Words good, pictures next time

I am not going to go nuts with the camera. After all they sent me here to pray, but a few illustrations probably won't hurt.

At this point people might want to know where I have been, and what are my first impressions. Well this will be. What I won't do at this early point is make any kind of judgement on the Palestinian Israeli strife. I will narrate things that are eye opening, like the wall I mentioned. Apparently in the night, the Israeli military just came into Bethlehem and and two boys, 11 and 12 were badly injured. That's a word of mouth report, but that's how all the news has come to me so far. And people talk a lot. The planners of this trip were smart. After a month here, we will stay the rest of the time in Jerusalem on the Israeli side of the wall. After I have experienced both sides, then I will be able to describe my roadmap to peace in the Middle East. I will also have to decide if the map can be seen all at once or if there are really many pieces.

The highlight of Bethlehem is certainly the Church of the Nativity. It is controlled, I would say, moreso by the Greek Orthodox. Yesterday we had Mass in the cave where Jesus was born. There is an altar there for Catholic use, but it cannot be the main one over the spot. This is reserved to Greeks. In the floor under that altar, there is a stone marked by a 14-pointed star which reads "Here Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary" in Latin to that effect. We had time to pray there and experience many things which I wouldn't want to ruin for my reader.

In meditating on Christmas, I was somewhat aware of the personal and generally human difficulty into which Jesus chose to come. One Palestinian priest who we met offered us this. The revelation of God came down upon the earth as one giant drop of water. When it struck the mountain of human experience, that mystery was spread and divided. When it hit the peak, it took two major parts, the Eastern and Western church. On the Eastern side, the water spread into rivulets of the many Orthodox communions and so forth. In the west, the water also spread in many comunities both within and without the Roman church.

It seems that we are now reaching this level point far beneath the foot of the mountain. What differences do we still have that are not illusive? We are saturated, rather evenly, with grace. So it seems that we have "muck". How to be grateful for the "muck" is next time.