Jerusalem

After posting to the blog on Monday, I returned to the Fourth Station of the Cross to see if I could get into the chapel. Finding the doors still locked, I went back to the Church of Our Lady of the Spasm (naturally) and found someone to let me in. Not only did the gatekeeper let me into the chapel of the Fourth Station, he also took me into a crypt beneath the Church of Our Lady of the Spasm to show me an old Byzantine mosaic with the sandal-prints of the Virgin Mary on the spot where she is said to have met with Jesus on the way to his crucifixion. Nice fella, that gatekeeper at the Church of Our Lady of the Spasm.

Continuing along the remaining Stations of the Cross, I was invited into a small, cave-like chapel near the Ninth Station by an Ethiopian Orthodox monk. He sat down and began a repetitive prayer while I looked around the chapel, but as I began to leave he stopped and chirped at me, indicating that I should head further down into the cave. Down the narrow steps cut into the living stone, I came into a larger chapel where five monks and two nuns were performing a service that included some extraordinarily beautiful singing. I stayed for the remainder of the service (about 2 hours) before completing the Stations of the Cross.

On Tuesday I went on a tour to Massada (where the Zealots had their suicidal last stand against the Romans in 73 AD), the Dead Sea (where the 28% mineral content of the water makes human bodies float on the surface), Qumran (where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found), and Jericho (the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, at 10,000 years old). Jericho was the first place I visited that is under direct control of the Palestinian Authority. One must pass through two checkpoints, one Israeli and one Palestinian, in order to enter or exit the city. As part of a tour group, the checkpoints were quite uneventful. It was interesting, however, to realize that the West Bank is by no means under Palestinian control. The West Bank is entirely under Israeli control with a few small pockets under Palestinian administration. The Jewish settlements are not Israeli outposts in a Palestinian landscape, but gated communities in an Israeli dominated land.

On Wednesday I woke up early and attended the 6:30 mass at the Armenian Orthodox Church of Saint James. Afterwards, I took a bus to the large concrete security wall that separates Palestinian-administered Bethlehem from Israeli-administered Jerusalem (if not for the wall, Bethlehem would basically be an outlying suburb of Jerusalem). After passing through the security labyrinth, I emerged on the Palestinian side of the wall and proceeded into town to visit the Church of the Nativity, where all Christian denominations believe Jesus was born. But don't imagine for one moment that I went to Bethlehem just to see the wall or the church. Oh, no! I went to Bethlehem to visit the Milk Grotto!!! The very spot where the Virgin Mary spilled her breast milk, turning the ground white and helping hundreds of pilgrims like myself get pregnant every year! Afterwards, for good measure, I went to the Tomb of Rachel, an important pilgrimage destination for Jewish women who are trying to get pregnant. I don't mean to suggest that there has been some kind of miracle, but I have felt a little sick the past two mornings in a row...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4823042.stm

Yesterday (Thursday) I spent eight hours at the Israel Museum enjoying their extensive collection of Judaica, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and a great exhibition of contemporary Japanese art.

More soon!

(Photo by Eric: Milk Grotto St., Bethlehem, West Bank)