REFLECTION
One thing there is little time for when you've traveled 6,000 miles and backwards two centuries, is reflection.
Yesterday, after our morning trek into Bethlehem, we entered Jerusalem through the Zion Gate...visited Kind David's Tomb the holiest site in Judaism... climbed the steps to the Upper Room and continued a walking tour of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. We saw several underground excavations of houses destroyed in the Roman conquest at the time of the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. And that was before lunch -- really.
Our hotel sits just across a valley from the Old City facing south and a little east. From the floor to ceiling window we can see the Mount of Olives and the Muslim Quarter [which in reality is more like the 2/3rds] within the walls of the Old City.
This morning I heard the loud speakers blare the Muslim call to prayer before the sun came up. Now as the sun cuts through the morning haze the surface beauty of this troubled city begins to take shape and form.
There has been a law in Jerusalem for some time that the facades of all the buildings, homes and offices, must be "Jerusalem stone." Everywhere you look are creamy white limstone blocks, some chisled, some smooth. They hide the differences and the unrest of a nation that is always on red alert status.
So this morning I pause to pray for the people of Jerusalem and of Bethlehem. As the sun now rises over the cloud bank that delayed the dawn, I pray for the delayed peace that Christ came to initiate. I pray for the day (and hope that it is soon) when those who wear crosses, and those who wear yamalkas and those who stop to pray when the speakers blare, will live together as seemlessly as this mass of Jerusalem stone buildings. There is no human facade that can make it so -- only the Prince of Peace can make it true. BLESSINGS AND PEACE, THE CELTIC MONK
Yesterday, after our morning trek into Bethlehem, we entered Jerusalem through the Zion Gate...visited Kind David's Tomb the holiest site in Judaism... climbed the steps to the Upper Room and continued a walking tour of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. We saw several underground excavations of houses destroyed in the Roman conquest at the time of the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. And that was before lunch -- really.
Our hotel sits just across a valley from the Old City facing south and a little east. From the floor to ceiling window we can see the Mount of Olives and the Muslim Quarter [which in reality is more like the 2/3rds] within the walls of the Old City.
This morning I heard the loud speakers blare the Muslim call to prayer before the sun came up. Now as the sun cuts through the morning haze the surface beauty of this troubled city begins to take shape and form.
There has been a law in Jerusalem for some time that the facades of all the buildings, homes and offices, must be "Jerusalem stone." Everywhere you look are creamy white limstone blocks, some chisled, some smooth. They hide the differences and the unrest of a nation that is always on red alert status.
So this morning I pause to pray for the people of Jerusalem and of Bethlehem. As the sun now rises over the cloud bank that delayed the dawn, I pray for the delayed peace that Christ came to initiate. I pray for the day (and hope that it is soon) when those who wear crosses, and those who wear yamalkas and those who stop to pray when the speakers blare, will live together as seemlessly as this mass of Jerusalem stone buildings. There is no human facade that can make it so -- only the Prince of Peace can make it true. BLESSINGS AND PEACE, THE CELTIC MONK
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