A Nest of Wire Hangers, Freaking Out the Hippies, & A Cartilage Crunching St. Francis

If it wasn’t for St. Francis of Assisi, I would probably be dead.  No, I am not claiming that St. Francis has ever  done anything to save my life.

I’m simply referring to the fact that there have been a total of three St. Francis statues placed in our yard and, yet, only one remains standing.

St. Francis is touted as the saint of…

• animals
• nature
• ecology
• the environment

He is also reported as having once been a street fighter.  Apparently that didn’t go so well because he ended up getting that whole animal, nature, ecology, environment thing going.

In 1999 I actually did the following:

• Drove a rental car through the Sinai desert to the most southerly tip of Israel
• Went to the Taba border crossing station
• Traded a few Marlboro cigarettes for a few Egyption cigarettes with the guy who was checking my passport and, as I was smoking one of my traded cigarettes thought,

Cleopatra would crap her toga if she knew her likeness was on a pack of cigarettes as nasty as these.

• Walked a mile to find a Bedoin taxi driver to drive me 4 hours to Mt. Sinai
• Was amazed by and slightly nervous regarding the nest of wire clothing hangers essentially holding taxi’s engine together
• Gladly, happily, cheerfully and willingly showed my passport to anyone with a gun and a military uniform along the way
• Rented a camel to ride 4 hours to the top of Mt. Sinai and stood at the little Chapel of the Holy Trinity at the top and thought,

Moses!  You crazy son of a bitch!  No wonder you heard the ‘Word of God’ up here!

Seriously, anyone as

• exhausted
• hungry
• bow-legged due to camel use
• nauseous due to altitude and
• amazed by the lack of scenery up there

could end up delirious enough to hear the ‘Word of God’.

Luckily I had purchased and inhaled a little roll of cookies, was having too much of an adrenaline rush to feel exhausted, and was wearing a big sweat shirt with the logo of the 12-step recovery program I belong on it so I could become distracted by some little hippies I found sharing a joint at the top of Mt. Sinai who

• looked at my sweat shirt
• looked at my face
• looked at each other and then said,

No shit!

when one of them said,

Oh God!  Those recovery fuckers are everywhere!

I couldn’t help but be glad I was clean because, seriously, I cannot imagine the bitterness I would feel if I was in active addiction and had tried to get away from all of those

‘recovery fuckers’

by going to Mt. Sinai and ended up running into one of them at the top.

Now that might have actually ended up being a case of me hearing the ‘Word of God’.

Or not.

At the bottom of Mt. Sinai is St. Catherine’s Monastery.  This was, of course, originally called ‘The Monastery of the Transfiguration’ because, indeed, when St. Catherine of Alexandria transfigured from

alive

to

dead

in the 3rd century her head and one of her hands were brought there for safekeeping.

Now that is what I call taking being transfigured seriously!

Alas, I eventually had to return to Israel to catch my flight back to the good ol’ U.S. of A.  And that, of course, meant checking out of Israel at the airport.

Indeed, the process of leaving Israel was a whole different thing than arriving in Israel.

Arriving in Israel was mostly about

• Getting off the plane
• Making sure my passport was still on my person
• Choosing whether or not I would let Israeli customs stamp my passport or I would carry around some official piece of paper which was a choice given
• in case I wanted to later travel to what the Israeli customs agent described to me as,

One of those Arab countries that might not like you if our stamp is in your passport.

• finding my suitcase and leaving the airport to hang out in…

That Israeli country that might not have liked me if my passport had carried the stamp of one of those Arab countries.

Leaving Israel.  Yeah, leaving.  Now that was a whole other ball of wax.

And they all looked like they were 20.  Years old.  The customs agents.  And I just wanted to head home.

But soon realized that particular concept, the concept of ‘just heading home’, was going to take a while.

The conversation between myself and the customs agent as I was leaving went something like this:

Agent,

Why did you choose to come to Israel on these particular dates.

Me:

Uhhhh…

Agent:

Why did you stay in that exact hotel?

Me:

Uhhhh…

Agent:

Do you have receipts of your stay at that hotel?

Me:

Yes!  Oh yes!  Let me get them for you.

Agent:

Do not touch that purse!  That is my purse in this exact moment.  Do you understand that your purse now belongs to me?

Me:

Uhhhh…

Agent:

Do you know you could have a bomb?

Me:

Huh?  What?  Are you serious?

Agent:

You can go.

Me:

Huh?  What?  Are you serious?

And then she turned her back and walked away and I stood there afraid to touch my own purse for something like two minutes until I had the balls to reach for it

even though I was not yet sure she was done considering it hers or that there wasn’t a bomb in it.

I get it.  I get it.  I know.  They’ve been through a lot over there.  But seriously.  I’m just some schmuck who rode a camel to the top of Mt. Sinai and ended up thinking Moses was a crazy son of a bitch and freaking a few hippies out.

Early this morning while watering flowers and our tomato plants and peach tree Ben and I decided to clean the mold off of our statue of St. Francis of Assisi.  An easy job with a hose and scrub brush.

St. Francis was quickly transfigured back to being a fancy little guy holding court with the birds, falling leaves, wind and sun that visit our front yard on a daily basis.

We then moved on to scrub the mold out of the little bird bath we’ve buried the base of in the middle of one of our little flower gardens.

And we couldn’t help but having the following conversation:

Ben said,

It sure would be nice to have the St. Francis statue that matches our little bird bath.

I said,

Which one?

Ben said,

The one that matches the bird bath.  Remember?

I said,

Yeah, but we’ve had two St. Francis statues that match the bird bath.

Ben said,

Don’t remind me.

And it’s true.  We have had three St. Francis statues in our front yard, but only one remains.

The one we had just cleaned is perched atop a stand and bird bath that, all told, is something like 4 feet tall and is made out of some kind of stone that causes me worry about the cartilage in our knees every time we lift it.

That’s also the only St. Francis statue that has survived our dogs.

The first St. Francis statue that matched our little bird bath was knocked over by our dogs as they were playing one day and ended up sitting on our front porch with one arm for something like a month.

The second St. Francis statue that also, by the way, matched our little bird bath was carried around the yard by his head by our dogs as they were playing one day and ended up sitting on our front porch with his head sitting right beside him for something like a month.

So I didn’t pursue the idea of getting another St. Francis statue that matches our little bird bath.  I’m thinking the St. Francis statue that is something like 4 feet tall and is made out of cartilage crunching stone seems most likely to survive.

Except for the part where I regularly see our biggest dogs stopping at the bird bath part of the big stone statue for a drink when they are playing in the yard.

Every time they do it I think,

Oh crap!  They’re either going to knock him over and kill themselves or knock him over and cause his little head to snap off and roll across the yard for a bit before they go chasing after it and end up using it as some kind of fetch toy.

I’m also thinking I just can’t get my head around having two St. Francis statues in the same front yard.  I mean seriously, he does have that history of being a street fighter and that might not go so well.

Oh, and I should also go back to the fact that I started this blog post by stating,

If it wasn’t for St. Francis of Assisi, I would probably be dead.

I suppose it’s important to simply admit that I now have no idea why I said that and ask that you not read too much into it.

Seriously.