“This Land Belongs to You and Me: A Visit to “The Holy Land”

“This land was made for you and me”, so sang Woody Guthrie.

I have always been baffled by the idea that land or place belongs one set of people and that others are excluded for whatever reasons. A feeling that seems to intensify when the exclusion is for faith or lack of, gender, colour of skin, politics, or sexuality. Who decides what and where belongs to who and who not?

I recently spent a wonderful week in the “Holy Land”, Israel – Palestine depending on your point of view. A land that has been fought over for thousands of years. By the way it is unique in this is it? Much of the land of this world has gone through similar experiences.

It was an amazing trip, filled with some incredible experiences that will stay with me for the rest of my life. Some deeply spiritual experiences and trans-formative too, on so many levels. I also proposed to Sue and she accepted, what a beautiful blessing. I did not see the whole place and or experience all aspects of it. I saw very little of the Palestinian perspective, from their point of view. I am not going to talk here about the current situation, I’m not sure I’m qualified to do so. I will though reflect on the spirit I encountered as well as a reflection on holiness and the holy.

Our week began and ended in Jerusalem. We arrived Thursday night having flown direct from Manchester. The flight out was an experience in and of itself. It seemed like some kind of extended family outing. So many people on the flight knew each other and there was much conversation to observe and listen to. We were given some lovely tips on places to visit by a man who spends half of his life in Jerusalem and the other in Manchester. All of his children now live in Israel. He even knew one half of the couple we were staying with.

We arrived late Thursday night. The next morning we went to give the talk I had been invited to deliver, at an AA gathering there. It was a beautiful experience. What wonderful fellowship, we shared. Afterwards we went for a walk around Jerusalem before returning for the most beautiful Shabbat meal with Steve and Lynne, it was deeply moving and fulfilling experience. The food was incredible, but it was more than that. We connected deeply with the spirit of the occasion. During the meal and throughout the stay we were shown the essential Jewish teaching of "Kadmah derech eretz et ha-Torah", 'the commandment of good manners or considerate behaviour. This teaching predates the revelation at Mount Sinai and originated with Adam and the creation of humanity. It suggests that while God could imagine humankind existing without the Torah he could not imagine humanity doing so without civility. So it seems to be a law that trumps other laws.

It is a teaching that lays at the core of all the Abrahamic traditions, which teach respect and civility to the stranger, to the other. Something that humanity has failed to do these last two thousand years or more. We experienced civility and welcome and the most wonderful hospitality throughout the trip except perhaps in the driving habits of the natives, which are very different to those in this land.

It was strange walking round Jerusalem on the Saturday, during Sabbath, everywhere was closed as we walked towards the walls of the ancient city. We found a none Jewish shop open, so we stopped and ate in a small garden built in gratitude to the former American President George W Bush. We then continued on towards the city and climbed up the walls. As we walked round we observed the housing and the Dome of the Rock. We came down in the Muslim quarter and then walked towards the Church of the Holy Sepulcre, past the shops and the other tourists and pilgrims, some of whom we had observed at the museum earlier as walked round the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit. We then headed back to be with our generous hosts.

The next day we returned to the ancient city for a guided tour of the the underground tunnels of the western wall of the Temple that was destroyed in the first century. Before spending time praying outside at the wall. Following this we went down to the ruins of the ancient city of David, just outside the city walls as well as visiting “The Burnt House”. As we were guided round the stories came to life as the ancient history of the Jewish people came to life with it.

Jerusalem is central to all three of the Abrahamic faiths. The temple both of Solomon and the second temple which the Romans destroyed during the first century rebellion was built on the spot where it is believed that Abraham took his son Isaac to be sacrificed as a sign of his obedience to God. This is sacred to Christianity due to death and resurrection of Jesus much of which it is believed took place on the site of what is today the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Dome of the Mount is built on the same site as the temple, the believed spot of Abrahams sacrifice, the same place where the Prophet Mohammed's “Night Journey” to heaven is believed to have began. So the whole place is Holy to all three faiths and has been disputed for centuries, going back to the “Crusades”. It has been a place of deep worship and so much violence and hate. Sadly so little hospitality and considerate behaviour towards others has taken place here.

For so long holiness and sacred respect for other people has not been practised by a variety of people at these holy sites. We humans have at times failed to be holy to one another. I remember as I walked round and took in the history the words of Wendell Berry, sang in my heart “There are no unsacred places, only sacred and desecrated places.” These holy places have been desecrated for centuries by the bloodshed of so many in the name of the holy. It makes me weep. There are so many wailing walls around these parts.

This brings to mind some words by Sarah York on sacredness and the holy.

"The Spirit reveals itself to us in our relationship with our world and its inhabitants; it is the source of all that is holy, sacred, and true. The word spirit comes from the Latin word meaning 'breath'; the word holy derives from before the Christian era from words for whole as well as health, good luck, and happiness. The holy intimacy of strangers, then, is an experience of the Spirit's promise and power, breathed into human interaction and calling us into personal and spiritual wholeness — into the kind of harmony that yields health and happiness.”

This to me is what it means to live in a holy way and to create sacredness in life. It is where I have known holy intimacy with others in my life and something I certainly experienced during my time in the “Holy Land”. It is also a principle at the core of all the Abrahamic faiths, although something that has at times been sadly forgotten.

Now while I experienced holy intimacy and sacredness in relationship with others and also in nature too as I connect to life, I began to experience something rarer in the “Holy Land”, something I have not noticed as intensely before. I noticed something happening to me as I visited the Holy sites and connected to the stories, history and people of the time. It came deeply as we walked around the walls of the city of Jerusalem, I felt as I touched the western wall of the Temple. I actually felt it more intensely underground than the exposed area outside,. I felt it deeply and powerfully as I walked up Masada and experienced the story come to life as I stood on the ruins at the top. I didn’t feel it as I floated on the Dead sea. I felt it deeply and beautifully as I gazed out at the Sea of Galilee, as we walked through the ruins of Capernaum towards the rocks on the sea shore and I knelt down by the rocks and proposed to Sue and she said “yes, yes, yes, yes” We had both felt an incredibly powerful connection to love that day, although Sue had no clue what was coming. All day long one verse from “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind” had been singing in my soul. The verse was “O sabbath rest by Galilee! O calm of hills above, where Jesus knelt to share with thee the silence of eternity interpreted by love, interpreted by love!” I found the spot and love came to life. There was also the despair of “Yad Vashem”, the Holocaust museum, a sacred place that marks our human history of desecration, a history that sadly still goes on, that we seem to hear ever louder echoes of throughout the world today. It is a powerful testimony to what happens when we see others as somehow different to ourselves, to the horrors of supremacy of any kind, the root of all evil.

There were so many deep and connective, holy experiences. There was one that was different though. This happened on the Saturday and it came unexpectedly in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It was not while looking at any of the grand religious shrines but as I touched a humble slab that is said to be the stone that Jesus body was laid upon. I saw women wiping and touching the stone and emotion pouring out of them. Now I don’t know what happened to me, but something stirred within. So I knelt down, as the women had, I did not have a shawl or scarf and so I touched the stone with my hands and then my cheek and I just began to weep. I stood up and continued to weep. Something happened, something took over me in that moment. I have had several unfathomable spiritual experiences in my life and this was one of them. It was similar to others I have had in the past and yet it was different, it had a unique quality. I cannot explain or even truly describe it, but something happened. It awakened something in me. It was sacred and it was Holy.

It was a beautiful and incredible experience, no doubt you will hear more about it as I reflect over the coming months. Today I feel more connected to my own humanity and I hope that of others, I feel a deeper connection to the sacredness and preciousness of life, to the holiness of one another and what our purpose here as human beings is. This life belongs to you and me. We are connected to one another by a sacred bound of love and I believe it is our task to bring that love alive, to make sacred once again all those places on earth that we have desecrated by our inhumanity to one another. This is our holy task, our holy work, this is how we make all life Holy Land.

May it be so.

I’m going to end this "blogspot" with the following reflection “The Breath of Life Is Not Mine Alone” by Kristen L Harper

I do not wish to breathe another breath if it is not shared with others. The breath of life is not mine alone.

I brought myself to be with you, hoping that by inhaling the compassion, the courage, the hope found here, I can exhale the fear, the selfishness, the separateness I keep so close to my skin.

I cannot live another moment, at least not one of joy, unless you and I find our oneness somewhere among each other, somewhere between the noise, somewhere within the silence of the next breath.

Amen