After church, people gather for a glass of wine in the courtyard. What a delightful change from the coffee and cookies offered at my own church after worship. We chat with some of the people staying in other quarters at Saint George’s. I meet Paul, a young priest from the United States, interning at Saint George’s for one year. I also meet an older man who tells me he’s a scientist who was imprisoned by the Israeli government for whistle-blowing related to nuclear weapons. He’s gregarious and very comfortable telling his story. The two women across from him are from Sweden, here on the “Ecumenical Accompaniment Program” of the World Council of Churches, and they’ve just spent a few weeks in one of the Palestinian refugee camps. They’re eager to speak to this local celebrity.
Charlie sits down to talk to Paul about his job at Saint George’s, which is essentially Paul’s seminary fieldwork, similar to what Charlie is doing in his Baptist church in South Carolina. After they compare notes about their duties, Charlie asks Paul, “What’s it like to minister in the Holy Land? Isn’t the devil really powerful?”
“Isn’t he powerful everywhere?” answers Paul.
“No doubt,” says Charlie. “But here worst of all.”
Kyle joins the conversation, with a number of issues on the tip of his tongue. I feel a trifle irritated because I wanted to see where the devil talk would go.
Kyle says to Paul, “I’m curious about whether you use the Nicene Creed in your work here.”
“To some extent,” Paul reponds.
“Baptists don’t do creeds,” Charlie says.
“More’s the pity,” Kyle says. “The Nicene is such a foundational creed. People think it’s unifying, but it’s actually quite divisive.”
“How do you mean?” asks Charlie. I notice that he is always willing to listen to Kyle.
“It was written in 381 to read ‘the Spirit proceeds from the Father.’ But in about 1000, the West added ‘and the Son,’ which pretty much destroys any chance at ecumenical dialogue. Do you see? So Paul, here you are in the middle of all these faiths, and I want to know: What’s your opinion?”
Before Paul can answer, he’s called away.
“This is exactly why we don’t do creeds,” Charlie says. “They’re nothing but trouble.”
For once I can understand Charlie’s perspective, even though I’m a word person and the Reformed tradition is full of creeds. Words can be a tool or a weapon, even when they’re ancient. They’re never really dead. A few words have the power to enliven or to enrage, the power to build a bridge or to fortify a wall.
Back in our simple dorm room, JoAnne shuts the window so that the Muslim midnight call to prayer won’t wake us up, as it did the previous night. There’s a minaret just outside. Even though the room is a little too warm with the window closed, I agree. Tonight I want to sleep more than I want to pray.
The Dome of the Rock, Old Jerusalem
CHAPTER 7
Sin-cere
Lord, my heart is not proud.
PSALM 131:1 (NIV)
ON THE BUS waiting to go to the Wailing Wall, I realize that yesterday was September 11, the anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. At home in Washington, D.C., that date would have been significant; here it slipped past me. I feel disconnected from my normal life. Maybe my transformation into a pilgrim has been too successful.
It’s perplexing, because in other ways I feel like a pilgrim failure. I have good intentions. I want to open myself like a pilgrim. I pray to become whatever God wills. But I get in my own way. Instead of confronting the Holy, I confront myself. I have so many limits, from physical to intellectual. Being in the sun exhausts me. I need caffeine. I need a nap. I need time alone. I’m unable to think past certain thoughts. Maybe that’s always been the case, only now I’m aware of the logjam. I can feel the pilgrimage pulling me to jump over this pile-up to somewhere new. But to where? It’s threatening to think something new. I’ve known Jesus every day of my life, to my great comfort. Do I dare change that?
Sitting on the bus, I want to sigh and sigh and sigh — as if to expel these tumbling thoughts and so rid myself of discomfort. Yet I know I’ll breathe in something else, something threatening, or wonderful, or both at the same time. What’s more, I can’t avoid it: I must take in a next breath. Can I trust the Spirit to be in that breath, too?
In last night’s sermon, Nael talked about looking for the face of Christ in each person. I take his words seriously because he lives as a Palestinian Christian in a city literally divided by religion. If he can discover Christ in the faces of Muslims and Jews and atheists, maybe I can, too. Even as I’m pondering this, another interpretation occurs to me, a kind of flip side. Perhaps my face can reflect Christ. Perhaps mine can be the face of Christ.
I’m getting a sense — almost a physical sense — of inner divinity unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. In what way can I house Christ? I’ve experienced, in lovemaking, a sense of bodily holiness, but this is different. It’s not relational, it’s more integral to my own self, my own body-occupying self. Simply writing these thoughts in my journal feels threatening. My Calvinist background has taught me I’m unworthy. The phrase “inner divinity” seems heretical. But I let it stand.
Religion is bound up with bodies. That’s not a new concept to me, but I’m seeing new implications. Aren’t bodies how religion becomes violent? Violence may begin as an emotion, but it’s expressed through bodies. Not only through breath and words, but blows! And isn’t love the same — beginning in emotion, expressed through bodies. Yes, both sides of spiritual passion — violence and love — are bound up in our very human flesh. Is this a fuller meaning of incarnation than what I’ve yet grasped?
I feel a new appreciation gestating in me. I’m experiencing, rather than simply understanding, the essential unity of the spiritual and physical realities. We are not just souls housed in bodies. All of creation truly is shot through with the presence of God. Yet I was taught that this truth borders on heresy. No wonder we Calvinists walk through life blind to the Spirit that lurks everywhere.
The bus pulls up to the Dumb Gate. As we unload, I say to JoAnne, “I’m struck dumb. What a perfect name! Do you know why it’s called the Dumb Gate?”
“Not ‘Dumb,’ ” she replies. “ ‘Dung.’ As in poop.”
“Poop?” I repeat.
Kyle laughs. “All those animals — remember? For Temple sacrifice. This gate leads to the town dump.”
“Oh,” JoAnne says, like she’s just putting things together. “Gehenna.”
“Right you are,” says Kyle. “Oh hell.”
I don’t say anything. I’m busy thinking how truly dumb I’ve been. For all my years of Bible studies, it has never occurred to me just how much dung the Temple would have had to deal with. Funny. The whole point of sacrifice is to make one clean. Yet the process is anything but sanitary.
At the Temple Mount we pass through our first security checkpoint. Men and women must separate into two lines. Unsmiling guards with automatic weapons examine our passports, then gesture for our water bottles. As we go through a metal detector, each water bottle receives the same treatment: cap unscrewed, contents sniffed, cap replaced. The contrast between the unused deterrent slung over the shoulder — a high-powered rifle — and the deterrent actually used — a human nose — strikes me. Incarnation yet again. Despite all the technology of violence, security comes down to olfactory glands. On the other side of the checkpoint we women and men rejoin the same stream. I wonder why the nose brigade is concerned with gender, though certainly gender matters everywhere in this Holy Land.
We ascend a long, covered ramp to a plaza which is surprisingly quiet, park-like. Two men in blue uniforms collect garbage with a rolling cart as they chat. Hearing an occasional belly laugh, I suspect that they’re comparing weekend stories on this Monday morning.
Our group leader, Stephen, explains why this site is significant to both Jews and Muslims. To the Jews, the Temple Moun
t is their holiest site, the location of Solomon’s Temple, which was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and later rebuilt by Herod. Because the exact whereabouts of the Holy of Holies is unknown, many Jews feel they shouldn’t enter the area at all — it is too revered.
To the Muslims, the Temple Mount is the third holiest site, where Muhammad ascended to heaven. Islam’s two more sacred sites also concern Muhammad: the most sacred is Mecca (where he was born), and the next most sacred is Medina (where he died). The Muslims built the Dome of the Rock as a pilgrim shrine in 691 CE and later built a place of worship, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is not as grand and beautiful a building as the Dome.
The rock inside the Dome commemorates another essential story: Abraham binding his son before sacrificing him to God. The story of the binding of Abraham’s son is foundational to all three faiths, though there are important differences, such as which son is bound, Isaac or Ishmael, and on which mountain. The profound truth remains the same: Abraham was tested by God. Does it matter where, exactly, the mountain was located? I’m glad that theology trumps geography in this moment.
“You’ll find,” Stephen says in his understated way, “that in the Holy Land, holy places move.”
The Dome before us was gilded in the 1990s, the gold paid for by the King of Jordan. Now the Dome is under the control of Israel. Stephen says that there have been “incidents” here, so security is high. When he puts quotation marks around a word with his voice, Stephen’s British accent is particularly pronounced, which sparks my imagination.
“What incidents?” I whisper to the person next to me.
“Someone tried to pour acid on the shrine,” the person whispers back. So that explains the olfactory patrol.
Stephen is listing the Five Pillars of Islam, and I jot them down quickly: belief in monotheism/Allah; prayer five times a day; tithing; fasting during the month of Ramadan; pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj) at least once in a lifetime.
As I write, I listen with one ear to the sound of the sprinklers on the lawn. Men hawk postcards as Stephen talks. I’m curious about the lives of ordinary people like the garbage collectors. What is it like to call Jerusalem home?
Stephen points out a mihrab, which points toward Mecca, and I twist myself around, wondering how I would orient my body to point toward Mecca. As happens so frequently on this pilgrimage, I feel like I’m on the threshold of understanding something pivotal. I wish I had just a few minutes to soak it all in. What if I never come back here again? It’s hard to know what bits of information matter and what ones don’t. Which one will the Spirit use to speak to me? I feel overwhelmed and yet greedy for more.
Stephen is saying something about ablution stations, which are fountains for washing before worship. A supplicant is supposed to wash the whole body, including the mouth, before prayer. And the Muslims say that prayer is better than sleep. As we are herded along, I wonder: Is prayer better than sleep? I don’t live that way. What would happen if I did?
Stephen points to an area where the Byzantine Christians believed that Jesus cleansed the Temple. I look around the empty plaza and cannot picture it as more than what it is: hot, dry slabs of stone. He gestures to another area of the Temple grounds where the text about Jesus’ temptation — the reference to the pinnacle of the Temple — has its own corner. There is no pinnacle to create a picture in my mind, and I’m too busy taking in what’s there now to imagine what was there in antiquity.
All around us are huge stone arches with indecipherable engravings. These marks are the scales on which God will measure all humans. Now there’s another tidbit that begs for a few moments of reflection. How, exactly, does God measure a human with a stone arch? I stand beneath the arch. I’m five-foot-four-and-a-half. Does the stone measure that? I’m not as kind as I should be. Does the stone measure my failings, too?
We approach the Dome of the Rock itself. “The building is octagonal,” Stephen says, “because seven is perfect, but eight is even more perfect.”
He doesn’t mention the fact that eight is also significant in Christianity. We worship on the eighth day, essentially, because Saturday (the original Sabbath) was the seventh day, but the Sabbath was moved to Sunday in honor of Jesus’ resurrection. So the number eight is a number beyond perfection in Christianity, too. Another random fact pops into my head: The early Christians constructed churches in the shape of an octagon if they were sure that Jesus had actually been at that site. Yes, Jesus’ presence would perhaps linger, making the place beyond perfection.
I have the sudden urge to turn to someone and suggest that we do a craft project with Popsicle sticks. We could make something eight-sided, something beyond perfection. I need time to digest all this, need to manipulate with my fingers as well as my brain. With a tremendous pang, I wish my daughters were here with me, not as the young women they are now but as the little girls they used to be, when a table set with construction paper, glue bottles, and a shaker of glitter could make them crow with happiness. I need the sweetness of their naïveté because it’s the only thing that makes it possible to believe in a notion like “beyond perfection.”
The group has moved on and is examining the enormous eight-sided Dome, which is covered with Arabic calligraphy: “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet.” Not that I can actually read the inscription. Stephen reminds us that all images are forbidden to Muslims, which is why words and geometric designs ornament the building.
The prohibition against images sounds familiar. “Thou shalt make no graven images” is one of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:4-5, KJV). All three of the Abrahamic faiths began with a prohibition against images, yet only Islam has held to it. Why? Are Muslims more obedient to their scripture than Christians are to theirs? The question is like twisting my body around to be oriented by the mihrab toward Mecca. I can’t get my mind to follow this thought to its conclusion.
The decorative tiles are blue and green and gold, a mosaic pattern of eight-sided shapes. I wander around the plaza, stopping to put my hand on a marble column. Kyle comes by and asks, “Do you know where the word ‘sincere’ comes from?” I shake my head and wait while Kyle, a true preacher, pauses for a beat. “From the Latin sin-cere, which literally means ‘without wax.’ When someone ordered marble work, they would specify ‘sin-cere,’ because holes can be filled with wax and buffed to look like marble.”
I love random facts that make me think differently. My college’s motto runs through my memory. It’s a quote from John Calvin: Cor meum tibi offero, Domine, prompte et sincere (“Lord, I offer you my heart, promptly and sincerely”). It’s an interesting quote because Calvin was an intellectual giant, and yet he loved God with his heart as well as his head. Now I glimpse new depths to this word sin-cere. Lord, I offer you my heart now, as it is, without wax to hide its flaws. Without buffing, without artifice, without any polishing at all.
Does God really want my unvarnished heart? I’ve been polishing for so many years that I’m not even sure what my sin-cere heart would look like. Four years in seminary certainly count as an application of paste wax. Two decades in ministry certainly function as buffing. Even this pilgrimage began as a wash-and-wax for my spiritual life.
I wander around all eight sides of the Dome, ending by the ablution stations. Ablution, as I understand it, is an extreme form of cleansing. I appreciate the desire for cleanliness. There’s some washerwoman embedded in my DNA. But to be clean enough to approach the presence of a sovereign God? That seems like a useless compulsion. A person can never be that clean — isn’t that the whole point of grace? We Calvinists, with our emphasis on depravity and sin, understand this. But even while our doctrine says, “It’s all grace,” we turn around and work and work to be good enough. I’ve been taught to try harder, to be cleaner, to become more pure.
I wander past the many ablution stations wondering if my new Latin word sin-cere can help me unpack these mixed messages. It’s hard to think coherently for this long, in this heat. I’ve emptied
my water bottle and I’m still thirsty. Sincerely thirsty. There are many fountains at each ablution station, all dry. The sight of so many useless spigots intensifies my thirst.
Feral cats wander in the corners of the Temple Mount. They are probably thirsty, too. Children appear from nowhere and approach the video cameras, making faces into the lens. Taking all this in, I notice that Marty — the pilgrim who wondered if the week would fundamentally change her — is wearing a white hijab. I ask her about it, and she tells me that she bought it yesterday in the Muslim Quarter. It makes her feel adorned, just as her pulpit vestments do. Like most Episcopalian priests I know, Marty loves her vestments. And I have my black robe and simple stole. Suddenly the situation strikes my funny bone. Marty is an Episcopalian priest draped in a Muslim hijab, standing under a bright sun next to a waterless fountain and discussing vestments with me, someone who doesn’t wear them. Everything is a jumble in this Holy Land!
I blurt out, “I could kill for a beer!” We both laugh.
The Western Wall, Old Jerusalem
CHAPTER 8
Sisters
Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!
MARK 10:47
“THERE’S ANOTHER SECURITY checkpoint before we can enter the plaza,” Stephen says.
“You mean by the Wailing Wall?” someone asks.
“Don’t call it that. People gave it that name to belittle the Jews who were mourning the destruction of the Temple. It is the Western Wall, and that is what we should call it. We mustn’t insult our Jewish brothers and sisters.”
I realize I must bow to this piece of history and change my language, but I feel the loss of poetry. Who would choose “Western Wall” over “Wailing Wall”? I will call it the right thing from now on, even though my heart is resistant.
Chasing the Divine in the Holy Land Page 6