Friday, June 5, 2009

Jesus Trail - Day 2

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After a raprurous night of listening to Muslim wedding celebrations, this day our goal is to go from Kfar Cana to McDonalds, I mean, Golani Junction. Before we begin, we make a stop next door to one of the churches that claims to be the site where Jesus turned the water into wine, I mean, grape juice (for all you Southern Baptists out there) at the wedding he attended a long time ago. As you can see, no attempt was made to recreate authenticity of the time here.The supposed alleged stone jars which participated in the miracle. (I like the box on top for prayer intentions - we all know which road is paved with intentions...)This leg of the trip we are without a guide. No worries because the trail is clearly marked with white-orange-white paint on permanent, immovable objects.Yes, like rednecks back where I'm from, abandoned cars constitute permanent, immovable objects. So we finally begin our day by ascending through Cana......into a forest overlooking the beautiful countryside.From a clearing we can see the top of Mount Tabor peeking over the ridge. Notice the box-like Catholic monastery plopped down on the top.From the forest we wind across to the Netofa valley we saw from Zippori the previous day. Still just as pretty as before.However, as soon as we could spot McDonalds, I mean, Golani Junction in the far distance, controversy reared its ugly head. Some wisely made the observation that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Others disagreed and were bent on slavishly following the arbitrarily-marked path which made no attempt to hasten the trip. WWJD - What Would Jesus Do in a situation like this? I have my opinion, but ultimately we deferred to the rigid, man-made rules and followed the marked trail. We did pass some lovely fields along the way.Finally, we reached the Golani Junction. No, let's be honest: we reached McDonalds!And we rewarded ourselves with some of nature's finest junk food. After a day like we had, it was hard to imagine it could get any better than that (ok, either our standards are pretty low or we're just easy to please).

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