Turkish Delight

So if you've been visiting a while you might remember that last year I was invited to the home of some friends for an evening all about their trip to Croatia and Bosnia. This year they went to Turkey and I was invited again, lucky me. The slideshows were again interspersed with Turkish food and drink, accompanied by (mostly) Turkish music, and it was again a very thoughtful, detailed production.

Turkey has always been such a historic crossroads of culture and religion that given the tendency for religions to want to destroy other religions it's a marvel that so much still exists, even if hordes and earthquakes did their worst. I was interested in the Library of Celsus in Ephesus with its impressive entrance. Without the aid of the good folks at wikipedia, who are spending the day at the beach, I can tell you that there were four female statues at the entrance (copies, the originals having been carted off to Austria) dedicated to wisdom (sophia), knowledge (episteme), intelligence (ennoia) and virtue (arete). Elsewhere 'arete' is translated 'valour' and from this description it makes me think of unagi (cultural ignoramus that I am). I like that wisdom, knowledge and intelligence all warrant their own statues.

pic from here

The food was all excellent once again and I had several things I hadn't had before, like pomegranates, figs, and turkish delight. It's good to try new things and it was all so colourful and flavourful that it engaged all the senses. Doesn't this just make you hungry?

They also visited the House of the Virgin Mary where Mary is said to have lived, according to the visions of a 19th century German nun. It's a place of pilgrimage and my friends witnessed people praying and being quite moved by being there. But, they said, it's most likely not really Mary's house, the story is highly suspect and unlikely to be true. Of course they're right - but I wondered aloud if the experience the pilgrims were having there made it true, at least for them, in an experienced sense, and is this sense lesser than the factual sense of true? This is a recurring theme here (and here, for example), and is one I'm exploring in a class I'm taking this term called Imagination and Interpretation in Postliberal Theology. Expect more.