Archive for February 2012
Book Review: Man Seeks God
Posted on: February 28, 2012
Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine, by Eric Weiner, Twelve: Hatchette Book Group, 2011, 349 pp.
I can’t remember where I heard, saw or read the review of this book that made me want to read it. When the library e-mailed me to tell me that it was my turn to pick it up from the reserved list, I had forgotten it was there. I do remember that I thought it would help me better understand the world of the “nones,” the growing segment of people in the United States with no religious affiliation. I think it did.
Eric Weiner is a writer and reporter (for The New York Times and NPR, among others) who has never had an active life of faith or participated actively in a religious community. Although his heritage is Jewish, he has little connection to it as lived religion. When Weiner has a health scare, the nurse in the hospital asks him: “Have you found your God yet?” He has not, and that realization leads him into a deep depression and a quest around the world, trying on religious practices of all shapes and sizes.
At the beginning, he labels himself a “Confusionist:”
We have absolutely no idea what our religious views are. We’re not even sure we have any, but we’re open to the unexpected and believe—no, hope—there is more to life than meets the eye. Beyond that we are simply and utterly confused. (4)
I suspect that his brief summary and new category of Confusionism matches the description of many people raised in a secular environment. However, in my experience, few are willing to admit their ignorance and confusion, content instead to believe the stereotypes and caricatures about various religious traditions. I thought at first Weiner’s book might be a bit of religious tourism or even a bit of sarcasm, drawing out the extremes for (appropriate) mockery. But his story and his quest were genuine, and in the end, it’s his openness and honesty, his willingness to try anything, that gives the book its heart.
Weiner gives himself over completely to each faith he explores—physically, if not always mentally (which is a much bigger challenge for all of us). He tries the major players—Buddhism (Tibetan), Taoism, Christianity (Franciscan), Islam (Sufism) and Judaism (Kabbalah)—but he also goes for some newer, non-traditional alternatives, like Wicca, shamanism, and Raelism. He criticizes and even lightly mocks when it is appropriate, but he also gives each practice credit for what it offers. In the end, he discovers what religious practice is capable of. Far more than a set of rules and regulations, it is a path to an encounter with the numinous, the Spirit, the Divine. Along the various roads, Weiner finds those sacred moments, and through his skepticism he honors them with awe.
This book is well-written, entertaining, creative and insightful. Through Weiner, I do feel like I got a new kind of insight into the “nones,” but also an interesting window into the various faiths he visits, including my own.
Re-Entry
Posted on: February 27, 2012
Today marks one full week since my return from sabbatical. And by “full” week I mean FULL week. Last week was our monthly Council meeting, Ash Wednesday service, and the biggest event of the year, a Sausage Supper fundraiser where our little church fed over 700 people. Also, I returned to a nearly-completed construction project and four hospitalizations last week alone.
A full house for our Sausage Supper! I love these folks. (Photo by Ann Swilley)
The good news is: it’s great to be back. I was fearful that I would return half-heartedly, that I would long for the quiet days of sabbatical, or discover my passion had waned. None of those things has been true. It has been my heart’s joy to reunite with all the folks of the church. I struggled during sabbatical when major events were happening in people’s lives, and I was not a part of them. Now, I am able to return to my vocation, to offer pastoral support to people I have come to know and love, to be involved in the church I care so much about. There have been the requisite stresses and details that no one wants to have to handle, but those have been dwarfed by the joy of re-engagement. Leading worship on Sunday morning felt like coming home again, as though everything was right with the world.
The bad news is: the spiritual disciplines I so carefully cultivated during sabbatical were already washed up in the first week. And in Lent even! When I started the week, I was delighted to discover that my ritual of morning and evening prayer had become so much a part of me that I felt adrift without it. Rather than a burden, these spiritual disciplines felt like the anchors holding me steady in the hectic return. I was overwhelmed with conversations and news from people’s lives, and I craved the silence. However, at some point late in the week, I fell asleep exhausted without pausing for reflection. One day, I woke up with a migraine, and I just slouched out the door having barely opened my eyes, much less focused on praying a psalm. The next morning, I forgot altogether. The pastoral disciplines I had so ardently carved into my calendar didn’t make it through the first week either. I wrote my Ash Wednesday sermon in the pre-scheduled time, with great focus. But the time allotted for my Sunday sermon gave way to two hospital visits and an urgent meeting over an interpersonal conflict, which meant it was Saturday night writing again.
Here is the difference sabbatical has made: realizing that today I can pick up where I left off. Sabbatical was only a week ago. The personal and pastoral disciplines are not long-lost fantasies. So what if I messed up a few times last week? It’s Monday again, and I can start over. Today, I returned to the morning psalms, the page still bookmarked where I abandoned it. The distractions in my mind were more annoying than they were a week ago, but Psalmist’s words helped a great deal: “you encouraged me with inner strength.” (Psalm 138:3) After morning prayer, I realized that I needed to cultivate my inner strength by returning to my introverted ways. I needed to spend time writing this reflection, and so I did. I have made my list of tasks for the week (my first to-do list since I gave them up for sabbatical). I will include in my schedule a large block of time for sermon preparation before Saturday night, and hopefully this time it will hold up.
One of my readings at morning prayer said, "May you experience Jerusalem's goodness your whole life long." (Psalm 128:5, CEB) That is what spiritual disciplines help me do---experience to the presence of God in everyday life, just as I did during my pilgrimage. (Photo of a Jerusalem street, by me.)
Crazy, hectic weeks like last week will always be a part of ministerial life. They will always be a part of any life. The key is not letting crazy and hectic, or tasks and to-do’s, become the norm. It would have been very easy to wake up this morning and head straight into hospital visits, to-do lists and newsletter articles. Instead, I recognized I needed to stop and reorient myself. The gift of sabbatical has been to restore me to those disciplines that will sustain me in ministry. Prayer is called a “discipline” for a reason—it is a way of disciplining your self and your life in the shape of God. All those pressing tasks will get my time and attention, but not before God does. That’s why I got into this ministry thing in the first place. I was so in love with God and I wanted to find a way to show that love to others.
As I re-enter and re-integrate my spiritual life as a pastor and a person, I want to keep God at the center of every day. That’s easier said than done, but it is what must be done for me to continue to delight in this pastoral life. It’s good to be back—back to work, and back to the spiritual disciplines that sustain the work.
Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture, by Adam S. McHugh, IVP Press, 2009, 222 pp.
I have avoided reading straight-up professional development books during my sabbatical. I have a shelf full of material I am eager to read about how the church is changing and how we can help share the gospel in these new times. I had initially planned to read much of it during sabbatical, to study and learn for the next phase of ministry at the congregation I serve. Very early on, however, I realized that I could read that stuff anytime. Sabbatical was my opportunity to read books for non-professional reasons. I could just dig deeper into books that fed my spirit or my curiosity, books that invited me to grow in my own faith or broaden my own understanding.
I thought Introverts in the Church would return me to my “professional” reading, but it called out to me from the shelf so I took it anyway. Much to my surprise, this book spoke more to my spirit and my sabbatical than it did to my pastoral needs. One of the deepest needs I discovered during this sabbatical was my need for solitude. I am an absolute introvert, but ministry is an extroverted profession. I have coupled ministry with mothering an extroverted child for the last several years, and my inner introvert was starving. When I finally had the chance during sabbatical, I turned in on myself and stopped talking to anyone apart from my son and husband. I had expected to visit with friends or even make professional connections with my sabbatical time, but I didn’t even have the energy to answer the telephone. I craved every moment alone I could find.
As my sabbatical has progressed, I have regained a sense of balance between my high need for solitude and the joy of interaction with other people. However, I have wondered how I can return to ministry without letting myself get so starved again, and worried that my re-entry into pastoral life might be an overload of extroverted tasks. Introverts in the Church turned out to be just what I needed to help negotiate these concerns. First and foremost, McHugh validated my experience as an introvert, and that my need for solitude was neither selfish or excessive. More importantly, though, he affirmed that there is a way for introverted leaders to find a successful path in the church, and offered some insights about how to get there. I feel like, having completed the book, I am much more ready to return to the extroverted demands of ministry, and to claim my need for solitude amid them.
McHugh begins with an apology of sorts for introverts. He sees introverts as a snubbed, misunderstood or sometimes even persecuted group within the church. Evangelical churches value participation, evangelism, faith sharing, outgoing spirituality and public displays of affection for God—which are unnatural and uncomfortable to introverts. They do not generally value the introvert’s gifts for contemplation, prayer, depth, reflection and silence. I think the mainline church is not nearly as skewed as the evangelical circles that McHugh moves in, but I still found it helpful and affirming to hear his defense of my personality type.
I especially appreciated that he had a whole section devoted to solitude. He writes:
The spiritual life for introverts is bracketed by periods of solitude. We go there to gain God’s eyesight for others and to receive his resources to engage in relationships and act in the world. And then, after we have responded to his call to work and to love, our spiritual lives culminate in solitude as we process and pray through the events of the day. (73-74)
I found myself simply saying, “yes! yes! yes!” to much of what McHugh described. That is indeed how my spirituality works, and how I pray, and what I need to listen to God’s voice and discern God’s presence around me in the world.
As I prepare to return to pastoral life in a few short days, I feel like McHugh has given me some strategies for nurturing my introverted gifts as well as engaging in community life. He discusses the particular gifts of introverted leaders, and offers ideas for how introverts can nurture their own leadership gifts. He even talks about evangelism, which has long been considered solely the realm of extroverts.
This book is a great professional tool for extroverts looking to be more understanding of introverts and make the church more welcome for them, or for introverts looking to affirm their experiences and develop their gifts. If you’re not sure what it’s like to be an introvert, McHugh will paint the picture for you. While it was a professional “how-to” book, Introverts in the Church was also a spiritual resource for me, validating my sabbatical experiences and the ongoing importance of quiet and solitude in my spiritual life. I am grateful.
Ash Wednesday Sermon
Posted on: February 26, 2012
- In: Reflections | Sermon
- 2 Comments
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:10
The apostle Paul writes with some dizzying logic sometimes, doesn’t he? He calls those of us who follow Christ “ambassadors of reconciliation,” but then he goes on to leave a trail of irreconcilable contradictions about how we reconcilers are seen in the world. “We are treated with honor and dishonor, verbal abuse and good evaluation. We were seen as fake and real, unknown and well known, as dying, but look, we are alive. We were punished but not killed, going through pain but always happy, poor but making many rich, as having nothing but owning everything.” Contradictions upon contradictions. This list is more like a seesaw or a tennis match than my vision of what it means to be an “ambassador of reconciliation.”
Reconciliation, in my mind, means making things go together smoothly, even though they might naturally conflict. The dictionary agrees with me that to reconcile is to “make two apparently conflicting things compatible or consistent with one another.” Paul doesn’t seem to reconcile any of those things—he just holds them up and says, “We’re both! Dying and alive, honored and dishonored, fake and real, known and unknown. We’re both!”
This holding together of tensions, this being “both-and,” is very much what I think we are supposed to remember every year on Ash Wednesday.
Butterflyfish is a bluegrass band writing faith-inspired children’s music, led by my friend Elizabeth Myer-Boulton and her husband Matt, who is the new president of Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis. Matthew has written a song that I think speaks to this “both-and” tension. It’s basically a little parable, and it’s called “Great and Small.” The words go like this:
Deep down here inside my pocket there’s a little piece of paper
Take it out and read it when I’m feeling out of shape, or
To keep my fears at bay
It says you are greatDeep down in my other pocket there’s another piece of paper
Take it out and read it when I’m getting into shape, or
When I’m walking tall
It says you are small.‘Cause you are great and small, you are tiny and tall
Remember through it all, you are great and small.
Isn’t it true? Don’t we all just need to be reminded sometimes that we are indeed great? When we are frightened or discouraged or rejected or vulnerable or powerless, we need to be reminded of the power we have as one person to change the world in love. We are great. And don’t we all just need to be reminded sometimes that we are indeed so very small? When we are self-centered or narrow-minded, ego-driven or unrelenting, unforgiving or ungracious, we need to be reminded that in the vast universe and the long arc of history, we are small.
Some people think that the season of Lent and the ashes of Ash Wednesday are all about reminding us that we are small. After all, we are about to put ashes and dust on our foreheads, and repeat the phrase, “remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” For some, remembering we are dust is about remembering all the ways we’ve acted like dirt, and try again to act like the spirit of God. While repentance is a good thing, and confessing our sins and receiving God’s forgiving grace is an important part of remembering that we are small, these dusty ashes upon your foreheads are not about calling you a dirtbag. They are about reminding you that you are a human being, created by God from the dust the earth. In Genesis 2, God created human beings by scooping up the rich, dark soil, adamah in Hebrew, and (whoosh) blowing life into it. You are of the earth. You are made of the stuff of this world. Like everything else in this world, you will live and you will die this one precious life, in this one fragile body, and then that lifeless body will return again to dust. Among all other creatures and lives, surrounded by all the dirt of the earth, each one of us is one tiny speck in the vast universe. We are so very small.
Photo by Inger Ekrem, Riksförbundet Svensk Trädgård.
But that’s not all. Whenever we remember we are dust, whenever we remember that we are adamah, made of clay, we also have to remember what else we are made of. What other ingredient, apart from the earth, comprises humanity at the dawn of creation? (Whoosh) The breath of God. You are dirt and to dirt you shall return, but you are also the breath of God, and to God you shall return. Inside of you dwells the spark of the Almighty God, the power of God’s spirit animates your life. You are filled with the power to love, to give, to serve, to rejoice, to overcome, to hope, to be transformed. Even more, you can transform the world around you by your work and your love, your witness and your welcome, your peace-making and your graciousness. The eternal breath of God breathes in you. You are great.
Every Ash Wednesday, we remember what it is to be human, to be made from dust and the breath of God. The opposing contradictions of great and small, known and unknown, clarity and mystery, life and death—they all are reconciled in each and every human life. We are indeed ambassadors of reconciliation. When our lives reflect our true nature, we are simultaneously reflecting the transient beauty of the world and the eternal beauty of God.
Great and small. Dust of the earth and the very breath of God. You are both, insists Paul. You are both, says the author of Genesis. That’s what it means to be human—to be both great and small, and equal measure of dust and divinity.
As we enter this Lenten journey toward Easter, we are invited to remember who we are. Where in your life do you need to remember you are small? How is God reassuring you that you are not God, that the world does not rest upon your shoulders, that all this will come to an end and you are not in control? Where in your life do you need to embrace your greatness? How is God calling you to do big things in the name of love, to transform the world with grace and hope right where you are?
We have for you tonight, in addition to the ashes for your forehead, and a taste of the bread of life and cup of salvation at the table, a couple of pieces of paper for your pocket. Can you guess what they say? One for each pocket. You are great. You are small. I invite you to carry them with you as the season progresses, as a reminder that in you, in your oh-so-human-life, lies their reconciliation. The great and the small, the dust and the divinity, in you—an ambassador of reconciliation. Thanks be to God.
This sermon was originally offered at the joint Ash Wednesday service with my congregation and the local Disciples of Christ church in town, February 22, 2012. You can download the song “Great and Small” at Butterflyfish’s website, www.butterflyfishband.com.
Book Review: Jesus
Posted on: February 18, 2012
Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary, by Marcus J. Borg, HarperOne, 2006, 343 pp.
As I prepared to travel in the Holy Land, I thought I would want a historical resource book (or two, but I never even opened Crossan’s Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography) to accompany the places and Gospel readings in the experience. I didn’t dig into it until the final few hours of the airplane ride home, so it became more of a way to assimilate all the information. Much to my surprise and delight, Borg also offered a way to process the faith experiences and God-moments that I experienced on the journey. As he has consistently done in recent years, Borg writes about both the historical Jesus and the living Christ with faith and insight.
Much of the content of the book was familiar to me, having read many of Borg’s other books such as Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, The Heart of Christianity, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time and The Last Week. Borg covers his familiar territory about the pre-Easter versus the post-Easter Jesus, the earlier paradigm versus the emerging paradigm of Christianity, basic Gospel source theory and the difference between John and the synoptics. After this familiar territory, he draws on his lifetime of study of the Gospels, their history and social context to draw a portrait of Jesus in his world.
Borg begins with the factors that influenced Jesus, including the domination system of imperial Rome and the Jewish practices of his day. He then draws out how Jesus experienced God, and portrays him as a Jewish mystic. Only then does he enter the synoptic vision of who Jesus was and what his ministry was about, giving a summary of the pre-Easter Jesus as a Jewish mystic, healer and exorcist, wisdom teacher, prophet and movement initiator. Examining the parables and aphorisms of Jesus, Borg then details what Jesus taught and believed about God. I appreciated the way Borg separated Jesus from God in this way. Christian doctrine claims (and I affirm) that Jesus was God incarnate, and so we often look at Jesus without looking as closely at the one to whom he pointed. Borg pulls out and clarifies what Jesus taught us about what God loves—God loves justice, and yearns for shalom in this world.
Borg summarizes Jesus’ message and mission as an invitation into a way of life, a way that centers on God, dies to self, repents and sees with new eyes, and loves what God loves, which is the world. Christ’s crucifixion was a culmination of following that way, confronting the domination system and overturning conventional wisdom. The stories of the resurrection have a two-fold purpose: they vindicate Jesus’ death, and they continue the movement. His followers realized that the way of Jesus did not die with him, that they still felt his presence among them, and continued the work he had begun.
What I appreciate about Borg, as always, is his ability to hold both the scholarly conclusions about the historical Jesus and the faithful conclusions about the living Christ. As he says about the Easter stories specifically:
The factual question is left open. A parabolic reading affirms: believe what you want to about whether the story happened this way—now let’s talk about what the story means. (280)
That was exactly the perspective I needed upon my return from the Holy Land. As I was reading Borg’s book, I was able to understand and interpret the scenes in the Gospel in new and deeper ways, having seen the land and the ruins with my own eyes. He helped me sort out, from all I had seen and heard, what were likely claims of the pre-Easter Jesus and what were the church’s claims about the post-Easter Jesus. Yet he does not dismiss the post-Easter Jesus as less-than or unimportant. The post-Easter Jesus, the living Christ of the church, is the ongoing experience of the mystical presence of God, like Jesus himself experienced.
As I said many times on my pilgrimage, I came looking for the Jesus of history, but I discovered instead the living Christ of faith. Borg describes it this way, specifically describing the story of Emmaus:
The risen Jesus opens up the meaning of scripture. The risen Jesus is known in the breaking of bread. The risen Jesus journeys with his followers, even when they don’t know it. (286)
This book was a great way for me to relive my pilgrimage experiences and the Gospel readings. Instead of just reminding me of the limits of historical knowledge, Borg gave me language to describe my experiences of the post-Easter Jesus while in the Holy Land.
His writing is a great gift to those of us who accept and appreciate the work of historical-critical biblical scholarship, who incorporate its wisdom and insights into our theology and understandings of scripture, yet still nurture a living faith that believes encounters with the living Christ are still possible, and strive to follow the way of Jesus even now.
Book Review: Ruby
Posted on: February 17, 2012
Ruby, by Ann Hood, Picador USA, 1998, 225 pp.
This book was passed along to me by a family member in a big stack of books, and I brought it along on my trip to be an easy read for the 12-hour flight back from the Holy Land trip. It passed the time just like it was supposed to do, and I read it cover-to-cover on the long flight (along with watching three movies—it wasn’t a long read).
Ruby is a story about grief and healing, about family and new life. Olivia’s husband is tragically killed in a car accident, and her life has fallen apart around her. Into her life comes Ruby, a wayward, pregnant teenage girl with nowhere else to go. Olivia takes her in, and yearns to adopt the child she is carrying. Ruby vacillates between being a lost and lonely and rebellious and hurtful. Eventually they find healing in one another, along with the sense of family they’ve both been yearning for.
The book was not transformative or powerfully insightful about the human condition, but it was good beach reading—an interesting story with good characters. The one part of the book that was most profound was the journey of Olivia’s grief. She wrestles with her complex feelings of anger and forgiveness toward the young woman who accidentally killed her husband, with the friends who are ready to set her up on dates, with family who is concerned that she is not “moving on,” and with the feelings of emptiness and purposelessness that grief brings. Hood does an excellent job of capturing these complex experiences, without needing to resolve them immediately.
Ruby was great plane reading, and I’d recommend it if you’re looking for something light and enjoyable to escape into for awhile.
Day Fourteen: Mystery Revealed
Posted on: February 17, 2012
- In: Reflections | Sabbatical
- 2 Comments
The Dome of the Rock, looking from the front of the al-Aqsa Mosque
It’s hard not to be captivated by the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. The stunning gold dome and blue tile stand out boldly against the creamy white Jerusalem stone everywhere else, and its beauty is unparalleled in the city. I was fascinated before I even arrived. Having read so much about the history of the city, I had attached all kinds of sacred meaning to the historic Temple Mount, now known as the Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary. This giant platform hovers over Jerusalem, its activities invisible to those below except for the shiny gold of the Dome of the Rock.
The Dome of the Rock
This “high place” has a long and tangled history as a holy place. Although there is no archeological evidence and some scholarly debate, many believe it was the original site of Solomon’s Temple. It was definitely the site of the Second Temple, built by Herod the Great in the first century before Christ. Herod took a natural hill and extended it out with fortified walls into the 35-acre platform that still exists. In 70 CE, the Romans destroyed that temple as part of their attempts to quash Jewish uprisings. The only thing remaining from Herod’s magnificent temple is the Western Wall, which was one of the walls of the platform, not the temple itself. In the Byzantine era, the Christians ignored the remains, and even used the platform as a dump.
View of the Haram al-Sharif from the Mount of Olives. The small gray dome on the left is the al-Aqsa Mosque.
When Caliph Omar conquered the city peacefully in 637, he recognized it as a holy site and cleaned it up as a Muslim shrine. He adopted the Jewish tradition that the large outcropping of rock was Mount Moriah, site of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son (Isaac or Ishmael, depending on your faith tradition). He also began the tradition of the Temple Mount as the site of Mohammed’s night journey to Jerusalem, making it the third holiest site in Islam. Omar built a small wooden mosque at one end of the platform, the original al-Aqsa Mosque. Caliph al-Malik built the Dome of the Rock at center of the platform in 691, enshrining the rock outcropping. It has been restored and rebuilt many times. With the exception of the short occupation by the Crusaders in the 12th century, the Haram al-Sharif (the name of the whole platform, which means the Noble Sanctuary) has remained in Muslim hands and cared for as a holy site.
Aerial view of the Haram al-Sharif, showing the gardens and smaller buildings surrounding the Dome of the Rock.
Unlike all the other sacred sites in Jerusalem, it is forbidden to wandering travelers. You must pass through extra security to enter, and non-Muslims are only permitted on the Haram al-Sharif for a few hours in the morning. The rest of the time, it is reserved for prayer for the Muslim community. I had not realized before our trip that it was open to visitors at all, so I felt privileged and amazed to walk around and see it with my own eyes.
Security to enter the Haram. On the left, security to get to the Western Wall. On the right, to the Haram.
The Haram itself was a beautiful array of buildings, gardens and fountains. The beautiful Dome of the Rock is at the center, and the oft-rebuilt al-Aqsa Mosque takes up the southern side. On the surrounding sides are an array of smaller buildings used as Qur’anic schools and administration buildings, along with several smaller shrines and statues. The whole place did indeed feel like a sanctuary. Gathered in small circles on plastic chairs, separate groups of men and women sat studying the Qur’an and praying together. The trees and the gardens, the buildings and the people invited peaceful attention to the glory of God. Unlike the gawdy gold domes on many state capitols here in the U.S., the ornate blue tiles and reflective gold dome did not feel like an ostentatious display. It was the crown jewel of the city, the most beautiful human space to complement and glorify the beauty of God’s presence.
Circles of women gathered on the Haram for Qur'anic study
A group of men gathered at another spot on the Haram. These small gatherings made the whole platform feel like a church campus.
We were met by Dr. Mustafa Abu Sway, a scholar of Islam at al-Quds University and a friend of one of our leaders. He gave us a rich insight into the history of the holy place, but what stands out in my memory is the perspective he offered on the present realities of Muslim life in Jerusalem. The Israeli police have confiscated more and more buildings on the Haram, for use as security outposts. Although the site is Muslim property, there are uniformed, armed police everywhere. The government has instituted age limits for permission to worship at the mosque on Fridays (the Muslim holy day). The age limits vary between 40-50, and they are always announced on Thursday evening. No one under that age is able to come to worship at the Haram. Israeli security claims this is an effort to prevent demonstrations and violence. Palestinians must have a special pass to enter Jerusalem at all. In 2008, the government revoked the rights of more than 4,500* Palestinians to enter the city. Many of them were lifelong residents of Jerusalem, and lost their employment when their passes were revoked. Even more, they lost their right to pray and worship at the Haram.
Dr. Mustafa Abu Sway speaking to our group in front of the al-Aqsa Mosque
Dr. Abu Sway told us about the bureaucratic tangle of building permits for Palestinians in Jerusalem. For Jews, a building permit is easy to obtain and costs less than $2,000. For Palestinians, the process takes many years and costs over $30,000. He and his wife finally got permission to build a home for themselves after five years of waiting for a permit, and their home was to be built on land that his wife’s family had already owned for many years. Many of his friends have become impatient with the permit process and constructed homes without a permit. Just a few weeks back, one of his fellow professors had his home of ten years demolished when the authorities discovered it was built without a permit.
Dr. Mustafa Abu Sway climbing the steps toward the Dome of the Rock
As non-Muslims, we were not permitted to enter the Dome of the Rock or the al-Aqsa Mosque. This has nothing to do with Islamic custom, attire, theology or anything else. Always in the history of Islam, non-Muslims have been welcome to enter any mosque, and even to pray there in their own tradition. However, the holy spaces on the Haram have been closed to non-Muslims as an act of solidarity with Palestinians in the West Bank, who are forbidden from entering Jerusalem and praying there. The leaders of the community felt that it was unfair for non-Muslims from across the world to have access to this sacred site when faithful Muslims a few miles away were denied the right to pray and worship there.
Listening to these stories, I felt even more grateful for the opportunity to visit the Haram at all. It felt like an act of gracious hospitality to open the Noble Sanctuary to visitors, even in a limited way. It was indeed a forbidden space, a place of mystery to many—to Orthodox Jews who are not allowed to enter because rabbis have declared it too sacred; to Muslims in the West Bank denied the right to pray in their own holy place; to Christians and tourists too intimidated by the security restrictions; to all those faithful pilgrims so caught up in their own holy sites that they do not venture into the holy site of another faith.
When the Psalmist writes about the tribes going up to pray together in unity, this is the glorious mountain of which he or she speaks. Dr. Abu Sway said that, before the restrictions, more than 400,000 people would gather on the Haram for Friday prayers during the last week of Ramadan. Imagine such a mass of people gathering at one place in peace. Imagine the nations of the world, with their many names for God, coming together to pray as one. This is the spot where the Psalmist imagined it could happen. The faiths of Jerusalem exist side-by-side, shoulder-to-shoulder, yet we cannot yet unite our voices in prayers and in peace.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May they prosper who love you.
Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers.”
For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say,
“Peace be within you.”
For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good.
—Psalm 122
*Corrected number: I originally remembered this as 400,000, instead of 4,500. Thank you to Dr. Abu Sway for the correction. See a link with more information in his comment below.
Day Thirteen: Silence and Music
Posted on: February 16, 2012
Today was our free day in Jerusalem. Apart from morning prayer and evening prayer, we had no obligations for the day, and we were free to explore on our own. While some in our group were eager to take in new sights, I felt overwhelmed by the rich experiences so far. I needed solitude, silence and space more than anything.
Beautiful gardens of the Garden Tomb
The one thing I did want to see was the Garden Tomb, so I walked a short distance from the hotel with a group first thing in the morning. The Garden Tomb was the discovery (invention?) of Major General Charles George Gordon, a British general in the late 19th century. Whether from historical doubts or simply dislike of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Sepulchre, he identified an area on the east side of Jerusalem, near the Damascus Gate, as the “true” site of Golgotha and the tomb of Jesus. The rock face does look a lot like a skull, even though it is currently covered up by a bus depot. There is a tomb there, and quite a large one, along with a large cistern and Roman-era wine press.
Gordon's Golgotha, as it appeared in the 19th Century
Gordon's Golgotha, as it appears today, with the mouth filled in for a bus depot
Scholars have since expressed major doubts about this site as a possible true location for Jesus’ crucifixion and burial, but the site still attracts major groups of pilgrims from across the world, especially Protestants. Yet still I wanted to come. Yet still they want to come. I suspect that their reason is the same as mine—whether or not the Garden Tomb has any historical or archeological connection to Jesus, it still looks just like I always imagined Jesus’ tomb would look. The site may not fit history, but it fits the picture in my head.
The Garden Tomb
Inside the Garden Tomb
The caretakers of the site have transformed it into a luscious garden, with multiple gathering spaces for tour groups. They offered our small, disorganized band the opportunity to celebrate communion together—they provide the elements, we perform our own liturgy. Unlike the noisy, jostling competition at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Garden Tomb was quiet and invited solitude, rest and contemplation. Although it was no less man-made than the Holy Sepulchre, it was like an Olmstead park, designed to look natural and create a sense of peace and communion with the natural world. I loved it. I don’t know what it actually looked like when Mary Magdalene mistook Jesus for a gardener outside the tomb, but this is what I wanted it to look like.
One of my favorite parts of this visit was our tour guide. A Methodist pastor from England on sabbatical, she made me feel like we were getting a tour from the Vicar of Dibley.
There is reason to be cautious, of course, when holy sites conform too readily to our expectations. In some ways, the Garden Tomb felt like a Walt Disney production, designed to make all those who entered feel like it was the “happiest place on earth.” Its conformity to all my fantasies made me doubt it even more, and question what those fantasies said about me and my theology. Yet it offered me a great deal of solace to contemplate the resurrection story taking place in this beautiful, tranquil location. As I have been saying throughout this trip, it’s not about what may or may not have happened here 2,000 years ago (or more). It’s about connecting the ancient story to the presence of the living Christ in our midst. The beauty and serenity of the Garden Tomb gave a visual aspect to my faithful imagination of the resurrection story.
The area surrounding the Garden Tomb was simply beautiful and serene.
From there, one other member of the group departed for the other side of the city. He wanted to walk the Via Dolorosa, and I wanted to revisit the Church of St. Ann, which is at the start of the Via. When we were there on our first day in Jerusalem, we sang as a group. People urged those of us in the group with strong singing voices to take our turns at a solo, but I was not ready. In the moment, I felt like my voice wasn’t ready, and that it would feel too much like a performance and not enough like prayer. Still, I was haunted from the time we left by the desire to sing Mallotte’s “The Lord’s Prayer” in that space. It felt like an offering I needed to leave in that place, so I returned with only one companion.
When we arrived, another tour group was gathering to sing. Their faces were Asian, but they sang in perfect English, “Amazing Grace” and a contemporary praise song about “my chains are broken.” They might have been from anywhere in the world. When they left, there was a break. I offered my companion the chance to sing, since he is also a musician, but he declined. I knew I might not have another chance, so I closed my eyes, moved to the front, and began to sing “The Lord’s Prayer.”
Since I was a little girl, I have sung songs to God as my most intimate form of prayer. Even now, I will go to the church I serve when no one else is there, just to sing into the silence of the sanctuary. It felt like such an amazing gift to be (almost) alone in such a busy place, with tour groups filing in and out. My voice was far from perfect, because I was battling a cold at the time, but the space was so resonant it sounded full anyway. As the song worked through to its high notes and climax, I kept my eyes closed, but I could hear the scuffle of feet as people entered the sanctuary. Even in those few seconds, I could feel the tension—should I stop and make room? I didn’t want to perform for people, could I just quit? I decided that this was my offering, my prayer, and I should finish what I had begun.
The simple stone Church of St. Ann
When I opened my eyes, there were three Greek orthodox priests in full beards and vestments standing a few feet away, looking stern and surrounded by a large group of pilgrims. I quietly slipped to my seat, and they proceeded forward to sing and pray an entire short service together. I listened with delight to the echo of their strong chants from the rafters, the murmured prayers of the faithful circling the walls, still a bit nervous from having been overheard in my own song. When they finished, I bowed my head as they began to leave, trying to be inconspicuous. Suddenly, one of the stern-looking priests tapped my shoulder, “Bravo! Bravo!” he practically shouted, grinning widely and surrounded by gestures of approval from all the pilgrims. One of the last, an older gentleman, asked me if I was Czech. I told him I was American, and found out they were Bulgarian.
My companion left to continue down the Via Dolorosa. Even though my mission was accomplished, I felt such a sense of peace and joy that I did not want to leave. One by one, more groups came and went from the chapel, and I sat and listened to their songs. A group from Malaysia sang “How Great Thou Art” and the doxology. A group from Texas and Mexico offered “Sing Alleluia to the Lord,” and “Alleluia, Alleluia” in English and Spanish. Two members of the group began a duet in Spanish with many verses. Everyone else left, but they continued singing. The tour guide returned to urge them on once, twice, three times—but they concluded their song without leaving. A German group sang one tune I recognized, and one I did not. An English group sang “Amazing Grace,” with all the verses.
One of the groups singing at St. Ann's
When I knew the songs and they sung in English, I joined my voice to theirs. Otherwise, I just sat and listened. My soul reached a deep level of bliss in that place. From all over the world, people came and made their offerings in many languages. I meditated on all the prayers and songs those walls had heard, reflected and absorbed over the centuries. The sanctuary itself is simple and plain, with grayish white stones stacked high. Its true beauty is only made known when people come inside and begin to praise God. The acoustics take over, and even mediocre voices are transformed into glorious praises.
The amazing stone ceiling at St. Ann's
After nearly two hours there, the priest and I were the only ones left. He told me that the groups were finished for the day, but invited me to stay for as long as I desired. Alone, I returned to the front of the sanctuary and began to sing again—a reprise of “The Lord’s Prayer,” “It is Well with My Soul,” “I Love You, Lord,” and more. My songs were my prayer, from a place of deep joy and ecstasy in praising God in that place. Soli Deo Gloria.
I found space, solitude and silence, but I also found music and movement and beauty. Thanks be to God.
The Art of Pilgrimage: The Seeker’s Guide to Making Travel Sacred, by Phil Cousineau, Conari Press, 1998, 254 pp.
I purchased two books on pilgrimage before my trip, to read along the journey. I wanted this journey to be more than exciting travel—I wanted to encounter the Spirit there. As you can see if you’ve been reading the posts surrounding this one, that hope was more than fulfilled. Cousineau’s book offered the right insights and provoked the right questions to open me to the pilgrimage experience.
Cousineau does not write from a Christian perspective, and he takes a broad view of pilgrimage. A pilgrimage, he says, is a “transformative journey to a sacred center.” (xxiii) That might be the Holy Land, but it might also be any ancient ruins, or a natural phenomenon, or the home of a favorite author, or the grave of a pop star, if those places are sacred for the traveler. This book aims to help travelers become pilgrims by bringing them to mindfulness or “soulfulness, the ability to respond from our deepest place.” (xxvii)
Through storytelling from famous pilgrims, mythical travelers and ordinary people, Cousineau walks through the various stages of the pilgrimage experience. First, there is longing—the inward desire to see the world differently, to be challenged and changed, to find themselves anew and live life more fully. Then comes the calling and the departure, followed by more about the way of the pilgrim. Unlike tourists, pilgrims travel with intention, with the desire to see the sacred in every moment and discover meaning in every encounter. As such, the practices of reflection, walking, reading, writing, and being present in time become as much a part of the journey as the sights themselves.
Cousineau uses the metaphor of the labyrinth to understand the pilgrimage journey, inviting pilgrims to get lost in the deep places of their spirit, including room for brooding. I read this chapter just after Day Ten of my pilgrimage, and I connected with the struggles he described as a part of the transformative nature of the journey. At the center of the labyrinth is the arrival, the experience of arriving at that sacred place, both inward and outward.
I especially appreciated the final chapter, “Bringing Back the Boon.” Cousineau recognizes that a pilgrimage is not just about the pilgrim. If we are given the opportunity to be a pilgrim, it is not just for ourselves—we have a mission responsibility to return back and share what we have learned and experienced. There is work to be done when we return to help us remember the journey, and all that we learned. I feel like I am doing that work now—looking at pictures, completing blog post reflections, reading and reflecting, preparing to share with my congregation.
Cousineau’s book is an excellent resource for anyone who is interested in moving from a tourist to a pilgrim, and yearning to make their travel a more sacred experience. Pilgrimage doesn’t require a journey halfway around the world. You can engage a pilgrimage spirit for a trip into your own backyard. Cousineau will help show the way.
Day Twelve: Recreation
Posted on: February 13, 2012
After the deep emotional and spiritual work we had been doing on our first few days in Jerusalem, all of us were relieved for a day of recreation in the desert. The day’s agenda included a trip to Qumran (where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered), swimming in the Dead Sea, a cable car ride to the Monastery of the Temptation, and exploring the Tel as-Sultan in Jericho. All of these destinations were fascinating, but they did not carry such a burdensome weight of spiritual history. I was ready to engage the day with the joy and delight of new experiences.
Leaving behind the green of Jerusalem as we enter the Judean wilderness
We drove out of the city by going over the Mount of Olives, which is 2600 feet above sea level. In less than 20 miles, we dropped nearly 4000 feet—the shores of the Dead Sea are almost 1400 feet below sea level, the lowest place on earth. Our ears were a-popping! On the way, we again took one of the new roads built by the Israelis to facilitate Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which ran like a direct highway into the Judean wilderness. Our driver, Talib, pointed out that Palestinians were not allowed to drive on this road, but used the old Roman road that wound through the towns of Bethany, Bethphage and more. Everywhere you go in Israel/Palestine, you are confronted with the struggle over control of land and property.
A truck with Palestinian plates drives parallel to us on the Roman Road, unable to use the new highway.
An Israeli settlement in the West Bank.
We also saw many Bedouin encampments along the way. Israel has given the Bedouin citizenship rights, but demanded that they settled down from their nomadic practices. The encampments we saw in the Judean wilderness were rudimentary, although we saw evidence in the Galilee of towns and schools built especially for Bedouin communities. The major cultural shifts away from nomadic life among the Bedouin have not come easily, and poverty is in evidence everywhere.
A Bedouin settlement
The highlight of the Bedouin territory, especially for those of us who are the parents of young children, were the camels. There were camels everywhere! They caught us by surprise on the way down, but we vowed to have our cameras at the ready for our return. We all wanted a photo of the camels to show our children when we returned.
One lonely camel, whose picture is fuzzy because it was taken out the bus window at full speed.
Our first stop was Qumran, where the famous Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered by a young Bedouin boy in a cave in 1947. Between 1947 and 1956, nearly 1,000 scrolls were found in nearby caves, preserved almost perfectly for 2,000 years. They represent copies of Hebrew Bible books, along with community rules and logs from the Essene community. The scrolls have made major impacts on biblical scholarship, and it was fascinating to look out on the hillside and see the caves where they were found. Next time I see a note in my study bible about “Q4,” I’ll know that it refers to a scroll found in Cave 4, which I saw with my own eyes.
A reproduction of one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, on display at Qumran
Cave 4, where several scrolls were found
Qumran has since become a site of major excavations, uncovering the community life of the Essenes. The Essenes were a Jewish sect that existed from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE. They chose to withdraw from the Second Temple practices and follow a stricter community rule which included common meals, ritual baths, celibacy and group living. Many think John the Baptist had some connection with the Essenes. The Qumran site has uncovered their cisterns, aqueducts, dining area, and many ritual baths, along with artifacts and Dead Sea scrolls that detail life in the community. It was fascinating to imagine a community living in the desert in such ascetic conditions.
Steps for the ritual bath, divided into three sections. One for those unclean going in, one for those clean going out, with the middle section to separate them from one another.
The remains of a first-century latrine at Qumran.
From Qumran, we completed our descent to the shores of the Dead Sea, where we donned swimsuits and took a dunk in the famous salt and mineral-laden waters. Swimming in the Dead Sea was just pure fun. Each of us cast aside our concerns about body image or looking graceful, and just acted like children at the beach. Any hope of dignity soon disappeared when the knee-deep mud at the water’s edge caused most of us to fall in immediately, covered in the (supposedly beautifying) Dead Sea mud. The 28.5% salt and mineral content makes it impossible to sink in the Sea, but it also is challenging to get any parts of your body to stay under the water! As a group, we laughed and laughed as each of us tried to shift our weight and get our feet underneath us into a standing position, only to see them bounce to the surface again. Once we got the hang of floating, we even engaged in some synchronized swimming, much to the amusement of ourselves and our colleagues on the shore.
Synchronized swimming in the Dead Sea
Like our “polar plunge” in the Sea of Galilee, floating in the Dead Sea felt like the healing waters of baptism. Casting off any cares and concerns, I just let my body get covered in mud and float around awkwardly in the water. Our tour guide told us, with a wink and a smile, that a swim in the Dead Sea minerals will make you look 10 years younger. I’m not sure my skin felt that much smoother, but my heart definitely felt lighter from the joy and playfulness of the place.
Check it out: no hands AND no feet in the water, yet still we float! How cool is that?
After cleaning up and changing from our swim, we headed into Jericho (part of the West Bank). You wouldn’t think that the forbidding monastery built into the cliff cave on the Mount of Temptation (traditional site of Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness) would also be a site of joy and playfulness, but when you have to take a cable car ride to get there, it has a certain amusement park feel to it. Our group piled into three cable cars to make the five minute ascent to the top. We laughed and took pictures of the amazing view, and someone even started a light-hearted Hava Nashira, with each car singing one part of the round.
The cable car for the ride up to the Mount of Temptation
Can you see our destination? On the left, almost to the top of the mountain, the monastery hangs off the cliff.
Waving and taking pictures and singing "Hava Nashira"
The monastery is only 350 meters above sea level, which doesn’t sound like much until you remember that you’re starting near the Dead Sea, which is nearly 1400 feet below sea level—so it’s actually a steep climb. At the top, the monastery itself hovers out over the sheer cliff face, looking over a series of caves that have served as hermitage sites for Christian monastics since the first centuries after Christ. We got our exercise with more switchback steps on the mountainside, but it was worth the workout to see the spectacular view from the monastery. On the right were the hillside caves, and on the left were the monastery cubicles built off the side of the mountain. Although this was first developed as a monastic site by the Byzantines in the 5th century, it was abandoned and destroyed and not rebuilt until the late 19th century. This site was not for those who are afraid of heights!
Once we got to the top, we still had to climb all these steps to reach the monastery.
Looking out from the monastery to the caves in the cliff. These are the kinds of caves Jesus would have spent time in during his temptation in the wilderness. You can't tell from the photo, but they are hundreds of feet up the cliff, nearly impossible to reach.
Hanging off the side of the cliff, looking back at the monastery and the caves.
After a cable car descent, lunch and a little shopping, we explored Tel as-Sultan, the site of historic Jericho. The signs all claim that Jericho is the oldest continuously-occupied city in the world, dating back at least 12,000 years. As we climbed the archeological site, we saw the remaining walls of mud brick dwellings from several periods before Christ, along with black layers indicating the city’s destruction. Despite the wealth of archeological information found in the city, there is no evidence of that the famous walls ever “came a-tumblin’ down.” The most interesting and impressive find doesn’t look like much in the photo, but it is a Neolithic tower, a stone structure built sometime around 10,000 BCE, probably for worship. It was amazing to stand on the hilltop and imagine that human beings had been making a way of life in this desert for millenia.
The circular stone tower at the center dates back to the Neolithic period in Jericho.
If you look closely, you can see various layers of brick, and even the two layers of black indicating fires.
Me in Jericho, the oldest continuously-occupied city in the world, with mud-brick Bronze Age homes in the background.
When we piled back into the bus to return to Jerusalem, the air was full of laughter and joy. The tour guide teased us for our obsession with the camels, and we teased each other for rocking the cable cars, buying goofy souvenirs, getting stuck in the mud, and not losing as many wrinkles as we had hoped after our dip in the Dead Sea. We agreed that, even if the outside didn’t show it, we all felt younger at heart after our boisterous fun. Friendship, laughter, playfulness, joy—these are part of the pilgrimage experience, too. This day of recreation was just as holy as the days of serious contemplation, and we were re-created, renewed in joy and love.
Camels! Look at all the camels!
For The Someday Book 