News from Jay in Jerusalem

You'll see that Jay's accounts are much different from mine! He is the serious one here - for sure. :) I said we would take our class with us to the Holy Land and here it is:

Pilgrimages to the Holy Land
January 25- Feb. 10, 2010
Days One, Two and Three

Tuesday, January 26:
After four glorious days in New York City, Brooklyn and Queens visiting and dining with Philip, Edward, Hannah, Maryanne and our nephew Bill Rutledge, on Monday, January 25 we departed Newark airport on a direct flight to Tel Aviv. We arrived in Tel Aviv at 9:30 AM on Tuesday, Jan. 26 to overcast, misty and 55 degree weather. Once again for me customs was very simple and easy and it didn’t appear that there was anyone else in the airport. We got onto a Jerusalem shuttle bus and arrived at St. George’s College about noon. Ah, I am back in the Holy Land!

St. George’s College is on the campus of the Diocese of Jerusalem (Church of England) and has been in operation for 50 years. The “college” provides 2 to 3 week classes for bishops, priests and laypersons of any denomination. The Diocesan campus is walled in which adds to our overall feeling of safety in Jerusalem. Laura was exhausted and settled into a long afternoon sleep while I was eager to return to Old Jerusalem and some favorite religious sites.

Laura is on her Holy Land “pilgrimage” and I am continuing my pilgrimage from 2009. .
Jerusalem, since the time of the 4th century when Rome established Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire, has been a destination of those drawn to the regions biblical associations. Pilgrimages are required for Muslims during their life time to Mecca; Jews are drawn through pilgrimage to the Western Wall in Jerusalem; and the
2.2 billion Christians from around the world make their pilgrimages to the Holy Land.
One of my dreams for this trip is to do some in-depth research in preparation to lead a group of 12 to 15 men to the Holy Land on their pilgrimages in 2011. I will be talking with the Dean and staff at St. George’s to see if they could accommodate this group

During our first night together our group members defined pilgrimage in their own terms as follows: requiring an intentionally, long, spiritual journey; being unsettled; a transformative action with external and internal significances; centering on a desire through this journey to experience the reality of who Christ was so that we may more fully live into the hope and reality of living resurrected lives in Him.

Perhaps Psalm 63 speaks to the desire of the heart of the pilgrim to the Holy Land:
O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Our group of 37 men and women break down as follows: 20 from Australia, 10 from a church in Jackson, WY, and 7 others of us from around the USA. As you can tell from the above pilgrimage description, we have all traveled great distances and have big dreams for our two week pilgrimages. There are no “tourists” in our group!

My return to St. George’s was based on a number of factors, two in particular: Fr. Andrew Mays and Lois Symes. Andrew is our teacher who is so knowledgeable, an excellent communicator and someone who has a great sense of humor and loves what he does. Lois is our chaplain and mirrors Andrew’s characteristics which makes them a wonderful team.


Wednesday, January 27.

Each morning in the Cathedral of St. George’s Morning Prayer and Holy Eucharist are celebrated. So that is how we begin our mornings. This will be good news for Fr. Fred.

Our first lecture focused on Jerusalem and its 5,000 year old history and was followed by a field trip to an awesome vista overlooking Jerusalem and Old Jerusalem. The Old City of Jerusalem has been controlled by many different countries over this time period and has been destroyed; rebuilt, destroyed, rebuilt many times thus is an archeological gold mine. From our southeast observation point, we could see the walled city and the Dome of the Rock in the Old City, Kidron Valley which separates Old Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives d the Garden of Gethsemane by about ½ mile. Directly south of where we are standing, 8 miles away is the town of Bethlehem. As you can tell, distances are very short here and not what you would expect. Especially, when you read about this region in the Old Testament, it all sounds so vast. And the day was crystal clear.

Seeing all of these holy sights from a distance, I was profoundly moved to try and comprehend that the God of the Old Testament actually stepped from eternity into our human time and history, as human, and in this exactly place.

From a geo-political perspective, since 1948, Israel has been divided into two countries- Israel and Palestine. Palestine has the territory known as the “West Bank” because it is the land west of the west bank of the Jordan River which flows south from the Sea of Galilee into the Dead Sea. There is a wall that separates these two countries. Also, since 1995, Palestine has had authority over Bethlehem which complicates things for those visiting the Holy land and Bethlehem. To enter and leave Bethlehem you much go through check points. All of this said, we feel very safe here.



Thursday, January 28:

Today, our feet hit the pavement to explore the heart of Jerusalem, Old Jerusalem (OJ). Our group of 37 was divided into smaller groups of four and each group was assigned a one of the four sections of OJ to explore.

OJ has a history that stretches back more than 3000 years. The present street layout dates largely from the Byzantine period and the encircling wall is from the 16th century. Again, OJ has been destroyed and built upon continuously over these past 3000 years but you can easily gain a sense of what the atmosphere of Jesus’ time must have been like within the existing walls today. In OJ there are four sections: Christian, Muslim, Armenian and Jewish. There four cultures work along side of one another in the hundreds of shops, pass each other continuously, live near each other and communicate easily. It is a very tight living and working area but everyone gets along.

Laura and I along with John and Ann were assigned the Jewish section to explore so off we went, kind of. Getting to OJ is not a problem because St. George’s is only three blocks away, but then it gets very complicated. The streets within OJ snake back and forth, crisscross and without notice become dead ends, thus maps are almost useless. Fortunately, cars are almost none existent because the streets are so narrow and crowded with people so walking is made easy. Today, OJ is primarily a residential and shopping area.

The Jewish section is NEW. During the 1967 war, this section was destroyed and thus has been rebuilt. So to move into this section from the centuries old three other sections is odd. This section like the other sections in OJ is made up of shops and residences. The Jewish section residences are quite expensive and home to mostly foreigners. We did have lunch in the Jewish section in an outside café area and were startled when Laura and I could not sit with John and Ann because we had meat dishes and they had pizza- dairy food. These two cannot be mixed even sitting together. Strict dietary laws.

The center of Jewish pilgrimages, and thus the center of the Jewish section, is the Western Wall. The Second Jewish Temple, although built by a non-Jew, King Herod, contained within it, the Holy of Holies, and thus the most sacred place for Jews, the place where God was most fully present. In 70 AD the Romans, to put down a Jewish revolt, destroyed the Temple, as Jesus predicted would take place, and all that remained was this western retaining wall. Although the Temple was destroyed, Jews believe God’s presence can still be felt and manifested through this remaining wall.

The Western Wall area is a powerful scene to come upon. The very large area is highly sacred and segregated. Men and women pray in separate sections. John and I put on our yarmulkes and entered the men’s area. It was wild with activity: intense praying against the wall, bar mitzvahs taking place, singing, dancing, festive. Can you imagine the high honor for a thirteen year old boy to celebrate his bar mitzvah at the Wall? There were at least 500 people here. I did pray at the wall and found it to be a very moving, spiritual experience. Not sure if that was because of the electric energy all around me or the belief the Jews have of God’s awesome presence retained within the wall.

Today, we are finally feeling that our body clocks have caught up with us although our cultural awareness is still some what disoriented not fully realizing that we are in Israel and the Middle East.

Tomorrow we begin, in Bethlehem, the chronology of Jesus’ life.