(Easter Baskets aligned. Delightful Carrot Cake prepared. Today’s observance underway!)

The Legal guys told us we could go back to casual commentary regarding religion just as soon as things cool down a little on the litigation front. Just a precaution, they say, but they note the tide of stuff rising around us.

We respectfully demure with the temporary restriction. Some of us had the chance to visit Jerusalem and the West Bank of the Jordan River. We walked the list of quite assuming and unassuming monuments to events regarding something quite significant. So, we think we are still free to commemorate Easter even if we mention it as a “travel event” rather than a spiritual one.

It certainly had not been a pilgrimage to get there in 1990. The boat we were riding (USS Forrestal, CV-59) was in the Mediterranean. We had served as a scenic backdrop to the Malta Summit, a mass of steel national resolve, and then directed to maintain a low operational profile. We wound up on the hook off Haifa in Israel. The gracious Air Wing Commander gave us four days to disappear into the holy hinterlands.

We may have been making “peace” in our Cold War context. But ashore, there was unrest at the time. It was a “boycott” of trade in what was termed the “occupied territories.” That included the slow walk across the Temple Mount that included the Dome of the Rock- the al Aqsa Mosque- and some masonry said to have been part of the Second Temple. The disturbance was minor by today’s standards and we were determined to see a few things on the West Bank. We had litany list checks to mark there- Dead Sea, Bethlehem and Masada- and knew we were unlikely to be back. We had our hired driver take us across.

We saw many holy and alternate-holy sites along the way. Our pace was quick. Being in a hurry to get to the next check on the litany list, some of the lessons from the remaining stones got a little frayed. But three decades ago in life they remain bright in jumbled memory. There was something real in the air that made energy palpable in the streets.

On this day the winds have diminished under clear skies. The temperature is coming up and the optimism of Spring makes us smile at the energy on display around the patio! The human stuff is entertaining all around, and the growth of new life all around is a positive joy.

Happy Easter!

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