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
Sunday, 28 February 2010
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, 17 January 2010
John 2:1-11, The Wedding at Cana
"O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come"
Jesus says these words to his Mother not to be harsh to her - because she apparently understood him as granting her request, and called for the servants. I think he meant something else, I think he was thinking of another day when the hour would come.
When they would be drunk - but not with wine, when they would be satisfied - but not with food, when they will see that all their longings and desires were in fact stemming from only one insatiable desire - for the Lord their God. He would give Himself freely and fully to them, and every time feed on Him would be a wedding feast!
The hour has maybe even come several times -or was manifesting itself in different ways - on the cross when it had been accomplished; in the room of the Last Supper, when he gave Himself to his disciples; at Pentecost - in the same place, it had to be! - when they were drunk, but not with wine.
The Lord comes at Mass, body and blood, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and fills us. That hollow emptiness that would only be filled by Him. His hour is come, he is here. I often feel touched by the Holy Spirit when bread and wine become body and blood. This is the wedding feat of the Lamb! Blessed are those who are called to it, says the priest.
And I believe this may have been what Jesus had in mind. That his disciples would be drunk with the Holy Spirit in the same room where he gave Himself to them - to feast on Him. That we now, too, would be filled with the Holy Spirit as we feast on Him at Mass. That is His hour.
Then, at Cana, it had not yet come. But He knew that it would - one day, through shedding of His own blood, wine would again be transformed, and would become the true drink, the true living water. The Word made flesh would transform our own flesh and lift us up to His divinity...
And the old tradition says that in the very room where He gave Himself to them - the Holy Spirit came...
Jesus says these words to his Mother not to be harsh to her - because she apparently understood him as granting her request, and called for the servants. I think he meant something else, I think he was thinking of another day when the hour would come.
When they would be drunk - but not with wine, when they would be satisfied - but not with food, when they will see that all their longings and desires were in fact stemming from only one insatiable desire - for the Lord their God. He would give Himself freely and fully to them, and every time feed on Him would be a wedding feast!
The hour has maybe even come several times -or was manifesting itself in different ways - on the cross when it had been accomplished; in the room of the Last Supper, when he gave Himself to his disciples; at Pentecost - in the same place, it had to be! - when they were drunk, but not with wine.
The Lord comes at Mass, body and blood, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and fills us. That hollow emptiness that would only be filled by Him. His hour is come, he is here. I often feel touched by the Holy Spirit when bread and wine become body and blood. This is the wedding feat of the Lamb! Blessed are those who are called to it, says the priest.
And I believe this may have been what Jesus had in mind. That his disciples would be drunk with the Holy Spirit in the same room where he gave Himself to them - to feast on Him. That we now, too, would be filled with the Holy Spirit as we feast on Him at Mass. That is His hour.
Then, at Cana, it had not yet come. But He knew that it would - one day, through shedding of His own blood, wine would again be transformed, and would become the true drink, the true living water. The Word made flesh would transform our own flesh and lift us up to His divinity...
And the old tradition says that in the very room where He gave Himself to them - the Holy Spirit came...
Tuesday, 12 January 2010
Peace on Earth
The Holy Land, everyone knows it, is not a peaceful place. Paradoxically, it can also be the most peaceful place in the world.
In Jerusalem, where I live now, I got to know a kind and gentle Russian Orthodox priest, went to a Greek Catholic Mass in Arabic, was too tired to go to a messianic Jewish prayer meeting, but my fellow Catholics did go and enjoyed themselves immensly. I watched an elderly Jewish lady praying from a book, rocking gently back and forth while waiting for her bus, and looking up every once in a while to see if her bus was coming. It was the most beautiful thing ever. I work with an Armenian Catholic lady, and speak about prayer and intimate touches of God with a Muslim woman, who often speaks the words of the Scriptures without knowing it. We begin Mass nearly at the same time when the Muslim prayer calls resonate throughout the Old City of Jerusalem, and finish an evening prayer with Our Father in Arabic.
When I speak with a Palestinian Christian guy, such a beatiful sould who loves Jesus with all his heart, I often feel guilty. I know it wasn't my fault, but I feel guilty for just being in a room where those words were once said (by another friend who loves Jesus - aren't we a people of paradoxes): "If Samson had killed those Philistines then, Israel would have had no problem with the Palestinians now". Yes, here is your Philistine who is so unfortunate to be alive, that he wakes up at 5 am every Sunday and can't wait to get to the first Mass that is held in his church. He would then go to a Christian orphanage in Bethlehem, and maybe play a game of football with some Muslim kids. It's fun, you know...
I saw a grown-up man, a grandfather, a Lutheran minister of around 20 years, so shaken yesterday that he almost wept. He tried to say a coherent sentence, but he couldn't. There were just images and pictures, and impressions. They went to Hebron, because they heard a nun praying in a church they went to: "May the soldiers treat their fellow men like human beings". They called her and went to visit a Christian peacemaking organisation, run by 8 different Christian denominations. I saw him leaving - and saw him come back a different person. His hands were shaking and tears were welling up in his eyes. I thought of Auschwitz, he said. My son is a soldier (he serves in Georgia, as in Georgia with Tbilisi a capital) he said - but he would never do anything like that. He would never do anything like that.
Faced with the impossible, we are all shaken. But I have heard those conversations, have sat with people who said things I even then was shocked to hear. I am faced with the consequence of their choices here and now. Whether these choices were well informed, is another question. My friend - well, my friend is coming for a visit. You may have already guessed we are all preparing the most exciting program ever... But he has to know.
In Jerusalem, where I live now, I got to know a kind and gentle Russian Orthodox priest, went to a Greek Catholic Mass in Arabic, was too tired to go to a messianic Jewish prayer meeting, but my fellow Catholics did go and enjoyed themselves immensly. I watched an elderly Jewish lady praying from a book, rocking gently back and forth while waiting for her bus, and looking up every once in a while to see if her bus was coming. It was the most beautiful thing ever. I work with an Armenian Catholic lady, and speak about prayer and intimate touches of God with a Muslim woman, who often speaks the words of the Scriptures without knowing it. We begin Mass nearly at the same time when the Muslim prayer calls resonate throughout the Old City of Jerusalem, and finish an evening prayer with Our Father in Arabic.
When I speak with a Palestinian Christian guy, such a beatiful sould who loves Jesus with all his heart, I often feel guilty. I know it wasn't my fault, but I feel guilty for just being in a room where those words were once said (by another friend who loves Jesus - aren't we a people of paradoxes): "If Samson had killed those Philistines then, Israel would have had no problem with the Palestinians now". Yes, here is your Philistine who is so unfortunate to be alive, that he wakes up at 5 am every Sunday and can't wait to get to the first Mass that is held in his church. He would then go to a Christian orphanage in Bethlehem, and maybe play a game of football with some Muslim kids. It's fun, you know...
I saw a grown-up man, a grandfather, a Lutheran minister of around 20 years, so shaken yesterday that he almost wept. He tried to say a coherent sentence, but he couldn't. There were just images and pictures, and impressions. They went to Hebron, because they heard a nun praying in a church they went to: "May the soldiers treat their fellow men like human beings". They called her and went to visit a Christian peacemaking organisation, run by 8 different Christian denominations. I saw him leaving - and saw him come back a different person. His hands were shaking and tears were welling up in his eyes. I thought of Auschwitz, he said. My son is a soldier (he serves in Georgia, as in Georgia with Tbilisi a capital) he said - but he would never do anything like that. He would never do anything like that.
Faced with the impossible, we are all shaken. But I have heard those conversations, have sat with people who said things I even then was shocked to hear. I am faced with the consequence of their choices here and now. Whether these choices were well informed, is another question. My friend - well, my friend is coming for a visit. You may have already guessed we are all preparing the most exciting program ever... But he has to know.
Thursday, 7 January 2010
Jerusalem
Today is my third day in the Holy City, and also the day of the Russian Christmas. In practice, this means the city is packed with Russian tourists in big and small groups, and the churches rang their bells for 20 minutes both at midnight and at 3 am. No, I slept through all of this - one of the guests told me. At 4.50, mind you, there is a LOUD prayer call from the minaret across the street, reminding the faithful that to pray is better than to sleep. Miraculously, I slept through the prayer call as well... You wouldn't believ the loudness of it until you really attempt to sleep here during the day.
During adoration, our voices often merge with the prayer call, which is then followed by the church bells ringing. I am in Jerusalem, I remind myself. I am in a place like no other places. It cannot be put in box, ordered up and explained. It has to be experienced. Why am I thinking - this is exactly what I would have said about God? And God - this is the only place where He lived.
I took a walk on Via Dolorosa yesterday. This morning, I went to the Tomb of the Virgin, and to the Church of all nations, worshipping before the rock on which Jesus is said to have prayed, near the 2000-year-old olive trees that are supposed to be where the Garden of Gesthemane once was. I get a good view of it from our roof... I took a lovely picture of the Golden Gate - through which the Messiah is supposed to come back - from the road below it.
Having written a paragraph like this, do you think I am on my knees, weeping, bowing, or prostrate in some peculiar religious extasy before a crusifix of olive wood? I am actually sipping coffee after lunch. I am looking at the Dome of the Rock from the terrace, it's a stone's throw away. I feel absolutely normal. Or so I think. The world did not change, heaven did not fall down on me and I felt almost nothing. Almost.
Peculiarly, the only Scripture that comes to my mind to explain how an experience like this applies to life is the words of St.Paul about praying in tongues: "my mind is unfruitful but my spirit prays".
My mind refuses to comprehend the reality. There are glimpses of it, there are some fleeting moments when I feel something, like a lightning going through your body, but most of the time I am thinking of something else. Such as: I should watch my back while I put my camera into the bag. My mind is unfruitful.
Today, I was reciting parts of a morning prayer of Lauds to a Muslim lady at the reception: "all the rivers and seas, bless the Lord... frost and snow, bless, the Lord..." Yes. the whole creation blesses the Creator, she replied joyfully. Yesterday, a Jordanian Greek Catholic was telling me how he found Jesus. These are people we never heard about. Palestinian Christians were non-existant to Protestants of all denominations I had passed through. Moreover, we directly or indirectly contributed to their exodus from the Holy Land. Muslims are a whole different story. However, these people have lived together here for centuries. Yet, my mind is unfruitful.
I see the picture but it is too big for me to put the pieces together. I get a glimpse of God but He is too big for me to comprehend. I stand alone in absolute silence before the burial place of Our Lady and understand I do not have to feel anything. Our Lord is bigger that my ridiculous attempts to box Him in, to congratulate myself on having prayed this and this many psalms today and gone to that many many places yesterday. The world is bigger than what I have seen. And truth - well, truth is not something. It is someone. And for all I know, this was the only place where He lived.
Monday, 4 January 2010
Airport
I am sitting in the Crystal Lounge in Prague airport - hurray to democracy, you only have to pay to get access, regardless your ticket.
As I was making myself some coffee, a girl of about 5 came up, and asked me - in Russian - where does one find juice. Not in the least bit surprised that I answered her - in Russian, as well - she accepted the juice I found her and went away. I think she has just left for Moskow. She came up some 10 minutes ago, to watch the airplanes taking off, and I asked her where she was going. I am going to Tel Aviv. She asked me whether I will be back here soon. I will be back in three months, I said. Then I will never see you again, she replied. Bye. Bye.
And I am still here, watching the planes, drinking wine, tea, and water with lemon. Soon to take off... And I will never see her again. And I will never come here again, perhaps. Or perhaps I will... that's what airports are all about, I guess...
As I was making myself some coffee, a girl of about 5 came up, and asked me - in Russian - where does one find juice. Not in the least bit surprised that I answered her - in Russian, as well - she accepted the juice I found her and went away. I think she has just left for Moskow. She came up some 10 minutes ago, to watch the airplanes taking off, and I asked her where she was going. I am going to Tel Aviv. She asked me whether I will be back here soon. I will be back in three months, I said. Then I will never see you again, she replied. Bye. Bye.
And I am still here, watching the planes, drinking wine, tea, and water with lemon. Soon to take off... And I will never see her again. And I will never come here again, perhaps. Or perhaps I will... that's what airports are all about, I guess...
Wednesday, 30 December 2009
Pilgrim's Peace
These two words appeared in my mind yesterday. It felt as if I were in the eye of the storm - the world rushes by, things demanding attention, work to be done, shopping, cooking, dishes, and I am able to look at it as if from the outside, not unmoved, but unaffected, and, oddly enough, humming a Latvian church hymn, about peace flowing within me like a river. And then, out of nowhere, the words jump at me - pilgrim's peace.
I am not familiar with the experience. Nor have I ever used these two words before. I never thought about making a pilgrimage, although Taize comes quite close, now that I think of it. I remember waking up in tents in below freezing temperatures, walking to the bathroom some 50 metres away, and rushing to prayer on a cold morning in Burgundy, with an absolute certainty that we will not so much as sneeze. And we never did! No sneezing, no coughing. Well, someone I know did demand meat, and I, rather uncharitably, thought this must have been exactly what Israelites were saying in the desert... Apart from having to put up with grumbling, no harm has ever occurred despite modest circumstances.
And I suppose pilgrimage is exactly that - getting by day by day on whatever the Lord provides, not thinking of tomorrow, remembering that one is here for something else, something that satisfies more that food, or wine, or clothes.
I know two people who just went to a Taize meeting this year. They don't know each other, but - who knows - perhaps they will meet there. Perhaps not. In a sense, they will be united even if they don't. When I was 16, Taize meant a whole world to me, literally even. I think I met people from 16 different nations in one day, and the fact that we all managed to understand each other, that we could pray together, revealed to me something new about the Lord. I saw Babylon reversed, thousands of people of all tongues and nations united by one common language - of prayer, of course, but also, more specifically, Latin. We all spoke one language. The mother tongue of the Church. And we understood it perfectly.
There is a Russian stand-up comedian, who, oddly enough, went to the same school I did - years before me. He became famous in the 1990's for his jokes about 'stupid Americans'. Americans don't know how to cook potatoes (???), Americans can even sell you a navel-warmer if you ask for it, Americans and all the tourists in general will never understand our mysterious Russian soul... Things like that, extremely annoying and silly, but perhaps adequate in a country that had been isolated from the outside world for 70 years. What an experience like Taize did to me was, of course, that I could never comprehend his jokes, could never laugh at them or even listen to them. I was blessed to see that, ultimately, we are all the same. In God, that is. In Him there are no distinctions.
Now, many years later, when I say Our Father in church, I sometimes see all the people and places, all the churches, chapels and cathedrals where we have attended Mass or prayed. A cathedral in Genoa, a stuffy church on Panarea, an airport chapel in Milan, the never-ending Maltese churches... People lifting up their hands to their heavenly Father. Good or bad, recollected or not, in faith or in doubt... I suppose, this, too, is Babylon reversed.
And now I have been granted this special grace - peace. I still have to pack, remember to take with me certain things and take care of finances, but it almost feels as if I were already at my destination, already there. It's as if all the pressing matters are not worth worrying about anymore. And whatever happens, I'll be in the middle of it, in peace. Well, travelling alone in the Middle East, I will certainly need peace, but this is so much more than that. It's an encouragement and a blessing from the Lord, a way for me to know that I won't be travelling that special road in vain. How beautiful!
I am not familiar with the experience. Nor have I ever used these two words before. I never thought about making a pilgrimage, although Taize comes quite close, now that I think of it. I remember waking up in tents in below freezing temperatures, walking to the bathroom some 50 metres away, and rushing to prayer on a cold morning in Burgundy, with an absolute certainty that we will not so much as sneeze. And we never did! No sneezing, no coughing. Well, someone I know did demand meat, and I, rather uncharitably, thought this must have been exactly what Israelites were saying in the desert... Apart from having to put up with grumbling, no harm has ever occurred despite modest circumstances.
And I suppose pilgrimage is exactly that - getting by day by day on whatever the Lord provides, not thinking of tomorrow, remembering that one is here for something else, something that satisfies more that food, or wine, or clothes.
I know two people who just went to a Taize meeting this year. They don't know each other, but - who knows - perhaps they will meet there. Perhaps not. In a sense, they will be united even if they don't. When I was 16, Taize meant a whole world to me, literally even. I think I met people from 16 different nations in one day, and the fact that we all managed to understand each other, that we could pray together, revealed to me something new about the Lord. I saw Babylon reversed, thousands of people of all tongues and nations united by one common language - of prayer, of course, but also, more specifically, Latin. We all spoke one language. The mother tongue of the Church. And we understood it perfectly.
There is a Russian stand-up comedian, who, oddly enough, went to the same school I did - years before me. He became famous in the 1990's for his jokes about 'stupid Americans'. Americans don't know how to cook potatoes (???), Americans can even sell you a navel-warmer if you ask for it, Americans and all the tourists in general will never understand our mysterious Russian soul... Things like that, extremely annoying and silly, but perhaps adequate in a country that had been isolated from the outside world for 70 years. What an experience like Taize did to me was, of course, that I could never comprehend his jokes, could never laugh at them or even listen to them. I was blessed to see that, ultimately, we are all the same. In God, that is. In Him there are no distinctions.
Now, many years later, when I say Our Father in church, I sometimes see all the people and places, all the churches, chapels and cathedrals where we have attended Mass or prayed. A cathedral in Genoa, a stuffy church on Panarea, an airport chapel in Milan, the never-ending Maltese churches... People lifting up their hands to their heavenly Father. Good or bad, recollected or not, in faith or in doubt... I suppose, this, too, is Babylon reversed.
And now I have been granted this special grace - peace. I still have to pack, remember to take with me certain things and take care of finances, but it almost feels as if I were already at my destination, already there. It's as if all the pressing matters are not worth worrying about anymore. And whatever happens, I'll be in the middle of it, in peace. Well, travelling alone in the Middle East, I will certainly need peace, but this is so much more than that. It's an encouragement and a blessing from the Lord, a way for me to know that I won't be travelling that special road in vain. How beautiful!
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