The Bishop’s Blog

Here are my first impressions from our Middle East Visit.

Well, we’ve arrived in Israel.  I am blessed to be traveling with my beloved, Lady Pamela and son, Jay.  Flew in from Newark leaving Tuesday evening, about 12 hours later arriving on Wednesday early evening in Tel Aviv and was recieved by our driver who lead us from the terminal to the bus for our 31 mile trip over to Jerusalem which will serve for us as our home during our stay in Israel.

The Holy Land is a most magical place.  And Jerusalem a most special center of this majesty. The spiritual home of Judaism, Christianity and 3rd most holiest city for Islam.

After settling in to our rooms we had dinner and did our first of what will be a daily ritual of debreif among us with our guide, Cathy who is our missionary serving here in Jerusalem.  She has arranged much of our Israeli trip.  She seems to be very knowledgable and passionate about this place and the people with experience from a wide variety of spaces.  I’m very appreciative of her with her care and attention to us ranking very high in my book.

We had some dinner, debrief (this was really an orientation session, where we went over the schedule and got ourselves adjusted abit.) Cathy also entertained a few questions that the group had and then we all retired for the evening, each of us feeling jet lagged and exhausted from the trip over.

After a good night sleep, we woke up, got some breakfast and was off to visit the Old City.  Our hotel is in East Jerusalem, occupied Palestine, just a block away from the Damascus Gate entrance into the Old City. So, we began our day on this walking tour of the Old City. We visited this most remarkable part of history.  We stepped back in time it seemed.  Our guide for the morning was George who shared an awful lot with us regarding what we were experiencing, seeing.

The Old City is divided into to four section with the Jewish Quarter, the Muslim Quarter, the Christian Quarter and the Armenian Quarter.  And in each section, the accompanying holy sites.  The Western or Wailing Wall for Jews, the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock Mosque for Muslims, The Via Dolorosa (The Way of the Cross), The Stations of the Cross to The Church of the Holy Sepulcher which is said to house the tomb and the traditional site of Calvary.

Then we spent our afternoon with Angela who shared with us her impressions from an activist perspective.  She is a representative from an organization here working to stop the destruction of homes where Palestinians live.  There is a very complicated political reality here in present day Jerusalem with security and diversity and fear and anger mix together to make for one heck of an experience once one is exposed to it.  We visit the Greater Jerusalem Region by bus to see how governmental policies are having its effect on the people of the area. 

Quite a profound day overall. 

Lastly, let me speak to a couple of early personal reflections so far.  I don’t mind admitting to having some rather high expectations for some mystical/magical experiences of our visit here from the outset.  I do fully expect to be moved and touched in deep and meaningful spiritual ways.

Secondly, my experience of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was very intense.  From the shoving and pushing to the yelling in line waiting our chance to see the Tomb of our Lord, to having pictures taken of me by other visitors without my permission has left me with some intense emotions of my own.  I will explore these feelings in more detail in the coming post.

This is all for now.

Ashe’,

+JS

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 3rd, 2007 at 8:54 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.