Out of Egypt-June 1, 2006

Hello my friends,

My colleagues and I didn't go to the Valley of the Kings yesterday as I had thought. That trip is scheduled for later on during our stay. We did however travel to see the Pyramids, the Sphinx, and Memphis--the first capital of Egypt. While in Memphis we had the opportunity to see the statue of Ramses the II. We also went to his tomb and the tomb of his wife, my new favorite North African Queen-Nefertari (not to be confused with Nefertiti--the wife of King Akhenaten). Seeing the "handwriting on the wall" in these tombs was a most magnificent experience. These pictures will be hard to get out of my mind, especially when I read the Scriptures, particularly, the Hebrew Bible. When I read of Kings, the Pharaohs, and Queens--the images in my mind will now be quite different.

Another interesting piece that impacted me is this:

Egyptians believed and still believe that human beings are comprised of a Soul, a Body, a Spirit, and a NAME! That's right; they believe that along with your soul, your name lives on eternally. In fact, when they buried Kings and Queens, they placed on their Sarcophagus in a sort of oval shaped symbol, their name. Throughout their tombs as well, their names were written among all the other writings. This was done so that once their souls entered the afterlife--they would be known. On the flip side of this, if you were perceived as a Bad King or Queen and the people didn't respect you or value how you led them, once you died, they would either remove your name from your Sarcophagus or not include it at all. This was in fact done to King Akhenaten. He advocated Monotheism, which ticked off some of the Egyptians.

So Irie, what's the point. Here it is...Our names matter! Our names carry weight. Our actions and the manner in which we live--our values, what we stand or fall for, all determine how our names will be remembered. Will people remember our names, if so, for what will we be remembered? What do our literal names mean?

In the Egyptian alphabet, each letter of the alphabet has a particular meaning. In particular, the first letter of a persons name tells something about who that person is and what they ought to stand for if they are being their truest selves. For example, the 'I' in Irie means Justice and Fairness. For those of you who know me, do your think that is a fair description of who I am and what I stand for?

Yesterday was a wonderful day.

As you can see, I am a day behind in my journal writing because I have to give my mind time to marinate and synthesize my thoughts with my experiences.

Blessings,