On memoirs, old friends, and parenting

I spent most of the flight over to Israel reading the memoir Bread of Angels, written by my former colleague Stephanie Saldaña, about a year she spent in Syria from 2004-05. Stephanie and I worked together at the Pluralism Project at Harvard in the 2003-04 academic year -- my first year of three at Harvard Divinity School and her second of two.

I always liked Stephanie and felt drawn to her -- she had a calming spirit about her and an amazingly sweet smile -- but we were never close friends... not even friends, really -- more like co-workers. I knew her on an acquaintance level. When graduation neared and I asked her what her plans were for the fall, she said she'd been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study Muslim understandings of Jesus in Damascus, Syria. "Wow, cool," I said, or something of the sort, and that was about it. 

Stephanie

After she graduated, I lost touch with her -- I'd hear an occasional update through the Pluralism Project staff who'd been in touch, but we were never in touch directly. Years later, I saw in a Pluralism Project newsletter that she had written a book about that year in Damascus. I found her on Facebook and discovered that she was also married and had a son. One day I noticed a comment on her Facebook status that said, "Praying for the people in this city that I love, Jerusalem." I did a quick news search and saw that a bomb had gone off in Jerusalem that day. And I noticed that she was living in East Jerusalem.

So when I started to plan this trip, I got in touch with her. I told her I would be coming to Israel this summer and I'd love to reconnect with her. I asked her for advice on renting a cell phone and other practical considerations of my trip. And I planned to get together with her when I was in Jerusalem.

I'd been meaning to read her book for some time, but hadn't gotten around to it yet. So, before I left for the trip, I ordered a copy (along with my "spiritual tour guide" books) to take with me on the trip. The fact that her book was a memoir about time spent living in the Middle East made it seem especially appropriate to read as I traveled to Israel, and plus, I wanted to have read her book before I saw her in person so I'd be able to talk with her about it.

From the minute I picked it up, I was unable to put the book down. I couldn't sleep on the flight over, but that didn't bother me too much since it meant I got to read more of Stephanie's book. Memoirs are one of my favorite genres, and I've read tons of them, but this was the first time I'd read one written by someone I actually knew in real life.

It was an interesting experience, reading about many aspects of Stephanie's life and past that were intensely personal -- things I certainly hadn't known about her through our acquaintance-level relationship. It felt almost intrusive, in a way that it hadn't to read similarly personal things about people I didn't know at all. It was a weird dynamic between reading the book as a book (as I'd done with other memoirs) and reading the book as a source of information about someone I knew. It made me think a lot about my own desire to write a memoir, and what it would be like for my friends and family to read such a book, and what it would be like for me to know they were reading it. I'd be comfortable sharing my journey with complete strangers, but those in-between people who aren't quite friends but aren't strangers either, but who might buy my book because of that "oh, I know her!" factor -- would I really want them reading the details of my personal life and journey?

After I got to Israel, Stephanie and I kept playing phone tag/email tag as we tried to get in touch and schedule a time to meet while I was in Jerusalem. On Wednesday, June 1 (the day after I arrived in Jerusalem and went out exploring, not realizing it was Jerusalem Day), I had called Stephanie to touch base and she said she'd call me back after she talked to her husband about their schedule. I didn't hear from her later that afternoon or evening, but the next morning as I was out walking to meet up with Rachel and Kevin to go to the Dead Sea, I ran into her on the street!

I had just left the Old City via the Damascus Gate and was walking up Ha Nevi'im Street when I looked up and there was Stephanie, pushing a stroller and wearing a baby carrier.

"HEY!!!" she shouted at me across the square, at almost exactly the same instant that I noticed her.

"Hey!!" I echoed, rushing up to her. She embraced me and kissed me on both cheeks. I wasn't surprised, given that she's immersed herself in Arabic culture and married a French guy. "Wow, what are the chances that I'd just run into you like this??"

She was on her way to drop her younger son off at day care and then to spend the day with her older son, who had the day off of school. We chatted for a minute or two and then went on our ways. I walked away amazed at the smallness of the world -- halfway across the world from home, I just happen to run into someone I know!

I didn't get together with Stephanie until Sunday. We touched base after church and I met up with her in the Old City and walked back to her apartment with her, just outside the Damascus Gate. (I couldn't believe how close she lived to where I was staying in the Old City -- literally a 10 minute walk or less. (And Jerusalem's not a small place!))

Sebastian

As we walked, her 9-month-old son, Sebastian, stared up at me from the baby carrier on his mom's chest with huge, inquisitive eyes. I kept asking small-talk questions like, "So how old is he?" while Stephanie was distracted by more important matters, like stopping to give some money to a woman who was sitting on the side of the street, holding her young, handicapped son. A twinge of guilt went through me when I saw her stop. I'd noticed this woman sitting there before, holding her son, whose body was twisted at an abnormal angle, but had generally been avoiding the street beggars since I assumed I wouldn't be able to communicate with them -- and if they were calling out something, asking for help, I wouldn't even know that they were talking to me or what they were saying! Stephanie spoke to her in Arabic and smiled her sweet smile, blessing the woman with her presence and her generosity. The woman smiled in gratitude and spoke back in Arabic. I thought about the spiritual journey Stephanie went through during her year in Syria that she wrote about in her book, and how I could see the fruits of her deepened faith in her compassion for this woman.

Just a few steps down the street, another woman ran up to Stephanie and smiled and embraced her. "Merhaba!" Stephanie said, and they exchanged a few words in Arabic.

I was struck by how comfortable Stephanie seemed here, moving among the streets and interacting with the local people. She was clearly at ease, a stark contrast to the slightly-anxious tourist vibes I'm sure I was giving off in my wanderings. I was glad I was with her -- I felt like I "blended in" more -- and found myself envious of her ability to communicate with people in their native language.

We went back to her apartment, sitting in her fabulous living room, decorated in Arabic style with a large rug on the floor and cushions against the walls to sit on -- no couches or sofas. Thomasjohn and I had talked about arranging our living room that way and had even experimented with pillows on the floor and using small coffee table as dining tables, and I found myself thinking how much he'd love this set-up.

"So, if you read my book, I don't need to tell you anything about my life," Stephanie had joked as we walked through the Old City. "So what's up with you? You're married now, I saw?" We filled in the blanks of each other's lives, fleshing out the skeletal outlines we'd been able to gather from each other's Facebook pages.

Joseph and Sebastian

Soon her husband Frédéric and her older son, Joseph (who is three), came home. They'd all been out to eat in the Old City after church, and then Frédéric had taken Joseph to get a hair cut. Joseph strutted around with pride, showing off his new "do" -- though Frédéric revealed that he'd cried the whole time, not wanting his hair cut -- until he saw the finished result, which he apparently loved.

Like my friends Naomi and Yinon in Tel Aviv, this was another bilingual family, Stephanie an American and Frédéric a Frenchman. I watched Frédéric speak to Joseph in French and Joseph respond in fluent French, and without batting an eye, turn to me and his mother and begin firing off rapid sentences in English. Joseph is a year older than Aya (Naomi and Yinon's daughter), so he was a bit further along in his bilingual language development, and it was fascinating to see.

Although when I'd first met Joseph on Thursday morning as his mom pushed him through the square in a stroller, he'd turned away and half-hidden his face when I said hi to him, today there was no trace of shyness in this kid! He was a ball of energy, jumping all over the living room and insisting that I "LOOK!!" at whatever it was he wanted to show me.

"No no, JoJo," Stephanie or Frédéric would say, using their pet name for him as they tried in vain to corral the unbridled three-year-old energy.

When I pulled out my map of Jerusalem to ask Stephanie and Frédéric about where something was, Joseph seized it and began to underline certain things and trace the various roads, very intent on showing me something. "Wow, thank you so much, Joseph," I said. "You're really helping me a lot." He smiled and continued to carefully mark out what was a mystery to any of us except him, talking to himself the whole time.

Frédéric, a young Joseph, and Stephanie (pre-Sebastian days)

With both Stephanie and Frédéric and Naomi and Yinon, I was very impressed with how gentle they were in their parenting style. They never snapped at their kids or took the "you do what I say cause I'm the parent" kind of attitude that seems to be common in Southern parenting. They were kind and gentle, even in their discipline, and it seemed to work.

Even if Aya was throwing a mini-fit over something she wanted, Naomi would just calmly say, "No, Aya, this isn't for Aya. This is for adults," as she pulled the knife away from her two-year-old who screamed because she wanted to cut her own avocado! "Ok, thank you," Naomi would say calmly, smiling and just ignoring the temper tantrum, and very quickly Aya would calm down and return to normal functioning.

Aya and Naomi

Stephanie and Frédéric were similar in the way they related to Joseph. They'd tell him "no," but they always explained the reasons why he couldn't do whatever it was he wanted to do, even though he was only three years old and even if he didn't ask why and they probably could have gotten away with simply barking "NO!" at him. Naomi did the same thing with Aya, explaining things to her as if she were an adult, not baby-talking at her and "dumbing things down."

It reminded me of the ways I'd seen my friend Jennifer Self and my sister Ashley interact with children -- treating them as people, as fellow humans, not using sub-human baby talk or voices similar to how you'd talk to a pet. I know I do the whole baby-talk, treating-them-like-a-pet thing in my interactions with children, and every time I see someone who doesn't, it makes me want to stop doing it myself. There is such a respect for children in the ways that these people approach them, and I want to be similarly respectful myself. Naomi and Yinon and Stephanie and Frédéric offered me a model of the kind of parents I hope Thomasjohn and I can be if we have children.

Arab Christians and St. George's Cathedral

The exterior of St. George's

On Sunday morning, I went to Eucharist in Arabic at St. George's Cathedral, the seat of Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem -- part of the Anglican Communion but not, as I learned, a part of "The Episcopal Church" (the church in the U.S. that I'm a part of).

Both The Episcopal Church and the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem are part of the Anglican Communion, so we're connected in that way, but I'd previously thought that the Diocese of Jerusalem was a diocese of The Episcopal Church -- the same church I'm part of in the states -- because of the wording of the title. Not so, I found out after meeting with The Rev. Robert (Bob) Edmunds, Canon Pastor to the English-speaking congregation at the Cathedral.

The Diocese of Jerusalem (which actually covers four countries --Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan -- and the West Bank) is an independent church, but goes by the name "Episcopal" because, quite frankly, they didn't want to be associated with England after the British Mandate ended in 1948 and Britain was so intimately involved in the creation of the state of Israel. The encounter with the British "left a bad taste in many people's mouths," Bob said --especially since many of the Christians in this region are Arab -- so the diocese chose to call itself "Episcopal." In some ways this is a similar story to why The Episcopal Church in the U.S. is called "Episcopal" instead of "Anglican" -- after the American Revolutionary War, the newly-formed country of America didn't want to have much to do with England, and certainly didn't want their churches to be connected to the "motherland" -- and the king, who was a religio-political figure at the time.

Stained glass windows given to St. George's by a church in Atlanta

Bob said it was a bit ironic that they'd taken the name "Episcopal," since in the current context, many people in this diocese "weren't too crazy about some of the things The Episcopal Church is doing" -- namely, ordaining women and gay people. Women are not allowed to be ordained in the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, so I was left with the sinking realization that even if I wanted to apply for a job at the Cathedral in Jerusalem some day in my future career, I wouldn't be eligible. Even within my own denomination, there are still places where I would not be recognized as a priest because I am a woman! Bob said things are changing, and he thinks its likely that women will be ordained in the Diocese of Jerusalem within my lifetime, but it was still a disappointing thing to learn.

I had gone to St. George's for a Eucharist in English on Saturday at noon, thinking that perhaps the Saturday service would be the "main" service of the weekend, given that Sunday is a work day in Israel. (The work week is Sunday-Thursday; Friday and Saturday are the weekend days.) But, it was very small -- the only attendees were me and a young Korean couple.

"Ah, very good, Tracy," Bob said when I told him what I was thinking after the service, but he explained that no, Sunday was still the main day of worship at St. George's. Lots of the "ex-pat" community -- people living in Israel from other countries -- had Monday-Friday work weeks, and all the visitors from the U.S., England, Australia, and other countries used to a Monday-Friday work week expected services to be held on Sundays, so they chose to keep Sunday as the main worship day. For the local Palestinian, Arabic-speaking congregation, they come as they're able, Bob said, but on big feast days like Easter and Pentecost, everyone would be there, taking off work if they had to in order to attend.

The main altar at St. George's

And indeed, Sunday was a much higher attendance than Saturday. The place was nearly full, not just with the usual Palestinian Arab congregation but a whole cadre of white visitors from England, Australia, the U.S., you name it -- those English-speaking visitors who, like me, had shown up to experience a Eucharist in Arabic. I expected the service to be entirely in Arabic and to understand very little of it, but to be able to follow along due to the familiarity of the liturgy. As it turns out, the service was essentially a bilingual one, with the Arabic-speaking priest translating things into English occasionally as we went along. He didn't translate EVERYTHING, but he did make sure that the English-speaking visitors had a sense of what was going on, even taking about five minutes to translate the essential jist of his 15-minute Arabic sermon into English.

As we started the service and began with the Collect for Purity, which in this service was spoken by the entire congregation instead of just by the priest, as is the custom in the American service, I was struck by the familiar Arabic words that opened the prayer: "Allahu akbar," the congregation began the prayer, the same exact words that begin the Muslim call to prayer with which I was so familiar and which formed the core of my only familiarity with Arabic. I'd always been taught this phrase meant, "God is great," or "God is greater," but here it was being used to translate the first phrase in the Collect for Purity, "Almighty God."

I thought of all those mis-informed American Christians who talk about "those Muslims who pray to Allah," and who think "Allah" is a different God than the God of Judaism and Christianity. I'd already known from my religion classes that "Allah" is simply Arabic for "God," and that Arabic-speaking Christians also pray to "Allah," but standing in a church from my own denomination and hearing the opening words to the Muslim call to prayer spoken as the Arabic translation of the opening words of the Eucharistic service so familiar to me brought that home in a new way. Not only are we Christians and Muslims praying to the same God, they use the exact same words to make those prayers when they're speaking the same language. Suddenly "Allahu akbar" didn't seem so foreign, or so "Muslim," anymore.

The hymn-singing was interesting, as people simultaneously sang the (very European) hymns in Arabic and English, whichever was their mother tongue. Seeing the Palestinian man in front of me dressed in a suit and belting out a familiar European English hymn tune with gusto in Arabic produced a strange sort of instant companionship -- we knew the same hymns, even if we couldn't speak the same language! -- but also a twinge of guilt -- didn't this culture have its own music and cultural expression before we imposed Western European music on them?

I wondered what these people's lives were like, being "doubly alien" in this land: they were Arabs in a Jewish state, and Christians among a majority Muslim Arab population. Coming from a land where Christians are in the clear majority, it was an interesting and humbling experience to be in a place where Christians form something like 2 percent of the population. Those of us who have the luxury of belonging to the ethnic and religious majority where we live have only to travel to a different part of the world to realize that that majority status is by no means universal or absolute.

The Temple Mount/Haram Ash-Sharif

Sunday morning I got up early to visit the Haram Ash-Sharif or Temple Mount area, which is only open to visitors from 7:30 a.m. - 11 a.m. on Sundays through Thursdays. I planned to go to a Eucharist in Arabic at St. George's Episcopal Cathedral at 9:30 a.m., so I had to get to the Haram Ash-Sharif area very early if I wanted to have any time to spend there before the service.

Given all the restrictions around entering the Temple Mount area, I almost gave up on trying to visit it, especially knowing that as a non-Muslim, I wouldn't be allowed to go in the mosques, even during the times I was allowed to be on the Haram Ash-Sharif area. But, this was supposed to be an interfaith pilgrimage, so I couldn't really be true to my intentions without at least coming in close proximity with the main prominent Muslim sites in the city, so I decided to go early on Sunday morning to visit the Haram Ash-Sharif.

After trying unsuccessfully to enter at two different entrances, I finally found the one entrance through which all non-Muslims are required to enter -- which, interestingly enough, is through a long covered wooden walkway that begins right next to the Western Wall security checkpoint! So my initial assumption that I could visit the Western Wall and then go right up to the Temple Mount area was actually correct after all! After waiting in a line and going through the security screening, I walked up the long wooden walkway to the Temple Mount entrance, passing Israeli soldiers along the way and a huge section of plastic crowd-control barricades stored right outside the entrance to the Haram Ash-Sharif.

Right before exiting the wooden covered walkway, there was a large sign in Hebrew and English with a message from the chief rabbi of Jerusalem, warning that entrance to the Temple Mount area is forbidden, since it was once home to the Holy of Holies, the most sacred space where the Divine Presence was believed to dwell. Since the Temple's destruction in 70 CE, it is not certain where exactly the Holy of Holies was located, so some rabbis have determined that it's best to avoid the entire Temple Mount area, lest you accidentally step into what once was the Holy of Holies, where only priests were permitted to enter. The Rabbi of Jerusalem is obviously of this opinion.

It was rather interesting, seeing this sign posted there saying all people are forbidden to enter this area, and watching large groups of people walk right up there and enter it anyway. This raised again the question about boundaries between traditions -- at what point do we respect the boundaries set up by other traditions (you're not allowed to enter this space, you're not allowed to take part in this or that ritual), and at what point do we ignore them, saying they don't apply to us because we're not part of that tradition? So, if I can just walk past this warning by the chief rabbi and enter the Temple Mount anyway, reasoning that I'm not a Jew and thus his authority is not binding on me, and also that I don't believe that entering the Temple Mount is "dangerous" because of the presence of the Holy of Holies, can my non-Christian friends just come forward to receive communion in a church because they want to and because they don't believe that the restrictions against it are valid and true? If they can't or shouldn't do that, then perhaps I shouldn't have entered the Temple Mount at all, out of respect for the rules set up by the Jewish authorities about their sacred site.

And perhaps the Jewish authorities are right about the Divine Presence dwelling there, because as I climbed the steps up to the area where the Dome of the Rock stands and stepped onto what used to be the Temple Mount, I was overcome with an intense sense of the presence of God. My body seemed to sense the sacredness of this site on an instinctual level as my eyes filled with tears in an involuntary, automatic reaction that took me by surprise and I almost began to sob. I felt drawn to drop to my knees in that very spot (although I didn't, since overt displays of prayer by non-Muslims on the Haram Ash-Sharif area is forbidden and I didn't want to get myself in trouble with the Muslim authorities who were stationed around, keeping a close watch on the visitors).

Stepping onto the Temple Mount was probably the single most intense religious experience that I had on this trip, which totally took me by surprise. (I'd assumed it might happen in a Christian site like the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which, although powerful, was not nearly as powerful as this.) I thought of the generations and generations of people who had come here to worship, of Jesus himself visiting the Temple in the first century. As I walked around the Dome of the Rock and looked up at its sheer size and magnificence, all I could think was, "It's so beautiful. It's so beautiful." And the fact that I couldn't go inside filled me with an intense sadness, for the boundaries and restrictions enforced on peace-loving people because of the violent actions of a few extreme individuals.

I was also struck by the sheer size of the Temple Mount area, and how much of it was large, open space. Huge plazas stretched out all around me, and although I'm sure these plazas are full of people during Friday prayers, it seemed like such a waste of space during the relatively un-crowded time of early Sunday morning. As I wandered around the area, it struck me that there would be room here for a Jewish place of worship, and a Christian place of worship as well, in addition to the Dome of the Rock and Al-Asqua mosque. What if there were to be three places of worship here, all on top of the Temple Mount, symbolizing interconnectedness and harmony between the three faiths? A very similar project is taking place in Omaha, Nebraska, as the Tri-Faith Initiative plans to build a church, a mosque, and a synagogue on a shared piece of land, to model interfaith cooperation and peace. I wept over the thought of how beautiful such an interfaith sharing of this space could be, of how powerful it could be to see the three Abrahamic faiths praying and worshipping together, at the same time realizing that such an endeavor of cooperation is so very far out of reach here.

As I left the Temple Mount and mulled over my interfaith vision, I was reminded of Peter's words to Jesus on the Mount of the Transfiguration: "Lord, it is good for us to be here. Let us make three dwellings: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." (Matthew 17:4) In the story of the Transfiguration, Jesus does not respond directly to Peter's suggestion, but a voice from heaven booms out, "This is my Son, the Beloved, listen to him!" and then all the other prophets disappear, suggesting Jesus's primacy over the prophets of old (Moses and Elijah), and presumably Peter abandoned his idea of a multi-chapeled Abrahamic shrine on this mountain. All the preaching and teaching I've heard on this passage have taken Peter's words to be misguided, saying Peter wanted to try to "capture" the divine moment he saw taking place, and that he missed the point of the Transfiguration by wanting to build these dwellings on that mountain. But after my visit to the Temple Mount, I'm not so sure Peter was misguided.

Lord, it is good for us to be here. Let us make three dwellings: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Muhammad.

Friday in Jerusalem

Even though I'll be in Jerusalem for over a week, I'll only have one Friday here. And after this Friday, I'm extremely grateful I had a chance to experience Friday in Jerusalem, which is certainly a religious extravaganza!

Friday is the Muslim prayer day, and Friday evening marks the beginning of the Jewish sabbath. Friday is also the day of the week that Jesus was executed, and so has particular significance for Christians as well, even though our day of worship is Sunday, the day of the Resurrection.

Unfortunately, due to tensions between Muslims and Jews, non-Muslims are not allowed on the Haram Ash-Sharif, the "Noble Sanctuary," on Fridays. Jews call this area the Temple Mount -- the top of the area where the Jewish Temple once stood until its destruction in 70 CE by the Romans. After Jerusalem came into Muslim hands in the 7th century CE, the Dome of the Rock (pictured at right) and al-Asqa mosques were built on what was formerly the Temple area. This was not just a case of the Muslims marking their conquest of the area; the Temple area was sacred to Muslims as well, since there is a story that Muhammad was transported to the Temple area in Jerusalem during a vision and from there, ascended into heaven, where he conversed with Moses and Jesus and other Jewish prophets, who confirmed the validity of his message. The Dome of the Rock marks the spot where Muhammad is believed to have ascended into heaven.

The tension around the Temple Mount/Haram Ash-Sharif comes from the fact that some Jews want to rebuild the Temple and think that that is in fact God's will for Jerusalem -- to see the Temple re-established as the center of Jewish worship in a Jewish state. Obviously, this large Muslim shrine sitting smack dab in the middle of where the Temple should be is considered a problem by Jews of this bent. After several outbreaks of violence against Muslims at prayer by Jews who want to rebuild the temple and thus destroy the Dome of the Rock, the Muslim community in Jerusalem decided to not allow non-Muslims on the Haram Ash-Sharif area on Fridays, the Muslim prayer day.

As a result of this troubled history, I was not able to attend Friday prayers at the Dome of the Rock, or even go to the Haram Ash-Sharif area to observe Friday prayers. So much for my "interfaith pilgrimage." But part of my "guiding question" for this trip was a question about the value of clear boundaries between traditions, spurred by my internal conflict over the issue of open communion in the Episcopal Church. If it's ok for Christians to restrict communion to only Christians, why shouldn't it be ok for Muslims to restrict attendance at Friday prayers to only Muslims? But more on this later, when I tell you about my actual visit to the Haram Ash-Sharif/Temple Mount, on Sunday morning.

I'd asked around when I arrived about doing the Stations of the Cross on the Via Dolorosa, and was told that a group of Franciscan monks lead a public procession of the stations every Friday at 4 p.m. -- which seemed an odd time to me. I wondered why it was not at noon, the traditional hour of Jesus's crucifixion. When Friday arrived, I got my answer.

The Muslim call to prayer echoes from the loudspeakers every few hours throughout the Old City, and just before Friday noon prayers, the main time Muslims gather together at the mosque to worship and pray together, sure enough, the call to prayer came like clockwork. But afterwards, the broadcast continued -- with a very long spiel in Arabic over the loudspeakers. I couldn't tell what was being said, but I could only assume that perhaps the Friday khutba (sermon) at the mosque was being broadcast over the loudspeakers for the entire city to hear, whether you chose to attend Friday prayers or not. Although I don't know for sure that this was behind the later time for the Stations of the Cross, I can only imagine that it would be difficult to lead a public procession in the streets of Jerusalem in the middle of a very loud sermon being broadcast over loudspeakers.

I ventured out around 12:45 or 1 p.m. to get some lunch, and the place I wound up eating was right on El Wad (Hagai), one of the main thoroughfares of the Old City. Sometime after 1 p.m., I started to notice a steady stream of Muslim women in hijab (the headscarf) and Muslim men in taqiyah (the skullcap) all walking northwest down the street, away from the Haram Ash-Sharif area and towards the Damascus Gate, one of the exits from the Old City. "Ah," I thought. "The prayer service must have just let out." As I finished my lunch, I sat people-watching as this parade of Jerusalem's Muslim population went by. I was amazed by how long and continuous the stream of Muslims was -- I must have sat there for 30 minutes watching people walk by. There was virtually no one walking in the other direction, against the "flow of traffic," so to speak, except a few lost-looking tourists here and there, easily spotted by their shorts and backpacks, their water bottles and maps in hand, and slightly confused looks on their faces. Even though I didn't get to actually experience Friday prayers, I felt like I had gotten a slight flavor of the energy of it from this post-prayer parade.

After lunch, I visited St. Anne's Church near the Lion's Gate, just a few steps away from where I'm staying at the Ecce Homo Convent. St. Anne's is a 12th century church built by the Crusaders, but I went to see the archeological excavations they have on site of some pools believed to be the site where Jesus healed a paralytic (see John 5:1-15). However, it was the church, and not the archeological site, that had the most impact on me.

I wandered in to the church almost as an afterthought; I'd come really just to see the archeological site since it was a "biblical site," a place mentioned in the Gospels. I'd never heard of St. Anne's Church, and who cares about some Crusader church anyway -- that's a part of Christian history I'd rather forget. But as it turned out, the church was an amazing oasis of beauty and sound in the middle of the city. I had no idea before visiting St. Anne's that it is known for its acoustics, and pilgrims make special trips just to sing in the nave there.

I wandered in to the church, which was rather simple overall, nothing extremely striking visually, and found my way to the chapel where the Reserved Sacrament (bread and wine left over from Communion) was kept. I decided to sit there for a while with the Sacrament, where Christ's presence is believed to reside. I sat for a while, then knelt, and finally went face-down into a full prostration, something I had never done before but had seen my colleagues do at ordinations and on Good Friday services. Something about that posture of utter humility -- laying completely flat on one's face before the glory of God -- had always struck me and I had always felt drawn to do it myself, but I never had -- not even in private prayer in my own home.

As I lay there on my face, my eyes closed, my nose touching the rugs that were spread out in this area and smelling the musty smell of wool, my hands stretched out above me and my running shoes baring into the floor behind me, suddenly I heard a voice. A crystal clear, angelic voice, letting out the first few notes of a chant that echoed and rang throughout the church. Then a whole host of other voices joined hers, producing a beautiful chorus that rose and fell, bouncing off the rafters and wafting down to envelop me in a palpable caress. It was the tour group that I'd seen outside at the archeological site, I realized, whose tour guide was pointing and lecturing loudly in German. I'd been irritated and annoyed at their presence, standing all huddled around the main observation point and making it impossible for me to get there to read the informational signs and see the view. I'd mentally written them off as more irreverent tourists, but now, they were bringing me some of the sweetest religious music I'd ever heard.

They sang for a long time, and I lay there in a position of humble adoration of God, listening to them and allowing their prayers to become my own. Although I could not understand what they were saying because they were singing in German, I recognized some familiar tunes in the mix -- Amazing Grace, and some songs from Taizé, including "Bless the Lord, My Soul." When I knew the songs, I started to sing along in English, but always stopped myself, feeling led instead to allow myself to experience the music from the outside rather than to try to join in and participate. After nearly an hour spent in that sacred place, I felt I was in a perfect state of spiritual preparation for the Stations of the Cross, which were scheduled to begin in about 20 minutes.

I left St. Anne's and walked down the road to the area near the convent where the Stations begin. The first Station of the Cross, where Jesus was condemned to die by Pilate, is now enclosed within an elementary school for Arab children. As the group began to gather to await the start of the stations, the kids were leaving after school had let out for the day. There was something interesting about standing in front of classroom doors with Winnie the Pooh on them and watching kids walk out of school with their backpacks, dodging groups of pilgrims and monks and nuns and priests as they just tried to make their way to the exit of their school. But this wasn't an entirely unusual occurrence for them, I realized, since this spectacle happened every Friday afternoon. They were probably used to seeing all the religious people gathering in their courtyard as they left school for the weekend.

The atmosphere before the stations started was less than spiritual. A bunch of opportunists were walking throughout the crowds, selling brochures on the Via Dolorosa for "One dollar, one dollar! Five shekels, five shekels! One euro, one euro!"One particular man with a very gruff voice kept approaching people and guessing their language based on their appearance. "Chinese, one dollar!" He shouted in English at a group of Asians, who walked on by, ignoring him. (If they were Chinese, perhaps they didn't speak English, and they might not have even been Chinese!) "Deutsch, one euro! Deutsch, one euro!" he yelled at a bunch of blonde tourists with backpacks. When he got to me, he started to yell, "English, one --" but I held up my pamphlet, showing him I already had one, which I had purchased from a boy on the street who was standing there at the entrance to one of the churches, handing them out like an usher handing out programs for a service, and then said, "Five shekels" after I'd already taken one.

Finally, the circus atmosphere faded away as the Franciscans gathered and started the stations, with a booming, "In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti," to which the crowds responded, "Amen!"

One of the brothers was carrying a wireless speaker, which was connected to the microphones that the other brothers were using to read the stations at each stop. Each station was read in Italian, then in English, then in Spanish, each brother passing the microphone down to another for the translation into the next language. It was quite a sight to see this crowd of people from all over the world walking together the Way of the Cross, re-tracing Jesus's steps in the actual city where he was crucified.

The stations were created in the 15th century as a substitute "pilgrimage" experience for those who could not afford to travel to Jerusalem and visit the actual sites of Jesus's crucifixion, death, and resurrection, but eventually it became a prominent practice within Jerusalem as well, to re-trace Jesus's steps from his condemnation to his crucifixion. Although the stations are not all specifically associated with historical events, if the area where Pilate's governor's palace once stood is correct (where the Arab school and the Ecce Homo convent now are), and if the place of the crucifixion at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is correct, then the path between the two would be roughly accurate in terms of the path Jesus walked, carrying the cross -- even though the locations of the streets are different now than they would have been in Jesus's time.

After the 7th Station, there was a bit of a traffic jam at an intersection in the Old City, as a group carrying a cross and singing loudly in Spanish proceeded in the opposite direction that we had been traveling. I thought the Via Dolorosa continued in the direction they were coming from, but when I got to that intersection, there was a man there waving everyone on in the same direction as the cross procession was going. Somewhere along the way, I lost the Franciscans and wound up inadvertently joining this other group, which was a group of Spanish-speaking people with some priests dressed in albs and red stoles (as opposed to our group, led by the Franciscan monks in their brown habits). The group stopped in front of the Church of the Redeemer, near the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and recited some things and read some Gospel passages in Spanish. Although I couldn't follow all of it, despite the class I took in pastoral Spanish last fall, I was able to recite the Lord's Prayer in Spanish with them at the end of the station. (Thanks, John Solomon, for making us say the Lord's Prayer at the end of so many of our Spanish classes!)

As the group moved on toward the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, I moved ahead of them to try to catch up with the Franciscans, having realized once the group came to a stop and was speaking only in Spanish that this was not the group I started with! Inside the Holy Sepulcher, I realized that the Franciscan group was up top, on the hill of Calvary, doing the stations of Jesus's crucifixion and death up there. As they came down the staircase, I joined them, and followed them to the site of Jesus's tomb for the final two stations, "Jesus is laid in the tomb," and "Jesus is raised from the dead." As I stood with that group of pilgrims before the site of Jesus's tomb and heard the Franciscan brother read in a heavily-accented English, "Why are you looking for the living among the dead? He is not here, he is risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where they have laid him," tears filled my eyes and I felt a shiver run through me.

"Come and see the place where they have laid him" -- a phrase I had heard so many times on Easter Sunday morning, as the pastor read the Gospel passage about the Resurrection -- and now I was standing at the actual place where they laid him. Now the invitation was real and literal, "Come and see the place where they have laid him."

So I did. I waited in the long line of pilgrims gathered behind police barricades around the side of the tomb area, waiting for their turn to go in and see the place where they have laid him. As I walked around the outside of the structure built around the tomb and saw people praying and leaving candles along the railings on the outside of the tomb, I felt a sense of excitement, anticipation, and joy, realizing and recognizing that, unlike the other tombs I'd visited on this trip so far, this tomb was empty! Jesus was not here! The spot was sacred for the fact that he had once died and laid here, but his body was not here. We gather around an empty tomb, and that makes all the difference. I was reminded once again of the reason that I find my spiritual home in Christianity, of the thing that distinguishes Christianity from all other religions to me -- the Resurrection.

The line for entrance to the tomb was moving right along, when suddenly it was halted due to a procession of Orthodox monks coming through to chant and sing and pray at the tomb. The Franciscan Catholic monks had come through just 30 minutes before, and had moved on to a chapel beside the tomb area, where an organ was now playing loudly, drowning out the sounds of the Orthodox chant. Many different sects of Christianity share this most sacred site, but unfortunately they don't really share it. Instead, they co-exist, each doing their own liturgies, not worshipping together. I had a similar feeling to the one I'd felt at the Mosque of the Ascension on Thursday morning: a sense of gladness at seeing the different Christian communities in one place together, but a sense of sadness that they felt they could not worship together as they commemorated the death of their Savior on that Friday in Jerusalem so many years ago. I remembered Jesus's prayer for his followers in the Garden of Gethsemane: "…that they may be one, as we [Jesus and the Father] are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me" (John 17:22-23). I thought of all the songs we sing in church about being "one body in Christ." And I looked at the competing liturgies around me, sighing and mourning that we as the Christian community have not lived out Jesus's prayer that we all be one, and in that way, that we are not witnessing to the world in the way that Jesus prayed we would.

Finally, it was my turn to enter the tomb. I walked in, placed my hand on the shelf where Jesus's body once lay, and knelt in silent prayer. "Ok, come on, let's go," barked the monk in charge of regulating traffic, hurrying me and the three or four other pilgrims out so the next set of five or so could go in. I sighed, wishing for something like the silence and quiet and calm that I'd found at the tomb of Baha'u'llah in 'Akko. How do they expect anyone to have a religious experience on a timetable?

The Stone of Anointing, with Franciscan monks praying at it

Surprisingly, one of the most powerful parts of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher for me was one of the least historically verifiable spots. The "stone of anointing," which commemorates where Jesus's body was laid after being taken down from the cross and where it was anointed for burial before being placed in the tomb, is right at the entrance to the Holy Sepulcher, and was only placed there in the 19th century. But when I knelt there and placed my hand on it, I realized that the stone was covered in anointing oil -- rich, smooth, fragrant oil, which soaked into my fingertips. I rubbed it on my hands and made the sign of the cross on my forehead with it, and the smell of the oil stayed with me for the rest of the day, transporting me back to this sanctuary of holiness. Whether or not this was the actual spot where Jesus's body was laid for anointing, the memorial to it that has been created was very moving to me.

Jews gathering to pray at the Western Wall

After exploring all the chapels and levels of the Holy Sepulcher complex and spending time in silent meditation and prayer there for around an hour and a half, I left the Christian Quarter of the Old City and made my way to the Jewish Quarter and joined the throngs of Jews headed to the Western Wall to pray to usher in Shabbat. As I walked past historic synagogues and tons of shops tightly closed up for the Sabbath, I saw a group of Jewish schoolboys pouring out of a building (maybe another synagogue?) and singing and clapping joyously, galloping and jumping down the stairs to the courtyard and forming a circle, dancing and clapping together as they prepared to go to the Wall. I went on ahead of them, and as I entered the Western Wall plaza, I was aware of the fact that I was one of about only five women total in the sea of people there who was wearing pants. Women in long skirts and head scarfs surrounded me, pushing strollers, talking with one another, carrying their prayer books, rocking slowly back and forth while reciting their prayers. I walked down to the Wall on the women's side (which was about one-third of the Wall, while the men's section took up two-thirds of it) and walked through crowds of Jewish women, some singing joyfully in a group, some gossiping and socializing, some praying individually and silently.

After sitting and watching the festivities for a long while, a man approached me and asked where I was from, and if I wanted to get a drink with him "after." So prayer time at the Wall is apparently a time to pick up women??? I decided to make my exit, discreetly, after this encounter, disappearing into the crowds so he wouldn't see me again.

I walked down El Wad (Hagai) back toward the convent, and stopped for dinner at a restaurant just a few doors down from the place I'd had lunch earlier that day. From that spot, I watched a different parade -- this one of Jews in yarmulkes and Russian-looking fur hats and broad-rimmed hats, dressed mostly in black, the Orthodox men with their long curls hanging down their faces -- as they all walked toward the Western Wall, and later, after dark, as they all walked back out toward the Damascus Gate exit of the Old City, walking the exact same path the Muslims had walked earlier, after noonday prayers.

Just another Friday in Jerusalem.

Swimming in the Dead Sea

Today I took a day trip to the Dead Sea with my new friends Rachel and Kevin. Rachel and Kevin are from the U.S. and have basically been paralleling my journey here in Israel. They were at the hostel in Haifa where I stayed, but we didn't actually meet or speak there. When I was waiting for the bus from Haifa to Nazareth last Wednesday, having already missed the bus I intended to take and having to wait for the next one, I noticed them walk up and stand near the bus stop with their luggage. I thought they looked slightly familiar, and Kevin's blonde hair and casual look made me think that perhaps they were Americans, and I started to say something to them. But then I noticed Kevin's shirt, which had a bunch of Hebrew on it. "Ah, well, they're probably Israelis and don't speak English," I thought, and didn't say anything to them.

When the bus to Nazareth came, they got on, and when we got to Nazareth, they got off at the same spot. The three of us pulled our luggage out from under the bus at the same time, and I heard them speak English to each other ("Ok, let's look at the guide book," I think Rachel said), but I didn't say anything or really acknowledge them. I just set off down the road, thinking I knew where I was going from the map that I had copied down from another girl's guide book at the Haifa hostel.

Rachel

After wandering the streets of Nazareth for a while and getting confused and lost, I finally arrived at the Fauzi Azar Inn. When I arrived, I was talking about how lost I'd gotten, and the person at the desk said, "Ah, hi! Are you the one who called me?" "No," I said, "I didn't call..."

As the receptionist was checking me in, who walked up the stairs and into the reception area but Rachel and Kevin! We looked at each other and smiled, clearly recognizing each other. There was no getting around some communication now.

"Hi!" I said. "Were y'all at the hostel in Haifa, too?"

They said they were, and we laughed at how random it was that we were all headed from that hostel to this hostel at the same time. After we got the orientation tour to the Fauzi Azar, we all went to put our stuff in our rooms. I went into the kitchen to eat some of the free cake that the staff provides there each day, and pretty soon Kevin and Rachel appeared to do the same thing. Over cake, we started talking and got to know each other.

I asked where they were from, and they said the U.S. -- Rachel lives in NYC and Kevin in Philadelphia. I told them how I hadn't approached them because of Kevin's shirt with Hebrew on it, and Rachel laughed and said she'd gotten him that shirt as a joke because the Hebrew is all incorrect and the math equations that were on it were all messed up as well... so it looks really intelligent and whatnot, but it's really a joke.

Kevin talking to some "monkeys"

Rachel and Kevin are both anthropologists working on their Ph.D.s... Rachel in Jewish studies, which was part of why she was on this trip -- she is interested in Israel and the phenomenon of Jews "making aliyah" -- that is, choosing to immigrate to Israel as their homeland, even if they weren't born and raised there -- and Kevin in "primatology" -- that is, he studies monkeys. Who knew monkeys' social lives were studied under the academic discipline of anthropology? Rachel was going to be in Israel for a month, and Kevin was joining her to travel with her for two weeks.

We had several conversations over the course of our time at "the Fauzi," as people called it. We were staying there for about the same amount of time, too -- I was leaving on Friday morning and they were leaving on Saturday. Thursday night I saw Rachel out in the courtyard checking her email and said we should keep in touch, so we exchanged contact information -- or rather, friended each other on Facebook -- and that was that.

When I arrived in Jerusalem, I got on Facebook to send Rachel a message about the fact that I'd been to Safed, which she had said was where she and Kevin were going after they left Nazareth, and it was the first I'd really heard of the town, from her. I noticed on her Facebook wall that she'd posted something about going to Jerusalem just a few days before, so I sent her a message and said, "So, are y'all in Jerusalem now, too??" Turns out they were, and would be in Jerusalem until the 4th (I'm here until the 9th). She invited me to come along with them to the Dead Sea on Thursday.

I wasn't quite sure what the plan was for the trip -- if we were going to observe the Dead Sea, or learn about the Dead Sea, or swim in the Dead Sea, but I brought my swimsuit and towel just in case... and it was a good thing I did, because basically the whole point of the trip down there was just to swim in the Dead Sea and spend the day on the beach there.

We swam and then ate lunch on the beach under the palm trees and then took the bus back to Jerusalem, where we had dinner together at a great vegetarian restaurant in the market close by Rachel and Kevin's hostel. It was a wonderfully relaxing day and a great way to decompress after all the hecticness in the city the day before.

I'm really glad I went with them, because swimming in the Dead Sea is an experience I'll never forget. The water's salt content is so high that you naturally float, without needing a raft or life jacket or anything of the sort. And when I say you naturally float, I don't mean the way you can "naturally float" on your back in "regular" lake or sea water. I mean, it is physically impossible to press your legs down into the water -- it's like trying sitting on a basketball or a raft in a pool or lake -- how the basketball or raft keeps wanting to push itself back up to the surface, no matter how hard you hold it down -- that's what your BODY itself naturally does in the Dead Sea. It was a crazy feeling. We also got to give ourselves a little natural spa treatment with the mud from the Dead Sea -- which is packaged and sold in spa shops around the world, but here we could just grab a handful of it and start rubbing it on ourselves. It was definitely a unique experience that I'm glad I had... and I'm glad I had people to enjoy it with and share it with. This is definitely an example of something that would NOT have been much fun to do alone.

Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures with Kevin and Rachel. I thought we were going to get together on Friday as well, so I thought I'd be sure to get a picture then. But that wound up not working out, and we didn't see each other again before they left Jerusalem... so the pictures you see here were snagged from their Facebook pages... ;o)

Ascension Day on the Mount of Olives

The traditional site where Jesus is believed to have ascended into heaven is located on top of the Mount of Olives, just outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. The building there is actually a mosque; the site of the ascension is the only Christian site in Jerusalem over which Muslims retain control. Although Muslims do not believe Jesus actually died on the cross or was resurrected, they do believe that he ascended into heaven, without ever having died. (They also believe that Jesus will return at the end of the world, as Christians do.) Thus, the site of Jesus's ascension is a holy site for Muslims as well, and they retained control of this site. One day a year, on Ascension Day, they allow Christian liturgies to take place in the mosque.

When I read about this before traveling to Jerusalem and realized that I would be in Jerusalem on Ascension Day, I really wanted to attend one of the Ascension Day liturgies. Ascension Day is one of the principal feasts of the Episcopal Church, along with Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, All Saints' Day, Trinity Sunday, and Epiphany, and I was very excited to be in Jerusalem on this day and to get to worship at the very site where Jesus is believed to have ascended into heaven.

I asked about the service times at the front desk of the convent's guest house, figuring that they would likely know the details about the liturgies. (I'd been unable to find any information online.) They said that the Catholic masses would begin at midnight and go through 5:30 a.m., and then the Orthodox liturgies would start. Each group only had so much time allotted to use the sanctuary at the Ascension Mosque, and so they staggered the different Christian groups throughout the night and day. The woman at the reception desk told me that a group would be leaving from the convent at 10:40 p.m. to head up to the Mount of Olives for the services. I decided to go with them, since I didn't feel comfortable walking that far at night by myself.

As it turned out, I'd probably have been fine walking there by myself, because there were TONS of Christians in the streets all walking toward the Mount of Olives for the services. It was really awesome to see these streams of people all walking in the same direction from all over the city and realize that they were all going for the Ascension services as well.

After a long, steep walk up the Mount of Olives, we arrived at the Mosque of the Ascension, which was fairly bare and unadorned. In the middle of the courtyard area was a large minaret (tower from which the call to prayer is issued), and inside the circular base of the minaret was the piece of rock that supposedly has a "footprint" of Jesus in it from his ascension (it didn't look much like a footprint to me, but whatever). There was a red cloth around the perimeter of the inside, an altar set up in the middle, and one painting of the ascension hanging above the altar. I assumed these items had been brought in just for tonight's festivities. (I decided not to bring my camera on this outing, so that I could be entirely present for the worship and the spiritual aspects of this event, so I have no visuals to share of this event -- I'll just have to rely on creating pictures with my words.) Above the cloth and the paintings, on the inside ledges of the minaret, were unsuspecting pigeons, nesting and trying to get some sleep, when suddenly this whole hoarde of people crammed into their home and started chanting.

We arrived around 11 p.m., and I thought the mass wasn't supposed to start until midnight. A service started at 11, though, which was a long service of the Word, with lots of chanting of psalms and versicles and responses, entirely in Latin. That service concluded and many people left, and then a bishop came in to preside over the mass. Unfortunately, not too far along into the mass, I started feeling light-headed and dizzy and had to step out (I was privileged enough to be actually INSIDE the tower, instead of standing outside and trying to hear, like many people were). I don't know if it was all those people crammed into such a tiny space -- lack of air and claustrophobia -- or if it was the cumulative effects of the day I'd spent wandering around the city in the heat, or if it was just sheer exhaustion (I hadn't been staying up much past 11 p.m. since I'd been in Israel), but I wound up sitting outside the tower and listening at a distance instead of really being there for the service, which was rather disappointing.

I'm glad I went, though, because it was certainly a very interesting scene. All the different groups -- Roman Catholic, Armenian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, etc, etc -- had these tents (like the kind you'd see at a crafts fair, not the kind you'd camp in) set up inside the mosque's courtyard where they stored all their vestments and went in to change and whatnot, and there were several different altar areas set up for the different groups. On the one hand, it was cool to see all the different Christian communities worshipping in and sharing the same space; on the other hand, it was sad that we couldn't just have one liturgy that all could participate in, that we couldn't worship TOGETHER as the body of Christ, that each group got their "time slot" to do a Mass or Eucharist or Divine Liturgy, whatever they call it, right after one had already been done by another group.

As I took it all in, I was keenly aware that this might be the first and last time I'd ever have the opportunity to take part in such a gathering in Jerusalem on a principal feast of the church. As a priest, I will have liturgical duties in my own parish on the church's principal feast days, and unless I'm a member of a church with many priests on staff and somehow manage to have sabbatical time during a principal feast (unlikely!), this may well be the last opportunity I'll have to do something like this. It made me all the more glad that I decided to take this trip with the funds from my Ministry Fellowship, and all the more grateful to FTE for making it possible.

Out and about in Jerusalem on Jerusalem Day

Today I went out to explore Jerusalem, starting on the Mount of Olives just outside the Old City gates. My original plan was to visit the Mount of Olives in the morning, looking for the site from which Jesus processed into the city in his "triumphal entry" on what we now celebrate as Palm Sunday. In keeping with my roughly chronological tracing of Jesus's life through the places he inhabited (first to Nazareth, then to the Sea of Galilee, and finally to Jerusalem), I planned to do the "triumphal entry" today, the Upper Room of the Last Supper and the Garden of Gethsemane tomorrow (on Thursday), and the Stations of the Cross on the Via Dolorosa on Friday. My plan for today was to go to the Mount of Olives and then visit the Dome of the Rock and the mosques and the Islamic museum on top of the remains of the Temple.

I had no idea when I set out today that today was a significant day in the history of Jerusalem. Thousands of Jews would be descending upon the city and the Western Wall today to commemorate "Jerusalem Day," the day Israel captured the Eastern part of Jerusalem during the Six Day War in 1967. As one could imagine, the Palestinians living in that part of Jerusalem would not be too happy about these demonstrations, since to them that day was not a day for celebration but the day that Israel "conquered" what they considered to be their land, and they refer to the area still as "Occupied East Jerusalem." But slowly, throughout the day, I started to get the picture that something significant was going on today.

The first clue was the large groups of Jewish students and leaders marching around the Mount of Olives waving enormous Israeli flags and singing and chanting things. Then, as I neared the "Dung Gate," where one enters to go to the Western Wall, I saw the side of the road covered in tour buses. That in and of itself didn't seem necessarily unusual, but there seemed to be an especially large number of people there. Instead of going back in the Lion's Gate where I had exited the city to visit the Mount of Olives, I had walked along the promenade along the outskirts of the city that has a view of the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives, mistakenly thinking that I could re-enter the city by the Dung Gate, walk by the Western Wall, and go on to climb to the top of the Temple Mount area to the Muslim sites.

Ah, my idealism and naïvité! No such luck. The entrance to the Western Wall area is entirely closed off from the rest of the Old City, so far as I could tell, and had extensive security surrounding it. There was only one entrance to the entire area, which was guarded by armed guards and metal detectors. Everyone entering the Western Wall area had to be screened. (A sign by the metal detectors assured pilgrims that the rabbis had ruled that walking through a metal detector did not violate the observance of Shabbat, if one wanted to visit the Wall on the sabbath.) I decided not to go in, since I was planning to go on Friday with my new friend Rachel, a Jewish doctoral student from the U.S. who I met at my hostel Nazareth (and who had also been staying at the same hostel I was staying at in Haifa, although we did not meet each other there), and I didn't want to mess with all the hassle of the security today. I'm glad now that I didn't, since apparently going to the Wall is a highly politicized action on this day.

Entrance to the Western Wall

I continued walking around the outside of the city walls, toward the Zion Gate, feeling sad that such extensive security measures and blocking off of this Jewish holy site were necessary, mourning the loss of this idea I had in my head that I could move seamlessly between Jewish and Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem and watch people of different cultures and religions mingling with one another peacefully. After all, surely all the press about conflicts in Jerusalem were exaggerated and the "regular people" who live here get along, right?

As I walked up the sidewalks beside the city walls, just past the Dung Gate and the Western Wall, I saw two Jewish women and a little boy in a yalmulke standing on the side of the road. One of the women grabbed the boy's hand and said to him, "You stay close to me, okay? There are lots of bad people here, you understand? You stay close to me. There are lots of Arabs here. They like to kill Jews. You stay close to me. They like to kill Jews."

My heart sunk. I thought of my new friend Ghassan Manasra back in Nazareth, marching to protect the Basilica of the Annunciation and involved in interfaith dialogue with an organization founded by a Jewish rabbi. So he "likes to kill Jews" just because he is Arab? I silently willed the little boy not to listen to his mother, to make friends with Arabs, be they Christians or Muslims, and realize that they do not all "like to kill Jews," that he might grow up to be an ambassador of peace rather than reinforcing all the old stereotypes and hatreds.

Demonstrators outside the Jaffa Gate to the Old City

There were "no entrance" signs at the next gate, the Zion Gate, so I continued (after a visit to the Upper Room, the Tomb of King David, and Dormition Abbey) to the Jaffa Gate to re-enter the Old City, almost two-thirds of the way back around to where I had started. Outside the Jaffa Gate there was a large crowd of demonstrators, waving black flags, blowing whistles, and shouting things in Hebrew. They were holding up signs, but they were all in Hebrew, so I couldn't tell what exactly was going on. There were a handful of Israeli soldiers standing around monitoring the demonstrators, holding their uzis (Israeli soldiers are all over Israel, carrying these huge machine guns... I still haven't gotten used to seeing such large guns carried out in public, and it sends a shiver down my spine every time I see them). I debated about whether to go near the crowd or even to enter by that gate, since at any moment I figured the protest could turn violent. I decided to go ahead and enter there, but walked behind the guards and their machine guns, so in case they suddenly decided to start shooting protestors, I wouldn't be in the line of fire.

As I walked through the Christian Quarter of the Old City, I stopped in a shop to look at the stoles they were selling, hand-made by Palestinian Christians in the West Bank. As the shopkeeper bargained with me and tried to sell me more and more things, he kept telling me, "Business is very bad today. The Jews, you know, are coming to pray at the Wall, and it is causing lots of problems. We close soon, and business has been very bad. So I give you good price. You understand?"

My new stoles. The middle one is reversible -- green/white

In the end, I bought three stoles from the man (after much negotiating and drinking of tea), which although it was more than I intended to buy it wasn't as many as he wanted to sell me. ("Look! This one too! Then you have the whole set! You be good priest! You have the whole set!") And at least I didn't go crazy and buy a $2,000 rug like I did on my trip to Turkey!

These were the first official clergy attire items that I have purchased; I have shied away from buying clergy shirts or collars or stoles from the companies that come through the seminary every year selling these goods, figuring it was too early to be buying those things, and that I should wait until I was a bit closer to ordination and further along in the process. But now, with two years of seminary behind me and with official status as a Candidate for Holy Orders, and with, God willing, a diaconal ordination approaching in December, it felt like it was time.

Somewhere along the middle of this trip, I began to feel God making me a priest. As I tried on the stoles, I thought about wearing them at future celebrations of the Eucharist, remembering the Palestinian women who made them and taking with me the memories of this day in Jerusalem, and sending up prayers for the peace of Jerusalem with every fiber of my being.

"Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem"

I was glad when they said to me:

‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’

And now our feet are standing

within your gates, O Jerusalem.

 - Psalm 122:1-2

I arrived today in Jerusalem, that great city at the heart of the Jewish and Christian faiths, and to a lesser extent, the Muslim faith (the holiest cities in Islam are Mecca and Medina, but Jerusalem ranks as #3). After praying about Jerusalem and Israel in the psalms and reading about them in the Scriptures for my entire life, finally, I was here, standing within the gates of the Old City, walking the very land that Jesus and the prophets walked. 

I will be staying at the Ecce Homo Convent, run by the Sisters of Our Lady of Zion and the Chemin Neuf community. I'm looking forward to being in an explicitly religious lodging environment, after staying in generic secular hostels so far for this journey. Although I've enjoyed my time in the hostels and met some great people, it's been harder to carve out space and time for prayer, or to just sit on the grounds reading Scripture or saying the Daily Office without getting weird looks and questions from the staff about what I'm doing and why I'm not out doing something. 

Ecce Homo has a wonderful chapel and a larger basilica where I can go to pray at any hour of the day, and their idea of "dorm-style accommodations" are not the large room full of bunk beds that the hostels provided, but a small private room, lacking total privacy only by the fact that its walls do not reach all the way to the ceiling, and that it has a cloth curtain instead of a door. (Pictured at right.) It's amazing to have this kind of privacy for $24/night. (Pilgrims, take note! This is a wonderful place to stay on your pilgrimage to Jerusalem!) 

I'm also glad to know that this is the last move I'll have to make before my departure for the U.S. a week from Thursday. After moving to a different city every few nights for the past 11 days, I'm looking forward to settling in a bit here. There's a closet in my room and I actually hung my clothes up in it! It's nice not to feel so much like I'm living out of a suitcase as I have been.