Last Day in Jerusalem, Looking Back--Barry

Marilyn and I spent 17 nights here at St George's College not far from the Damascus Gate leading into the Old City of Jerusalem.   This morning we leave for Tel Aviv to stay a night before our flight to Istanbul on Sunday.

The accommodation at the College was comfortable--you might call it "dorm room plus".   The "plus" part was having an en suite room.   We also had a nice view overlooking the courtyard and Cathedral tower.

Our room at St George's College--"home away from home"

Looking back over the last three weeks here and at the two other places we stayed in the Holy Land, I find it difficult to pick out the "highlights".   Nevertheless, I will give it a go this morning and record what first comes to mind.

Highlights:
--swimming in the Sea of Galilee when we went up north and stayed two nights at Pilgerhaus, a very nice German-run guest house on the shore of this Biblical lake, which is 700 feet below sea level.  The water temperature was not too warm or cold, just totally refreshing after long days on the bus visiting sites.   I didn't want to get out of the water.

The refreshing Sea of Galilee, at Pilgerhaus looking east

--seeing and touching the rock of Calvary where Jesus was crucified.  The Church of the Resurrection (a/k/a Holy Sepulchre) was built over this rocky outcrop which was in Jesus's time just outside the city walls.  The Church itself is remarkable--a dark and deeply historic place, with the original structure dating to the time of Constantine and his mother Helena in the fourth century.

Calvary shrine at Church of the Resurrection--Jesus's tomb is nearby

--renewing our baptismal vows in the headwaters of the Jordan River near Mt Hermon in the far north of the country, just a few miles from the Lebanon and Syrian border.

Jordan River headwaters (Hermon Stream) at Caesarea Philippi

--experiencing with painful sadness the Yad Vashem holocaust memorial.

A haunting sight from Yad Vashem

--visiting the Israel Museum here in Jerusalem, a very handsome and well laid out set of galleries and outdoor exhibits, including a fantastic 1:50 model of Jerusalem during the time of Herod and the Second Temple.   Coming towards the end of our trip, I found viewing this large display a good way to integrate the knowledge I acquired when first visiting places with our guides Najati (a/k/a Mike) and Father Andrew.

Jerusalem at the time of Jesus including Second Temple and Herod's Temple Mount (Israel Museum)

--driving to Haifa and back.   Over the course of our visit, I screwed up the resolve to rent a car for the day and to brave traffic on the Israeli roads (which really wasn't too bad).   We got out of Jerusalem for a day to drive to Haifa via downtown Tel Aviv.  Of the three large cities in Israel, Haifa, with its hilly site at the end of the Mt Carmel ridge overlooking the Mediterranean, struck me as the most attractive from a "liveability" standpoint.   The drive back up to and along the ridge was very scenic before we got mired in commuter traffic near Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Haifa, from viewpoint near Carmelite monastery and Elijah's cave--unfortunately not enough time to ride "world's smallest subway", an underground funicular up Mt Carmel from downtown

When we shared our reflections toward the end of the course a few days ago, I said that Jerusalem, Israel, and the Palestinian cities we visited made a deep impression on me, but that it was going to take a  longer time for me to sort this out further.  I said this from both a Biblical perspective, in which coming here was a big "inflection point" in my faith journey, and from observing the current, very separate societies of Palestinians and Israeli Jews.   Before I viewed Jerusalem as a place I would visit once in my life and now I hope to return someday.

Oh, there was also time for some "retail therapy" in the Old City.    We can recommend a good jeweler near where this photo was taken on David St--they've only been in business here for 383 years!

Making Connections

The Western Wall of the Temple, dating from the time of Jesus.  This is the Men's Section.  The Women's Section next to it was much more crowded and much smaller.  I put all our prayer requests, collected in April, in chinks in the wall, and said my own prayers there as well.  Very holy and moving, and very lively just before sundown on Fridays...

This has been such a full time for us in the course The Bible and Its Setting.  I know I'm making so many good connections with the land and really look forward to sharing these from the pulpit and in adult ed over the coming years.  Understanding the link between choosing between life and death, blessings and curses, from the Book of Joshua.  Understanding Jesus' question to his disciples (and to Peter most especially) "Who do you say that I am?" from a trip way up north to Dan, the site called Banias (Caesarea Phillipi).  Understanding the life on the Sea of Galilee from a trip to that wonderful and beautiful lake.

Millstones in Capernaum for grinding olives

Actually we got to swim twice in the Sea of Galilee and it was refreshing and wonderful, the same water that Jesus walked upon and the same water that produced miraculous catches of fish.

Two classmates with a fish lunch on the Sea of Galilee in Capernaum
The fish is tilapia and is called locally "St. Peter's Fish"

Detail from 3rd--4th Century Synagogue in Capernaum, the village where Jesus lived
His Synagogue was made of dark basalt stone; this one of limestone

We saw the place where Jesus "rehabilitated" Peter with the threefold question "Peter, do you love me?"  We saw the place of the visitation of Mary to Elizabeth.  The place of Mary's birth and the spring of Bethesda.

Mary and Jesus in Mosaic at the Church of Ein Karem celebrating the Visitation of Mary and Elizabeth

The water tunnel of Hezekiah and the Pool of Siloam where Jesus cured a man born blind.  The place of the Last Supper and the Agony in the Garden.

As the course ends we will be walking the Way of the Cross through the streets of the Old City of Jerusalem, in the footsteps of Jesus.  And celebrating the Resurrection in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

This has been a marvelous time and I am so grateful for the experience.

In the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem

I asked the course director about bringing parishioners on pilgrimage through St George's College in Jerusalem and he said that yes indeed this has happened in the past and it works well--the pastor and parishioners sign up for a course and all attend together, along with others from across the Anglican Communion.  What a wonderful pilgrimage opportunity.  Let it cook a while!  Maybe a couple of years from now we'll meet in Jerusalem ...

I Didn't Know That--Barry

We have now completed four days touring the Holy Land with our guides at St George's College.  Another week and a half to go.

The birthplace of Jesus at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem

When our small group of 10 met with our course leaders for the first time on Tuesday night, we all introduced ourselves and gave our personal objectives for the course.   In my case I wanted the structure imposed by a two week curriculum and learning the Holy Land geography to elevate my understanding of the Bible.   I hoped that I would learn a lot because I was starting from a low base, meaning I was familiar with various stories from the Bible but I couldn't connect the dots very well.   Now was the time to do that.

The last four days of touring holy sites have prompted numerous silent recitals of "I didn't know that" that are helping me to grow my knowledge of the Bible.

Camel rides at our desert camp in the Negev near Arad-- a "once in a lifetime" experience because I learned that camel-riding is not particularly comfortable!

For instance, yesterday we went to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, which sits atop a cave reputed to be the birthplace of Jesus.   (Caves figure prominently in the siting of churches and mosques here.)   I thought, according to the old childhood story, that Jesus was born in a manger.   Yesterday I learned that according to historical sources the manger was probably located in a cave used by shepherds--such caves are commonplace in the Bethlehem area.  Yesterday we--along with many other pilgrims--were in that cave.   Then we heard a remarkable reflection from our course leader tying Jesus's cave-birth to the "theology of descent" that's an important part of our Christian faith.

Part of the underground water cisterns at Herodion

Everyone knows how important water is, but you have to be here to appreciate truly its life-and-death importance for everyday life in such a hot and dry place (this time of year) and how prominently it figures in biblical history.   So far we have seen ingenious ancient systems for delivering and storing water at Tel Be'er Sheva and Masada in the desert regions to the south of Jerusalem and also at the Herodion fortress built by that famous taxer-and-spender King Herod.  (Onerous taxes imposed by Herod to build fortresses everywhere--the guy was paranoid--were forcing people to sell their land in order to pay.   So Jesus's alternative message of a different kind of Kingdom was finding a receptive audience among a tax-weary populace.  I didn't know that either.)

We stopped the other day at the Greek Orthodox church sitting on top of Jacob's Well in Nablus (formerly Shechem).   We were able to drink the cool water from this deep (40 meters) well and to pour it back into the well and wait a few seconds for it to splash far below.   I really didn't know about Jacob's Well before but now I learned that Jesus was here (as recounted by the New Testament story where he met the Samaritan woman at the well), and I experienced the remarkable feeling that comes from being in the same place as He was.

A large and expanding Israeli settlement near Bethlehem on the West Bank (seen from our tour bus)

Last night, on a more contemporary note, we listened as an invited  Palestinian professor and artist described the conflict with Israel from his perspective.   It was a bleak view of unremitting efforts by the Israeli government to build more and more settlements and through various other means to drive native Palestinians off their land, producing a "greater Israel" from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River as a fait accompli.  The professor also had a conspiratorial view of the Palestinian Authority, whom he viewed as corrupt collaborationists with the Israeli government.   Certain things I have observed here--such as lengthy daily checkpoints for Palestinians who come to work in Israel and the economically-depressed looking Palestinian cities that are losing the more educated to emigration--may be consistent  with such a bleak view, but maybe  I'm too (naively?) optimistic and inclined to the belief that good will can be found on all sides to accept it totally.   But it's still early in our time here.

Wow! and Aaugh!

We have had 3 full days on our course now; it's called "The Bible and Its Setting."  On Wednesday we went to Hebron in the West Bank, site of the tombs of the patriarchs (the Cave of Machpelah is under a mosque-synagogue complex in Hebron)

The cover over the opening to the cave of Machpelah under the mosque.  My classmate is wearing the brown robe that we women had to wear in the mosque.  Notice the rectangles in the rug--each is a place for one person to fit during prayer.  The call to prayer is sounded 5 times a day and we hear it clearly here in Jerusalem.

and the Oak of Mamre where Abraham entertained the Three Angels. We had lunch under the oaks and saw the remnants of the tree purported to be THE oak of Mamre.  We traveled south to Be'er Sheva (in Bible it's Be'er Sheba) which the site of a well dug by Abraham as well as a town that the Israelites under Moses passed by on their way to the Promised Land.  Although it's not the southern point in modern Israel, it's considered Biblical south.

As we stood in the oaks of Mamre near Hebron we read the Genesis story of Abraham entertaining the angels by his tent.  Midway in the story the mosques around us began their calls to prayer, broadcast through very strong loudspeakers.  How amazing:  a Christian group in Israeli-occupied territory reading the Hebrew Scriptures to the sound of the Muslim call to prayer.  And the story was about our common Father in Faith, Abraham.  Gave me the chills.

Worst part:  the checkpoint we had to pass through in order to go from the West Bank back into Israel.  Everyone had to get out of the bus and we were told to go through the security line (like worst airport check station you can imagine).  Security personnel with uzis shouting at us and being very rude, making us take off everything metal and surrender passports for a while.  Dog brought out to sniff around our van for explosives.  Now, it shook me up, the shouting and the confusion and the loaded guns.  But the Palestinians who live in the West Bank and work in Jerusalem have to pass through this every day ...  to be fair, it was the only time we've been treated like this--we've been through about 3 or 4 checkpoints.

Best part of Wednesday:  the Bedouin style camp we stayed in that night, located west of the Dead Sea and east of the city of Arad in the south.  The camp was called Hanokdim.  Big tent with flaps up and the desert breeze blowing through the whole time, all night long.

Class members sitting outside the tent we slept in.
This is in the Negev Desert.

And the CAMEL RIDE which was a hoot.

This is a close up of our lovely and talented camel.
Maybe the most fun is getting up and going back down to
the ground while seated on the camel...

Great Bedouin food and coffee with cardamom.  I love this food and will miss it!  Nearest thing is the food at that nice little place in Danbury--Sesame Seed.

Thursday we celebrated Eucharist at 7 am in the Bedouin camp and then headed to Masada--a terrific National Park -- you take a cable car up to the top of the mesa (or walk if it's early enough).  Built by Herod the Great--he loved to build stuff.  Apparently he liked the location because he could come to be treated in the Dead Sea--apparently he had some kind of skin disease associated with syphilis, probably, and the waters of the Dead Sea are therapeutic.  The top of the mountain is the ancient fort, under seige by the Romans for 3 years before they breached the wall.  Mass suicide of the residents in order to escape slow death by crucifixion at hands of the Romans.  The ingenuity of these people in providing a water supply for themselves is absolutely awesome.

Walls at Masada.  Under the black line are original
stones; over the lines are reconstructed stones.

Caves in the ridge behind Qumran.  These caves
held the Dead Sea Scrolls for almost 2000 years before their
discovery by a Bedouin shepherd boy in 1947.

On to Qumran, home of the Essenes, a sect of Judaism at time of Jesus and John the Baptist; many people see some limited influence of the Qumran community in the New Testament.  They had ruins there and an identified scriptorium, where Scriptures were copied.  This is the group that fled at 67 AD before the advance of the Romans, but before they fled they buried 700 parchments in amphorae (clay jars) in 40 caves up in the hill above.  These are the Dead Sea Scrolls.  All books of the Hebrew Bible are represented in the Dead Sea Scrolls except for Esther (written in Babylonia and the name of God is not mentioned in that book).

Best part of the day:  the float in the Dead Sea.  It was really fun, and I was the last one out ... very refreshing in the desert heat.

Today, on to Shechem in Samaria to visit the Greek Orthodox Church built over Jacob's Well.  The Well is in the crypt and you can go down there--it's very deep.  We got to drink from the well.  This is the well (our guide Najati is "120% sure of it") where Jesus encountered the Samaritan woman in John 4.  It is amazing to be where He was, yet no matter where we are, we breathe him in with every breath; we drink him in with every sip of water.  Disturbing thing about the church:  in 1979 an Orthodox priest was murdered by axe by a settler from a nearby settlement in the West Bank ... his head was chopped into 5 pieces by this guy ... there is an icon of the priest being murdered, hanging in the church behind the sarcophagus of the priest.  The settler was later determined to be mentally ill.

Unforgettable modern icon of Greek Orthodox priest
being axed in the Church above Jacob's well in Shechem
 by settler--1979

On to the Tel of Shechem where Joshua spoke to the people about blessings (Mount Gerazim to the left side--it is verdant with springs) and curses (Mount Ebal to the right--it is desolate, dry and barren).  Joshua 24 gives his speech to the people, telling them to choose blessings--choose life.  And in this context choosing life means choosing God.

This is the rock associated with Joshua's address to the
Israelites--see Joshua 24

Ended with a blazing hot walk through dust, dust, and more dust and through an olive orchard through the ruins of the settlement at Sebastia, built by Herod the Great.  This is a large town complete with amphitheater, forum, and Temple of Augustus.  

I love this picture.  The Roman forum at Sebastia, built under Herod the Great.
Note the plastic chairs within.  Modernity strikes!

We are being stretched mentally, emotionally, and physically.  Thank heavens our compound in Jerusalem is air conditioned and we are being well cared for!  Thank God for water bottles and sunscreen, too.  I don't know how people did it back in the day.  One thing I think of now and then is that in the NT it never says that Jesus was complaining about the heat.  I suppose it was such a novelty for him to be in a body and in a physical environment that he never griped.  So I am trying not to gripe, either.  On to Nazareth and Bethlehem tomorrow.

Catching our Breath Now--Barry

Now in Jerusalem at St George's College enjoying a few days getting acclimated here before the course starts tonight.   There has been a lot of time in the past two days for afternoon naps, while doing some sightseeing in the Old City and elsewhere in Jerusalem and attending to overdue personal needs like haircuts.

St George's College, Jerusalem--our home for the next three weeks (we're in one of the third floor rooms with a balcony)

The last week or so following our departure from New Zealand was a whirlwind as we visited three large cities--Sydney, Melbourne, and Singapore--before taking the El Al flight to Tel Aviv from Bangkok that arrived here early Sunday morning.   We also rented a car in Sydney and drove the 1000km to Melbourne over the coastal route in two days to see something of Australia outside its two major cities.  (Interesting routing by the way for the El Al flight, which can't fly over Saudi Arabia, so we went south around the horn of Africa over Somalia and Djibouti before flying over the Red Sea, which itself took 2-3 hours, much longer than I expected.)

A few random observations of the places we've been since my last post:
--Sydney:  the highlight for me was seeing for the first time, in person, those two iconic landmarks--the Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House.   It made me think of those other thrilling moments when I've been fortunate to see in person sights that I had known only through photographs since childhood--the Eiffel Tower, the Matterhorn, and the Star ferries in Hong Kong come to mind.   My first sight of these two Sydney landmarks was on the approach of our Air New Zealand--what a great airline!--flight from Christchurch when we happened to be on the right side of the aircraft to take in the view before landing.   Later we were able to walk across the Harbour Bridge from our B&B in nearby Kirribili and to tour and later attend a performance at SOH.   Will always remember this.

Harbour Bridge and downtown Sydney (Opera House at far left) seen from  ferry slip near our B&B

--Melbourne:  while it doesn't have the well recognized landmarks of its larger rival city in New South Wales, Melbourne for us was a more comfortable city with its wide streets and downtown grid layout reminiscent of Chicago and Toronto.   We loved our visit to the Melbourne Zoo, taking one of the city's famous trams there and back.   The highpoint of the zoo was seeing those well-known Australian creatures (kangaroo and koala bear) that we weren't able to see--either in the wild or as roadkill--during our long drive between the two cities.   So we could check that off our list!

Marilyn and friend at Melbourne Zoo

--Singapore: just amazing.   The dynamism of the place is so palpable, and I've never been to such an orderly and clean urban area.   It was just thrilling to observe and, as Americans, somewhat sobering as well.   The National Museum of Singapore had a fantastic walk through exhibit on the city state's history. How far Singapore has come in terms of overall standard of living for its residents just in the period Marilyn and I have been alive is just breathtaking and testimony to the extremely good governance and industrious people resident there.

Naumi Hotel with its great rooftop pool view of Singapore was a splurge at the half way point of our journey--and well worth it

My last observation leads to a related, depressing thought.   On our journey we've been to four countries---Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Singapore--where the governance--not just in my estimation but to other observers and by other measures as well--is superior to what we have in the US, and this "good governance" gap over decades between these four countries and ours is manifest right before our eyes in our travels in the quality of public facilities like airports, urban amenities like well maintained parks and restrooms, etc.   And increasingly these countries are eating our lunch economically--just check out how exchange rates have moved between USD and CAD, NZD, AUD, and SGD.   In Australia unemployment is less that 5% and it's less than 2% in Singapore and you wonder how long before we return in the US to days of economic prosperity and optimism.   Enough of my editorializing....

I'll close with an initial reflection on Israel.   Just walking through the Old City the other day--very much an in your face experience in comparison to the polite, Anglicized places we've been to so far--you realize how hard the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is and will be to resolve.    Like the layout of the Old City itself, it seems very complicated.   This morning, up early to do my email, I spoke with Azzam, one of the Palestinian workers at the College.   Today it took him an hour and twenty minutes to get through the Israeli checkpoint to get to work from his home in the West Bank.   He has rheumatoid arthritis and it hurts for him to stand in line for so long.   Just imagine going through the worst airport security line of your life every workday, twice, and that's probably what it's like.   The next few weeks are going to be filled, I think, with troubling observations and I hope some positive insights as well.   Farewell for now.

Turning Point

At this point we are more than halfway through our PDL.  We've left Singapore today and just landed in Bangkok minutes ago.  In order to get the boarding passes for our El Al flight to Israel we had to go through extra security at a screening counter.  We passed.  As I was standing there I was gazing at the blue and white El Al logo and realizing that this really is happening--when the next plane lands we will be in Tel Aviv.  Someone from St George's College will meet us there and drive us to Jerusalem.  Gazing at the logo I realized that "El" is one of the most ancient names for God in the OT.  Maybe El Al is God's Airline.

We spent a frenzied 2 days in Singapore, trying to keep up with the pace of the city and its inhabitants.  Quite the impressive place.  We ate chili crab and black pepper crab at East Coast Seafood (Jumbo Restaurant) which was a cultural experience in itself.

Barry cleaning up after chili crab, left, and black pepper crab, right

We had Asian fusion at a restaurant on the Singapore River and took a river taxi most of the way home.  We went to the Singapore Museum and saw a terrific historical exhibit as well as an exhibit of the photography of Abbas, a modern photo journalist.  Sue K, we just didn't get to Little India to have fish head curry but to tell the truth I never could get past that name ...  Singapore is an amazing place, bustling and economically a powerhouse.  The tropics continue to amaze me with the ferns and plants--the Botanical Garden in Singapore was so impressive, especially the orchid gardens.  Orchids are everywhere here--even huge displays in airports in Singapore and in Bangkok.

Palm variety--SBO

Lovely orchids--SBO

A member of the ginger family--SBO

And now it's time to turn toward academics.  We are beginning our course this coming Tuesday evening and expect to join 20 or 30 people from around the Anglican Communion as we continue to make connections between God's Word and the Promised Land.  But before that it's time for the mid-sabbatical haircuts we each need and maybe a pedicure too in order to attend to some raggedy polish applied in May in Toronto.

An through it all I've been working on The Artist's Way and am finding it a very stimulating and worthwhile guide to going deeper into the Inner Life.  I'm on Week 9 now, getting a little ahead so that it can be put aside for a few weeks while we take the course in Jerusalem.  I'd recommend this "course in creativity" to anyone who may or may not be an artist.  It's basic premise is that by understanding our past and by knowing our foibles and our wounds, we are better able to give ourselves over to God's direction as we continue with our lives.  (It's really pretty sound psychotherapeutic stuff.)  Here's a terrific quote from Miles Davis that is highlighted in the book:  "Do not fear mistakes.  There are none."

And finally, I downloaded the album that the Traveling Wilburys made together in 1988-- that was the group composed of George Harrison, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne.  It was so sweet to hear their music again--and especially since two members of the band have since died:  Roy Orbison and George Harrison.

Life is short, and we do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those who walk the way with us ...  so be quick to love, and make haste to be kind.

Over and out.

M: So, how does kangaroo really taste?

B:  Like steak, not like chicken.