Chasing the Divine in the Holy Land (9 page)

At the Temple Mount we pass through our first security checkpoint. Men and women must separate into two lines. Unsmiling guards with automatic weapons examine our passports, then gesture for our water bottles. As we go through a metal detector, each water bottle receives the same treatment: cap unscrewed, contents sniffed, cap replaced. The contrast between the unused deterrent slung over the shoulder — a high-powered rifle — and the deterrent actually used — a human nose — strikes me. Incarnation yet again. Despite all the technology of violence, security comes down to olfactory glands. On the other side of the checkpoint we women and men rejoin the same stream. I wonder why the nose brigade is concerned with gender, though certainly gender matters everywhere in this Holy Land.

We ascend a long, covered ramp to a plaza which is surprisingly quiet, park-like. Two men in blue uniforms collect garbage with a rolling cart as they chat. Hearing an occasional belly laugh, I suspect that they're comparing weekend stories on this Monday morning.

Our group leader, Stephen, explains why this site is significant
to both Jews and Muslims. To the Jews, the Temple Mount is their holiest site, the location of Solomon's Temple, which was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586
BCE
and later rebuilt by Herod. Because the exact whereabouts of the Holy of Holies is unknown, many Jews feel they shouldn't enter the area at all — it is too revered.

To the Muslims, the Temple Mount is the third holiest site, where Muhammad ascended to heaven. Islam's two more sacred sites also concern Muhammad: the most sacred is Mecca (where he was born), and the next most sacred is Medina (where he died). The Muslims built the Dome of the Rock as a pilgrim shrine in 691
CE
and later built a place of worship, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is not as grand and beautiful a building as the Dome.

The rock inside the Dome commemorates another essential story: Abraham binding his son before sacrificing him to God. The story of the binding of Abraham's son is foundational to all three faiths, though there are important differences, such as which son is bound, Isaac or Ishmael, and on which mountain. The profound truth remains the same: Abraham was tested by God. Does it matter where, exactly, the mountain was located? I'm glad that theology trumps geography in this moment.

“You'll find,” Stephen says in his understated way, “that in the Holy Land, holy places move.”

The Dome before us was gilded in the 1990s, the gold paid for by the King of Jordan. Now the Dome is under the control of Israel. Stephen says that there have been “incidents” here, so security is high. When he puts quotation marks around a word with his voice, Stephen's British accent is particularly pronounced, which sparks my imagination.

“What incidents?” I whisper to the person next to me.

“Someone tried to pour acid on the shrine,” the person whispers back. So that explains the olfactory patrol.

Stephen is listing the Five Pillars of Islam, and I jot them down quickly: belief in monotheism/Allah; prayer five times a day; tithing; fasting during the month of Ramadan; pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj) at least once in a lifetime.

As I write, I listen with one ear to the sound of the sprinklers on the lawn. Men hawk postcards as Stephen talks. I'm curious about the lives of ordinary people like the garbage collectors. What is it like to call Jerusalem home?

Stephen points out a mihrab, which points toward Mecca, and I twist myself around, wondering how I would orient my body to point toward Mecca. As happens so frequently on this pilgrimage, I feel like I'm on the threshold of understanding something pivotal. I wish I had just a few minutes to soak it all in. What if I never come back here again? It's hard to know what bits of information matter and what ones don't. Which one will the Spirit use to speak to me? I feel overwhelmed and yet greedy for more.

Stephen is saying something about ablution stations, which are fountains for washing before worship. A supplicant is supposed to wash the whole body, including the mouth, before prayer. And the Muslims say that prayer is better than sleep. As we are herded along, I wonder:
Is prayer better than sleep? I don't live that way. What would happen if I did?

Stephen points to an area where the Byzantine Christians believed that Jesus cleansed the Temple. I look around the empty plaza and cannot picture it as more than what it is: hot, dry slabs of stone. He gestures to another area of the Temple grounds where the text about Jesus' temptation — the reference to the pinnacle of the Temple — has its own corner. There is no pinnacle to create a picture in my mind, and I'm too busy taking in what's there now to imagine what was there in antiquity.

All around us are huge stone arches with indecipherable engravings. These marks are the scales on which God will measure all humans. Now there's another tidbit that begs for a few moments of reflection. How, exactly, does God measure a human with a stone arch? I stand beneath the arch. I'm five-foot-four-and-a-half. Does the stone measure that? I'm not as kind as I should be. Does the stone measure my failings, too?

We approach the Dome of the Rock itself. “The building is octagonal,” Stephen says, “because seven is perfect, but eight is even more perfect.”

He doesn't mention the fact that eight is also significant in Christianity. We worship on the eighth day, essentially, because Saturday (the original Sabbath) was the seventh day, but the Sabbath was moved to Sunday in honor of Jesus' resurrection. So the number eight is a number beyond perfection in Christianity, too. Another random fact pops into my head: The early Christians constructed churches in the shape of an octagon if they were sure that Jesus had actually been at that site. Yes, Jesus' presence would perhaps linger, making the place beyond perfection.

I have the sudden urge to turn to someone and suggest that we do a craft project with Popsicle sticks. We could make something eight-sided, something beyond perfection. I need time to digest all this, need to manipulate with my fingers as well as my brain. With a tremendous pang, I wish my daughters were here with me, not as the young women they are now but as the little girls they used to be, when a table set with construction paper, glue bottles, and a shaker of glitter could make them crow with happiness. I need the sweetness of their naïveté because it's the only thing that makes it possible to believe in a notion like “beyond perfection.”

The group has moved on and is examining the enormous eight-sided Dome, which is covered with Arabic calligraphy: “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet.” Not that I can actually read the inscription. Stephen reminds us that all images are forbidden to Muslims, which is why words and geometric designs ornament the building.

The prohibition against images sounds familiar. “Thou shalt make no graven images” is one of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:4-5, KJV). All three of the Abrahamic faiths began with a prohibition against images, yet only Islam has held to it. Why? Are Muslims more obedient to their scripture than Christians are to theirs? The question is like twisting my body around to be oriented by the mihrab toward Mecca. I can't get my mind to follow this thought to its conclusion.

The decorative tiles are blue and green and gold, a mosaic pattern of eight-sided shapes. I wander around the plaza,
stopping to put my hand on a marble column. Kyle comes by and asks, “Do you know where the word ‘sincere' comes from?” I shake my head and wait while Kyle, a true preacher, pauses for a beat. “From the Latin
sin-cere,
which literally means ‘without wax.' When someone ordered marble work, they would specify ‘sin-cere,' because holes can be filled with wax and buffed to look like marble.”

I love random facts that make me think differently. My college's motto runs through my memory. It's a quote from John Calvin: Cor meum tibi offero, Domine, prompte et sincere (“Lord, I offer you my heart, promptly and sincerely”). It's an interesting quote because Calvin was an intellectual giant, and yet he loved God with his heart as well as his head. Now I glimpse new depths to this word
sin-cere.
Lord, I offer you my heart now, as it is, without wax to hide its flaws. Without buffing, without artifice, without any polishing at all.

Does God really want my unvarnished heart? I've been polishing for so many years that I'm not even sure what my
sin-cere
heart would look like. Four years in seminary certainly count as an application of paste wax. Two decades in ministry certainly function as buffing. Even this pilgrimage began as a wash-and-wax for my spiritual life.

I wander around all eight sides of the Dome, ending by the ablution stations. Ablution, as I understand it, is an extreme form of cleansing. I appreciate the desire for cleanliness. There's some washerwoman embedded in my DNA. But to be clean enough to approach the presence of a sovereign God? That seems like a useless compulsion. A person can never be that clean — isn't that the whole point of grace? We Calvinists, with our emphasis on depravity and sin, understand this. But even while our doctrine says, “It's all grace,” we turn around and work and work to be good enough. I've been taught to try harder, to be cleaner, to become more pure.

I wander past the many ablution stations wondering if my new Latin word
sin-cere
can help me unpack these mixed messages. It's hard to think coherently for this long, in this heat. I've
emptied my water bottle and I'm still thirsty. Sincerely thirsty. There are many fountains at each ablution station, all dry. The sight of so many useless spigots intensifies my thirst.

Feral cats wander in the corners of the Temple Mount. They are probably thirsty, too. Children appear from nowhere and approach the video cameras, making faces into the lens. Taking all this in, I notice that Marty — the pilgrim who wondered if the week would fundamentally change her — is wearing a white
hijab.
I ask her about it, and she tells me that she bought it yesterday in the Muslim Quarter. It makes her feel adorned, just as her pulpit vestments do. Like most Episcopalian priests I know, Marty loves her vestments. And I have my black robe and simple stole. Suddenly the situation strikes my funny bone. Marty is an Episcopalian priest draped in a Muslim
hijab,
standing under a bright sun next to a waterless fountain and discussing vestments with me, someone who doesn't wear them. Everything is a jumble in this Holy Land!

I blurt out, “I could kill for a beer!” We both laugh.

The Western Wall, Old Jerusalem

CHAPTER 8

Sisters

Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!

M
ARK 10:47

“T
HERE'S ANOTHER SECURITY
checkpoint before we can enter the plaza,” Stephen says.

“You mean by the Wailing Wall?” someone asks.

“Don't call it that. People gave it that name to belittle the Jews who were mourning the destruction of the Temple. It is the Western Wall, and that is what we should call it. We mustn't insult our Jewish brothers and sisters.”

I realize I must bow to this piece of history and change my language, but I feel the loss of poetry. Who would choose “Western Wall” over “Wailing Wall”? I will call it the right thing from now on, even though my heart is resistant.

We are allotted fifteen minutes. The men and women visit separate sections of the wall. The men get three-quarters, and the women get the last little piece, which is much more crowded. Even so, the women's section seems quieter than the men's. No theatrics. No wailing. No drums.

Jessica takes a quick picture of me and JoAnne together in front of the women clustered by the wall. Then, alone, I make my way to the wall itself. Two rows of white vinyl chairs face the stones, most of them occupied by women reading the Torah.
Other women stand. Standing or sitting, they bend forward and bob gently as they speak softly to themselves, so the air is a gentle murmur. There is no empty space at the wall, yet no one is shoving. I smell lavender. A few women stand behind the ones praying, waiting for someone to leave. I get into a similar position. Before I'm quite expecting it, a space opens in front of me.

I am a Christian, a Protestant, unfamiliar with worshiping at a holy rock. I'm not sure how to do this. I hold a slip of paper that my Jewish friend Stephanie has given me to leave at the wall. I slip the paper into a crack, then pray for Stephanie, and for her prayer requests, which I have not read.

What next? I look to the side and see that women have their hands spread against the wall. I put my hands up and make contact with my palms. The stone is cool and rough-textured. My glance falls on my watch. The fifteen minutes are already more than half gone. Quick. I want to be in a more prayerful mood. Without meaning to, I lean my forehead against the cool stone. Without meaning to, I pray:
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
It's an Eastern Orthodox prayer that's been memorized by Christians for centuries. The words are from Mark 10, the story of Blind Bartimaeus, whom Jesus healed. It's called the Jesus Prayer.

Is it proper to pray the Jesus Prayer at the Western Wall? Ignoring that question, my heart repeats the prayer. And again.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
I realize I'm leaking tears. Yes, I'm a sinner. I need mercy. I desire to offer my heart to the Lord, but it is imperfect. I've patched it with wax, but God can see right through. I offer up my imperfect, patched heart. I trust that I can be redeemed.

The tears do not stop, but my heart ceases to hammer. I feel a flood of forgiveness, a sense of peace. Yes, I am impatient and quick to judge. I pigeonhole other people's beliefs and think mine are better. I get cranky and snappish in the heat. But Jesus sees past these sins. I turn my head and press my right cheek against the wall.

There is movement on my left as a young mother lifts her baby
alongside the wall. The baby is maybe seven months old, dressed in a red jumper over an embroidered blouse. The mother spreads the little girl's palms against the stone, then gently turns the head. The baby doesn't protest, just rests her left cheek against the wall as if she's done this before. Beneath a colorful head-wrap her eyes are dark brown and somber. An old soul. She looks at me, unblinking. Our faces are about twelve inches apart. My own eyes are curtained by tears, which I blink away because I want to see the baby clearly. The mother has put her own forehead against the wall on the other side of her child. I wonder who she is praying for. This baby? A husband? Other family members? With my eyes open, I pray with her.