In 1998 Richard and I had the wonderful opportunity to sail around the world as ballroom dance teachers on a cruise ship. Many of the places we saw then, like Oman, Jordan, Turkey, Morocco, Indonesia, and Israel, are in crisis now and not as safe for tourists. Last year, when Palestinian soldiers took refuge in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and were under siege, I marveled at having stood where they were, and could imagine the place as the news came. Even when I was there, Israel and Palestine were fighting, as they have been since Israel was formed.
When we docked in Haifa, Israel, we only had one day, so my Jewish friends, Murray and Sylvia (who had been there before) and I hired a taxi driver who drove us all over Israel, to see as much as we could in twelve hours. . Arriving in Bethlehem was a lesson in world peace, and I want to share it with you, from my travel notes:
After the long journey back from the Dead Sea, we reached the ancient walls of the Old City in Jerusalem, and we went through the old city to go to Bethlehem, just to the south. Along the way, there is evidence of ever-changing borders. A fence of barbed wire and chain links marks the border for many miles, and on either side you can see buildings with signs in Hebrew on the Palestinian side and Arabic letters on the Israeli side, indicating that the land has changed hands. many times. . Back and forth, back and forth, the fence moves, while various skirmishes change the borders. Bethlehem is now under Palestinian rule since the peace agreement four years ago, so our driver feels that it is not safe for us to get into an Israeli taxi; He has phoned across the border and arranged with friends for a Palestinian car and driver to drive us. on.
Changing taxi makes the tension of these places palpable. Our driver stops at the Palestinian border and signals us to cross. We feel like characters from a spy movie as we walk between the rough guard huts on the Israeli side, which are manned by guards holding automatic rifles, we walk through the no-man’s-land in between, and then between the equally rough guard posts. and the Palestinian guards equally well armed, and no one seems to be paying attention to us, they are staring at us. Our friendly Palestinian driver, in his taxi marked in Arabic, greets us on the other side. We breathe again.
Bethlehem and the Church of the Nativity are only three miles away, so we got there in a few minutes. As the driver speaks to us in quite helpful English, we begin to relax. The kindness of the two drivers, citizens of nations at war, points out that even when political situations are awkward, people can find ways to work together. These drivers are not hostile to each other, they are helping each other (and helping us). Later, we discovered that many taxi drivers did not take their passengers to Bethlehem, only ours organized the change.
The Church of the Nativity turns out to be three churches in one: a Palestinian Christian church, a Greek Orthodox, and a Catholic church; The 3 buildings are next to each other, they share a courtyard and some walls, and we walk through each one to get to the next one! The oldest church is the Palestinian Church of the Nativity, originally built in 400 AD. We enter through a deliberately low-built gate, so one has to bow respectfully to enter. The floor we are on now was built in 600 AD, after the first church was destroyed, but it has a hatch, through which we can look down and see the original mosaic floor, about 3 feet below. Priests have silent pride and an obvious awareness of the sacred ground they walk and care for.
The church is built in the shape of a traditional cross, with a high ceiling from which long chains hang with carved brass oil lamps on each. Perhaps there are 50 of these beautiful lamps, all lit and each one different. The designs cut into the metal allow the light to reflect the shapes cut out on the walls: diamonds, moons, stars. What a glorious sight people have reverently experienced for 2,500 years! To one side is a door that leads to a staircase that leads to a room draped in silk. On the left, as you enter, there is a niche that appears to be a fireplace, but it turns out to be the place where Jesus was born. An ornate 13-pointed star is found on the floor in the same location, surrounded by oil lamps. The 13 points represent the generations between David and Jesus, the number of disciples at the Last Supper, and the Stations of the Cross.
On the opposite side of the room is the stone manger where the baby was placed after birth. At one end there are candles. It is a powerful sight: all the centuries of veneration have left their energy in this room. My father was a Catholic and I have lit candles in his memory in churches around the world, but lighting the candle in the manger was a special moment for me. When I saw the votive candles in the room, I asked where I could buy one and our guide said the priest would get me one. The priest was almost as old as the room, and with an almost audible creak, he slowly brought me a candle, which I then lit and placed with the other candles at the end of the manger. This simple ritual, followed for centuries, moved me to tears.
When we left the Nativity scene, we walked through the Greek Orthodox and Catholic churches, which are beautiful, and returned to the courtyard.
After taking a taxi back to the border, we took our Israeli taxi again. We sped back to Jerusalem. The afternoon was fading fast. We ran to ancient Jerusalem and visited the Cardo, an ancient Roman market surrounded by a more modern shopping area.
Then we are at the Western Wall (known as the Wailing Wall), the only remnant of an ancient temple, which the Jews venerate and where they come to pray. The wall is divided into two sides, one for men and one for women, so Sylvia and I went to the right and Murray to the left. It was Murray’s birthday and the anniversary of his mother’s death, and this was the main reason for returning to Israel. Pray on the wall. Everywhere along the wall were men and women praying, or rocking back and forth while praying. Most of the men wore the long black coats and black hats of the Orthodox Jews, and many of the women also wore long black suits. It is said that if you write a request on a piece of paper and stick it in a crack in the wall, it will be granted. As we got closer, we could hear the women murmuring and one crying. Again we were surprised by the continuity of the centuries.
The history of these places, the millennia of human existence, the prayers, pain, fears, hopes and dreams of people who are simply trying to feed their families and live a peaceful life, rises around us like one. fog of human strength and survival. Our taxi drivers, both Palestinian and Israeli, are family men, as puzzled about why they are at war as we are in America about why the world cannot live in peace. They have no need to fight each other for land or oil rights, or religious supremacy. They need to feed their families, care for their wives and children, and try to leave a legacy for their descendants. So despite what your countries are doing to each other, despite soldiers, political parties, suicide bombers, guns, and borders, they work together to earn a day’s wages. They are proud of their part of the world: Muslim, Jewish and Christian holy places, and they see it as belonging to all of them, only fanatics, religious and / or political, want to own it. These men, like you and me, only want their little bit, just enough to feel comfortable and keep their families healthy. There is enough to feed and clothe everyone in this world.
The late peace warrior Danaan Parry wrote: “The energy we use to create war is the energy we need to achieve real peace.
“That is the brave act for the warrior to do: find a way to relate to the person on the other side of the closed valve, so that together we can turn that valve both ways and reopen it.
“The new warrior is in a precarious position, because he says,” I am going to show myself and the rest of my tribe that … darkness exists within each of us, and I will demand that we have the courage. ” that using the word “warrior” really has some meaning, because warriors have to have the courage to endure some pretty harsh criticism from their own people. “
On this Memorial Day, I pray that we all learn to live in peace, even in the midst of wars we do not understand. I pray that we will not accept the idea that other humans are our enemies by virtue of their race, nation, or creed. I pray that we learn to work together, no matter what our governments insist on telling us. I pray for peace, within ourselves, within our families, within the world. And like Tiny Tim, I pray, “God bless us, all of us.”
