Pause for Thought
I’ve just come back from a two week trip to the Holy Land – a trip pretty evenly divided between time spent on the shores of the Sea of Galilee and time spent in the old city in Jerusalem with a few side trips here and there.
The Galilee was wonderful – thrilling – magical. I can shut my eyes and I am standing on the Mount of the Beatitudes looking down at the small stretch of shoreline on the north coast of the lake where so much of the Gospel story unfolds.
I’d been warned about Bethlehem and Jerusalem; warned by well-meaning colleagues and friends not to set myself up for disappointment – that there is an industry surrounding pilgrims like myself.
“Buy this olivewood rosary – buy these postcards – genuine Jordan water – genuine holy oil!”
I’d also been warned about the palpable hostility which was engrained in the place – the walls you drive by, the barbed wire, the universal presence of rifles slung over shoulders and handguns stuffed into belts.
This hostility extends to conflicts within all three major religions, as well and not merely between them. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem seems at times like a sort of board game with different teams occupying different parts of the same space.
I do not regret that somewhere along the line I developed the ability to ‘squint’ slightly and to conceive things as they once were or as they could be. It’s a skill learned in order to hold on to a deeper order of things even in the face of misadventure and disappointment.
It’s something necessary in order to believe in people even when they fail you – necessary even in order to believe in one’s self when the person staring back from the shaving mirror has proved to be less impressive than you once thought him to be.
As you walk through an old place which has been knocked down and rebuilt many times you reflect on the fact that human beings will generally get up again when they’ve been knocked down.
They’re got a vision in their heads which doesn’t correspond completely to the rubble which surrounds them.
The Galilee was wonderful – thrilling – magical. I can shut my eyes and I am standing on the Mount of the Beatitudes looking down at the small stretch of shoreline on the north coast of the lake where so much of the Gospel story unfolds.
I’d been warned about Bethlehem and Jerusalem; warned by well-meaning colleagues and friends not to set myself up for disappointment – that there is an industry surrounding pilgrims like myself.
“Buy this olivewood rosary – buy these postcards – genuine Jordan water – genuine holy oil!”
I’d also been warned about the palpable hostility which was engrained in the place – the walls you drive by, the barbed wire, the universal presence of rifles slung over shoulders and handguns stuffed into belts.
This hostility extends to conflicts within all three major religions, as well and not merely between them. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem seems at times like a sort of board game with different teams occupying different parts of the same space.
I do not regret that somewhere along the line I developed the ability to ‘squint’ slightly and to conceive things as they once were or as they could be. It’s a skill learned in order to hold on to a deeper order of things even in the face of misadventure and disappointment.
It’s something necessary in order to believe in people even when they fail you – necessary even in order to believe in one’s self when the person staring back from the shaving mirror has proved to be less impressive than you once thought him to be.
As you walk through an old place which has been knocked down and rebuilt many times you reflect on the fact that human beings will generally get up again when they’ve been knocked down.
They’re got a vision in their heads which doesn’t correspond completely to the rubble which surrounds them.
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