IMAD'S & SALIBA'S ORDINATION: AN HISTORIC OCCASION

GETTING READY

Mark Holman, Mark Brown, Dale & Sr. Sylvia

Ordinands Saliba & Imad

The Grandma who almost missed it

Celebrating their 1st Communion

A contemplative crucifer

About to cut the Ordination cake

Proud parishoners

Pastors Imad & Saliba

More proud parishoners

March 2 was Imad Haddad’s and Saliba Rishmawi’s big day. At worship earlier that same day rumour had it that their ordination might have to be postponed because of what could be the beginning of a 3rd intifada in the West Bank. On Sunday, March 2, most Palestinian businesses in East Jerusalem were closed in protest against the worsening situation in Gaza, and, in the past, occasions such as ordinations have had to be cancelled because the Israelis often close checkpoints and restrict movement in the Old City when there is trouble. Imad’s and Saliba’s congregations are on the Bethlehem side of the segregation wall, and so family, friends, fellow pastors, children’s choirs, and congregants would have to go through Israeli security.

Well, they almost all made it. When we heard that the mother and grandmother of one of the ordinands had not been granted travel permits to come from the Bethlehem side to Jerusalem, we pulled some strings and got them through. The Israelis wouldn’t let the Beit Sahour children’s choir into Jerusalem, but the Beit Jala choir and band were there to sing and play. Why did the Israelis refuse permits to Mom and Grandma? Why one choir and not the other? Who knows?

And so it happened in spite of all the stumbling blocks! Bishop Younan ordained Imad and Saliba into the Ministry of Word and Sacrament at Redeemer Lutheran in Old Jerusalem. Imad will be serving as assistant pastor in Beit Sahour, and Saliba as assistant pastor in Beit Jala. It was an historic occasion because it’s the first time in the history of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL) that two pastors have been ordained at the same time. The ELCJHL doesn’t have many placements for pastors with only six churches: Redeemer in Jerusalem, Christmas Lutheran in Bethlehem, Reformation Lutheran in Beit Jala, Beit Sahour Lutheran Church, Hope Lutheran in Ramallah, and Good Shepherd Lutheran in Amman, Jordan. Less than 2% of the Palestinian population is Christian, and most of the Christians are Greek Orthodox. So, there aren’t many Lutherans, and as Christians emigrate from Palestine because of political tension and an uncertain future, there are fewer Christians (and Lutherans) each year.

As the ordination ended, the grandmother who almost didn’t make it shouted out congratulations and was joined by other female family members in a sustained ululation, a high pitched sound Arab women emit in celebration of events such as graduations and ordinations. It was also a sound of grieving for the almost 100 Palestinian children, women and men who had been killed during the past week in Gaza.

The reception was a joyous event with a piece of cake for everyone.

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A TOUR OF THE JERUSALEM AREA, YOU SAY!

Hebron Suq

Mesh-enclosed balcony

Abraham's Mosque
Hebron Glass Factory

Tent of Nations

Shepherds' Field

Church of the Nativity - Manger Square, Bethlehem

Azzahra's Restaurant, Jerusalem

On February 16, were delighted to meet visitors from home, Anne Banks Pidduck and her daughter Sharon. We’d arranged for a friend who has been practising medicine in the Palestinian territories for some time and who has a vast knowledge of conditions here to take us on a non-traditional excursion south of Jerusalem.

We visited Hebron which is in the West Bank and therefore supposedly Palestinian territory. However, here the militant Israeli settlers have forced vendors in the old marketplace to suspend nets above the sidewalk to prevent garbage being dumped out of the settlers’ windows onto the shoppers below. (Unfortunately that doesn’t protect them from dirty water and urine that is occasionally part of the “garbage”). Fortunately we weren’t party to any rubbish being thrown down while we were in the area.

In Hebron, we also visited the headquarters of the Christian Peacemakers organization which provides for the Palestinians a peaceful witness and therefore protection from harassment and assault by the militant Israeli settlers. We were invited onto an upstairs balcony which overlooks the street that formerly provided entrance to the flat. However, this street has been closed to Palestinians and they now have to enter via a back entrance. Now the Israeli settlers are the only ones allowed to use this street. On top of that, the balconies along the street have had to be covered by heavy mesh to protect the residents from rocks and stones being hurled from the street as the settlers go by.

From the roof we were able to look over the city at the changes and restrictions for the Palestinians that have been made since the settlers have moved in. Some families have access to their homes only by climbing ladders from a neighbour’s roof. The presence is most obvious and one is not allowed to take photos in the direction of the various military towers.

While in Hebron, we visited the Hebron Glass Factory where they make the bottles that the Lutheran World Federation uses for selling their olive oil. We were also able to get into Abraham’s mosque which had been closed to us on a previous visit. We were intrigued by having to wear hooded robes to enter the mosque—we looked like characters out of a Harry Potter novel; of the many mosques we’ve visited, this was the only one that required this. Out of respect, usually only one’s head and arms are covered; this therefore was an efficient way of ensuring that.

Our tour continued to the Tent of Nations located on a peak nearly 950 meters above sea level on 100 acres of land, nine kilometers southwest of Bethelehm. This is the only hill left in the whole area that has not been taken over by illegal Israeli settlements. (Keep in mind, this is in the West Bank which is supposed to be Palestinian territory.)

Daoud Nassar, the director of Tent of Nations explained the history and work of his organisation. His grandfather, Daher Nassar, purchased the land in 1924 and since that time, family members have lived there and worked the land, producing olives, grapes, wheat, etc. Daoud’s father, Bishara, devoted his life to protecting his land and used it to network and provide youth projects in the Bethlehem region. However, in 1991, the Israeli government declared the whole area to be an Israeli state property in spite of the fact that the Nassar family has all the original land papers tracing rights of ownership back to the Ottoman Empire, thus contradicting any claims by the Israeli government. In 2001 and 2002, the local council of Israeli settlements decided to open roads through the east and west sides of the Nassars’ land. Although they were able to stop both road projects through the Israeli court, after 13 years in the high court, the land ownership is still under debate, and the court keeps postponing the case.

Daoud is carrying on his father’s vision. The Tent of Nations is devoted to addressing cultural conflicts around the world, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, by facilitating positive encounters between young people from different cultures. (You can read more on their website: http://www.tentofnations.org/ ).

After an interesting tour of the property, we returned to Jerusalem. Our overwhelming day concluded by dining early at the Jerusalem Hotel, after which we sent our exhausted, jet-lagged visitors off to bed.
The next day provided a more relaxing traditional tour. We met in late morning at the Jaffa Gate of the Old City, wandered through parts of the city, visiting the Wailing or Western Wall, the Church of the Redeemer, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. After a late lunch at Samara’s Restaurant, we went by bus to the Bethlehem checkpoint where my taxi driver, Musa, met us on the other side and took us to the R.C. Shepherds’ Field (of course, as with other “holy sites”, there are two Shepherds’ Fields—Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox), the Milk Grotto, and the Church of the Nativity. We returned by the same route and finished off our day of touring at Azzarah’s Restaurant for their delicious thin-crust pizza. What a way to begin a week

GOOD FOOD, GOOD….

One Friday, we made a reservation for twelve of us from the Guest House at the Jerusalem Hotel for a delicious meal and an evening of Palestinian music. I had the best mussakhan ever: pita is placed in a baking dish and covered with a mixture of onion slices that have been sautéed in olive oil and ground sumac. This is topped with chunks of lightly spiced chicken, covered with the rest of the onion mixture, baked and garnished with pine nuts. Delicious!! Dale enjoyed a mixed grill: skewers of chicken, lamb, and beef served with the best French fries! The food, interesting conversation, excellent music, and the narghile (the traditional Middle Eastern water pipe)—enjoyed by some—, all combined for a delightful evening.

The following week, we actually did some entertaining at the Guest House. We had got to know Diana (pronounced Deeana) and Jakob, a young German couple, shortly after we arrived, as Diana was a member of the Ecumenical Accompaniers who lived at the Guest House for her three-month term. Her husband, Jakob, is employed by the Arabic congregation of the ELCJHL. They had initiated a number of enjoyable joint meals while living here, and so we invited them back for dinner. We ended up being a group of 12.

Our menu consisted of a version of Tex-Mex Chili served over sweet potatoes, and a green salad with fresh strawberries, tangerines, green grapes, red peppers, green onions, raisins, and slivered almonds. It was topped off with a version of Ada’s layered dessert of graham wafers—imagine being able to buy them in East Jerusalem!—, pudding, and bananas. The food and the wine set the stage for some interesting, if not at times, heated discussions about the situation here.

A visit to the American Colony Hotel once in awhile for their Saturday Buffet provides a treat for the pallet. Although it’s expensive ($35 U.S.), you can eat yourself into oblivion if you wish, or opt for only the soup, salad, and dessert bars ($15). We’re told that they usually serve bacon! However, neither of the times we’ve been there has it been on the menu, although they served ham on our first visit. It was a pleasant way to celebrate a friend’s birthday.

Our eating extravaganza continued when we joined my former colleague from Cameron Heights, Vern Allemang, at his hotel for dinner. He and his group were just finishing a tour to Cairo, the Sinai, Jordan, and Israel. Unfortunately there was no time in his itinerary or ours to do any sightseeing together, but they were fortunate to have a Palestinian tour guide to give balance to the visit. We had a wonderful evening with Vern and his friend Dale whose wives had opted out of the trip.

A couple of days later, when my taxi driver, Musa, picked me up to take me back to the checkpoint, he informed me that another couple we knew from church were at his house for “tea”; Musa had taken them sightseeing on a previous occasion, and they were back to finish off the missed sites. He asked me if I’d like to come back for tea with him and meet his family. As he’d made this offer on a previous occasion when I was in a rush, I decided this might be a good time to take him up on it as Jolene and Michael were already there, and also save a separate trip to the checkpoint. “Tea” turned out to be a full meal of Mansaff—rice, lamb, yogurt, and pita—complete with coke, and then coffee poured over cardamom seeds, followed by fresh fruit! We had the wonderful opportunity to meet his wife and 5 of the 6 kids (the missing boy was at school as they have two shifts—morning and afternoon).

The older son, Ahmad, is a student at Bethlehem University studying Business Administration. He’d really wanted to study Engineering and had actually started his studies at Al Quds (Jerusalem) University. However, in order to get to and from the university, he needed to cross the Bethlehem checkpoint twice a day, and travel by bus into Jerusalem. This ended up being a 12-hour day at least. As he’s only a ten-minute walk from Bethlehem University, the family decided it was in his best interests to switch universities, even though he couldn’t get the programme he preferred. If it weren’t for the Wall surrounding Bethlehem, this wouldn’t be a problem as he’d only be going from one part of the West Bank to another. (If the Wall followed the Green Line as, if there must be a wall, it should, he’d have free access from Bethlehem to East Jerusalem.)

Even a pleasant meal with a lovely family ends up with another example of how the Israeli incursion into the West Bank affects the lives of Palestinians!

IT'S GOOD TO BE A CANADIAN, EH?

Since I’ve arrived here, I’m constantly reminded of how lucky I am to be a Canadian. Even when I experience frustrations with what I see and hear, I know that I still get better treatment and can always go back home whenever I want. I keep wondering how I would feel and react had I and my family, going back decades, experienced what Palestinians have and continue to experience daily.

As we all know, there are many inequalities in Canada; not all Canadians think and feel the same about issues. We have too much poverty, considering the wealth of our country, and many other inequities that we should be ashamed of. However, even those things do not take away our freedom of movement.

Let me give a few examples of situations we don’t have to face:

I can walk, drive, or take a bus from Kitchener to Cambridge for any reason any time I want regardless of my age, race, creed, or colour. Both places are in my country and so I don’t need a passport, or visa, or any document (other than my driver’s license if I’m driving my car). Compare this with 2 situations I know of personally here:

1) A teacher is required by her school board to attend a workshop. She lives in Ramallah; the workshop is in Bethlehem. Both Ramallah and Bethlehem are in the West Bank, Palestinian territory. She, a Palestinian who was born and lives in Ramallah; however, she has Israeli papers due to her parents’ designation when Arabs were allowed to have Israeli citizenship—even though they don’t have the same rights as Jewish citizens, although that’s another issue. She is not allowed to cross the Bethlehem checkpoint to get to her workshop because Israeli citizens are not allowed to cross into the West Bank. (However, Palestinian land is grabbed for illegal settlements in the West Bank, and Israelis can live there and travel through Palestinian land on special roads built only for Israelis; Palestinians are not allowed on these roads.) The only way she can attend her workshop is to be smuggled in illegally, running the risk of repercussions.

2) A grandmother and mother who live in Bethlehem wish to attend a graduation ceremony for their son in East Jerusalem. They, for reasons unknown to them, have been refused the permits they need to cross the Bethlehem checkpoint. The only way they can do that is if someone smuggles them in illegally, running the risk of repercussions.

I live in Kitchener and have a job in Guelph. I can take a bus, taxi, or drive my own car regardless of my age, race, creed, or colour, any time I want in order to get to work on time. Weather, accidents, car or bus breakdowns could make me late, but I can usually make the trip in well under an hour. Compare this with 2 situations I know of personally here:

1) I live in Bethlehem and work in East Jerusalem where I’ve worked for years before the Wall was built. Every singe day that I go to work, in order to get through the checkpoint, I have to be there by 3:00 a.m. and wait hours to be inspected. I have to take off my belt, shoes, coat and anything else that I’m often unceremoniously screamed at by young 18/19-year-old soldiers to do. If I’m carrying anything else, it also goes through the scanner. I have to renew my papers every three months but sometimes something shows up on my papers of which I’m not told, and I’m not allowed through the checkpoint. When I return from work, I go through the checkpoint again to get back home. If nothing else, it’s frustrating, exhausting and humiliating.

2) I live in a village south of Bethlehem and work at Augusta Victoria Hospital. I have a university degree and a very responsible job. Although I’m less than an hour away by car or bus if there were no checkpoint, I have to live in a residence at the hospital because it would be impossible for me to get through the checkpoint each day to get to work on time and still have time to sleep at night or have any quality of life. I go home to visit my family on weekends. My work permit must be renewed every three months; however, I have just been refused a renewal. I don’t know why. No one will tell me. I’ve done nothing that I’m aware of that could have caused my permit not to be renewed. Now, if I go home to visit my family, I will not be allowed back through the checkpoint and therefore will no longer be able to work at the hospital.

These situations are not fictional or hypothetical. They are representative of hundreds of identical or similar situations.

The Israeli will say, “We have to do this to protect ourselves!” “Since we put up the Wall, there have been fewer suicide bombers!”

First of all, as the Wall is not yet completed, there are many spots where a determined suicide bomber could easily get through if he/she wanted. The decline has been due to policy by the extremists to give peace efforts a chance. Have negotiations done anything at all to change things that affect the daily lives of Palestinians? Absolutely not!

If the Palestinians were given equal rights, if instead of Israel’s doing its best to keep its citizens from getting to know Palestinians personally, if the Israelis stopped their land grab—enclosing the best fertile land and water sources within their side of the Wall and then turning around and restricting the amount of water they control back to the Palestinians, if these and all the other inequities were rectified, would there be any appeal for young folks to give up their lives for a cause?

Walking through the Bethlehem checkpoint four times a week, makes my blood boil when I see what humiliations some people face, and the equally infuriating way I and other internationals are allowed to jump the queue or are told to “have a nice day” after a Palestinian has just been humiliated and screamed at. (Although I have been screamed once or twice!) If I were young and had to look forward to facing this, in addition to all the other inequities, every day of my life, how would I feel? What would I do?

BUT I, OR MY FAMILY OR FRIENDS, DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT IT. I’M A CANADIAN, EH?

MUSLIM WOMEN

In Canada we identify Muslim women by what they wear. If we see a young woman wearing a hijab, a kind of shawl, we know that she is Muslim. Below the hijab she may be wearing an abaya, a plain but attractive ankle-length dress that is supposed to hide the female form but often doesn’t quite do the job, or she may be wearing a t-shirt and jeans, but she is definitely Muslim. And, of course, if she is wearing a burqa, sometimes called a “veil”, that covers her whole body except for a slit across the eyes, she is ultra-Muslim. So, what do hijabs and burqas say about Muslim women?

A number of years ago I attended Guelph University’s annual College Royal, and one of the information tables was sponsored by the Islamic Student Society. The young women at the table were wearing hijabs and I asked them why. They answered that they were proud to wear them “because the Qu’ran required it and it was a symbol of their freedom”. Their freedom? How so, I wondered. I had swallowed the North American line that Muslim women are an oppressed lot, and their clothes prove it.

An historical note! Muhammad was the Prophet of a revolutionary society called Islam. Naturally, as Islam began to supplant old, tribal polytheism in Arabia, people wanted to meet Muhammad, and they came to his home in Mecca. Since his wives were there too, he and his advisors felt that the wives should remain behind a veil while male visitors were present in order to have more privacy and feel safer. The burqa has become a kind of “portable” veil. Anyway, it was never intended that all Muslim women should be “veiled”. Probably Muslim women in Mecca heard that Muhammad’s wives were veiled and thought that they should do likewise. That’s how traditions start.

Yes, I did say “Muhammad’s wives”. I’ll refer to that a few paragraphs hence.

Many of the medical staff who work here at AVH are Muslim women with MD degrees, nursing degrees, pharmacy degrees , just to mention a few. Are these a small minority of Muslim women? I don’t think so, at least not in this part of the Muslim world. But what about the average Muslim woman, the one who doesn’t pursue a career? First of all, as a teenager, she is protected by her family, so much so that she does not go out on dates unless chaperoned by a male family member. A western girl would say “That’s oppression”, but a Muslim girl would say “I feel safe”.

In downtown East Jerusalem teenage Muslim girls walk in groups, whispering to each other and giggling, just like Western girls, wearing their hijabs. Teenage Muslim boys are typically macho and loud. They sneak peeks at passing girls, but the boys and girls don’t mix as they do in Canada. And it’s all for the safety of the girls, just like the hijab and the burqa. As an adult, the same rules apply until a Muslim woman is married.

If the things I’ve said about women in Islam are true, why so? First of all, the Qu’ran doesn’t give any reasons for vilifying women. Here are the words of Allah dictated to Muhammad by the angel Gabriel and preserved in the Qu’ran: O mankind, We have created you male and female, and appointed you races and tribes, that you may know one another. Surely the noblest among you in the sight of God is the most god-fearing of you. God is All-knowing and All-wise. In the Qu’ran’s creation story man and woman are created equal, and there is no mention of “original sin”. Woman cannot be blamed for causing the fall of humankind as she has been blamed by Christians.

After Muhammad made the move from Mecca to Medina with the Qu’ran in hand, he proceeded to establish an Islamic society in which both men and women would enjoy equality. In pre-Islamic Arabia women had few rights, but Muhammad changed that by allowing women to inherit, to keep their dowry, and to testify before a judge, just to name a few of the changes. We say in the West “So what!” but in 7th century Arabia this was revolutionary, and centuries ahead of Christianity, which had had more than six hundred years to institute women’s rights and had not even begun to do so.

Earlier I mentioned Muhammad’s wives. Polygamy was part of pre-Islamic Arab society, and the practice continued. But Muhammad even reformed that practice. He suggested four wives, but only if the husband promised to treat each wife equally in all things and spend equal time with each. This, of course, is impossible and so monogamy became more common. Another thing about polygamy was that it provided a haven for widows who were left destitute. Muhammad had more than four wives because the widowed wives of his followers needed to survive. Did he have his favourites? You bet! But if we brush off the Islamic practice of polygamy as only as a male fantasy, then we’ve missed the point. In Islam it was a way of protecting women and making life safe for them.

By 632 CE Muhammad had re-established himself in Mecca where he put into practice his vision of an Islamic society based on Qu’ranic principles of justice and human rights. In his farewell address at the mosque Namira near Mount Arafat in Arabia, just before his death, Muhammad told his people (the umma) “to deal justly with one another and to treat women kindly”. Are women always treated kindly in Islamic society? No! There are abuses as there are in any society. But there is no doubt about Islam’s deep and abiding respect for women and its concern for their safety and well being.

My comments are not intended to be a definitive, sociological commentary on the place of women in Islamic society. They are only a sharing of some personal observations and a few surprises. What have I learned? Things are never as they appear.

DINNER WITH NEW FRIENDS

The village museum and curator

Muhammad is an x-ray technician who works in nuclear medicine at Augusta Victoria Hospital. He prepares patients for radiation therapy and wheels them into the room housing the linear accelerator. The original patient load was intended to be about 25 patients a day, but often 40 patients are treated. It’s the only linear accelerator in the Palestinian territories, and AVH is presently looking for donors to fund a 2nd.

Muhammad is an out-going young man who likes to talk to foreigners, especially English-speaking foreigners. He wants to learn English so that he can immigrate to Canada and practise his profession there. He often has lunch and supper with Donna and me and tries out his English, which is moderately functional and getting better. I practise my minimal Arabic on him. We have become quite good friends and Muhammad invited us to his home.

He lives in village close to Hebron. In a perfect world he could commute to the hospital daily because his village is only about an hour away by car, but Muhammad’s world isn’t perfect. A trip to and from his village would require passing through Israeli check-points and roadblocks forcing him to go kilometres out of his way and take 2 to 3 times longer to get home. So Muhammad stays in the hospital dorm and goes home once a week on his day off.

Donna and I accepted Muhammad’s invitation and, on a Saturday in February, we went with him to his village. We started with bus 75 that took us to the terminal in East Jerusalem. We transferred to bus 21 which took us to a point just outside of Beit Jala where Muhammad thought it would be better to switch to a van for the rest of the trip to Hebron.

If Muhammad’s world were normal, we could have taken a main highway directly to his village, but just outside an illegal Israeli settlement all Palestinians have to take a special back road into Hebron. The main road is only for Israelis and tourists. There are many “settler” roads like that in the West Bank and some of them slice through farms that Palestinians have owned for generations.

In downtown Hebron we changed buses once again for the last lap to the village. We’ve all heard the Zionist propaganda about how the land was empty when Jews began to come from Europe to Palestine. The centuries-old hillside terraces where generations of Palestinians have cultivated olives, grapes, dates and vegetables belie the Israeli tales told to us in the West that the land was empty before the arrival of the Zionists.

As we drove through the countryside, Muhammad pointed out illegal hill-top settlements from which untreated sewage runs down into the valleys polluting Palestinians farms. He showed us how the Israeli settlements surround Palestinian villages and spoke of the harassment the settlers use to force Palestinians to leave their land. Israeli settlers can harass Palestinians with impunity. Even with all the forced detours to get to the village, our bus had to do some fancy wheeling between strategically placed boulders forcing the van onto a narrow, almost impassable road that led into the village.

Muhammad’s youngest sister met us at the gate of their home, greeting him with a big hug and us with a big smile. She led us into an attached parlour while Muhammad went into the main house to tell his mother that we were there. Soon she and an older sister appeared and welcomed us with cups of sweetened sage tea. Then an aunt and uncle arrived with their son and daughter, and soon the room was resounding in Arabic, English, good conversation and laughter.

Soon Muhammad’s father, who had been at the mosque for mid-morning prayer, arrived home. He is a history teacher in the village secondary school that Muhammad, his sisters, father and several generations of the family attended. He teaches history and specializes in Palestinian and Arab history. Our conversation about Palestinians and Israelis, with Muhammad translating, was interesting. His father held out some hope for a just resolution eventually. Muhammad’s uncle was more pessimistic about the future.

Dinner was Arab style. Traditionally the women eat separately from the men, but Donna was invited to eat with us guys. Muhammad’s youngest sister sat with us too so that Donna wouldn’t be the only female. The meal was the traditional maklouba (which means upside down). It’s made of rice, cooked with carrots, cauliflower, and saffron, and then flipped over and topped with chicken pieces, pine nuts and almonds. We squatted or sat in a circle on rugs with the platter in the center. Each of us had one large spoon and a bowl of laban (a kind of yogurt) which we spooned on to the mixture in front of us as we all ate from the common platter. Truly an agape meal!

After dinner, more conversation, Arabic coffee, and tea! Muhammad had to be back in Jerusalem for a 2nd job in an x-ray lab, and so in mid afternoon we said multiple good-byes. They were surprised by our custom of bringing them a gift and intrigued by the inclusion of Canadian maple syrup. The family told us that we are welcome any time.

Muhammad’s uncle gave us a quick tour of the village, including the museum and the cultural centre, and then drove us to Hebron to catch the bus back to Jerusalem. It was a memorable Saturday.

LENT ALREADY! TEMPUS FUGIT!

Pastor Michael & David

Dale dancing with Gillian

Canadian Tourists sampling the
Grog

Fasching Celebration

Shrove Tuesday
at the Guest House

"Jesus' footprint" (to the right) in the Chapel of the Ascension

Stairway at Dominus Flevit with a view from same

To the right looking down into the Kiddron Valley through an olive grove

Shopping at the At Tur greengrocer

The German expats helped us get ready for Ash Wednesday. On the last Saturday of the Epiphany season they organized a Fasching costume party with a “Stunksitzung, Musik, Tanz und Grog.” Donna and I put on our Tilley clothes and went as “Canadian tourists”, complete with name badges and Canadian pins! Viel Spass!

On Shrove Tuesday, Donna and Suzanne Wagner, a pastor from the U.S on sabbatical, made pancakes for the guest house folk. Pancake Day with Canadian-style pancakes and maple syrup from St. Jacob’s was a new experience for the Europeans and the Australians.

We observed Ash Wednesday at Pastor Holman’s flat with the Ash Wednesday liturgy, including the Imposition of Ashes and Holy Communion. After worship we all partook of a potluck meal. It seems contradictory, doesn’t it? One of the four disciplines of Lent is fasting and we had a feast on the 1st day of Lent. For Lutherans it’s more like “fating” than fasting. I guess it’s just that profound Lutheran sense that we don’t do things like fasting to win God’s love. Jesus has done that for us! Maybe fasting for Lutherans is giving up a part of one’s self out of love for others in response to God’s unconditional grace. Whoops! I’m starting to write a sermon. This Wednesday the Brown’s have invited us to the Stone House for midweek devotions, and potluck, of course!

On the 1st Sunday in Lent Donna and I walked down the Mount of Olives to the Garden of Gethsemane where the Greek Orthodox Church seems to be in control. We looked at the rock where tradition holds that Jesus was praying just before his arrest, and descended into the grotto where the Greeks think Mary was placed in a state of dormition (deep sleep) and where her assumption (being taken up bodily into heaven without dying) took place.

We crossed the street to visit St. Stephen’s Greek Orthodox Church and got a rather unfriendly welcome from the woman caretaker. She was suspicious of us when we entered the church, and we were barked at when we tried to go into a small room that was apparently out-of-bounds. “That’s the church out there! And no pictures!” she snarled. And as we left, I said something to her in Arabic. That was the last straw. “Why did you speak to me in Arabic? Didn’t you see the Greek flag on the roof? I’m Greek.” I replied that I spoke Arabic because this is Palestine, and she was insulted that I had taken her for a Palestinian. As far as she was concerned, in a Greek church under a Greek flag, she was in Greece. So much for Christian love and interfaith dialogue!

On the way back home, we walked through our village of At Tur and stopped at the Chapel of the Ascension. Inside is a roped-off rock with an indentation that looks a bit like a footprint. It is supposed to be the place where Jesus ascended. I guess the footprint was left when he “pushed off”. The Chapel is really part of a mosque, but remember that the Qu’ran treats Jesus as a prophet and proclaims that Jesus will play a role in the end-of-days, and so it’s appropriate that a mosque should house the place where Jesus ascended into heaven.

As Lent begins, spring seems to have sprung. We had our snow days 10 days ago, but when Donna and I took our 1st-Sunday-in-Lent walk, the temperature was close to+20C, and the sun was shining. The anemones are blossoming in guest house garden, yellow daisies are looking bright-eyed, the lemon trees are in blossom, and I’m told that the poppies are about to put on their red dresses. The almond trees won’t be far behind. We could get used to this.

On the way back to Augusta Victoria, we stopped for some fruit at the neighbourhood greengrocer in At Tur.