REDONDOWRITER'S SACRED ORDINARY

A Passel of Icons in Bethlehem - Day 11 - Twelve Days of Mary & Haiku My Heart

When I was on a pilgrimage trip to Israel five years ago, one of the highlights was a visit to Bethlehem in Palestine where many holy churches and landmarks are located. The site of Jesus's birth is inside one of the oldest known churches, The Church of the Nativity, in Manger Square. As you probably know, there is a high wall around Bethlehem and before we entered the city two painfully young Palestinian soldiers in uniform and carrying automatic weapons boarded to check us out. The bus parked and we walked by the heavily graffitied wall into Bethlehem. One of our first stops was The Lama Brothers shop featuring carved olive wood items and other religious items. This basket holding a variety of hand-carved icons immediately caught my eye. Twice during our pilgrimage we ate family style  at Ruth's Field restaurant in the Shepherd's Field area of Bethlehem. 

CARVED OLIVE WOOD

MARY, JESUS, ANGELS, SAINTS

ON MY MASTER CARD

It's Friday so  Twelve Days of Mary at Rebecca Brooks Recuerda mi Corazon combines with Haiku My Heart.

A Virgin a Day: Advent 10: Mary at the Church of the Visitation

When I took part in a pilgrimage to the Holy Land three years ago, an exceptionally beautiful day excursion was to the town of Ein Karem outside of Jerusalem, home to the Church of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist and the Church of the Visitation. To read in depth about the homes of Elizabeth and Zechariah, the parents of John the Baptist, and the visitation to Mary while visiting Elizabeth, go to this link. Ein Karem was so green and lush and so very different from everywhere else we visited in the Holy Land. 

This particular photo is from inside The Church of the Visitation.

The Virgin Mary’s visit to Elizabeth, depicted in mosaic on the façade of this two-tiered church, is commemorated on a slope of the hill south of Ein Karem. Completed in 1955 to a design by Antonio Barluzzi, the artistically decorated Church of the Visitation is considered one of the most beautiful of all the Gospel sites in the Holy Land.

This is believed to be the site of Zechariah and Elizabeth’s summer house, where Mary came to visit her cousin. On the wall opposite the church, ceramic plaques reproduce Mary’s canticle of praise, the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) in some 50 languages.

In the lower chapel, a vaulted passage leads to an old well. An ancient tradition asserts that a spring joyfully burst out of the rock here when Mary greeted Elizabeth.

A huge stone set in a niche is known as the Stone of Hiding. According to an ancient tradition, the stone opened to provide a hiding place for the baby John during Herod’s Massacre of the Innocents, an event depicted in a painting on the wall.

In a valley on the south of the village is a fresh-water spring known as Mary’s Spring or the Fountain of the Virgin. Tradition has it that Mary quenched her thirst from this spring before ascending the hill to meet Elizabeth. The spring gives the village its name from the Arabic “ein” (spring) and kerem (vineyard or olive grove). Built over the spring is a small abandoned mosque, another reminder that this was once an Arab village. Southwest of Ein Karem, a Greek Melkit monastery and a Franciscan convent mark the Desert of St. John, a site where John the Baptist is believed to have lived in seclusion.

These sites were on hills and with my decreased lung capacity, it was a real struggle for me personally to reach these sites, but I’m so glad I did. I carry each of them in my heart.

To see more entries of other participants on this tenth day of the Twelve Days of Mary leading up to the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Dec. 12, go to Rebecca’s Recuerda mi Corazon.

 

Postcards: Palm Sunday Walk From Jerusalem's Mount of Olives

Rebecca's Sunday challenge is called Postcards from Paradise, but I guess it's hard for me to think of Jerusalem as paradise on this Palm Sunday 2012. I have relived our pilgrimage to the Holy Land over and over again and so much of it was pure joy. Seeing all the sites Jesus walked that last week of his life is forever imprinted in memory.

This is a photo I took of old Jerusalem and the Temple Mount in 2011 as our pilgrimage group made its way down the hillside to the Garden of Gethsemane. 

GoIsrael describes the awe and wonder of the Palm Sunday walk much better than I can. 

"The view from the Mount of Olives is wondrous: the densely packed walled city of Jerusalem embraced by the Hinnom and Kidron valleys, the Golden Gate to Mount Moriah, the Temple Mount, Mount Zion, City of David and more, bring alive both prophecy and Psalms. It is from the Mount of Olives, with its view not only toward the Holy City and its green surroundings, but toward the wilderness, that one understands how Jerusalem got one of its earliest names, Zion (2 Sam. 5:7), which comes from a word meaning desert. 

On the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives is Bethany, where a beautiful church marks the home of Lazarus, Mary and Martha (John 1:11), and where visitors can descend and emerge dramatically from the traditional tomb of Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead (John 11:43).

The Palm Sunday Walk, which begins at Bethphage, follows the traditional path Jesus took in his triumphal entry to the Holy City (John 12:13-15). It stops in the quiet garden chapel of Dominus Flevit, marking the site where Jesus wept over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41), and then passes the ancient Jewish cemetery, where the deceased await the resurrection when the Messiah comes to the Mount of Olives (Zach. 14:4). This is an important place to pause and consider that the Mount of Olives is not only a geographical link between the desert and the fertile Jerusalem hills, it is the spiritual link between death and life, also emphasized by the resurrection of Lazarus in Bethany. 

In the early days of Christianity, monks came to the Mount of Olives in large numbers, seeking the solitude of its heights where they could deepen their understanding of these and other Scriptural truths.  

The Palm Sunday walk culminates in the Garden of Gethsemane, one of the most dramatic sites on a Christian itinerary." 

All I know is that studying scripture and the life of Jesus came alive for me last year and I am grateful I had the experience of following in Jesus' footsteps. 

Hamsa Hands: Gifts from Israel

When I was buying gifts to bring back home during my February pilgrimage trip to Israel, I included five gifts to myself among 20 or so that I purchased. One was a hand carved rosewood rosary from Bethlehem, a beautiful plaque of the sixth station of the cross (Veronica wipes the tears from Jesus's face), a small plaque from Bethlehem's Milk Grotto near the Church of the Nativity, and two metal hamsa hands in cobalt blue. 

This a five inch amulet of a hamsa hand. 

About: The hamsa is an ancient Middle Eastern amulet symbolizing the Hand of God. In all faiths it is a protective sign. It brings it's owner happiness, luck, health, and good fortune.

The hamsa hand is known by many names—hamsa, hamsa hand, hamesh, hamesh hand, khamsa, and chamsa. It is also called the Hand of Miriam, named for Moses and Aaron’s sister, Hand of Fatima. There are two main styles of a hamsa hand: the most popular is the stylized hamsa hand with two symmetrical thumbs, but there are also hamsa hands that are not symmetrical and shaped like actual hands.

Either hamsa hand can be worn with the fingers pointing up or down, and both are believed to offer its owner happiness, peace, and prosperity, as well as protection from the ayin ha'ra, or the evil eye. The renewed interest in Kabbalah and mystical Judaism has brought the hamsa pendant back into vogue, and many artists are using the image of the hamsa hand in various aspects of their art including hamsa jewelry, paintings, sculptures, wall hamsas, and amulets.

Origin: Although the hamsa hand has been symbolic in Islam and Judaism for centuries, archeological digs in the Middle East provide evidence that the hamsa pre-dates these religions and originated with the Phoenicians and was used as a protective symbol for an ancient Middle Eastern goddess. The hamsa hand has always been associated with a female entity offering protection from evil and misfortune.

When I had traveled in Greece and Turkey three years ago, I don't remember seeing hamsa hands, or maybe they weren't on my radar screen. Evil eye amulets were everywhere in both countries, however, and hamsa hands usually have an eye in the center. I found out that belief in the evil eye is very old. It is mentioned in the Old Testament of the Bible and references to it appear in cuneiform texts of the Sumerians dated to 3000 BC.(How about that knowledge for Trivial Pursuit?)

I purchased this one from a small gift shop inside the old city of Jerusalem from a small shop right outside the Jaffa Gate. Here I am with the two men working in the shop that day who were joking with all the women tourists about ways they might come to America. 

As some of you know, I collect cobalt blue glass and both the hamsa hands I purchased, were in that color. 

This hamsa hand is keychain size and it is my plan to incorporate it into a mixed media art piece of some sort. The larger one is hanging with my other sacred objects on a wall next to my bed. 

Have you heard of or do you have different variations of hamsa hands? A Google search showed hundreds of pieces of jewelry available as well as stylized wall hangings. 

 

 

 

Second Station on the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem

When Mary Lou and I were on our pilgrimage tour in the Holy Land in February, we walked the Via Dolorosa, or the Way of the Cross. The time we spent in Galilee, Nazareth and all the places of Jesus's ministry was deeply moving to me and I had apprehension about Jerusalem. Holy Week has always been hard for me, but I will admit that being in Jerusalem following Jesus's journey beginning on Palm Sunday brought new insights into my Christianity.

And then it was time for the Passion walk. We walked from our hotel in the Old City to the Way of the Cross at 5 a.m. and to my surprise, we actually carried a cross four at a time from station to station. The last stations are actually inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This was the second station after Jesus condemnation and when he is first given his cross. Mary Lou and I are the ones in the red coats carrying the cross. 

I was so occupied with family the entire day and evening today but I frequently remembered the significance of Good Friday. I will never forget this experience. 

Visiting the Dead Sea: The Lowest Place on the Planet

There isn't a tourist who goes to Israel, Palestine or Jordan who doesn't want to visit the Dead Sea, and my tour was no exception. I've floated in the Great Salt Lake in Utah and being of a "certain age" now, I decided I would leave it to the more hardy in my group. It was a hoot to watch, though.

Here is one of the signs that caught my eye as we started the descent down to the lowest place on the planet. 

These were the instructions for the hardy ones who would go into the water. By the way, it smelled there and the descent was very sharp. I had to work at getting back up. 

This is Maria, who actually had a much harder time than I did getting around on our tour--but she was game for everything. She was also the first to ride the camel. 

This was one of the many eager families who slathered the mud all over themselves. 

The Dead Sea Cosmetic Store was a big hit with a lot of the tourists, but I resisted. You can buy this stuff on the Internet including Amazon.com.

Below is a short video from YouTube that might give you a better feel for what it was like. This was a fun visit, but not anywhere near the top of what I saw. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's Hard to View the Israeli-Palestine Ongoing Conflicts Impersonally Having Been There

I first heard of today's Jerusalem bus stop bombing on NPR as I prepared for work, but read about it on CNN. "A woman was killed and more than 50 people were wounded when a loud explosion shook a busy street in Jerusalem as the evening rush hour began on Wednesday, authorities said. Several of the wounded were critically injured in the first serious bombing in Jerusalem in four years, authorities said."

It seems hard to believe that only a month ago I was in Israel and Palestine but I felt very safe even though the entire Middle East seems largely in turmoil. Around the world we hear about the Israel/Palestine ongoing conflict, but I have never really "gotten it" until I was there. Now that I understand better, I still feel utterly confused.  I found several websites on my return to the U.S. that were largely biased one way or the other, but this "In a Nutshell: Israeli/Palestine Conflict" at Mideast Web gave me the history that seemed most neutral. Whether the site itself is actually neutral seems unclear to me. As those of you know who read here regularly, I rarely discuss politics and that includes this post. I want to make it very clear that terrorism and the killing of innocent civilians can never be justified in my book. 

There are fences dividing Israel and Palestine as you drive through the countries, but the wall through Bethlehem reminded me of the Berlin Wall. I was synchronistically in Berlin on the third day when that wall came down, and when we visited Bethlehem I had a very visceral reaction to what I was seeing. I am sharing a few photos here, but I have chosen ones that are not vicious in content. You can click on the photos for more detail. 

Here our tour group approaches the wall. 

If I understand correctly, the current hostilities escalated after the murder of a family of five Jewish people in the West Bank last week. Then shellings began from Gaza into Israel and vice versa, and now this bombing today. Would I go there now? I'm not sure. I was very impressed with all the Jews and Palestinians I met and the countries are beautiful. 

Until last month I noted news coming out of Israel and Palestine fairly neutrally, but having been there, it's hard being objective. 

As my mom would have said in the olden days, "It seems like the whole world is going to hell in a hand basket." Check World Wide Words for that definition. 

Afterthought: I have gotten some comments informing me that the site I mention above, Mideast Web, says it is neutral but that it is in actuality a pro-Jewish site. If I have offended anyone, my apologies. A few people have recommended Electronic Intifada. I haven't had time to research there yet, but I assume it will show me the Palestinian viewpoint. Be sure to read the comments here as people who know more than I do are leaving them. 

 

 

Deeply Touched by the Abu Ghosh Benedictine Monastery

On the way up from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, among turns and bends of the hilly scenery, lies the village of Abu Gosh. It is a Christian-Arab village built on a mountainside. Looking up from its lowest point, you see a charming and picturesque village. I saw so many churches and holy sites during our February pilgrimage, but perhaps it was at the end of the trip, this church, near Emmaus, remains very vivid in my mind. 

The village of Abu Gosh was first settled over 6,000 years ago. In the biblical period, it was known as Kiryat Ye'arim, and was a ceremonial center where the Ark of the Covenant was placed. In the Byzantine era (some 1,500 years ago), Kiryat Ye’arim became a holy place and a church was built in the village. During the Crusader Period (about 1,000 years ago), the village was ascribed as the place where Jesus revealed himself after his resurrection  and the Benedictine Monastery was built. The monastery is one of the most beautiful buildings preserved from the Crusader Period, and can still be visited. It is located in the heart of a well-tended garden with ancient trees. Impressive frescoes are painted on the inner walls, and a fountain flows from the crypt at the base of the monastery. One of the things that fascinated me was that when the Muslims gained control of this monastery after the Crusades, they removed the faces on the frescoes as their religion does not believe in imagery. Our tour guide said it was unusual that they left the painting themselves. They remain the way the Muslims left them. 

When I returned home and did a little research, I found that Abu Ghosh is also the site of a famous annual music festival and a restaurant there is also in the Guinness Book of World Records as making the largest hummus serving. 

Below is a lovely introduction of the Benedictine Monastery in Abu Gosh prepared by iTravel Jerusalem.

   

This video, however, has really moved me because it includes both the Muslim call to prayer followed by the choir in the Benedictine Monastery. 

 

This is my close-up of one of the faceless frescoes. 

This is an exquisite carved and painted wood fold-up confessional. 

My trip comes and goes and particularly in my dreams and I know I must fully document it during my summer break before I lose the experience. 

 

Musings on the Renewal of Wedding Vows in Cana

Jesus first recorded miracle took place at the wedding feast in Cana. The wine was running out at the reception and Mary asked Jesus if he could intercede. He didn't want to, but he did. We had toured Cana, tasted Cana wedding wine (truly awful!), and then the married couples on the trip were invited to renew their wedding vows at the Franciscan Wedding Church built over the site where the miracle happened. 

I have been divorced since 1987 and my travel mate Mary Lou was widowed six months ago after 49 years of marriage. My own sorrow welled up at what I've never been able to fully integrate: our divorce. But, seeing the faces of the couples renewing their vows, quickly made me grateful for the 22 or so years of good marriage we had until it all began to unravel. All the photos below can be enlarged if you click them.

I was very touched with the renewal of vows. See the earnestness on this husband's face. It made my own sorrow quickly fade away. 

I suggested to Mary Lou that we take photos of each other's rings in remembrance of the good years we had had. Below are Mary Lou's rings that Larry had reset some years ago along with stones from her late mother's rings.

And below are my maternal grandmother's wedding rings I wear on my right hand. My daughter Christy and my son-in-law Lorenzo had them sized for me for Christmas three years ago and I no longer remove them. 

But enough of the sentimentality. Cana is a very touristy town, filled with curio shops, novelties and wine tasting and buying stores. I thought you might like this photo, too. 

Some Sea of Galilee Memories

For four nights we stayed at the Pilger Haus on the Sea of Galilee right next to the Church of the Multiplication and the Mt. of Beatitudes. 

Pilger Haus, established by a German man in the late 1800s, was an excellent location and I can't recommend it enough. Here's a little video clip from YouTube about the Tabgha area.

 

This is a photo of Mary Lou, my travel mate, and I after we had filled our plastic bottles with water from the Galilee. This beach is on the Pilgerhaus property. We filled our bottles at the Jordan River, too, where Mary Lou almost fell in because the ground was so muddy. It had rained the day before. 

Another of the touristy things to do is go out on a boat on the Sea of Galilee. My nephew Ted reported that the priest on his pilgrimage said mass on the boat, but we watched one of the "sailors" cast a net; he didn't catch anything, by the way. I'm hunting for some small vials now to transfer the water into so I can share it with friends and family. 

Our net caster was also our dance teacher for an on-board Israeli dance. 

He also doubled as a souvenir seller in his spare time. 

The Sea of Galilee area is so beautiful and there were so many pilgrimage sites to see--and pilgrims seeing them. I'm having little brain snapshots as I begin to debrief the trip. Some of them match photos I took. My style is to always record the story or the metaphor behind what I am photographing. I watched a young priest say mass outdoors overlooking the Galilee; he was all by himself. Our priest, Fr. Ray, said mass after him in the same spot. Here is the young priest, unaware here and below, that I was taking photos. 

Later, when we toured the Church of Multiplication (loaves and fishes), I tried to speak to him to say thanks but he mentioned four languages he spoke, but not English. I later saw him at the edge of the Galilee deep in thought.

If I remember correctly, that is Syria you see across the Galilee. 

I keep trying to explain to people, when asked, what the trip turned out to mean to me. I find that I can't stay focused for very long, although the sorting of photos helps. It was spiritual, but it was far more than that. Like all my travels, particularly when I leave the U.S., it has made me more aware of "No Man is an Island." I get so bogged down in my own culture and my own life that I forget to stand outside of it to feel the interconnectedness. 

I'll begin interspersing Israel memories and photos along with every day life back in Redondo Beach and Palos Verdes beginning tomorrow as I attempt to re-integrate. I still feel like I'm in two, if not 500, places at a time right now.