And on the first day...

I wake before 3:00 Am for no other reason than I’ve had enough sleep. I have missed a whole night – at 3:00 AM on Friday here my children would be having dinner at home the night before. I wander around the 7 Arches Hotel hoping to find coffee. I do, it is hot and there is no milk but it hits the spot.

As I exit the hotel and enter the garden in the front the cold night air feels familiar. I wander across the street and only then do I realize that I have been on this very spot before. I know that soon the camels will arrive to await being mounted by nervous tourists – I know this because on a very sad day four years ago I was that tourist.

On that day when the call came, when my friend Khalil said that he could not come, my friend Jill drove me to the top of the Mount of Olives where Khalil and I were supposed to come. Mounting the camel was bitter sweet and tearful as I thought of how sad it was that I might never see him again. Riding a camel is a terrifying experience – there is a constant feeling of being on the verge of falling off – but my emotional state protected me somewhat from that fear.

I wander the paths looking at the walled city of Jerusalem before me. The Dome of the Rock shines in the darkness. I notice that the excavation of the wall next to the mosque has progressed substantially since I was last here.

A car pulls up and I remember to be aware. This is a dead end street and as the car stops three young men get out laughing, joking and smoking. At 4:00 in the morning I remember that no matter how much this feels like home, I am in a foreign land where I do not speak the language nor do I understand the customs – or the danger. I cautiously re-enter the relative safety of the hotel garden just as the call to worship begins.

It begins with one mosque, then another, the sounds overlapping. Jerusalem is a place of smells and sounds and senses – so much more than a photograph can capture. I find the haunting call to worship beautiful and almost envy the dedication of our Muslim friends who are disciplined enough to stop what they are doing to pray five times a day. The calls become louder and what can only be the Dome of the Rock begins broadcasting what I think might be all of their morning prayers. It goes on much longer than a call to worship and is SO loud in the silence of the night. May be whoever has the best sound system wins.... As a tourist and a very temporary visitor in this place I can afford to be philosophical about the prayer service being pumped throughout the city but I wonder what affect it has on our Jewish and Christian friends who inhabit this place...forced to listen to prayers that are not their own in a language they do not speak.

I feel God in this place, fully present within and around me, and I wonder if God is as troubled as I am.

Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem