We gathered as a community of Protestants for our way of sorrow this morning at 6:30 in the Old City at the first station of the cross. In mob fashion, we took over the space and moved slowly from one station to the next as which we read, sang and prayed. It was difficult for people, vendors and locals to move through. It was difficult for us to move through the city streets as wave upon wave of pilgrim leapfrogged with us at different points.
It wasn't a time for meditation, but for seeing, walking and stumbling a geographical route similar to the one Jesus took many years ago. There are of course places where a rock or place rise up and stand out from the rest. These are the places where Jesus apparently touched or fell upon at some point on his walk of sorrow. Except that the rode he walked is buried under the rubble of 30 feet and 2000 years.
I'm not sure if it was the early morning escapades or the large crowds and inability to hear, focus and take in what was being said, read, prayed and sung, but the stations of the cross wasn't a holy space for me. It felt more like an idol, one that we carry as baggage. One that is so consumption driven that it is more about being there than feeling, encountering or witnessing anything holy. I'm here! Take a picture, quick! Codify this moment. Give me proof of my existence! Hurry, I see the next place I need/want/must go...NOW! This isn't anything new for the rest of life; being here only magnifies the situation. We want to hold the holy and not behold the time, the place of encounter. We rush to make things happen instead of letting things happen, letting things come to us and letting the holy break in to our lives in new and life giving ways.
The day is a blur, my memory of it is in being pushed around, squished by other pilgrims who had to make it through and squashing other pilgrims who were trying to sit and be in a space. Nevertheless I was richly blessed by the witness and encounter of other Christians on their own way of sorrow. Pilgrims from the Philippines walked, some barefoot, through the Old City singing hymns and processing to each station on the way. Because it meant something to them it could mean something to me.
It's a typical theme here in this land we call holy: it is hard to find and experience holy ground. There have been moments, unexpected and kind, that have been chalked full of the holy. These moments have involved quiet moments on Mt. Tabor, the site of the Transfiguration, in Tel Aviv (the most areligious city in Israel) at the Mediterranean. It has happened where two or three have gathered for the breaking of bread with strangers at a secular Christmas party and a Seder with a family in Northern Israel. It happened on a Friday afternoon when Muslims were not allowed to enter their holy sites and still gathered for noon prayers outside of the city walls; on that same day when I passed security guards and young soldiers and forced myself to say "Shalom" or "Peace and wholeness" as a pronouncement and hope and not just as a greeting. It has happened on a "day of rage" when protests circled our neighborhood and I stayed in, looking over the city and praying for peace.
We look for holy in all the wrong places. I think the thing I appreciate about the God who hides is that try as we might we can't help but find God on the margins, in the profane, in life, in the other. God knows this, but we often don't: God is most likely to find us in these places and moments and we are more likely to find God there, too, out in the world and among the people.
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