Yesterday I walked the street where Christianity started.
It's not every day you get to say that, is it?
OK, we could quibble about exactly what the starting point of the faith was, but Paul's conversion sure is a handy one. Especially if you believe that famous story in the Acts of the Apostles where Paul, on the road to Damascus, is emphatically interpellated by Jesus, struck blind, and goes to the house of Ananias on Straight Street (now Sharia Medhat Pasha/Sharia Bab Sharqi) where he recovers his sight and joins the community that he will come to theologically define.
"Epiphany" thus becomes the essence of the Damascene brand (unless we're talking about swords or fabric).
For the record, I don't take the story literally at all; there's no corroboration for it. Except that Paul tells us firsthand in his own letter to the early Christians at Corinth that he saw Jesus. Feel free to fill in the details, he seems to imply. Decades later, somebody did. Et voila Acts.
But that's what history's like, right? So many layers and digging through them all won't definitely establish every link in the web of events. No one's ever done a sizable dig here, in the Old City. It's too busy to stop, too packed with life-happening for anyone to dream of putting it all on hold. What we know about the history of Dimashqi is a matter of textual record and the occasional accidental find. In the meantime, there's a Chapel of Ananias, and Chapel of St. Paul, because the intangible, at some point, wanted some tangibility.
Walking down Straight Street I'm not thinking about Paul's epiphany, mostly; I'm thinking about Kathmandu, the only reference point from my own experience for the dozens and hundreds of little stalls with their wares; handcrafts, fabrics, spices, fruits. The first time through, you have to just stroll through and take in the geist of it. More detailed exploration will come later. But, oh, the smells! It's a fricking smell-u-copia.
Yesterday was also the first official day of a new life chapter: "Divorced." Does that count as an epiphany? Northrop Frye said that the essence of the Gospel is that "you don't have to be what you were before." And if I did nothing else to mark the day, I guess a walk on Straight Street will have to do. I didn't buy any blades or cloth, but in this small way, Damascus is, for me, two thousand years laters, still delivering on its brand promise.
OK, we could quibble about exactly what the starting point of the faith was, but Paul's conversion sure is a handy one. Especially if you believe that famous story in the Acts of the Apostles where Paul, on the road to Damascus, is emphatically interpellated by Jesus, struck blind, and goes to the house of Ananias on Straight Street (now Sharia Medhat Pasha/Sharia Bab Sharqi) where he recovers his sight and joins the community that he will come to theologically define.
"Epiphany" thus becomes the essence of the Damascene brand (unless we're talking about swords or fabric).
For the record, I don't take the story literally at all; there's no corroboration for it. Except that Paul tells us firsthand in his own letter to the early Christians at Corinth that he saw Jesus. Feel free to fill in the details, he seems to imply. Decades later, somebody did. Et voila Acts.
But that's what history's like, right? So many layers and digging through them all won't definitely establish every link in the web of events. No one's ever done a sizable dig here, in the Old City. It's too busy to stop, too packed with life-happening for anyone to dream of putting it all on hold. What we know about the history of Dimashqi is a matter of textual record and the occasional accidental find. In the meantime, there's a Chapel of Ananias, and Chapel of St. Paul, because the intangible, at some point, wanted some tangibility.
Walking down Straight Street I'm not thinking about Paul's epiphany, mostly; I'm thinking about Kathmandu, the only reference point from my own experience for the dozens and hundreds of little stalls with their wares; handcrafts, fabrics, spices, fruits. The first time through, you have to just stroll through and take in the geist of it. More detailed exploration will come later. But, oh, the smells! It's a fricking smell-u-copia.
Yesterday was also the first official day of a new life chapter: "Divorced." Does that count as an epiphany? Northrop Frye said that the essence of the Gospel is that "you don't have to be what you were before." And if I did nothing else to mark the day, I guess a walk on Straight Street will have to do. I didn't buy any blades or cloth, but in this small way, Damascus is, for me, two thousand years laters, still delivering on its brand promise.
2 Comments:
First chapter in the book of James. Enjoy habibi, sounds amazing!
Amazing, James.
You know, on first read I thought you wrote a misspelling of interpolated--but I know you better than that, so I had to look up the meaning of interpellated. Both words give such great movement to the scene you describe!
Take care,
cat
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