Sorry, all! Yesterday was an incredibly busy day! I was surprised when my watch said we walked only a little over five miles / 11.5k steps.
It was wonderful and we knocked so many “someday” activities off of the list. The first thing was the (top ten life list) visit / view from the Mount of Olives. You can see those three pictures from there. Then we walked for 3.5 hours or more, visiting every significant site within the temple mount area. We went to the tomb of David. We saw some really cool archeological sites. And we walked the Stations of the Cross, seeing where Jesus was beaten, crucified, prepared for burial (possibly), and buried (according to some traditions). (That last parenthetical phrase came up A LOT during the day!)
For me the biggest thing was visiting and praying at the Western Wall (aka Wailing Wall)! While it was certainly a bit tense there with all the heavily armed Israeli police (present in large numbers everywhere in the Old City), there was a sense of spiritual presence there like I have rarely witnessed. There was a palpable sense of God’s presence. It immediately brought me to tears to even be there, much less approach Him in prayer at such an auspicious location. I wrote a prayer on a small piece of paper and put it in the wall. I took a picture of it wondering if I would share it here. I won’t, but may someday.
I also prayed there about a few other large current matters, but mainly asked God for clear direction and grace to obey Him fully. Please dear God.
Unbelievably, after we had done all of that, we then drove to Bethlehem (only five miles away). While we were able to do the tourist thing and see the supposed location of Jesus’ birth, the memory I will carry away is about having to leave our Jewish guide behind, walk probably 1/2 mile with our new Palestinian driver through an incredible maze of concrete / barbed wire passages and security checkpoints, pass through the 20-30′ high concrete wall separating the Palestinian controlled area from Jerusalem, and then through a second set of mazes and checkpoints. I wasn’t supposed to take pictures, but here’s a shot after the first security complex before going through the wall:
On the way in it was nearly deserted and only a bit off-putting. But when we left it was around 4:30PM and hundreds of Palestinian men were returning home from Jerusalem after work. Given the thin line between forced civility and violent outbursts in such settings, especially recently, it was a very tense fifteen minutes.