Each year a number of Columbia students participate in the Middle East Travel Seminar (METS), a journey through Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Sinai, and Israel/Palestine sponsored by the Pittulloch Foundation. Former METS participant Bobby Williamson ’01 shares a reflection on his group’s journey to Mount Sinai in May 2000.

Dawn is still hours away. Night has hardly begun. But in the stillness of the deep night people are stirring. Flashlights flicker in the darkness ahead; the sounds of feet hustling along the dusty street fill the night. The peaks of the foothills loom above, shrouded in the early morning fog, the full moon breaking through the cloudy night. We speak in hushed tones, uncertain. The climb ahead is daunting; the thought of the mountain strikes awe in us. I have been waiting for this for months.

Suddenly the guide begins to shout “Camels! Camels!” I feel hands grabbing me, leading me hurriedly, and thrusting me upon a camel. .The saddle is uncomfortable and the horns too close together, as my saddle sore will remind me for days afterward. The camel stands, and we are off! Such a regal creature, the camel, its graceful neck arched in the still moonlight, a look of placid bemusement on his face. “Dar! Dar!” shouts the drive to my camel, Wushki. “It means ‘Way,’” he explains, “He walks this way every morning, and he wants to go somewhere else. I have to remind him to stay on the path.” How like a camel I feel some days.

On the back of the camel I am ten feet tall. We plod past hikers, who seem annoyed, but I have no control over my direction and decide to hang on and enjoy the ride. The night is beautiful, the clouds settling into the valley giving it a mysterious appearance, an ambience of awe and reverence. A trail of flashlights moves far below me, trickling upward from the valley toward the peak, a river of pilgrims flowing ever upward. Then suddenly, as we round the corner, above us is the peak shrouded in mystery and standing out in rocky dignity high above. Jebel Musa, the mountain of Moses. It has the look of a holy place, a dwelling place of gods, where man meets deity in tongues of flame. Sinai.

We continue to walk upward, Wushki and I, along the rocky path. A startled Brit sprints past on an over-achieving camel, balanced precariously on a path not meant for passing. “No! No!” he screams, “I want to go slow like all the other camels!”

Finally we reach the limit of the camels’ ability. I bid Wushki farewell and start up the path on foot. The steep, rocky trail disappears above me into the dark night. I try to walk without my flashlight, a meditative pilgrim, but my city-trained eye cannot follow the way, and I must rely on my light. I climb with a friend, often in silence, always awed by the dim, rocky surroundings. The top comes on us almost unexpectedly, a rock outcropping with a small church situated on its peak. We settle in on a rock ledge facing eastward, waiting for the sun to rise and warm our chilly bones.

As we wait, I open my Hebrew Bible and here where they were first delivered read the Ten Commandments quietly to myself. In this very place and with these very words, God formed the rag-tag people of Israel into a community of chosen ones. In this place, God transformed a rag-tag group of wanderers into a people, gave them a covenant, and taught them how to live together to God’s glory. In this place the community of my faith was born. I can trace my ancestry to this spot, to a moment not unlike this one, more then 30 centuries ago. This is holy ground.

A deep orange sunrise spreads slowly across the mountains on the horizon. We take pictures, but it is impossible to capture holy moments. The sun continues to rise on a new day as God once rose afresh upon a tired and wandering people.

After descending the mountain for breakfast and a shower (without much water), we head to Saint Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of Jebel Musa for a visit with Father Justin and a look around the grounds. Just a few years ago, before air-conditioned buses and large tour groups, St. Catherine’s welcomed about 30 guests each year. Now several hundred pilgrims gathered here each day to visit this holy place.

Saint Catherine’s is the oldest Orthodox monastery in the world, protected first by the Roman emperors and later by Muhammad and even by Napoleon after him, never sacked or destroyed in 1600 years of existence. Tradition holds that a shoot of the burning bush is here, its location marked by a small chapel where people take off their shoes to stand upon holy ground. Saint Augustine took off his shoes here in the fourth century. Pope John Paul took off his shoes here just last month. Over the centuries thousands of travel-weary pilgrims have tossed aside their shoes to stand here, in this place where YHWH spoke to Moses so many centuries ago, from this very bush. Supposedly they have tried to plant shoots of it elsewhere, but it will grow only in its own place, here within this monastery. This is holy ground.

We are ushered in to see Father Justin, a tall, slender, quietly learned man probably in his late forties. A former Southern Baptist from Texas, he learned of Orthodoxy from reading the Church Fathers, then came here to Saint Catherine’s to study and never left. He speaks with the gentle, firm voice of 2000 years of history, grounded in a deeply rooted faith tradition. He talks of the challenges faced by the Orthodox in relating to the modern world. How does a faith so steeped in history respond to a world that is changing so rapidly? I fear it is the question that we all face in a world in which easy answers and paper-thin belief structures appeal to the convenience-oriented culture that we have created. How do we claim depth? How do we proclaim the mystery of our faith? How do we declare the unpredictable grace of God in a world of “What Would Jesus Do” bracelets?

This spring, the Middle East Travel Seminar announced a partnership with Habitat for Humanity to build 25 homes in Jordan over the next several summers. Construction of homes begins this summer. Columbia’s contact for METS is William P. Brown, professor of Old Testament. For more information about METS, go to www.metsprogram.com.