play tourist surprised that one cannot be taking pictures while driving along. I plead my ignorance, they let me go and give me better directions to the elusive Nazareth Post Office. Imagine that almost got another ticket while trying to pay the first ticket. At least I know better now that parking at the McDonald’s in New Nazareth is not free! Things have changed since the days of Jesus! I probably would have been stoned by now and I do not mean happily being on morphine when I check out of this world!
I recognize the neighborhood where I am and see the dome of the Church of the Annunciation where Mary learned that she was to me the Mother of Jesus. I go around the traffic circle with the fountain in it a couple of times for good luck and to get me headed back in the right direction! I park and pay and go into the Post Office. All business, no opportunity to plead my case that parking directly outside a McDonald’s anywhere in the world should be free! I pay the fine and can no longer recall the amount though it was substantial for a parking ticket.
On the way to Acre I saw an exit sign for Kefar Masaryk. Masaryk is a name familiar to me from my Czechoslovakian heritage. Sure enough the founders were Jewish immigrants from Czechoslovakia and Lithuania, who settled in Israel in 1932. In 1940 the kibbutz moved to its present site and was renamed Kefar Masaryk after Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the first President of Czechoslovakia! Definitely a stop on my next visit to Israel with the home of finding some tasty kolachi!
After I paid my respects to Baháʼu’lláhm inside his shrine and toured the lovely gardens I headed west to Mediterranean Sea and then North to the Lebanon border. The drive north was only about 15 miles. Everything is close by in the Middle East, at least in the western portion of the Middle East!
Interesting enough up ahead in the other direction, towards the sea, it appears t be some sort of scenic lookout so this is the direction I decide to continue on a bit. Signs of welcoming lead me to the Rosh Hanikra Grottoes, a tourist destination! I pay the entrance fee, take a very short gondola-like ride down to sea level and go inside the Big Grotto.
I decided to take a ride east, as North as possible, through the mountains back to Safed. When I was there two days ago I did not have a copy of my books for Rabbi Leiter who runs the Ascent School. Only 30 or so miles but because of the terrain it would take an hour or so. Once there I dropped off the inscribed books and took the main road 85 back west to the Mediterranean Coast.
As it turns out my timing was perfect to have a latte and catch the sunset at the beach in Acre. A spectacular sunset I may add and sort of a celebratory one too! I would be leaving in less than a week and spending three nights in the Old City of Jerusalem. For the most part, I knew the cross-country trip to Safed would be my last open exploration in Israel. I had covered most of the country and gone to some distant parts such as the Golan Heights and Negev Desert. But I also knew my inner exploration was not over by a long shot as I would be living in the Old City with 20,000 other Christians, Jews, and Muslims for three nights!
On the beach in Acre I could see over to the North the ancient and biblical city of Old Acre. Sure to be fascinating, I added it to the list of things to see and experience for my next Spiritual Journey to Israel and Palestine!
I woke up in Haifa heading to my last 3 nights of the Spiritual Journey to Israel & Palestine in the Old City of Jerusalem! A spiritual ending to a Spiritual Journey!
I was very interested in seeing the Stella Maris Monastery right across the street! Also called Our Lady of Mount Carmel, it is a 19th-century Carmelite monastery. It all started right here on the slopes of Mount Carmel in the 12th century with religious hermits (my kind of people) began to inhabit the local caves imitating Elijah the Prophet. Fast forward to 1836 when the current church and monastery was opened. Three years later Pope Gregory XVI bestowed the title of Minor Basilica on the sanctuary, and it is now known “Stella Maris”, meaning Star of the Sea. My Roman Catholic parish back in Ponte Vedra Beach is Our Lady Star of the Sea too! Just a different sea!
One sign read “Mount Carmel—A Temple to Encounter God Face-to-Face so right there and then I decided that while I missed out on The Cave of Elijah I would not miss out on an Encounter with God Face-to-Face and decided to venture up to the top of Mount Carmel on my way to Jerusalem! No easy driving task I would find out but then again nothing should be easy when seeking God!
It was a slow winding road passing cyclists along the way. What I thought was my destination was a Memorial to the victims of the worst natural disaster in Israeli history—the December 2010 Carmel Forest fire which killed 44 people and burned 12,000 acres and turned five million trees into ash. Close by is where fire trapped and burned a bus carrying cadets from the Israel Prison Service sent to evacuate prisoners from the path of the blaze. Quite a moving Memorial Site.
The pavement turns into a dirt road. I find myself in some sort of park with a circular dirt road along the edge of the mountain top. Beautiful scenic views but definitely not Mount Carmel. Time to head to Jerusalem and on my way back through town I learn a little but more about the Druze and their Hospitality Houses!
Before taking that left turn to Jerusalem I stop on the highway for gas and have lunch at another one of my favorite restaurants—the Green Cafe. Not the best ambiance at a highway stop but the food is good, fresh, & healthy! 
My first find after exiting is the Orthodox Jewish Enclave of Kiryat Telshe Stone or Kiryat Ye-arim which is mentioned in the Bible as the site where the Ark of the Covenant had been kept for 20 years before being taken to Jerusalem by King David. It is Saturday now, the Sabbath and being an ultra-Orthodox Jewish town neither my car nor I am allowed entry. I park down the street and walk back to observe and take in this place of immense Biblical proportions. The Ark of the Covenant was basically the traveling Temple for the nomadic Jews coming out of Egypt on the way to the Promised Land.
Per Wikipedia; this modern community was established in 1973 by a group of students and teachers from Yeshivat Telz in America. Despite the official name of “Kiryat Yearim”, it is widely known as Telz-Stone, after the yeshiva and American Greetings founder-chairman Irving I. Stone, who helped to finance the community’s early development. Our world is a very diverse and integrated, highly connective place!
I follow the signs to a dead end on top of the hill. Two beautiful ladies, one young and one old, full of life, somehow communicate to me that this is the back entrance and I need to go back down the hill to find the visitor’s entrance. Which I do and then ring the bell and the gate opens wide. Life is good, life is easy when you are lost and ask for help!
Holy Ground indeed plus a large, oversized Statue of the Blessed & Holy Mother holding Baby Jesus! The Virgin Mary rendition of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro! Wow, an intact 5th Century mosaic floor! No, I did not walk on it. I obeyed the sign! Thank you Sister for the beautiful tour of the Church of Notre Dame.
Onward to Jerusalem to find my bed for the next three nights inside the walls of the Old City at the Christ Church Guesthouse. This being my fourth journey to Jerusalem, the last two weeks ago, also arriving on a Saturday Sabbath. 
There is a lot more of history, religion, and spirituality to take in over the next three days. Arriving after dark I took a stroll to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Then I passed by a Shishkebab restaurant which reminded me of my Dad because he used that word all the time. I chose Al Sultan Restaurant and Cafe and had a wonderful dinner of sheep cheese fried, a falafel, and baklawa and Arabic Coffee for dessert. Maybe you can read my fortune in the bottom of my coffee cup?
September 3rd, 2018 marks 18 years of TROML Journaling all my life’s thoughts, feelings, & experiences and, most importantly, learning from them through the unique & powerful TROML Process! A ‘Splendid Spiritual Self’ and a lifestyle of peace, joy, & freedom has emerged for me over the years. There are no shortcuts in life, though if you CUT into yourself (in a healthy manner) and learn to accept, love, and be compassionate to your True Self, it is a SHORT road home to peace, joy, & freedom (and a home to enjoy for all eternity). Far from perrfect, YES, you are RIGHT… perfectionism, control, all-or-nothing thinking, and judgmentalism have no home in me anymore. Everyone, certainly everyone I have met around the world, has their own TROML Program & their own unique ‘Splendid Spiritual Self’ has emerged too… we are all ‘human-beings-in-progress! THANK YOU all for sharing yourself with me on a spiritual level. ‘Spiritual Love,’ that’s the foundation for our successes and the answer to all our problems, individually and collectively! TROML Baby Forever!
My moment of truth came in the emergency room of a hospital in my hometown of Binghamton, NY. There to visit my mother who was deathly ill in the hospital (who survived a 17-night hospital stay and lived another year, thank God) I broke out in a body rash. The emergency room doctor, without really examining me (did look at my body but did not relate or connect with ME) quickly wrote out a prescription and handed it to me. I am not a drug-taking person and just knew there had to be a better way to live so I started my TROML Journal that very night…
Yeah, right now, this moment is the youngest I will ever be so why not do something meaningful for ourselves, family, friends, and future generations? TROML Forever Baby!
TROML (an Acronym for The Rest of My Life) is a dynamic, self- realization process that results in finding one’s True Self/Trusting Ego; one’s Eternal Child Within; and becoming aware of the presence of God, Jesus, and The Holy Spirit deep within—finding one’s Splendid Spiritual Self!
mediately you think, right? WRONG!!!
Remember that your mind and Silly Ego/Pride/Self don’t really like change; they like to be in control, keep things the same (especially bad habits) whether or not it is in your best interest today, tomorrow, or in the future.
Yes, someone has to turn off that alarm clock and someone has to get out of bed and begin the day of thoughts, emotions, words, and behavior. But it should not automatically be your mind!
TROML Realization: Release That Which Does Not Serve GOD…
Late last night I got a call and was informed of what would be a tragic event if it would happen as described. It took me immediately to the bottom of my evilest instincts. How could this thoughtless and hurtful action even be comprehended without consideration of its impact?
God has instilled patience in me and I am so very grateful. I do not have to respond or react immediately to anyone or anything.
In this moment, for this moment, God has made me perfect and entire, wanting nothing. If I give ‘patience’ her due, her time, and her respect she will be miraculous things in me and in my life and the lives of my friends and family. Indeed, in the life of all if they so believe and walk in the Bible as anyone may.
Hope and grace go together like two peas in a pod. Find one, find the other. Feel one, feel the other. Let them nourish us in our time of need.
“Love and charity is patient, is kind; love and charity does not envy, is not pretentious, is not puffed up, is not ambitious, is not self-seeking, is not provoked; thinks no evil, does not rejoice over wickedness, but rejoices with the truth; bears with all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love and charity never fails, whereas prophecies will disappear, and tongues will cease, and knowledge will be destroyed.””
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.”
My thoughts go to a recent movie I saw called “Molly’s Game.” The main realization for me in this inspiring story is the importance of one’s name. What it means to self and others, past, present, and future. In reality Molly’s love, spirit, and patience enable her story to be told in a proper manner and ultimately leads to her human and spiritual freedom.
Upon awakening, what does my Splendid Spiritual Self really need to do?
I know I have things to do to function in the world this day. I have to get up, put on some sort of worldly appearance, and get through my day to live for another day. What would Brahman, Buddha, Confucius, Mohammed, Jesus, or the Lord our God do with the time, energy, and opportunity that this day gives each one of us? 
Completely now as my Splendid Spiritual Self, I touch base with other always present and always promoted worldly and human entities—my emotions, my ability to speak, and my body.
What emotions may I identify, accept, and feel at this moment? Spiritually I feel gratitude for the simple fact of being alive and having the opportunity to live another day. But is there a hangover from yesterday or the imprint from a dream so real that I know I lived it and did not imagine it? In the truth of the moment can I identify any and all emotions? Or have I self-medicated myself into denial, justification, and rationalization of their actual existence? If needed, I take a moment now to accept and feel my emotion with no responsive need, action or even thought, no lingering attachment. I just accept and feel and let them go to someplace other than my mind and my being.
There is no need to speak unless I have awoken with my lover at my side. If that is the case then in addition to being grateful for being alive for another day I am also grateful for the presence of my lover and the love bestowed upon me. Words are powerful. I choose words carefully and seek to understand myself and the motives behind my words before uttering a syllable. 
My heart speaks to all those who have loved me throughout my life beginning with my mother who delivered me into this world through the highest of human acts of love. I am the product of the love of my mother and father, their highest expression of their human and spiritual love. I am grateful to be loved and to have the ability to love. In a sea of love I now return to the silence of my Splendid Spiritual Self.
I pledge to take care of my body the best way that I can, minimally better than yesterday. I will not take it for granted. I will provide proper nutrition, exercise and rest for my body. My body is my living temple and I am the appointed caretaker. I will sense pain and pleasure through my body knowing that they are the same from a spiritual sense. My Splendid Spiritual Self is inspired by either and both.
I see the proper separation and independence between my mind, emotions, speech, and body and their proper perspective to my Splendid Spiritual Self. There are intervening one-way personal, prayerful, and protective inner boundaries. I start with my Splendid Spiritual Self and let it lead my mind, emotions, speech, and body. TROML Baby!
Don’t we all, within our own religion and spiritual beliefs, walk as Jesus did? Do we not all experience death and resurrection through our own idiosyncrasies as we journey through life as we know it? Aren’t we all just spiritual beings trying to live a human life versus human beings trying to live a spiritual life? Can we come out of self, come out of denial, justification, and rationalization? Where and when did, does or will that crossover from human to spirit occur inside us? 
Special day honoring the Ladies of Lisle, the first women to vote in New York State! A historical marker was unveiled in the old Lisle Village Hall exactly 100 years after that first vote. Quite interesting, that first vote was whether or not to keep Lisle a Dry Town! The women voted yes! I wonder what the vote would be today if they concerned the consumption of wine! After the dedication we went over to see a quite impressive exhibit at the Lisle Library and then we went down the street to the French Distillery to toast the woman’s right to drink, excuse me, I mean the woman’s right to vote! (Andy Reistetter; Facebook Post with 30 Pics; 1-6-18)
