Around the Galilean Sea (Tuesday 2 March 2010)

This is the second of the posts covering the time I was away from the laptop. On Tuesday, we visited areas around the Sea of Galilee.

Today was a very reflective and contemplative day. It began at the Mount of the Beatitudes. A church is located there. (Because there is a church on every holy site in the Holy Land!) We reflected a bit on the beatitudes and what they mean in a world where God is King and God's reign has come on earth. Andrew (our trip leader) challenged us to mediate on one beatitude in the 30 minutes of quiet time given to us there. I found it a good and challenging exercise. Good to focus on one (Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted). Challenging because it was hard to find a quiet place, as there were pilgrims and tourists everywhere. When I stopped being crabby, I found that I could enjoy the mix of languages and cultures I heard all around me, and relax into the space as it was, not as I wished it were.

Here is a distance shot of the Church of the Beatitudes.

We moved from there to the Church of the Primacy of Peter. This church marks the spot of Peter's confession of Jesus as the Messiah. We celebrated the Eucharist there, hearing the story from Luke's gospel about the call of the first disciples, who were fishing in the Sea of Galilee (Luke 5:1-11). Craig, our preacher (a fellow pilgrim from the Diocese of Central NY) invited us to be courageous in answering God's call. Later, I saw this on a plaque on the church: The deeds and miracles of Jesus are not actions of the past. Jesus is waiting for those who are still prepared to take risks at His word because they trust his power utterly. It seemed fitting, given Craig's words to us.

Immediately after the Eucharist, we went down to the Sea and renewed our baptismal vows as we stood in the water. [I'd originally thought we would do this in the Jordan, but the Jordan River is now a military zone and off limits.] It was incredibly powerful. I love our baptismal service in The Episcopal Church, and the promises often make me weep. It was overwhelming and moving to do it right there in that water. This experience may well be the high point of the trip for me. Afterwards, we went into the church, where we could kneel and touch the rock that symbolizes Peter's Primacy (you are Peter, the Rock, and on you I will build my church).

Here are Anne and I after we renewed our baptismal vows. I'm holding the bowl of water and the frond that was used to sprinkle us. The other photo is the Church of the Primacy of Peter. You can see the big rock; the altar sits on it.

We ended the morning at Capernum (spelled a number of different ways here!). The sign at the site refers to it as "Jesus' Village." He came to live here with Peter and his family after being run out of Nazareth after "the synagogue incident." It was incredibly powerful to look over those places and know that Jesus had walked there. In fact, this was another place, like the Judean desert, that really moved me, because I knew that Jesus' feet had walked in these places.

This photos shows the archaeological dig at Capernum, and looks back towards the Church there, which is built over the site of the ruins of Peter's home.

From Capernum, we went to lunch at a restaurant that serves St. Peter's Fish. These whole fish come from the Sea of Galilee and have been caught there since before the time of Jesus.

This is Anne's lunch, ready to go!

We ended our day with a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee on a fishing boat that is a replica of one that they hauled out of the Sea several years ago. Here's one sailing near the one we are on:

We read the story of Jesus calming the storms on the Sea as we sailed. I couldn't quite believe that I was on a boat, in that place.

Today has been the fullest day we've had so far, with so many things to see and experience. The good news, however, was that we took it easy. In each place, we had time for quiet and for reflection. I never felt rushed (though I often wished for more time, which is a different thing). I'll be forever grateful that my first trip to the Holy Land was on a pilgrimage, rather than a tour. We are intentionally making time for worship together every day. In fact, we've had eucharist almost every day. So while at the end of each day I am tired - I'm not exhausted, which is a different thing. And, I am feeling refreshed and renewed but what I am seeing, hearing, tasting, experiencing.

From the Desert to the Sea (Monday 1 March 2010)

I've been away on a field trip for a couple of days, and so kept notes in my journal while I was without my laptop. Here's the first day's entry (from 1 March 2010):

We began our journey today at the Judean desert. This was the desert where Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness being tempted by Satan, immediately after his baptism by John in the Jordan River. In this desert, Jesus was tempted by Pride, Power, and Prestige.

It seemed fitting, as Lenten pilgrims, for us to spend some time at this desert, as well. After a meditation on deserts, we has some quite time for reflection. It was one of those moments for me when I was quite literally smacked with the wonder of what I was seeing. This was THE desert.

Perhaps because the desert is such a vast place, and we know he was in there, which square metres he walked on, matter much less.

I was moved by the desert. It is not a friendly place. In Scripture, when people go into the desert, we know that they will encounter God. I can see why.

The photo on the left shows the desert. One of my fellow pilgrims was praying, and I thought she really showed how VAST this space is. On the right, is a child of one of the many many vendors at this particular car park. I could have ridden the donkey for sheckels, or dollars.

We left the desert for Jericho. This is the New city of Jericho, not the ancient biblical one (though we saw the remains of that one, too). We took cable cars above the city to the Monastery of the Temptation, built upon the site where Jesus was shown all the cities of the world and told that the could all be his if he would just worship Satan. The monastery was filled with gorgeous iconography. And while you could not see all the cities of the world from there, you could see a very long way. I knelt and touched a stone, lit candles for those I love, for St. Barnabas, and for the Diocese of NH, and I crawled into a cave where a monk would have lived.

The picture on the left shows the view from the Cable Car as we climbed (and those who know me well can be impressed, I did not have to cling to Anne for dear life!). The middle photo is the view from the monastery. The picture on the right is a tiny fraction of the icons in the monastery.

From Jericho, we headed off towards the Sea of Galilee. On the way, we traveled along the TransJordan, and learned more about Israeli-Palestinian politics. Based on an agreement (I think from 1968), there are essentially three Palestinian zones in Israel:

· Zone A is under total Palestinian control (like Bethlehem and Jericho). Also, Zone A is walled off from the rest of Israel, and one must pass through a checkpoint to re-enter Israel. Those without proper documentation may not enter. We’ve passed through several now, and given the rising tensions in the area, a member of the Israeli Army comes aboard the bus and looks at all our passports.

· Zone B has a mix of control, some Israeli and some Palestinian. Bethany (as in Mary, Martha, and Lazarus) is such a city. I’ve not been to any Zone B cities yet, so I have no feel for what this looks or feels like.

· Zone C is the TransJordan. It’s under total Israeli control, despite being in a Palestinian territory, and is walled off. All of the fertile land along the Jordan (hence TransJordan) cannot be accessed by the Palestinians.

We are spending two nights alongside the Sea of Galilee, in a lovely guest house called Pilgerhaus, run by German Benedictines. The rooms are lovely, and we are literally on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. In my free time this afternoon, I wandered around the shore, touched the water, took lots of phots, and picked up rocks and shells.

Many of us chose to attend the monks’ service of Vespers at the nearby Church of the Multiplication, thought to be on the spot where Jesus multiplied the 5 loaves and two fish to feed the 5000. There, the mosaic right in front of the altar depicts two fish and four loaves; the fifth loaf is represented in the Eucharistic bread. I now own a chalice and paten with this mosaic represented on them.

Today, our schedule was labeled “Day of Prayer” and it certainly was that.

On the left, I am at the sea of Galilee. In the middle, you can see the Sea of Galilee in the gaps between the palms. Here are fishermen, on the sea of Galilee.