Today, yesterday I left, packed, fretted and stressed and leapt a little...and now I'm lying in the bed at the Coptic Guest House in Jerusalem's Old city on the first night of this trek! I'm here with fellow travelers, all wanting a piece of what Max Carter, Friends Center and Campus Ministry Director at Guilford, has to give them from his 44 years of visiting this part of the world. First as a young Conscientious Objector teaching at Ramallah Friends School in 1970, and now as an almost retired pastoral minister and leader at Guilford, Max has brought numbers of people here to experience the layer upon layer that is the "Holy Land." I'm grateful to be among the members of another group he is leading with wife Jane. His almost childlike enthusiasm for every chapter of the "story" here is infectious and his energy rivals and surpasses all of ours, even the young ones just starting their college experience.
Yesterday and today the universe smiled on us as we breezed down I-40, everyone made their connections, we arrived safely in Newark, boarded our flight to Tel Aviv, and then casually walked through customs at the airport. It was the afternoon of Shabbat and very quiet. I expected an abrupt cultural force to be waiting for us, and to be questioned and intimidated at the custom gates. No such thing happened today. We stepped out of the airport to a delightful upper 70's temperature, blue skies, and a kind bus driver - with a luxurious tour bus!
Straight to the Damascus gate we went, rolling and carrying our luggage as we entered this city that has existed even before time it seems. The way in was a ride through hillsides of rocky terrain and olive trees, settlement housing, and Palestinian dwellings. A snapshot of childhood Bible stories.
Tonight the streets of West Jerusalem were quiet as we strolled after dinner to get our bearings. We were met by two lovely women who run this Guest House which is next to the Coptic Monastery. Traditional Jews in their black dress with brimmed hats, fur hats, curls and prayer shawls flooded the streets on the way to the western wall for prayer. We circled outside of the walled city and then back in, passing the Lutheran Church, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and endless shops
Our group is kind and adaptive. Two rising 2nd year students, an alumnus, a faculty member, a young Quaker RN from Indiana, a CCE student, a Quaker woman/Friend of Guilford from Mt. Airy, Max, Jane and me. I feel good about these companions.
I'm thinking about my sweet Grandmother who made this trip in 1989 with her sis, my Aunt Mabel. They were 79 and 81 years old. My "Naneen" had never left the country and really never had ventured out of NC/SC in her life! I will love thinking of those two here, and what it must have been like for them to see places that were such a part of their spiritual lives, albeit a most western, American, white, middle class, protestant view and trip. Regardless, they stepped out of their lives to be here, mostly buoyed I bet by their love for each other and their love for goodness and "God."
Will this trip provide some desert wanderings for me?
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