On to the West Bank...

Greetings from Jericho! We are now in the West Bank and it is amazing to me how different things are from where we have visited so far...

This morning we passed by thr archaelogical site of Migdal, which we know as Magdelene. We were told it was the first town Jesus (or any traveler) would have come upon if a person were traveling from Nazareth to the Sea od Galilee. The archaeologist who is doing the excavation is not there, so we only got to see it from the road..

Then we went tothe Church of the Beatitudes, the place from which it is said Jesus gave his Sermon on the Mount. Like me, you might think that he spoke from the top of a mountain. However, Jesus actually spoke from a spot that had a shape similar to a theater; he would have stood down low and spoken facing up, so that his voice would be projected better upwards to those listening... Before we entered the church, Elizabeth read Matthew 5, which contains the Sermon on the Mount. So amazing to be standing in that spot hearing that reading. I got particularly teary when she was reading verses 13-16, because it was read by Mary E. at the blessing done for me at Trinity...Around the church, other groups were also reading (I assume) the same passage in several different languages. That was pretty cool...The Church is beauiful, octagonal for the 8 Beatitudes. High up in stained glass windows are each of the Beatitudes written in Latin. After taking my pictures, I sat down to pray, as always with your prayers in my hands. It was extremely moving (though moving does not adequately describe the feeling), as I felt again that I was walking on the same ground where Jesus very likely had walked... The whole lake area is pretty small, so it is easy to imagine Jesus going from place to place, all of the various places we visited over the last few days...

While I was praying, I had my eyes closed and when I opened my eyes and looked up, the window my eyes rested upon was the Beatitude "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." It seemed appropriate that my eyes would fall there, as so many of the prayers I am carrying are for people who are seeking healing and consolation for themselves, loved ones, and our world.

We also visited Beth She'an and Jericho. but I want to focus on our first venture into the West Bank. First of all the landscape quickly changed to very dry and rocky from pretty green. In other places in the West Bank, I am told, it is much greener, but where we have been it is dry and rocky. To get into the West Bank we had to pass through an Israeli checkpoint and a Palestinian checkpoint. Both were simple stops and we got waved on. Of course, it is not so easy for many people, but I'll save that for another day... We saw several sheep and goat herders with their animals out to pasture (I'm not sure what the animals found to eat...). We saw an Israeli settlement from afar, but even from a distance it looked much nicer than many of the Palestinian homes that were near the road. Some of the structures reminded me of the make-shift homes I have seen in Central America...Not so sturdy...The signs were now in Arabic and some times bilingual Arabic and English. Hebrew did not appear so much.

We have only been here a few hours. I know I will be learning much more about the situation and it is because I know I will be learning more about the complex political/cultural/religious (they can't be separated) context that I had this thought: I am sure there are many people who are visiting many of the places I have been and will be visiting who are interested only in visiting the holy sites. That is disturbing to me and quite frankly, it seems irresponsible. At numerous archaelogical sites, we have learned about how politics plays into what and how much gets excavated. How can one ignore the present state of this land? How can a person come here and be so short-sighted as to only look at one tiny sliver of history here? That sliver still plays an important role in life here tolday. These places are full of so much beautiful history, but they are also filled with great violence and suffering in the past and present, in part because of the long history of the interactions between Judasim, Christianity, and Islam.

Being in the West Bank makes me more anxious to hear people's stories. People here and now. Stories are powerful. Jesus told a lot of stories. I wonder how, both during and after this trip, the stories that I know about Jesus and told by Jesus will weave themselves together in my mind with the stories I hear from the people I meet here...

That's all for now.

Peace,
Cory