And Then That Happened, (Part 2: A Shocking Experience!)

It was July 4, the 831th anniversary of the Battle of Hattin.  That was the decisive battle in the hills above the Sea of Galilee between the Crusaders and Saladin.  It was a scorching day, and the Crusaders were cut off from their water supplies.  Saladin ran relays of water up from the Sea.  The Crusader army was destroyed.  Jerusalem fell shortly thereafter, with their castles across the Jordan along the King's Highway including Kerak, Shobek and forts in Petra not far behind.  My July 4 in Petra, I had full canteens and used them, but in 115 degree heat it still was not enough.

After leaving the Treasury, within a hundred meters or so I ran into a couple of camels on the trail.  I stepped off the road to let them by, and on the rocky side I twisted my ankle.  "Oh, that'll hurt in the

Just step off the trail and let them pass

morning!" I said.  Little did I know the damage I'd suffered: six months later, it would be diagnosed properly as a torn Achilles tendon.  Another hundred meters or so, I came to the turnoff to the High Place of Sacrifice.  My ankle hurt, but not too badly.  "If I don't go up there, I'll regret it," I said to myself.  I knew that the next day's plan did not have time for that side trail; it was now or never.  So I started up the stairs.

After climbing a couple hundred feet, watching the valley fall away below me, my ankle hurt worse. I reflected that the newer British built stairs lower down were taller than the more ancient ones.  I was glad when I came to a dozen meters of flat before the next staircase, as it let my foot relax.  But on the climbs, it hurt.  Maybe I should quit? "But if I don't do it, I'll regret it. Besides, I've climbed a fair ways, I don't want to lose the effort."

I ran into an Englishman who was descending.  He assured me that he was only 15 minutes from the top, it ought only take me 20 minutes or so.  (It took more like 45.) My ankle hurt badly, but was functional; it would bear my weight as I stepped up.  So on I went.  Near the top, the trail opened out towards a saddle below the summit, and there was a tiny shelter with a couple of Bedouin girls in the shade.  "It's not far!" they encouraged me.  The trail petered out into a duck route across open sandstone slabs, and then I was atop the summit.

Altar on the summit of the High Place of Sacrifice

You can see for 20 miles in every direction. There is a platform maybe 35' x 20'. On the west side, is an altar, with three steps up to it. There's also some sort of sideboard with steps up it. The altar is about 3' x 6', concave in the top, with a drainhole. The sideboard has a bowl structure, also with a drainhole. Sacrifice was a messy, bloody business.  I'd read all my life about "the Israelites are sacrificing to Baal on the High Places," etc. But to see one, carved out of the bedrock, was astounding. This was probably dedicated to Dushara, the head of the Nabatean pantheon.  It was truly fascinating, and I'm actually about two-thirds glad that I made the climb

But the pain was fierce!  Compare the grimace in my selfie here with the smile from an hour and a half earlier! One of the Bedouin girls came up and talked to me.  She suggested that I go down the back

Atop the High Place. Aaron's tomb on mtn in far distance

way, "Fewer steps," than the way I'd come.  Or I could go across the bluffs to the west and pick up a road to the main entrance, that's how they had to take a woman earlier by truck who had broken her leg. I assured her that I didn't need that.  She was a bit upset that I didn't look at her crafts for sale, but I knew time was of the essence if I was going to get down and out in time.  So started limping down the back stairs.

What she hadn't told me was that there were literally NO other people on that trail. Or that it was on the sunward side of the mountain in the afternoon.  Or that the sand was white and reflected the sun.  Or that there was no shade.  And no breeze.  A genuine furnace.  115 in the shade and no shade.

Once I got to the valley floor, the sand was a bit easier on the pain than the steps.  And there were some neat monuments.  But I hurt too bad to divert the 15' off the trail to go look inside.  I kept pressing down the valley.

There were some goats around.  I could hear a nanny bawling for her kid she couldn't find.  I would know that sound anywhere.  She was running along a ridge across from me. Then I spotted the kid, dead, in a gully below her.  It was very sad.  A ways further on, I came across one of the famous blue Petra lizards alongside the trail.  Also dead.  "That's not a good omen!"

I knew I was hiking too slowly.  I'd stop and drink and then push onward before having to rest again.  I was regretting going down this way, realizing that it would put me at the far end of the city from the entrance.  I decided that when I got to the Basin (Qasr al-Bint), that I would swallow my pride and rent a donkey to take me back to the gate.  Or maybe even splurge for a cart ride!

I came to a major trail junction.  There were two routes to the Basin -- one that followed down the bottom of the wadi and curved around the end of the hill, and another that angled up to a small saddle and then dropped down. The latter was shorter, and so decided to take that path.  The trail had become rocky again and hurt.

At the top of the saddle was a small shade tent.  An old Bedouin woman was sitting at a rickety card table; I staggered over and fell into a metal chair. Shade!  And a place to sit!   I pulled out my canteen and started drinking thirstily.  In broken English, she assured me that the Basin was right down the hill, "Ten minutes."  I thought, "OK, maybe 20, but it'll be OK.  I'll find a donkey....."  I looked over and saw a simple bed in the corner, and wondered if it would be too intrusive if I went and lay down.  I am so tired!

She pulled out a small blue rag, and produced a small coin.  I told her that I wasn't interested, but took and looked at it anyway.  A Roman denarius, likely fake.  I handed it back, and she gave me another.  Another denarius, it was better quality, actually rather pretty, though still likely counterfeit.

I thanked her and handed it back, when POW!  My implanted cardiac defibrillator (ICD) fired.  I jerked back, she leapt up frightened -- our fingers had almost been touching as I handed the coin to her and it fired. "It's OK, it's OK, I cried, out... I have a defibrillator..." I spoke fast and fearful.  POW!  Another shock.  I kept talking, trying to explain, pulling down the collar of my shirt and showed her the scar from the implant.  POW!  Another shock.  POW!  Yet again.  I'm pouring water over my head,  and down my chest -- heat is one of the precipitating factors for these events, and I'm trying to cool myself off.

She is on the her phone.  "I'll call the doctor!" I tell her, "OK".  After just one shock, I might have been able to walk to the Basin after resting a bit  Two is iffy, my legs become jelly, and it was four or five which usually leaves me curled up on the floor in the fetal position.  I've had a few shocks on many occasions, once as many as a dozen.  I'd stayed in the chair, pouring water down my head and chest which is evaporating on contact.  She's on the phone -- to the rangers, to the police, to all her sisters, call after call.  Of course, she's speaking Arabic, though I do at one point hear her say "ICD" so I realize she's at least quoting me or maybe even understands the situation.

People ask me what an ICD shock feels like.  I've always said that it's like getting kicked in the chest by a mule.  Not that I've ever experienced that!  But it is a very physical punch, with a bit of electric fence jolt. I recoil from the shock as if sucker punched, flailing my arms back.  It is so deep in the body that it isn't quite pain, though it is uncomfortable.  And a few shocks do start hurting, as all the chest muscles start complaining about being cramped and released in a few milliseconds.   I'll feel a dull ache afterwards in my chest, like the residual after a bad coughing fit.  If I'm standing up, a shock will take my knees out and I'll fall.  I've learned that if I think I'm about to get shocked, to kneel down on the floor so I don't have so far to go.  Sometimes I can feel the precipitating arrhythmia, kneel and steel myself for a shock, though most often the first shock will take me by surprise.  And it is always accompanied by a mixture of panic and fear.  Which isn't great, because the last thing I need at that moment is an adrenaline dump -- adrenaline is one of the chief causes for the whole thing.  You know, like hiking down a mountain in 115 degree heat with a screaming hurting ankle.

After about 20 minute, an ambulance arrives.  The zaps have stopped, but I'm pretty much in shock.  I explain what happened to the attendants, and agree to go to the hospital with them.  A vehicle trumps a potential donkey!  I'm shaky as they help me walk to the vehicle, but refuse the stretcher and sit in the back seat.  As we drive down to the basin and then up the service road, I roll down the window and look out.  I realize that this may be all I see of Petra -- and pull out my camera and start taking pictures.  I'm bummed since I'm thinking that all the really good stuff is out the other window, but I can see lots of cliff carvings and ruins anyway.  I look up towards the Byzantine church excavation that I wanted to visit the next day and try to see as much as I can as we drive nearby.  Then I hear the driver on the radio; evidently they had asked how the patient was and he was rather disgustedly saying "He's taking pictures out the window."  I sheepishly put my phone away.

From my VIP Tour of Petra

Usually after an incident like this, I'm evaluated and released from the hospital pretty quickly.  I've even been chided for going to the ER at all, for the idea of a defibrillator is that it does its thing and everything is then OK.  So I'm worried about how long this will take; I'm going to miss my rendezvous near the main gate, so how will I get to the Bedouin camp?  My luggage was supposed to be there, with my medicines; what if I'm at the hospital long enough I need those?  We went through Wadi Musa, the town by Petra, and then out of town. Suddenly fresh fear grips me.  Where are we going?  Are we going to the next larger town, some 20 miles away?  But it turns out that the hospital was on a hilltop a couple miles out of town.

This hospital looks like what we had in the US in the 1930's.  It is spartan.  I am taken to an examination room, they run an EKG which looks basically OK, and decide that I was just dehydrated.  So they give me an IV bag of fluids.  What takes far longer is the police report.  I'm questioned by an officer about my nationality and visa, when I'd come to Jordan, where I'd been, and where I was staying. I was unclear about the name of my tour agency and the camp, and, flustered, had to look it up in my emails.  They ask me exactly where I'd hiked, where the incident occurred, just what happened.  This questioning happened a couple of times. 

During this questioning, I committed a severe cultural-religious faux pas.  I was telling about when I'd handed the coin back to the woman that when my unit fired "I had scared her to d**th."  Everyone in the room stiffened in consternation, and the policeman told me angrily, "Don't say that! You can't say that!  You must fear God!" and I quickly realized that I'd accidentally as much as cast a curse on the poor woman.  I apologized profusely.  I felt terrible, but had meant no harm, and tried to bless her help to me instead. It was an awkward moment that passed.  Finally, after a long time, the officer dictated the report line by line in Arabic to a junior who wrote it all down longhand.

They must have contacted the camp, because a driver arrived.  I paid my bill -- around $50 US -- and as I left, I asked if they could give me an ace bandage for my sprained ankle, which had been completely ignored.  They grabbed a couple bandages and tossed them in a bag, "Your care package," the nurse smiled. We hurried away, the driver being certain to charge me for the extra distance from the hospital.

I got to the Bedouin camp near Little Petra just in time for dinner.  The manager was very kind and helpful, he put me in a tent near the central men's washrooms and showers, and gave me a cane to help me walk.  I sat at dinner with an Irishman and a gay American couple and relished speaking American for the first time in a week.  After dinner, they ran the generators and hot water for a while so everyone could shower.  Then we sat on cushions around the fire, drinking hot tea, enjoying the lights the camp had put on the nearby rock outcrops, and watching the stars come out.  Clearly, I was not doing the back-way hike into Petra the next day, so they agreed to set me up with a driver who would take me to Shobek castle and Little Petra which would be more my speed.  Some Tylenol and an ice pack, and it seemed like the episode had wound down.  A good night's sleep, and I'd be fine.

Little did I know that the worst was yet to come.  More than once.

Relaxing around the campfire. "Seven Wonders" was not a rustic Bedouin camp.  Delightful glamping.

And Then That Happened, Part 1 (Intro.)

In one of my first posts on this blog, about The Journey, I observed that modern pilgrims do not face the same challenges getting to and from their destination.  In prior ages, the journey was as much about the pilgrimage as being there, and often more stressful.  Bandits by land, storms at sea, dangerous rulers, crowded inns and surly monks all were challenges.  Some pilgrims died en route or coming home.

I almost died coming home. 

Not at all intentionally, mind you. But I definitely used up a couple more of my proverbial 9 lives (I'm up to about 12!).  That sounds flip to say, but dealing with that reality has been very hard, physically, emotionally and spiritually.

Following the conclusion of my time at Tantur, I took off on my own to explore Jordan.  I took the train to Haifa, and the next day to the Sheik Hussein border crossing near Bet She'an.  There I was met by my driver from Amani Tours  http://www.amanitours.com, with whom I'd assembled a custom tour of religious and cultural sites.  My drivers were wonderful, and through the crisis I'll detail below, they and the staff went far above and beyond the call of duty.  Over a short week, I visited Umm Qais, Pella, Jerash, Amman, Qasr al-Abd, Madaba, Mt. Nebo, Umm ar-Rasas, Heshbon, al-Lahun, Machaerus, Kerak Castle, Dana Preserve, Wadi Mujib's slot canyon hike and falls, Shobek

Jerash, Decapolis Roman City extraordinaire

Castle, and of course, Petra.  I had different drivers for the northern and southern legs of the trip; both spoke fine English, were affable, flexible, and put up with my hundreds of questions.  Some places were well trod, others way off the beaten track so we were the only ones there.  Just looking at that list and reviewing some of the pictures makes me realize how what happened at the end eclipsed so much of my memories.

It was hot.  This was the first week of July.  Over 100 degrees F every day.  More than a few times, I was very grateful to get in the air conditioned car after climbing down from the likes of Pella or the (unimpressive) ruins of Herod's mountaintop palace at Machaerus, completely drenched with sweat.

Machaerus.  You walk from here to the top. Not worth it.

My drivers thought I was a bit crazy.  Cooler but exhausting was the walk, swim and climb in Wadi Mujib's slot canyon.  I am not sure when I was more muscularly spent than after that, I would not have made it without the help of the guide/river-otter who assisted me.

The next morning after the Wadi Mujib hike, I had a "nature hike" with a Bedouin around the upper valley at the Dana Preserve, during which I'd slipped and fallen several times on loose rock.  My driver stopped in Wadi Musa (the town by Petra) where I got a lunch shwarma to go and some more water bottles. He dropped me off at the location I would be picked up at 16:00 hrs and taken to a Bedouin camp near Little Petra for the night.  After going through the small but well done museum near the entrance gate, and taking a picture of the Indiana Jones Gift Shop, I started down the road into the ancient city.  Downhill going in, I met a fairly steady stream of tourists coming out.  Most were on foot, but a lot had hired donkeys or bicycle-wheeled chariots for the return trip. 

Did I mention that it was hot?  I later learned that it was 46 C (115 F), the hottest day all summer.  There were a a variety of impressive monuments as you approached the siq (slot canyon that is the main entrance to the city).  When I got into the siq, I stayed to the shady side of the canyon it was a furnace with no breeze.  The aqueduct system in the canyon were interesting but dry.  But nothing prepares one for the view when all of a sudden you turn a corner, and there is the famous Treasury.  This is the building used in Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail as the main temple, though it is in fact a tomb.  In the plaza is a tourist chaos of people hawking trinkets, camel rides, and people from all over the world getting their picture taken.  I got a nice Japanese lady to shoot my picture before leaving the carnival to head on into the city.  Check out the people on the camels right near the base of the structure, it gives you an idea of the sheer size of the monument.

The last smile for a while, at the Treasury

My plan, which I had figured out well in a advance, was this:  Not far past the Treasury, I would turn off south on the trail to the High Place of Sacrifice. The High Place was a Nabatean sacrificial platform and altar on a mountaintop some 500' above the main city, accessed by a million stairs (more or less).  From there, I would descend the back way down Wadi Farasa, past a number of lesser known monuments, and then in a couple miles rejoin the main valley at the restaurant complex at Qasr al-Bint.  I'd then hurry up the main street, back to the Treasury, out the Siq and meet my driver by 16:00 to go to my camp near Little Petra.  I woudn't spend a lot of time looking at things through the city center, because I would visit them the next day.  The plan for the morrow was to get a jeep ride from Little Petra to roads end, and then take the rugged way-point "back-way" route to the Monastery, a large monument atop its own mountain, descend from there to the Qasr al-Bint, and then have a good portion of the day to explore the city. I'd then meet my driver near the main gate, who would take me 3 hours up the King's Highway to a hotel in Madaba, from which I'd go the 20 minutes to the airport the next morning to catch my flight to London en route home.

This was not to be.

Map of Petra.  My first fateful route is the trail looping down from the center and then going left.

Go to Part 2: A Shocking Experience

Returning to the Holy Land

At the Dome of the Rock

I'm going back!

In just a couple of weeks, Ivan and I are departing for "In the Footsteps of Jesus" pilgrimage led by Jeff and Janet Wright.  The main tour is 10 days long, we will go a few days ahead of the tour to get over our jet lag and see the sights of Tel Aviv.  At the end of the main tour, Ivan heads home, and I'll go with a few of the others on an add-on to Petra, and then hang out and explore Jerusalem some more for a couple days.  The tour hits the major Christian and historical sites around Jerusalem and Galilee.  A good portion of our time will be meeting with civil society groups working towards justice and peace between Israelis and Palestinians.  We'll meet a variety of groups, both Jewish and Arab; if all works out we will even get to meet with a member of the Knesset when we visit there!  (I don't know who.)

Our leader Jeff Wright was for many years the minister of Heart of the Rockies Disciples of Christ church here in Fort Collins.  While I have never known him well, I have been aware of his ministry for a long time.  Heart of the Rockies was a church plant at about the same time I planted MCC Family in Christ, so I watched their work from afar.  He and his wife Janet, who is a social worker skilled in EMDR, have been leading these tours for quite a number of years in collaboration with DOC/UCC Global Ministries.  (Our two denominations have a joint mission board.)  I've known several people who have gone with them, and they have uniformly testified to the transformative effect the experience had on their lives.  I had seriously considered their program when I went to the Holy Land in 2017, but opted for the month-long, more academically inclined, program at Tantur instead.

Why go back?  Especially, in light of how my last trip ended?  (For the three of my readers who don't know about that, look at the next blog post I'll write, "And That Happened" in which I revisit the crisis that befell me in Petra and a week hospitalized in a cardiac ward in Amman.  I was surprised when I reopened this blog that I had not written about that.  But it was pretty traumatic and has taken a lot of hard work to heal.)

The first reason is to visit places I missed on my prior trip.  Even a month with tours most days was not enough time to see all I wanted.  Just around Jerusalem, I never made it to sites as important as the Cenacle (site of the Last Supper, part of a larger complex on Mt Zion) or the Russian Orthodox Church of Mary Magdalene.  There were a bunch of archaeological sites I missed, such as the Burnt House (ruins from the Roman sack of the city in 70 CE), the western wall tunnels, "Zedekiah's stables," or most of the archaeological digs in the City of David.  I missed the Museum on the Seam, David's Tomb, and the Tombs of the Prophets.  Likewise, the King David Hotel, First Station, or Great Synagogue.  Now, I realize that many of these aren't on the itinera, but there are free part days or the option of skipping things I've seen to go to things I haven't.  (And it'll take another trip -- or three! -- to see things elsewhere in the country I'd like to explore:  Megiddo, Akko, Safed, the Ramon Crater area, Lachish, Ein Gedi, Jenin, Bet She'an.....)

The "Immovable Ladder" at Holy Sepulchre

Some places that I saw before deserve a second (or fourth) look.  The first visit is big impressions, this time I'll look for details.  The first visit was finding a good picture, this time I'll probably forgo some pictures to absorb the spirit.  So, a place like the Syriac St. Mark's, I only saw a part -- I was in the courtyard, but the church itself was closed.  Or some of the Stations of the Cross that I blew past need closer attention.  Or some of the antique shops that I wandered through, but did not seriously explore, thinking I'd come back later (and didn't).  And I look forward to revisiting in particular the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre -- each of these places had deep spiritual significance for me on my last trip. 

Which brings out one of the biggest reasons to go back:  There, in the places and people and stories that are root to my faith, I met God in unique and rather ineffable ways.  I've had a few deeply numinous experiences over the course of my life, which serve as benchmarks for my relationship with God.  On that pilgrimage, I had three major ones, including probably the most profound of my life, crying my insides out behind a pillar in Holy Sepulchre.  Why there?  I don't know.  I'd long been dubious about Marcus Borg's discussion of "thin places" because of my beliefs about divine omnipresence.  These experiences challenge that.  Why then?  Not sure -- I had tried to be receptive, open, to get out of the way when the Spirit was breaking loose.  But not necessarily more than in other times and places.  Why go back?  I know full well that lightening does not strike twice in the same place.  That the very nature of spiritual experience is that it is rooted in grace, a gift, unpredictable and programmable.  I'm aware of the danger of seeking the gift rather than the Giver.  And those experiences were weird enough (in the Rudolf Otto and MacBeth "weird sisters" usage of the word), even uncomfortable, that I have no illusions that I'm looking for sweetness and light, but am more likely to find "a dread and deep darkness" (Gen. 15:12).  But for some reason, my spirit harkens to that refiners fire.  "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."  Yes, it's dangerous. That's the point.

At River Jordan, remembering my baptism

Going back is following God's call, a call that at many levels makes no sense.  This call is more specific than my moth-like spirit circling the flame of God's presence.  It's a call that wraps up so many diverse threads of who I am and what I have done through my life.  It encompasses my intellectual fascination with history, Bible and theology.  It directly confronts my lifelong (but getting better) dichotomy between head knowledge and heart faith, also the split between body and spirit, sexuality and spirituality.  And it brings back to the fore my primordal call to reach and serve God's lost sheep in the LGBTQ community.  So I want to do what I failed to do there last time, to find, meet, hear the stories of, and perhaps minister to queer people of faith, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim.  I realize now that this will become a separate blog post, so be patient and look for that.

That was one aspect of unfinished business that I want to address.  There are a few others, related to my hospital stay in Amman, debts of gratitude I plan to repay during the morning there. 

Finally, I am totally excited that Ivan will be going with me this time.  He has had a conflicted relationship with my adventuresome travel.  (I didn't help matters much by saying things like, "There's riot police everywhere [in Istanbul], so I'm going to go the other direction, talk to you later," and "Oh, wow, I don't feel good... I'm calling an ambulance, talk to you later," -- and then not being heard from for 8 hours.) We travel well together, I plan exciting adventures and he makes sure we don't get mugged in some back alley on our way back to the hotel.  I'm really looking forward to him seeing the places and stories that have meant so much to me these last couple of years.  We have never been on a group tour together, so this will be a new experience in that respect.  It is also exciting that a couple from Plymouth, Gary and Anna, are going.  (Anna and Ivan are real close. They're going on the Petra extension too, and Gary has promised to Ivan that he'll "chaperone" me to keep me out of trouble.)

So pray for me, pray for us.  Pray that all the logistics goes smoothly, especially in and out of the airport.  Pray that our group of 16 pilgrims gels into a spiritual community.  Pray that I'm able to connect with gay communities there.  Pray that everyone stays healthy, especially me.  And most of all, pray that we meet God in and through this pilgrimage in the way God knows we need the most.

Where Is God?

Where is God?

Well,  “of course,” we know that God is "everywhere."  God is in, among, through, and beyond all creation.  God is the power that holds atoms together and galaxies in their courses. God is before all things, in all things, through all things, and all things have their being in God.

But that’s not really the question we are asking, so that answer sounds theology-textbook dry.  When we ask, “Where is God?” what we mean is "How and when and where do we experience God’s presence?"  This lies at the roots of pilgrimage, the sense that God can be found in places and experiences beyond our everyday life. 

(This is also a dangerous instinct, for most people most of the time cannot go on distant pilgrimages and can and do find God in the everyday and mundane.  So everything I say here needs to be balanced by Brother Lawrence, the monastery cook “Lord of the pots and pans,” who writes in the Practice of the Presence of God (1693) "The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer, and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament.")

Yet many of us follow this instinct and search out “thin places” where the divide between the mundane and the Divine seems closer.  As Coloradoans, we all have as streak of nature mysticism in us, finding God in the mountains and meadows and sunsets.  (I hear Lillian Daniel muttering, "Any fool can find God in the sunset!" and maybe I should repost my sermon from May for my development of that point!) For others, it’s different.  A few years ago at Ring Lake Ranch, I listened to Marcus Borg wax rhapsodic over “foggy English moors, little moss covered villages, mist and clouds and the green of earth.”  That sounded claustrophobic and lame to me, as I looked longingly out the window towards the vast alpine reaches of the Wind River Range!

The other easy answer to this is that God is “in heaven.”  Somewhere up past the sky, behind the stars, far, far away in resplendent grandeur.   “The heavens declare the glory of God,” and our church steeples and cathedral towers point us up, up, up.  Even the A-frame construction of Plymouth and many sanctuaries of its era draw the eye and heart aloft.  Many of our beloved hymns point to the skies.  This was THE favorite hymn of a former congregation I served:

O Lord my God,

When I in awesome wonder

Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made,

I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,

Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

Then sings my soul! My Savior God to Thee:

How Great Thou Art,

How Great Thou Art….

In the Holy Land there is a different architecture.  Of course, there were plenty of basilica constructions and towers which form the prototype for our long rectangular sanctuaries and steeples.  But there were also a lot of round and octagonal structures, usually over a central rock or cave.  Domes bespeake a different language than steeples, feminine to masculine.  And the focus was downward.  God might indeed be enthroned in the heavens, but God is found by going down, deep, into the depths of the earth. The bedrock throughout the country is limestone, so it is riddled with caves, crevices, hollows and springs. Every church, every chapel, every shrine was built over a cave or rock or spring. The list of places built this way was profound:  the Church of the Nativity is built over the cave Jesus was born in, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is over Jesus’ tomb and the rock of Golgotha.  The Dome of the Rock is over the exposed bedrock Abraham sacrificed Isaac (or Ishmael, if the Muslims are telling the story) and you can descend into a small crypt in the rock, where Muslims pray.  The Church of the Multiplication (loaves and fishes) near Capernaum is over a rock (the table for the meal), now much chipped away by centuries of pilgrims.

Nazareth had at least two caves for the Annunciation, (different ones for Latin and Greek churches), the cave Joseph had his workshop, and a well where (alternatively) Mary met the angel Gabriel and also everyone drew their daily water, with a church atop each, and stairs down to each sacred place.  We saw the well Jesus talked to the Samaritan woman below another church, and at least three different caves of Elijah. Even the Shepherd Fields near Bethlehem had caves – while we envision the shepherds watching their flocks in open pasture, in reality they were likely penned for the night into these rock overhangs along the field’s edge.  So the chapels are in the caves, complete with altars. 

Kemal, our Palestinian guide, speaking in the Shepherds Field chapel

where I had just finished celebrating and serving our group communion.

It got to where, when I got to the Church of St. John the Baptist in Madaba, Jordan, and I heard there was a well in the crypt, I said, “Of course there is a well.”  You could draw up the water and drink of the same town spring Iron Age Moabites had drunk. (Sense prevailed over piety, and I’d splash water from these wells and springs rather than drink.)

The most striking example of this descent was the church of St. Peter Gallicantu, outside Jerusalem's modern walls but squarely in the ancient city and believed to be upon the site of the High Priest Caiaphas’s house where Jesus was first tried. You can easily look across the Kidron Valley to the Mount of Olives and trace the route Jesus must have taken to get there.  You start in a lovely French church built in 1932, with striking frescoes of the Jesus’ trail, Peter’s denial and heartbreak, Jesus’ crucifixion, and Peter’s post-resurrection restoration.  Then you descend to a lower chapel made from Crusader and Byzantine elements. Large areas of bedrock are exposed, with ancient Byzantine crosses carved into the stone as graffiti.  Then you go on down, down, down into the bedrock, to a series of rooms, some maybe storerooms and some prisons with places for bolts in the walls, dating to the first century.  Was this where Jesus was imprisoned?  Was this where Peter and the Apostles were imprisoned (Acts 5)?  Nearby archaeology suggests it is entirely plausible.  And being in the dank bedrock, the bowels of the earth, it feels like it could be truly here. And as I descended from level to level, I felt my spirit going deeper and deeper into the story and deeper into me.  Peter’s story.  My story!

What does a reordering of our search for God from "up" to "down" mean?  We long ago gave up Dante’s “3 story universe” of hades-earth-heaven.  But what does shifting our spiritual aspirations from the skies to the depths mean?  I think part is looking inward towards that place where the Image of God who I am communes with the Spirit of Christ who I trust.  Yes, that means threading through the maze of thoughts and feelings and emotions and reactions and instincts and complexes that form parts of our inner selves, though not our innermost Selves.  Part is trusting our own earthy, embodied, fleshly selves to be real us and to be vessels of the divine.  You know, that crazy “incarnation” thing that I keep coming back to. “The Word became flesh and encamped with us” John 1:14. (More on the downside of being an incarnate being in a subsequent blog post when I’ll talk about my pilgrimages’ shocking dénouement.)   It means to look to the earth, care for her times and seasons, her resources and ecology, and find our place embedded firmly within life on this planet rather than awaiting evacuation to the skies. 

Where is God?  I will keep asking this question as I ponder the caves, the wells, cracks, crevices and springs I visited.  I think there’s something important there for us steeple-raised Westerners.  And I invite you to consider where you find God.  In the heavens? In the depths?  Or someplace else entirely?

Church of the Holy Sepulcher -- Third Visit: The Pilgrim

You should read my blog about my first visit to Holy Sepulcher before reading this one.  But don't go looking for a blog post about the second visit, when we visited Holy Sepulcher with a guide.  It was much like my first, though with scholar eyes rather than tourist, and we hurried through with scant time for reflection.  So I will jump to my third visit.

But before I get there, let me tell a couple other stories first.  For one does not come to a pilgrimage site in isolation, but one brings everything their heart has gathered along the way.  And this third visit only happened because of what went before.

Those of you who know me know that my basic temperament is intellectal, that I approach the world and my Christian faith through my mind.  I'm gifted with the abilities to draw connections between ideas and events, and will cheerfully tell you all about the Battle of Yarmuk. (Fought in 636 AD on the high plains southeast of Damascus, it was the final defeat of the Romans (Byzantines) by the Arabs, signaling the end of 7 centuries of Roman rule and 3 centuries of Christian hegemony in the Holy Land, and the beginnings of Muslim rule that lasted to the First World War.). But I have little grasp of the mystical, emotional aspects of faithing.  Charismatics have haunted the edge of my life and ministry, sometimes causing me significant grief.  I do better with contemplative spirituality, but it is definitely my inferior functio, so takes more work.  But our inferior function is our growing edge, and so I have sought in recent years to give it more attention.  However it is still largely uncharted territory -- I can't figure it out!

On this pilgrimage, there has been plenty of fodder for my mind, and that is easy and fun (Yarmuk!).  I have also worked to provide space and time for the intuitive, emotional, noumenal, part of faith.  The first flash of this came in Nazareth, at the Basilica of the Annunciation.  We had toured a number of site that day, and came there late.  Unlike some of the florid Byzantine churches we visited, this was simple, modern, enormous, and airy.  I really liked it.  We went in, and made I made my way to the lower crypt, where the angel reputedly appeared to Mary.  I looked through the grate into the grotto with a simple altar on which was the Latin for "The Word became flesh."  I felt a shock, a jolt, a thrill physically through my body.  It was here, this spot, this place that Christ was incarnate!  My body resonated with the power of that insight.  Body, flesh, skin and bone and blood, sexuality, like my skin and bone and blood and sexuality, God became.  The wall between my head and heart had a definite crack that ran right through my body.

Sometime later, we visited Hebron, a city painfully divided between Jew and Palestinian.  We went into the Jewish side of the Tomb of the Patriarchs, and there looked through grates to the cenotaphs of Abraham, Sarah and their family.  The actual tombs are in unvisited caves far below,  but this structure is basically unchanged since Herod fancied it up in the first century. It is one of the oldest religious buildings in the world whose use has stood unchanged.  We had looked at the monuments and as the guide talked, I walked back to Abraham's to take another look.  As I peered in, all of a sudden I said aloud, "Pray for me, Father Abraham."  What on earth did I just say? I was taken aback at myself; where did that come from?  I have no history or context of veneration of saints.  I hadn't been feeling particularly pious as we made or way through the silent streets of the militarized buffer zone, and then the hectic souk. Yet it was as clear and simple and spontaneous and unmediated a request as could be. I knew right away that the plea was genuine, bursting up from my heart fully formed, passing my lips before my mind could critique or censor it.  Somehow I had tapped into the  millions of voices who had said that prayer before me, and was carried aloft on that wave. Prayers for what for me?  I am not facing it a burning crisis, deep pain, or even spiritual ennui.  I hope Father Abraham has vision into my soul to know what he should pray, because I don't know.  No, I haven't figured it out.

It was a day or two later when I returned to the Holy Sepulcher.  I had visited a couple very nice churches earlier that day, particularly St Peter in Gallicantu, built on the site of the High Priest Caiphas' house and site of Peter's denials.  The crypts where Jesus and later the apostles were imprisoned was very striking.  You descend from the bright upper church down into the quiet lower church, and then deep into the dungeons and crypts below.  It is a descent from head to heart to body and earth.  I stopped to listen to the choir at St James, then went into the Christian Quarter .I did some sovenier shopping there and then made my way into Holy Sepulcher.

The church was crowded, with many Muslims who had just gotten out of Friday prayers.  I tried first to go up into the Greek chapel of Golgotha, but it was closed for a service.  Same thing when I went towards the stairs down to the Armenian section.  So I went back around to the main rotunda, where the Edicule  is.  The Edicule is a large rectangular structure built over the slap of the tomb where Jesus laid. It had fallen into serious disrepair, and since the early 19th century had beeen strapped together with iron bands.  The Status Quo agreement had prevented repairs, to prevent any of the sects sharing the church from taking credit.  Only a year ago an agreement was reached, and extensive repairs, cleaning, and excavation were accomplished, reopening in March.  So I'm lucky to see the refurbished product.

I had intended to work my way to the Edicule by way of the other chapels.  But I noticed that the line was quite short and jumped into the line, even if I didn't feel quite ready.  The interior is tiny, so only about 4 people at a time are let in by the monk attending the door.  I was almost to the door, when suddenly the line was stopped.  The pipe organ filled the place with music, echoing through the vast rotunda.  A corps of Franciscan monks came to the door, with singing and candles, and had a prayer service.  After about 10 minutes, they processed away into a side chapel where they continued with a Mass.   So, with about three other people, I was let in for my 30 seconds at the holiest place in Christendom.

The room is tiny, with the slab filling most of the space and standing alongside.  Icons and candles are around, and the woman next to me lights a candle.  I lay my hand on the slab.  The Latin inscription above the slab reads, "He is not here, he is risen!"  I felt something crack inside me, my spirit burst open, and tears started to well up in my eyes.  It was here, right here, that my Lord and Christ rose from the dead! I felt deep churning in my gut, and leaned down and kissed he slab. Still fighting tears, I had the clarity to snap a quick picture before the monk announced, "It's time" and ushered us out.

I meandered stricken across the rotunda, tears breaking free.  I found a column and went behind it, leaned into it, and cried.  And cried.  And cried.  Deep sobs, racking my body from the very depths.  For minutes on end.  Yes, I was the weird guy crying his eyes out behind a pillar. I'd pull myself together for a moment, and then it would start again.  Finally, I composed myself, and went and sat with a group of Sisters of Charity to watch the last of the Mass.

Whence these tears? I didn't feel necessarily sad, or joy, or anything else I could identify. I wasn't overcome with guilt for my sins, I wasn't mourning the loss of a love, job or dream.  I certainly wasn't winging up to highest heaven. It was more primal than that, gutsy and earthy. They were coming from the most profound depths of soul and, yes, body.  That bodily, incarnated and now resurrected Christ, was working me at my core. I still don't  know what happened or what it means.  A friend said to just let it be and let it rest.  And don't try to figure it out.

But this I have more than figured out:  Christ is risen, Christ is risen indeed!

And it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God.

   

Walls: Holy and Hellish

"You can go," the soldier told me as he cradled a well oiled rifle.  He was leading a squad of similarly armed soldiers who were protecting workers with a boom crane as they set 6' tall concrete blocks into place.  It appeared that they were blocking off vehicle access to the dead end street that led to the pedestrian crossing from Bethlehem towards Jerusalem.  A crowd of angry taxi drivers milled around, for this was where they gathered to take fares into the center of Bethlehem and elsewhere.  I walked past the equipment, up a hundred foot pedestrian tunnel, through a tall turn style.  I showed my passport and visa to the soldier there, crossed an empty parking lot, down a pedestrian tunnel, through another tall turnstyle cage, through a metal detector while my knapsack was x-rayed.  Through a line to a booth and another passport check, and I stepped outside into Israel.  Easy for me, but a daily gauntlet for Palestinians who might be lucky enough to have a pass to work in Israel.

Looming behind me as I walked up the hill to Tantur was The Wall. Snaking as far as the eye could see in either direction, the "separation barrier" is built of concrete panels 20' high and 6' wide to make a solid barrier.  Occasional watch towers and razor wire complete the picture.  Israel started the wall during the 2nd Intifada as a way to prevent suicide bombers from infiltrating into Israel, where they had been wreaking havoc and killing scores. Ostensibly a temporary measure only because of the bombings (which stopped in 2006), construction continues.  Unlike its famous Berlin prototype which was on the border, it is built on Palestinian land, sometimes miles inside the Green Line (1967 border).  It winds around villages, wraps Israeli settlements into the main body of Israel, and often cuts Palestinian villages off from their crop lands.  It can only be crossed at heavily guarded checkpoints, either full barriers like I just crossed, or vehicular crossings on specific highways.

While the Palestinians hate the Wall, likening it to living in a prison, the Israelis consider it an unfortunate necessity due to terrorism.  No mere theoretical possibility, the memory is seared deeply. I was being shown around Gilo one evening, the leafy suburb/settlement next to Tantur, and several different memorials were pointed out to me of people, often children, killed.  One was for the guard at the elementary school, who died preventing a terrorist from getting into the classrooms.  A week ago a policewoman died in a knife attack near Jerusalem's Damascus Gate.  For Israelis this is but the latest round of two thousand years of persecution, pogroms, and genocide:  They want to kill us.  We must be strong.  We will be armed.  We will build a wall, no matter the cost.  Security trumps any and every consideration.

"Good fences make good neighbors" has its ultimate expression at Hebron.  Hebron had a centuries long co-existence as a city holy to both Jews and Muslims due to the shrine of the Patriarchs. Abraham had bought the field of Machpelah to bury Sarah, himself, and subsequently his son Isaac and his wife Rebecca, and his son Jacob and his wife Leah.  (Jacob's other wife, Rachel, died in childbirth and her tomb is at Bethlehem.). Then, in 1929, fearing the increasing presence of Zionist colonists in the region, local youth went on a rampage, killing scores of Jews.  The survivors, some of whom had been sheltered by their Arab neighbors, fled to Jerusalem.  Hebron remained uniformely Arab until Israel conquered the West Bank in the 1967 War.

Shortly thereafter, highly motivated religious Jews moved back to the city, building a suburban settlement and a couple of enclaves in the heart of the city near the shrine.  There were periodic clashes, bombings and riots perpetuated by both sides.  A cycle of retribution set in, until "who struck first" was completely lost in the smoke.  The nadir came when a US born Jew entered the mosque at the shrine during prayers, and shot dead some 30 worshippers and wounded a hundred others.  Bystanders subdued and killed him when he stopped to reload.

His grave, in a park in the settlement, is revered as of a martyr by the most radical settlers.

Enough! Said the authorities.  So Hebron is under a different military order than the rest of the West Bank:  total and complete separation between peoples.  Palestinians are forbidden to enter Jewish areas and vice versa.  Surrounding the Jewish enclaves in the city are buffer zones, where Palestinians may go on foot, but there are no cars allowed, commerce has been eliminated, and most homes abandoned.  It is like walking through something from a Mad Max movie, a post-apocalyptic Twilight Zone of abandoned streets, shop doors welded shut, barbed wire at every turn, and soldiers on every street corner.  The Jewish enclaves are surrounded by barb wire and checkpoints at every entrance.  While some Palestinians can cross into Israel in other areas, there are no crossings here.  Is this the ultimate conclusion of the Wall, two peoples side by side but never even seeing each other?

There is one more wall to consider, one with more hope:  the Western Wall.  This wall is the west side of the foundation platform Herod the Great built to support his greately expanded Jewish Temple.  The Temple was razed by the Romans in AD 70 and the site stood derelict until the Mosque of Omar and the Dome of the Rock were built in the 7th century.  Sometime in the 18th century, Jews started praying there as the closest one cold get to the temple site.  After the 1967 War brought the area under Israeli control, housing was cleared and a plaza constructed so now hundreds of Jews and others visit the wall every day.  There they pray and leave prayers an intentions on slips of paper in the cracks. It is a richly spiritual place, sanctified by thousands of prayers.

 Which wall will truly endure?  Berlin's lasted merely 30 years.  China's Great Wall has endured for centuries, even if it didn't ultimately keep the Mongols at bay.  I would hope that the praying wall is what endures.  That some day, both of the peoples of the land, Israeli and Palestinian, would join to

"Pray for the peace of Jerusalem."

Shabbat with a gay couple during Tel Aviv Pride

During Tel Aviv Pride, I want to a Shabbat dinner at the home of a gay family.  I had found the opportunity during my advance research, through the website EatWith.com.  Now worldwide, Eat With is a program that began in Israel, first to enable newcomers who had recently made Aliyah (that is, for Jews to "ascend" or formally immigrate to Israel) to meet people and assimilate to Israeli society.  It is a challenge to create a unified society and culture when people arrive from every corner of the world, and there are extensive networks of classes and events to help people learn Hebrew, navigate governmental bureaus, find housing, work and schooling, etc.  This program seeks to provide an informal way for people to connect over a meal in a home.  It is also poplular simply to help people make friends in a big, sometimes anonymous, city.  The host sets a price on par with a night at a restaurant, and advertises the sort of meal and gathering.  Some are ethnic, "An Evening in Thailand," "Our Cinco de Mayo Fiesta," while other are more prosaic, "A Vegan Feast," "Wine and Song."  This was "Shabbat Dinner with Sammy and Dan."  I had paid online, and received directions to their apartment.

I was among the very first to arrive, and it quickly became apparent that most of the guests weren't necessarily from the program, but were friends from work and school.  Danny was working the kitchen, while Sammy was the social butterfly.  Their 5 year old son alternately played in his room and came out to mug for the guests, and played with those he knew.  Everyone was friendly, making sure to introduce themselves.  Most spoke some English, there were also French speakers, and everyone (but me!) spoke Hebrew.  Some were self-described "ex-pats" who had come to Israel to study or work, and then fallen in love, married and stayed.  So there was the linguistics student from Utah with his PhD student boyfriend, the PhD student in human rights and his boyfriend who worked with an NGO school system.  (Yes, there seemed to be a pattern.). Several straight families were there with toddlers, a few single people of each gender, and everyone seemed to be enjoying the company and the wine.

This was a secular Jewish gathering, though in fact I was not the only non Jew present. But as at the start of every Shabbat, the women present, sharing the role of "mother" lit the candles and said a prayer to which everyone responded Amen.  Then Sammy poured wine, everyone sang a blessing,  and Sammy had his son drink a bit before he finished it off.  They then handed the loaves to one of the men, who raised them up and said a blessing, to which everyone said Amen. Then, doubtlessly in good secular Jewish custom, Sammy pointed out which dishes were vegan and which were merely vegaterian. I was pretty sure kosher wasn't commented because it was simply assumed. I never knew vegan cooking could be so varied and so good!  I'd be hard pressed to describe the wide variety of dishes on the table, vegatibles and hummus and sauces, olives and pickles of different kinds of vegetables.  I filled my plate, and then helpful guests piled on yet more, "So you can eat like an Israeli."  They weren't shy about piling their plates high!

I moved around the apartment and small balcony a few times, making the small talk of "How do you know Sammy? Where are you from? What do you do?"  I learned that the most remarkable thing about being a Protestant clergy was that, unlike priests, I could have sexual relations.  Wouldn't have been in my Top Ten Points of Protestantism, but consider that nearly all the Christian's in Israel are either Roman (or Roman connected) or Greek (or other Orthodox) all of which require clerical celibacy.  I then had two very different conversations that made my evening full.

The first was with a woman who had grown up in Nazareth.  She is an Orthodox Catholic (Melkite), married to an American ex-pat. I asked about her family and life, and learned that during the 1948 Israeli War of Independence, they had tried to "run away" from the fighting to Lebanon, which border is about 20 miles away. But their truck broke down in the middle of the night, and they had to turn back, "which ended up being a good thing, because otherwise we would have ended up like my cousins living forever in a refugee camp in Lebanon."  Maybe even at the Sabra or Shatila camps, where in 1982 during the Lebanon war, Phalangist militias allied with Israel massacred between 350 and 3500 refugees.  Instead, she had gone to the Baptist school in Nazareth, "One of the very best schools in all of Israel."  She told me that as "a minority's within a minority (an Eastern Catholic Arab amid an Arab minority) she and others like her had to work extra hard.  "So you will see, we are the most successful in all Israel, the doctors and lawyer, so we prove ourselves."   Being a minority is harder, but she has a happy life. She was a delight to talk with.

A few minutes later another man sat by me. I'd beeen enjoying the antics of his toddler daughter all evening.  Now he was a man on a mission.  "What you need to know about us Israelis are that we are very direct and will tell you just what we think," he opened.  "The 1967 War was the most important war for us and for our self-understanding."  He told me that before the war everyone was terrified, "We all thought we were going to die."  There were Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan all set to invade, the tension was high for a month before the war, and at its narrow point it was only 9 miles for Jordan to reach the ocean and cut the country in two.  "The country had only lived for 19 years, our leaders had all escaped Hitler's Europe and the death camps. We were going to die.  We had lived just to come here to die? What were we to do but fight?"   This was the week of the 50th annivesary of the war, there had been both celebrations and protests of the outcome.  "How old were you during the war, I asked.  He told me he was not yet born, he was born in 1983.  Hmmm.   "So we fought, and the Arabs threw down their weapons and ran.  We learned that we could be strong.  And never would we be afraid again."  He went on to tell me that "Obama, he ruined everything.  Syria, Libya, he stirred up the Palestinians.  It's a mess!  But we will not give in."  Trump, on the other hand "Understands us, that we will take care of ourselves first. He's the kind of American friend we need."  During this, his wife shot him the "It's time to leave, dear" eye a couple of times as the party was breaking up, but I ended up having to end the discussion, thank him for sharing his point of view with me, and take my leave of the host.

As rough as that last discussion felt, I was completely glad I'd gone to the dinner.  There were others I'd loved to have talked to (the PhD student in human rights, what did that mean for him? And what a about the handsome Frenchman?).  What was fascinating was that all in one dinner party were so many divergent stories, both those I recounted above had been talking amicably to each other at different points.

Pilgrimage is being present to those God puts before you, the pleasant and the opinionated, the fluent English speaker and the discussion in broken world and hand gestures. I hope to find more opportunities for these unprogammed spontaneous encounters.