If we came to Turkey for just today, the whole trip would be worth it. Even with the 5 hour bus ride.
That bus ride takes us from Sanliurfa to Antakya, or Antioch, epicenter of the 7.8 earthquake that ravaged southern Turkiye in 2023. Some limited evidence of the destruction is still visible in the photos from the bus, along with very active rebuilding. (Marketing idea for somebody in the USA: Some clever people in Turkiye are selling a kind of sports drink bottled in large barbells, and you can see the group trying them out at a highway rest stop. And as in other places in this part of the world there’s freshly cooked food at the rest stop.)
On the bus John reminds us of the experience that he and Leigh had when they were at home hearing about the quake. They knew that whatever the obstacles they had to bring us here to heal the land/people. Our guide Batu, and Bianca, one of the staff people who used to live here, share about the shock and sense of loss they experienced, and the quake is transformed from a news event into something real for our group.
As the ride ends we waddle off of our air conditioned bus into 30 seconds of searing heat, bus exhaust and cigarette smoke, and back into another air conditioned bubble—a spaceship-like ultra-modern hotel—for lunch.
What do you do when you’re constructing a hotel and the excavation for the underground parking garage reveals extensive ancient ruins from the third largest city in the Roman empire? Well, you decide to construct it so the whole bottom floor is an indoor courtyard archaeological dig, and each floor has balcony-style walkways connecting pod-style rooms so that all the floors look down on remnants of mosaics, baths, residential units, markets, and even roads from the 2300-year-old city.
This is what the Asfuroğlu family did when they started building the 5-star Museum Hotel in Antakya. Construction took about ten years because of all the archaeological excavation and research and permitting that was necessary. (Of course you also build the hotel with a massive floating steel structure so it can withstand the earthquakes that occur regularly on this huge fault line, which it did magnificently in 2023. Some of the glass and decor was lost but the hotel became functional again with very little structural damage.)
John and Leigh met Sabiha, daughter of the owner who is part of the hotel management, on one of their scouting trips, and her story was so compelling that they vowed to her that they would bring us here. They introduce her at John’s evening sharing at the hotel, and she tells us the fascinating story of how the family had a dream to build a hotel that could serve the large numbers of people who come here to explore the rich history of the region, as well as all the challenges they met as the project turned from a modest small town hotel into a world-renowned, very expensive and architecturally groundbreaking archaeological landmark. There were a lot of teary eyes in our group.
But that wasn’t even the highlight of the trip. Just before dinner and shortly after our arrival we crowded into the small “Church of St. Peter,” a cave built into a cliffside overlooking Antakya. This is where Peter built a congregation after the disciples scattered to spread Jesus’ teachings. I recognize the Jesus/Christ energy because everything inside me stops like traffic in an earthquake—and an almost unbearable sweetness fills the spaces that used to contain all my outer-world concerns, desires, interests and attachments. I feel that energy often in the places where Jesus was, and also where some of the disciples were, as though there was a direct, bodily energy transmission from Jesus through these people and into the world.
When this energy hits me I go silent inside and I’m pulled into a vortex that was always there but that I kept being distracted from, held in my underwater personality-bubble that suddenly ascends and bursts into the sunlight. That’s what happens here in this small cave. John does a mini-seminar and it’s one of the more powerful Traveler experiences that I’ve had in my forty-something years of “study” (more like being strapped to a rocket/time-machine/nuclear device) in MSIA.
I’m able to stop taking photos for a while and just bask in the energy, vowing as always to remember this and hold onto it for the rest of my life. And as always, there’s suddenly an inner directive to leave the place of my ascension and do the next thing in front of me, and in a few minutes the life-changing experience returns to its crypt inside of me and I’m back in the outer world doing my ridiculous, insignificant and pointless physical-plane life once again, constantly being given the choice of whether I want a small dried out turd or all the riches of the universe, and considering the choice seriously as though it’s some kind of realistic deal that makes some kind of sense.
The sharing that John does before dinner is the usual round of helping people deal with the results of this madman’s choice. It’s amazing that he has the patience for it. But it’s amazing that any of us has the patience required for this life. I think that the only way to do it is through a kind of forgetting, and doing the next thing in front of you as though the inner or outer earthquake never happened. A few things get broken but fortunately, or unfortunately, the basic structure is solid enough to withstand it. We do the necessary repairs and then re-open for business. Or market a sports drink packaged like barbells. Or something.
