Yedid Nefesh

O Beloved of the soul! O Merciful Father! Draw me, your slave, toward your will; your slave will run like a gazelle to prostrate himself before your splendor. Your companionship will be as pleasing to him as honey and nectar and every good savor.

O Most Splendid! O Light of the World! My soul is ill from love of you. Please, my God, please heal her by showing her the beauty of your light. Then she will be strengthened, and she will be healed, and she will have eternal joy.

O Most Faithful! Arouse your mercy! Have pity on your beloved child, for how much,­ how much ­have I longed to gaze upon your mighty splendor. Only this my heart desired: have pity and do not conceal Yourself.

Be revealed, my Beloved, and spread the canopy of your peace over me. Illumine the earth with your glory; we will rejoice and be glad in you. Hurry, Beloved, for the time has come. Be gracious to us as in the days of old.

(rabbi Elazar Azikri, 1533-1600)

For all it's worth - this is not about religion...

... I am a committed Catholic, and I will forever cherish the honour of prayers and friendships with both Jews and Muslims. And I do recognise that there are always both sides to any story. This essay is about history...

I had a conversation with a young Palestinian Christian a few nights ago. He told me he feared that the secular Jewish state, Israel, was the sole guarantee of the survival of Christians in the Holy Land.

"If it weren't for the Jewish people, I don't know what would have happenned to us Christians here. Every time I go to work on Friday at noon someone always asks me, come to pray, come to the mosque to pray, why don't you go pray. I always tell them I am a Christian, but some would say, you are an Arab. The Jewish are between us and the Muslims, if the Jewish go out, the Muslims would probably kill us..."

Does his Church stand by him? Or is it even more afraid than he is?

I am reading an issue of the Holy Land, titled The Holy City, a Franciscan quarterly from Summer 2005. For an issue devoted to the Holy City of Jerusalem, it has only one article on the subject - What Jerusalem is to the Islam. The article concludes, next to a photo of a smiling Muslim:

"Today's Moslems are convinced of Jerusalem's importance for Islam, not only for reasons based on the Koran and the sunna, but also for those which have arisen from the dramatic pressures of history... In this context", the author goes on in the final paragraph, "let us us recall the final declaration of the Islamic Summit Meeing in Lahore: 'Jerusalem is the unique symbol of Islam's converging encounter with the revealed religions. For more than 1 300 years the Moslems have protected and venerated Jerusalem as a boon for all who venerate her. The Moslems, and only they, can be the faithful and impartial custodians of Jerusalem, for the simple reason that it is only they who, at one and the same time, believe in the three religions, which have their origin in Jerusalem... No accord or protocol which would look to the occupation of the Holy City by Israel,... or that would be the object of compromise or concession, would be acceptable to Moslem countries' " (italics mine).

It is noteworthy that the opposite page is titled "Wall breeds rage and causes joblessness", and the article begins with the words: "The security wall Israel is building around East Jerusalem is turning lives upside down, threatening jobs, pushing people to emigrate..." The Moslems, and only they..., I almost hear an echo.

It is true that Christians are emigrating from the Holy Land - three times more so from the Palestinian Authority's controlled territories. Checkpoints, the wall, living conditions - and most likely a lot of other reasons. Once they have left, however, their homes are immediately bought with Saudi Arabian money. A humble Maltese sister told me with a sad smile that soon there will be no Christians left where she lives, only Muslims who are loyal to Saudi Arabia...

In another article in the same publication, a talk given by Fr. Mitchell Pacwa, host for EWTN, is quoted. He says: "When Islam allows the Christians to live together with them, they flourish economically, cultually, scientifically and pholosophically...". Please allow us to live together with you, so that we can serve you, so that you can flourish. You have never thanked us for helping the Hamas, the PLO, the PLF, for transporting bombs and explosives, for blowing ourselves up, for identifying ourselves with you, for letting our homes be pillaged, our churches burned - by you - all in the name of some strange idea of unconditional service to our brothers. For 1 300 years our existence has only been tolerated for the service we owed to the umma, a service for which we expect no thanks but which we do gratefully, since it spares our life...

So, do the Christians want to use someone else's strength to eliminate the national sovereignity of Israel, which the Church (or parts of it) condemned, or does this strategy reflect the insecurity of a minority trying to direct hostility onto a third party?

The question may remain unanswered forever (you will, however, have difficulty finding the word Israel referring to the political entity in Catholic publications), but let me just point out a few similarities here. The Constitution of Hamas, arts. 6 and 31, states the following: "Only under the shadow of Islam could the members of all religions coexist in safety and security for their lives, property and rights. In the absence of Islam, conflict arises, oppression reigns, corruption is rampant and struggles and wars prevail... Safety and security can only prevail under the shadow of Islam, and recent and ancient history is the best witness to that effect." The Moslems, and only they...

Anyone who has been to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre or to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem can testify to the delapidated state that both of these sacred sites are in. The reason is not the lack of money - it is far more prosaic, but very representative of the fragmented state of the Church, which likes to call itself Palestinian here. The reason is that whoever makes repairs assumes ownership. Have you seen a video of two priests of different denominations fighting with each other in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre? Look it up on YouTube. One of them apparently walked into another's territory. Imagine if he had wanted to fix another's window! He may have well been killed... The keys to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre are with a Muslim family, that have been guardians of the holy place for centuries. That echo again...

When Israel declared two holy cites part of the National heritage, this had almost caused another war a few weeks ago - with riots, burnt cars, four people killed, a hundred injured. Why, how is it possible for former dhimmis to care for their prayer places?! On their own?! Only the religion that acknowledges all three can provide law and order - if not, well, you see what can happen! There will be riots and stone-throwing! It is in the natural order of things! And Christians agree on that one!

But is it true? Is it true that Christians cannot take care of themselves? That only Islam can guarantee their protection, and not their inherent human rights, not the fact that they are born free? The question is - what exactly has been going on for 1 300 years?

The answer is long and complex. Just a few fragments, though. Church bells were forbidden. "The bell is the devil'd pipe", according to a hadith. The Jerusalem Jews had to pay throughout the 19th century to the Turkish authorities to pray at the Western Wall, to the villiagers of Silwan to prevent the destruction of tombs on the Mount of Olives, and to the Ta'amra Arabs of Bethlehem so that Rachel's tomb would not be destroyed, and an additional sum to visit the tomb. The other of the mentioned disputed places, the cave of Machpela in Hebron, was built by Herod the Great to house the tombs of the Hebrew patriarchs and matriarchs. It was turned into a church at the time of the Crusades - and converted into a mosque in 1266. Jews and Christians were henceforth banned from the Tomb of the Patriarchs. 600 years later, in 1862, the Prince of Wales was allowed to enter it by a special authorisation from the Ottoman sultan - a sacrilege that led to the military occupation of Hebron. Christians were only able to enter under the British mandate, from 1922, and Jews from 1967, when Hebron came under Israeli administration. Let me make one thing clear - both Christians and Muslims can come and pray at the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb. I have. You do have to board a bullet-proof bus, though. But, ah well. You know the echo by now...

Don't believe what you hear, don't believe what you see...

A U2 song keeps ringing out in my ears all day today, it starts with the words: "Don't belive what you hear, don't believe what you see, if you just close your eyes, you can feel the enemy..."

This seems to be the name of the game where I live now. I might just go insane and start looking for freemasons lurking in the shadows with dynamite and building tools. All is ready and the golden menorah is set up long ago outside on the street, disguised as a monument, of course... Ah well... It's not like I haven't lived in places like that before...

Today, I have indeed had a somewhat apocalyptic experience - a storm in the Dead Sea. That's right. A sight rare to behold, the sea was rough, waves crashing onto the shore, knocking the tourists off their feet, the wind upsetting the chairs, blowing off the towels, people falling in the heavy, bitter, oily waves of what, for once, looked just like a normal sea...

All of that was in 40-something temperatures, with the wind hotter than the air, a desert blow-dryer of some sorts, the kind of dry heat that makes you want put on all the clothes you've got and drink lots of hot tea. It reminded me of my trip to Sicily a couple of years ago, with the same hot wind and an official temperature of +47. I was afraid to make an extra move back then. Today was nothing compared to that experience, perhaps because the air now was even dryer and the sandy wind even stronger, but the sensation was certainly unusual. But my hair got 'blow-dried' in some 5 minutes. And hot drinks seemed strangely appropriate...

Back in Jerusalem, the temperature was 20 degrees cooler, a dramatic contrast.

Yesterday, I offically missed an opportunity to take a photograph of a lifetime, a potential award-winner if processed correctly. I now have only words to describe the undescribable, a visual parable that can only be represented and interpreted in images.

I saw a cage with white doves on my way to Tel Aviv bus station. Perhaps six or seven doves, white and fluffy, caged on the pavement near a shop of some sorts. A soldier, an ordinary soldier, in a uniform and with a gun, was squatting in front of the cage, holding his hands against it, in what seemed like an attempt to communicate with the birds. White doves and a soldier...

... if you just close your eyes, you can feel the enemy...

What Is Truth?

A Roman official looked at the man in front of him, an insignificant, tired, beaten-up Jew, and asked rhetorically, What is truth? I believe he was somewhat annoyed and may have shrugged indignantly – of all the places, HERE, you are talking to me about the truth?! The man had just told him he came into the world to testify to the truth...

Almost two thousand years later, I live on the exact spot where this conversation took place.

Or rather, within the radius of a few metres. Or, was it on the other side of the city? Then, it would have been a mile away... Or a couple of blocks away, where the Russian church stands?Did the conversation take place in the manner it was described, you might ask. Well, did it? Two thousand years later, on the spot where it took place (where exactly?..), the conversation is still hanging in the air. What is truth?

Did someone hang a poster on the gate of the mosque, saying that the Third Temple will be rebuilt? Did someone come inside in carnival costumes? Or did someone say that someone posted a note, that someone came inside...? Stones were thrown, people were injured, no one knows any more what was said. Are there 30 000 soldiers in the city or 3 000? And what is it exactly they are here for? Is the synagogue being opened on Monday or Tuesday and does it have any connection with the lunar calendar? Oh, was it just that Tuesday is the third day of creation, and God said that everything was good three times? Could it be that someone heard about the opening of the synagogue and mistook it for the Third Temple, the rumours of which are highly exaggerated anyway? No, apparently Tuesday is a good day to build the Third Temple... And why is it that the Church that finally has the religious freedom it did not have for 700 years now side with its former opressors against the people who gave it the religious freedom? Because?...

Oh, and Rachel's Tomb, why exactly is it not a Jewish holy place? Honestly, I forgot... They said it belongs to everyone, and that Palestinian Christians and Muslims can't go to pray there. I'm sorry they can't, but did they go before? I thought Rachel was Jewish, that's why I called it a Jewish holy place, in much the same way as David's Tomb is, but all hell broke loose...

Someone says it was the children, someone says they were men, someone says they locked themselves inside the mosque overnight, someone says the soldiers wouldn't let anyone in to pray, but they would let the tourists and the Jews. That should be enough to start a riot. It should, or maybe it shouldn't... And Palestine, was it ever a country? And Hebrew, was it ever a dead language? And does Jewish history exist? And does Palestinian history exist? The guards at the Holy Sepulchre, would they carry the same swords and staffs at the time when they used to beat up the Jews for even approaching the holy place?..

A Roman governor, 2000 years ago, I wonder how he must have felt. There was this man there, telling him he came to testify to the truth. Was it the same back then? Or is it a curse of this place, for not seeing the Truth? Why is it, that on the same spot where my King said HE is the truth, the truth is impossible to figure out? It seems that it just does not exist.

Jesus said He is the way, and the truth and the life. Not a line in the news, not even a verse in the Bible. He Himself. All of him. His presence, His Spirit. In every drop, in every crumb. Little dogs eat crumbs from your table... The Spirit flows at the ruins of your Temple... Good Samaritans feed the Gentiles... Sometimes I feel the line between deep faith and profound confusion is blurred, because God is so much bigger that anything I ever imagined Him to be.

I was telling your people today, with tears in my eyes, that they showed you to me in the way I have never experienced before, Lord. They showed me your heart. You are leading me up the road that demands great courage... On the spot where Jesus claimed to be the truth, why is truth so hard to find?

Two months in Jerusalem have passed. They flew by as one day, and yet it feels as if I have been here for years and years. Time ceased to exist. Or, perhaps, I have become oblivious to it, as all happy people are. Sometimes, just walking the street fills me with love.

I remember a time like this, many years ago. It was in a country that gave me my freedom and my sanity back, a place so perfect I almost felt it I was being healed just by being there, a place that changed my life, turned it around, and brought me back to God. I am reminded of it very often here, by the things that are happenning, the people I meet and the way I feel. I am speaking of Ireland, of course.

I remember thinking back then, that there was not one minute that I did not feel happy. I could have just stayed there, and never travel in my whole life, if I could only share in the magic of the sea, and the tides, and the healing it gave me, batterred after my year of living dangerously. One morning, it was January 18th, I was walking the street and realised that God had just healed me - a weight was lifted. I became who I thought I would never be.

I have missed it every day since I left. The people, the chaos, the talking, the richness of poverty, the theatre, the singing, the Church, the enchanted forests, the friends I made on the bus, the postman who knew my name, the wind and the rain, and above all, that special feeling, that I feel completely at home. Here, I remembered it vividly. I often thought, of all places I have been to, this reminds me of Ireland the most.

I spoke to one sister yesterday, who has lived many years in the Middle East. Suddenly, she blurted out, much to my amazement, 'Ireland is the Middle East of Europe'. How strange of her to have given words to what I have been thinking about for the past month or so.

Of course, Jerusalem is extreme. There is something about the way Jewish mystics would explain the celebration of Purim that may explain it. It brings out the best and the worst in people, sometimes all at once, until you can't tell the good guy from the bad guy. I have never felt anything like that anywhere else. Not that I have never had great falls after intense spiritual revelations or have never been aware of what it means to be human, but I have never seen this tension between good and evil become almost a rule of live, incorporated in every day-to-day experience. From the priests fighting in the place where the greatest miracle in history - the Resurrection - has ever happenned, to the Via Dolorosa with the soldiers through an Arab market, to people throwing stones on the way to prayer, and all the countless things in between. It is as if being human has become tangible here.

As I am writing this, I somehow realised I have no good ending for this blog post. Some things cannot be explained that easily. But as in Ireland, Jerusalem also gave me some of my freedom back, and the prayers were answered. So by way of conclusion - one of the prayers said at the site that is cause of the commotion we are now having came true the next morning.

Pray for Peace in Jerusalem, All You Who Love Her...

This morning began with an unusual prayer call from the minaret next door. The Allah Akbar did not sound as prayerful as usual, and it broke off midway to give room to what sounded like a long angry call for war, jihad, with some hints of the Wailing Wall intonation every once in a while. Even when you don't know the words, the meaning was unmistacable - the call was for everyone to gather and help out.

Doors locked, windows shut, guests went out on the terrace and got back just as swiftly, somewhat unsure if the best thing might have been to get to some room with no windows and just stay there for the rest of the day.

Apparently, some Jewish people wanted to get to the Temple Mount to celebrate the Purim - they did not get inside, but at other times even less was needed to start a war. So the city braced itself. And I went to Mass, outside the Old City, just as planned.

Shops closed, the lively Damascus Gate died out, shopkeepers outside on the street, socilalizing and waiting whether to open again or to leave altogether, Old City gates closed by the police and soldiers checking IDs. In what looked like an anonymous white grocery truck, soldiers were putting on full body armour, literally from head to toe, covering knees and legs and checking the ammunition...

I went to Notre Dame to pray for the light of Chirst to light up our darkness. It's not that I was surprised - much less afraid - but it was just so incredibly sad to see the place you love so torn by hate...

Friday night, I was at the Sabbath meal where the rabbi - a man who preaches not just by what he says, but by how he lives - said that Purim was a celebration of the event when God reminded His people of His love for them. God is in everything, and if we forget Him in the good He does for us, He will be there in the bad things that happen, reminding that He is there, that He is always present. The priest said in his homily, echoing the rabbi's words, and sometimes repeating them in their entirety, that we can see God in everything that happens around us. The horror of the earthquake in Chile, or Haiti, can move us to pray, or to do good deeds - and in that we see God. Such an uncanny echo. And I, too, was moved to seek God despite the sad things happening in His city...

It's not that I take sides - I have never been the right person to take sides, the picture is always too complex for me to make a judgement - but it's true that somehow I have never felt God more closely then at dark times, whatever they might be. And this is the same thing that both the rabbi and the priest spoke about. The context was different - a crazy Sabbath dinner that left us with a feeling of such profound joy we felt like dancing in the rain and a conservative Mass in Latin - but the message entirely the same.

Jerusalem never ceases to surprise me. Pray for peace in Jerusalem

Lent Has Begun in Jerusalem...

... and what an extraordinary Lent it is!

Somewhat, for me, it is presently a season of joy, a joy that is difficult to channel at times, but when I am alert to it, it feels almost too much to bear. In this city of His, Our Lord is killing me with His love.

Right now everyone is singing Alleluja in our coffee room. What is more, on the first Sunday of Lent I went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, or Church of the Resurrection as it would perhaps be more correct to call it, and not only were they singing Alleluja, but also Regina Caeli in the end of the Mass! I assumed it was some special sort of dispensation for the church where our Lord has been risen from the dead - it is always Alleluja in the Holy Sepulchre. But someone else went to another Franciscan church, and they were also singing Alleluja at Mass. Apparently, joy seems to overflow in every direction, seasons nonwithstanding...

I dont even know how to summarize what I have been experiencing here. Being touched by the Lord at prayer, experiencing His love, His desire for me. Or meeting people, complete strangers who would give their food, time and posessions to a foreigner?

Seeing God in the love I have been shown by people of all religions and nationalities? Shall I tell the story of how I walked past the Western Wall towards the end of the Sabbath, and an Orthodox Jew jumped up to greet three Africans behind me with the words: "Come, will you sing a song with me?" Or of a Sabbath dinner where beggars from the streets danced with a rabbi from the US? An Arab barbeque on a dead-end street of the Old City? Half of the Jewish Quarter helping us fix the electricity in an apartment we were given by someone who knew me only from 3 previous - and very short - meetings? A Muslim woman reading the book Jabez Prayer, and spending her precious day off buying me dinner and showing me around? Where do I begin, how do I show? If everything could be written, it would have been such a huge book, or perhaps no book could ever contain everything I have to say. Why am I immediately reminded of the words of John, the Beloved Disciple, the man who truly knew that the Lord loved him. Is there a connection? Because the Lord is endless, immeasurable, unexplainable, and no books could ever contain anything that can be said of Him?

Of course, there are sad things. For someone who has spent some time researching the history of the Troubles in Ireland, and who has been indirectly affected by some of the wars on the territory of the former Soviet Union, the story is all too familiar. More painful, perhaps, because it goes side by side with a profound sense of the Lord's presence. But apparently, people are the same everywhere. And in places like this it is impossible to judge. The Christian responsibility for what we did throughout the history to breed hate by our hate of the Jewish people cannot be overlooked. Anything else and more specific I will only be at liberty to write when I get back.

Getting back scares me. I suppose, this is the feeling I share with most people who have spent more than a couple of weeks here. The intensity of emotions, the supernatural energy of the place, the profound sense of living every day as if it were your last, breathing fully, living intensly, with no reservations, no unnesessary provisions for the future - it cannot be repeated elsewhere. I live just a few metres from what was believed to be the foundation stone of the world, the place where Cain killed Abel, where Abraham wanted to sacrifice Isaak, where medieval maps had the centre of the world, where New Age cults mark the energy pole of the Earth, where the Holy of Holies once was. Sometimes I don't feel it, sometimes its ovewhelming. That same place - the Temple Mount - was also made into a city dump by the Church in Jerusalem (hence the name Dung Gate, the gate that now leads to the Western Wall) prior to the Muslim conquest, in an obvious move to underline the way how the Jewish Temple was made obsolete. That's Jerusalem...

Someone who lived in Jerusalem for 5 years and now lives in Eilat said she often was moved to tears just walking the streets, for no reason at all. That's Jerusalem. That's how I feel at times, too. Knowing this is not going to last is devastating. That is why, perhaps, the Bible ends with references to the heavenly Jerusalem - where we will be experiencing God forever. Now I know a little better what it will be like.