After my time at Elijah's Cave, I took the cable car at the base of the mountain up to the top of the mountain, where the Carmelite Monastery is located. This was my first visit to a church on this trip so far. As I walked in to the church, I was struck by the familiarity of it all. A monk sat by the door in his brown robes, and statues of Jesus and Mary adorned the altar area. Beneath the altar there was a cave-like area with a place to light candles and a picture of someone -- I couldn't tell who it was supposed to be since the signs were only in Arabic and English. (Maybe Elijah?) But I lit a candle anyway, and said a prayer.
It was about 5:30 p.m., so I sat down in the church in a pew and said Evening Prayer, whispering to myself in the hush of this sacred space. I'd started the morning chanting Morning Prayer aloud in the silence and stillness of my room in Akko, and in the space of time between then and now, I'd visited a Baha'i sacred site, been given a ride to the train station by the Jewish hostel owner, who was on his way to a Hebrew lecture in biblical studies at a university in Tel Aviv, talked to several people on the train to Haifa, including a young boy who told me in English, "If you want to see the REAL Israel, go to the beach!," visited a site sacred to Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike (Elijah's Cave) -- although it was certainly Jewish-centric, and now found myself at the top of Mount Carmel in a church attached to a monastery, saying Evening Prayer. Afterwards, I treated myself to dinner in a restaurant overlooking the Mediterranean from the top of the hill and then walked back to the hostel, talking the scenic Stella Maris Road down Mount Carmel and passing locals running up the mountain, out for their evening exercise. I passed by the base of the Baha'i World Center in Haifa on my way back and got my first glimpse of the magnificent structure, much larger than the center in Akko.
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