The last few hours of the flight were spectacular, and I'm not being poetic. I had a window seat and could see the outlines in sparkling lights of many of the Greek islands. As the golden glow of dawn sped up, we passed by Crete and I could see the island's outline of Paphos (see photo), where Paul was in Acts 13 (my phone speller wanted to default from Paphos to pathos then phosphate). I think of the expression, "He's such a Cretan" and ponder Paul's statement in Titus 1:12: "Even one of their own prophets has said, 'Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons.' " Hmm. Anyway, this glimpse out the window is a bonus as I'm not on a "Journeys of Paul" tour.
Seeing the long, straight coast of Israel in the early morning light for the very first time was deeply moving for me. And clearly for the ultra-Orthodox who put on shawls and strapped the little square leathered boxes of phylacteries to their foreheads. One of them went up our aisle, congratulating his kinsmen in Hebrew. "Are you Jewish?" he asked me. I kind of felt like I got the runner-up prize when I told him no: "Welcome to Israel [anyway]."
The capitol, Tel Aviv, looked spectacular as we came in to land. A great mix of the old and the new.
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