Pilgrimage to Ecce Homo Convent

My Israel 2018 friends are flying home today. I'm staying 2 more weeks. I guess they're flying past Iceland about now. 

Sisters of Notre Dame de Sion

Meanwhile I made it to Ecce Homo Convent. 

So grateful to my sister, the Reverend Emily McColl, for telling me about this bed and breakfast for only $69 per night. It's situated two stories above the courtyard of Pilate's palace, where Jesus was flogged and put on trial. (Rulers held court just outside the entrance to their homes--court yard.)

It took 1 1/2 hrs from the front desk of our hotel (Dan Boutique Hotel at 31 Hebron Rd.) to my room. Rather strenuous. Thank you to Narel, the desk clerk at the hotel, for calling a taxi. I thought having the address was enough, but Narel asked which gate I wanted to go to. He explained that most taxi drivers will not go into the Old City. Too difficult on the narrow roads filled with pedestrians. He lives in the Muslim quarter just north of the Western Wall, but he no longer drives to his home. He parks just outside the wall of the Old City and walks to his home.

After studying the map I said I wanted to be driven to Herod's gate "Not the Damascus Gate?" he countered. I kept repeating,"I don't know" ("Ani lo yodeat"). 

Indeed the driver would not drive to convent door, just to Herod's Gate. Cars are not welcome inside the walls of the Old City. 
From there I hauled my bags to 41 Via Dolorosa and checked in. Beautiful convent of the Sisters of Norte Dame of Sion, founded in 1856. 

Then quite a maze to get to my room. Elevator to third floor, down stairs to a patio, around a few corners, down more stairs and corners to my room.

Barbed wire separating the convent from Palestinian Israelis

View from one of the balconies of Ecce Homo Convent

 Just above me are Muslim apartments with children playing on the balconies.

At 2:30 pm there was a call to prayer. I'm taking it as a call to nap time. 🙂

The icon in my room

View from another balcony

The Doves of Bethlelem

Near the armed security check station that separates Bethlehem, Area A, from the suburbs of Jerusalem, grey doves search the green grass and rubble for food. They peck at an insect and fly up to sit on a chain link fence.

White doves, the symbol of peace, appear on signs all over Old Jerusalem and in souvenir shops on t-shirts, bumper stickers, and ceramic plates, often with the message "Pray for the peace of Israel."

In Palestine I saw a sign saying "Pray for the freedom of Palestine."

The same God hears both prayers.

Dawn at Masada

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Temple Zero in Jerusalem

Did you know there was another temple in Jerusalem before the Second Temple (destroyed in 70 CE)? And before the First Temple built by King Solomon (destroyed 586 BCE by Babylonians).

This temple is informally known as Temple Zero and it dates from the time of Abraham, c. 2000 BCE. The place where Abraham did not sacrifice Isaac was Mt. Moriah. There was a city there called Salem with a high priest named Melchizedek.

Today our tour group from Los Angeles visited the ruins of the original 1000 BCE City of David outside the walls of the 1st C. city of Jerusalem. We also saw the altar of Melchizedek and a pillar next to it.

Our tour guide, Eli Shukron, discovered the City of David here, and he directed the excavation that led to the discovery of the altar from the time of Abraham.

It all began when he halted the digging for a water line because he heard the scrape of a backhoe on rock. Turned out to be Pool of Siloam mentioned in bible as where Jesus healed Blind Man. In 20 yrs of digging excavated 1100 tons of dirt, and he found artifacts from 2000 BCE City of David. Twice he opened locked doors to show us things no tourist ever sees--current work including 2000 BCE altar and pillar of non-Jewish Melchizedek Animal sacrifice.

Women's Right to Worship

It's hard for me to imagine women being excluded from a house of worship, but that's what the women of Kerala state on the southwest coast of India were protesting today.

They formed a 620km-long wall to show solidarity in support of women having access to the Ayyappa shrine.  

https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/womens-wall-in-kerala-vanitha-mathil_in_5c2b47d8e4b0407e90858ba2?ncid=other_facebook_eucluwzme5k&utm_campaign=share_facebook

The Supreme Court had ruled in favor of women having access, but religious leaders still opposed it.

Thank you to the Huffington Post for reporting on this event.

A good way to start the new year!

Tourists at the Bunkers

 Our tour bus went to Mt. Bental, which overlooks the site of one of the bloodiest battles of the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

Our tour bus went to Mt. Bental,

Where Jesus walked...

I walked today where Jesus walked" --a hymn I've often sung. But today it happened.

We visited the modern city of Nazareth in Israel but populated by 50% Orthodox Christians and 50% Muslims. Almost no Jews live there.

Our bus drove to the top of Mt. Precipice in Nazareth, where our leader the Reverend Jacoba Vermaak explained the time Jesus got in trouble there and the people of his home town wanted to throw him off a cliff. Was it this one? Read Luke 4:16-30.

Then we toured the city of Zipori six miles away, where many laborers of Nazareth worked. Was Jesus one of them? The wealthy people of this city supported Rome when most of Judah and Israel tried to overthrow the Empire in 66-67 C.E., so their city was not destroyed when the Roman government destroyed Jerusalem and the temple.

Tonight we're staying in Kibbutz Ein-Gev on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, which is 600 ft. below sea level because it lies along the Rift Valley caused by a major fault zone-- two continents drifting apart, causing a crack and drop down of the land. Why didn't any Sunday school teacher tell me that this lake is below sea level?

Tonight walking on the shores of the lake where Jesus walked, I realized how much Jesus loved these mountains and the lake beneath them. The Rev. Jacoba says he and the disciples continued to fish to support themselves while Jesus preached the good news that God is near. Read Mark 1.

I looked up at the stars and thought about how often Jesus retreated to these mountains to pray at night. He looked up at these same stars. He probably knew the constellations; in Zipori there is a beautiful mosaic floor that includes a circular design of the Zodiac. I recognized Cancer, the crab.

Toni Morrison says that the past is never truly past; an event continues to have a presence in the place where it occurred. The site of the 9/11 attack is forever tainted.

But the site of a good event is forever blessed.  I could feel that tonight.  Standing alone in cold December beneath the starry sky, I glimpsed how Jesus felt standing here: his wonder at creation and love for wind-driven waves, for dark skies of infinite depth. Did he go out to be alone and pray on blustery winter nights like this? Was he cold and wet sometimes? Did he stay inside instead?

How did he and his crew stay warm? No down jackets or snug socks and running shoes. Being closer to the mind of Jesus was thrilling but brought many questions.

O Come Ye, O Come Ye, to Bethlehem

Christmas carols have a special ring to them this year as I prepare to travel to Israel, Palestine, and possibly Jordan on December 28, returning January 20.

"O Come, All Ye Faithful" invites us to Bethlehem to behold Jesus.  

Hold on, I'm coming!  (unless there's violence that causes a close of the border crossings).

I will begin with a ten-day tour led by the Reverend Dr. Jakoba Vermaak of Wilshire Presbyterian Church.  Our group will include 22 Americans, an Israeli archaeologist and tour guide, and an Arab-speaking bus driver.  Imagine Tours & Travel is making all the arrangements.  

Cost is $3495 for ten days including airfare and taxes, hotels, breakfast and dinner, and guides.

Then I will spend two more weeks on my own, staying for ten nights at Ecce Homo Convent built on the spot where King Herod's palace was and where Jesus was interrogated and flogged.  I haven't figured out the last three nights, but I hope to get to Petra in Jordan and to spend another day or two around Nazareth or Capernaum (near the sea of Galilee).

Thank you to my sister, the Reverend Emily McColl, for letting me know about Ecce Homo Convent  ($69 per night) and for her many travel tips!  She has been twice before.

I'm hoping to practice my conversational Hebrew, having taken classes for about ten years.  

And of course, also hoping to see Jesus... somewhere.

Day 700

General James N. Mattis

How have we arrived at day 700 of the dt presidency?  

It's been a hard couple of years, but this fool is on his way out.

Today the conversations, at home and on our television sets and radios, contain phrases like:

• chaos
• fumble
• throwing a temper tantrum
• last adult in the room
• off the rails
• adult day care
• verge of a shutdown
• stock market tanks

This presidency will not survive beyond the year 2019.  The tweeter-in-chief  probably won't even make it to Day 1000.

Thanks be to God!  

Our long ordeal is ending.  He is self-destructing.  

General James N. Mattis, Secretary of Defense, stood up to the president today.  Thank you, General Mattis!

Now we need a few more Republicans to discover some backbone.

Here's how the LA Times described the resignation of Mattis this afternoon:

https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-pol-mattis-ousted-20181106-story.html

Mary, Mother of Jesus: Fierce and Vocal

Every year we honor Mary, the mother of Jesus, but we see her as "a silent prop up there, holding a baby and looking sweet," says the Reverend Katy Fitz Shedlock, a Methodist minister in Spokane, Washington.

She designed a different kind of Christmas pageant.  Mary is a pregnant teen who has a cell phone to text Joseph and speaks out holding a mic.

Thank you to Judith Steinmetz in San Francisco, who sent me a link to this article:

https://religionnews.com/2018/12/19/a-new-christmas-pageant-shows-off-the-fierce-side-of-mary/

Judith also sent this link from today's Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2018/12/20/marys-magnificat-bible-is-revolutionary-so-evangelicals-silence-it/