Chasing the Divine in the Holy Land by Ruth Everhart Read Free Book Online Page B

Quarter, Old Jerusalem
    CHAPTER 5
    Opposing Forces
    From one ancestor [God] made all nations to inhabit the whole earth . . . so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him — though indeed he is not far from each one of us.
    A CTS 17:26-27
    M ORNING COMES TOO soon. Today is the first day we must wear “modest” clothes because we’ll be visiting holy sites. We need to cover our knees and shoulders. I put on a short-sleeved T-shirt and long pants, then tie a silk scarf around my waist in case I need to cover my head. JoAnne is puttering around, and I’m in a hurry to get some coffee, hoping it’ll chase away the vestiges of last night’s demons.
    In the dining room I fix a cup of double-strength Nescafé, then help myself to a soft, warm pita and a hard-boiled egg. I carry it to the table where three of the men — Lutheran Michael, Baptist Charlie, and Anglican Kyle — are deep in conversation. Michael and Charlie are roommates, getting along famously. Kyle, the Anglican priest on sabbatical, is spending all his time with the documentary group.
    â€œWe were just talking about the Gospel of Mark,” Kyle says. “I read it last night and counted that Jesus crosses the Sea of Galilee six times.”
    As I slice my hard-boiled egg over the pita in overlapping circles, part of my brain wonders how Kyle had the time and energy to read an entire Gospel yesterday. It’s taking all my energy to manage the emotions stirred by this pilgrimage.
    â€œDo you know why he crosses that often?” Kyle asks, then answers his own question. “The devout Jews are on the west side of the lake, and the Gentiles are on the east side, so just by his movements, we can see Jesus trying to unite the two sides.”
    â€œOr maybe he just didn’t have a map,” says Michael, clearly gratified when Charlie laughs.
    â€œSo you don’t think there’s anything more to it?” Kyle is leaning forward. “You don’t think the writer of Mark’s Gospel was trying to communicate anything through his structure?”
    â€œWhy do you people always make it so hard?” Charlie shakes his head. “Why not let the Bible just say what it says?”

    After breakfast our group of forty is divided into smaller groups, each of which will explore a specific quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. “Quarter” doesn’t mean fourth, though there are four of them. “Quarter” means living quarter: Muslim Quarter, Christian Quarter, Armenian Quarter, Jewish Quarter. Our documentary group is broken in half, each with a cameraman. Brian, Jessica, Shane, and I are assigned to the Muslim Quarter.
    The Old City is just down the road from Saint George’s campus. We enter through the Damascus Gate, which looks exactly like the entrance to a castle, with enormous wooden doors flung open. There are only a few people coming and going this early on a Saturday morning. Inside the gate, the streets are really alleyways, with walls close on both sides, and stone underfoot, uneven enough to make my sandals wobble. Everything — walls, pavement, windowsills — is made of stone the color of a dirty yellow dog. The light isn’t strong, not this early anyway, with high walls on either side. Garbage is piled in every corner, stinking like rotten fruit. Cats prowl around the edges, most of them mangy. Cooking odors drift into the street.
    The Muslim Quarter feels like poverty.
    We walk without direction, and the heat rises as we go. The camera follows us, sneaks up on us, zooms ahead to catch usfrom the front. I am hot, and the strap of my bag, heavy with two water bottles, tugs on my sweating shoulder.
    We wander until we stumble across the Monastery of the Flagellation. The name makes me wince, even though we can see a lovely garden with blooming plants. We go through a gate into a courtyard. A plaque says that this is the first stop