Lent in the Holy Land: March 2012

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Day 11 & Day 12 photos

Here are the last few photos from the trip. I'll be adding some audio and video in the next several days. Also, if you want to enlarge any photo, just click on it.
Cynthia

Church of St. Elizabeth

Bananagrams, anyone?

Church of St. Elizabeth-- just a few of the many stairs we climbed

Church of St. Elizabeth

One of us came home with leprosy

Font at Church of St John the Baptist

We formed a close community

Ok, I understand why you'd want to be quiet and not have guns at a holy site. But just why is it that you aren't supposed to wear underwear?

Stigmata from the Dead Sea

Colleen negotiating with a cloth merchant

Farewell dinner

Another beer commercial. Love the Taybeh Beer!

Farewell dinner with Orion, our fearless leader.

Mark, thanking Orion at the farewell dinner

Monday, March 12, 2012

While I can't vouch for the accuracy of this data, my Fitbit tells me that in 12 days we took approximately 174,997 steps and climbed the equivalent of approximately 1050 flights of stairs. We walked roughly 77.62 miles, averaging approximately 6.46 miles per day. We covered a fraction of what Jesus would have covered during his ministry.
Cynthia

Friday, March 9, 2012

Water and stone

We arrived in Tel Aviv ten days ago, jet-lagged and weary. We drove to Caesarea Martime. And walked into wind, sun, stone ruins of Herod the Great's palace, and the wind-whipped Meditterenean. Waves washing around rocks and ruins. Carved stone. Cut stone. Cisterns and channels for fresh water, and magnificent ways to delight in the sea.

Little did I know how the motifs of stone and water would shape my journey. I picked up rocks from almost every place we visited. I have as yet unidentified pictures of hills and mountains and valleys, the big rocks. And the Mediterranean, the Sea of Galilee, the springs and cisterns and wells and channels and dried streambeds and mud and waterfalls and the Dead Sea.
These formed people's across time. Stones for housing and streets, palaces and shrines, terraces and memorials. . . For stoning and battering and keeping people apart. Water for survival, for ritual baths, for delight. . . And floods and storms and pitched battles over access to water.
Visible geological strata, showing how earthquakes and glaciers and volcanos shaped the foundations of many layers of civilization. Pockets of green on brown earth, suggesting a spring. I pick up sandstone in Caesarea Martime, volcanic rock at Chorazin, pebbles and tiny shells from the Sea of Gaillee's beaches, a pale rock with red lines from Megiddo, a red rock from Masada, salt from the Dead Sea, limestone from the streets of Jerusalem.

I've been marking myself with holy water more than I ever have before. Of course, I have rarely been in so many churches in so few days, but isn't usually my practice. I'm seeking renewal, and transformation, and I understand the gift of water in the desert more profoundly than ever. The Spirit of God moves across the waters. The church of the Visitation, in Ein Karem, the Judean countryside, had mosaics of seahorses and jellyfish and sea stars! Fish are all over too.

The Via Dolorosa with stone steps worn smooth led to carved stone churches and, in the Holy Sepulcher, caves that ended for me with dirt of the floor, the disintegration of stone, obliteration, death. . . And began again with holy water, sun in the church courtyard, a water bottle, prayer and a song. Then a visit to the well at Samaria--Jacob's and Rachel's and the woman who told her village all that Jesus had done.

All of creation groans in travail--I see centuries of interaction between stones and water and humans and plants and animals to create, with God, weal and woe. And the marks of civilization for thousands of years are layered in the dirt, and present day peoples pay more attention to how to conserve water and talk around water coolers and live into the water of eternal life, gushing and sustaining and renewing the face of the earth.
Allison

Thursday, March 8, 2012

At the well

Reflecting upon the visit to Jacob's well on Thursday, I was so moved to stand on the same spot as our Lord had been when he spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well. The granddaughter of our host for the day was the one to lower the bucket into the working well and pull up a full container of crystal clear water from the stream running underneath.

We read the gospel story aloud and then had the chance to touch or taste the water- I did both. Tasting the water made me feel at one with Jesus, and "experiencing" Jesus has been a major part of this pilgrimage to the Holy Land for me. I pray that I may bring others to "taste and see" through the invitation to share in experiencing Jesus through our common life and worship.

There are questions too- "Who's well is it- Jacob's? The Samaritan woman's? Jesus'? The modern day Palestinians who live there now? My guess, supported in faith, is that it is for all. Sometimes, like the water we tasted today, it's that clear.

Tom

Christ reaches beyond the chaos

Some of us went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at dawn this morning. All of us went later on in the morning as we finished walking the Via Dolorosa (the stations of the cross). The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built in the fourth century, and is literally built over the place where Jesus was crucified - and where he was laid in a tomb. It has been destroyed and rebuilt several times over the centuries.

It is a chaotic place. The architecture is a mishmash; the flood of pilgrims who come in and out from all over the world makes for a very noisy environment - but the biggest contributor to the chaos is the fact that the sacred space is managed by six different denominations - Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Coptic (which is the Orthodox Church in Egypt), Syrian Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox and Ethiopian Orthodox. Protestant Churches did not yet exist when the church was divided up.

There is a "status quo" for the management of the church. But the relationships between denominations is chaotic at best, and hostile at worst. Turf battles break out all the time.

After I was able to work through my "why can't they get along" musing, I began to realize that this singular holy space is simply a microcosm of the world. Every time I have gone into the church - and I go in as often as I can, I come away with the deeper appreciation that The loving Christ is bigger than all the confusion - and that his loving reach extends beyond any protocol or status quo or ecclesiastical resistance we can put up against him.
Mark

Day 10 photos

Another amazing day-- from a 6am visit to the Holy Sepulchre and an early morning walk of the Via Delorosa to an all-afternoon visit to Nablus and the church at the spot where Jesus encountered the woman at the well. Once more it's late and I can't wait to get to bed. Another early morning trip to Holy Sepulcher is planned for tomorrow. Today's photos focus a lot on local people and scenery (I've tried to be intentional about using my camera as a form of meditation throughout the pilgrimage). I may not have a chance to post photos from tomorrow until after I get home, so check back in a day or two for some more and additional reflections.
Cynthia

A 6 a.m. visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Lucy Ann at Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Via Dolorosa

Tom on the Via Dolorosa

Via Dolorosa

On the Via Dolorosa

Via Dolorosa

Church of the Holy Sepulchre

In the Old City

Samarian countryside

Encounter at the well

Near Nablus

Mt Gerazim

Palestinian police tower near a checkpoint

Butcher near Nablus

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Inclusion and exclusion

Today we started by traveling to the Dome of the Rock, which sits on the Temple Mount. Then, after lunch, we went to the Mount of Olives, began the Palm Sunday Walk, going to the Pater Noster Church, and ended in the Garden of Gethsemane and celebrated the Euchrist.

For me this day, more than anyhing else, was a study of inclusion and exclusion.

On the Temple Mount is the Dome of the Rock, one of the three holiest places to Muslims. Since 2000, it has been closed to everyone except Muslims. Yet this is the place on which sat the Holiest of Holies, and the Ancient Temple. It is the place Mary and Joseph presented Jesus after his birth, and the place he probably visited numerous times in his life. Many of us felt excluded because we could not go inside.

We then went to the West Side of the Temple Mount, known as the Wailing Wall. The men and women in our group needed to separate, because the women and men could not pray at the wall together. More exclusion.

Women were crowded five deep at the wall, since they had so little space in front of the wall in comparison to the men. Yet I felt surrounded by the prayer of these mostly Orthodox Jewish women. Many sat in plastic chairs for long periods of time and never moved the whole time we were there. I was able to wind my way to the wall slowly. When a space opened up, I saw a woman who I assumed to be Orthodox standing next to me, and I signaled her to go to the open space at the wall. After standing in that one spot for what seemed like a long time, I began to think I would never leave my space that was so close to, but not at the wall. Then I saw a hand signaling me. It was the same woman, dressed in a white blouse and black skirt, who smile and pointed me to the space at the wall that she just left. Feeling welcomed washed over and through me. Inclusion had come at last.

Later that day, as we walked the Palm Sunday Walk, we arrived at a church that I hadn't known existed, the Pater Noster Church. It sits on one of the three sites of churches that date from Byzantine times: the others are the Church of the Nativity and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (the site of the Crucifixion). On this site, in the church and on all the walls surrounding it are large placards of The Lord's Prayer in over 100 languages, including languages I had never heard of, like Doric. Everywhere we looked, in every direction, was language after language, alphabet after alphabet. This church felt like a center of inclusion, welcoming all,

As the day ended, I thought of my experience this far. Messages of inclusion and exclusion swirled around me day after day. Churches open to all, others walled with locked metal gates. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher, at which Orthodox and Roman Catholics fight each other over space. The wall between Jerusalem and the West Bank, keeping out Palestinians. I remembered the history of my father's side of the family, the Jewish history of pogroms and being walled out of Christian cities. I also remember the history of Christianity in Israel, who when in power excluded Jews.

And then I remembered the stories of inclusion, which mostly occur one on one, in the signaling of a hand, or by the graciousness of a host at lunch. I know that this is what God calls us to do: to welcome each other and to love one another as God has loved us. I only hope that this city, the City of Peace, can find a way to peacefully welcome and include everyone, Christian, Jew and Muslim.

Rose

Day 9 Photos

A whirlwind day in the city.... the Dome of the Rock, followed by the Western Wall, the Temple Mount, the Shrine of the Book, Mount of Olives and Gethsemane.