Foreign land...familiar feeling.

Sorry this first post will be extremely long (it covers a lot and I am learning what content to keep and what to leave out in a blog)

As Mike Leither and I walked out of the airport after just meeting Fr. Basilius and Benedict, a German Zivi (In Germany, after high school, you have the choice to either join the army for 2 years required service or volunteer for one, thus being a Zivi), at 4:30am Tel Aviv time I was brought back to the feeling of arriving in Johannesburg, South Africa. Both the present time and Jo’burg it was close to dawn, much hotter than I'd like (40-45 Celsius), and there was a haze in the air that made the lights glow in a way that is hard to describe. I wonder if it is from all the pollution, because of the fowl smell in both cities that gave the air that haze, or if it was the humidity. It is a very surreal feeling to be in another country. You are excited at what lies ahead of you but scared out of your mind at all the unknown.

Fr. Basilius gave us our first lesson in the Holy Land “Drink lots of water”. The only moments where I do not sweat are when I am sleeping because, and thank God, my room is air-conditioned. We arrived in Tabgha, which is more of a group of monastic communities than a town or even village, and were sent to bed to try to cure our jet lag. I slept most of Thursday and on Friday in the morning Mike and I explored some of the other monasteries in the area, around 2pm we left for Jerusalem. The “we” I refer to are the three Zivis who are just finishing up their year of work, one of the new Zivis, three other short-term German volunteers, Br. Fransiscos, Fr. Jeremiahs, Fr. Basilius, Abbott Benedikt, Mike Leither, and myself. Very soon six German volunteers will leave reducing the number in Tabgha drastically.

On our way to Jerusalem we drove through the West Bank and I could look out at one point and see the tanks and bunkers in Jordan. Traffic was bad so it took four hours to get to Jerusalem. Sebastian, one of the German volunteers, turned around in the van/combi (if you know what this is) and said to the Americans, “Welcome to Jerusalem”, and this moment will be forever ingrained in my memory. At that point I looked out the window onto the city of Jerusalem. White stone/stucco/slab buildings and houses covering as far as the eye could see up a gradual hill. It was a setting I was not prepared for: long high stone walls, cobblestone streets, giant Churches and Temples, huge Mosque domes, tourists, religious pilgrims, Orthodox Jews, Arabs, Catholic Priests, and police/military people armed with assault rifles and Uzis all walking the streets. All the things I only saw on 60 minutes or watching the evening news not ever really grasping how real this Israel was that everyone was fighting over.

Jerusalem was a blur. You must wear pants that cover your knees (so the kids who sag their shorts might be on to something or heading toward a monastic life...) when you enter a holy site. But it is deathly hot, they told me in Tabgha that Jerusalem was colder than Tabgha, colder was not the correct adjective, faintly cooler would better describe it. I am still not grasping what I have touched with my hands, seen with my eyes, or been a part of. I visited the Western Wall (I will say a prayer the next time I visit), we walked the Via Dolorosa (Way of Sorrows, Jesus’ walk with the cross), and walked through all four quarters of the Old City: Moslem, Jewish, Armenian, and Christian. Visited the markets, which are in narrow covered alley size streets with shops no bigger than a dorm room, where you must barter or be taken advantage of in the worst degree. Bare in mind when I say ‘supposedly’ that there is no correct story about Jesus’ life and it is not my skepticism of the Christian religion. At the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (supposedly where Jesus spent his final moments and was buried in the tomb) I knelt and blessed my Johnnies cap on a piece of rock supposedly from the tomb in which he was buried, Gagliardi owes me one of the rings they get this year.

The Abbey of Dormition (in Jerusalem) is the German Catholic Monastery in Jerusalem of which the one in Tabgha (Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves & Fishes) I stay at is an extension. At both churches German is the primary language spoken for all the masses and prayers (morning, noon, evening, vespers, compliment). I have three years high school and one semester college of German under my belt and I am lost. Slowly it comes back and I pick up new vocabulary. All those of you who know the story of me being asked to say a prayer at the Zion Church in South Africa, I had another one of those moments at Dormition. The Germans said I had great pronunciation (yeah that’s right dad, me) and asked me to read the second reading during one of the masses. Since everything is in German and I was nervous I asked two of the zivis to tell me when it was my turn to read. They thought I had the first reading so they told me to go up when it was time for the first reading (which was done in Hebrew) and I had to stand in front of the whole church for the first reading and following hymn because I could not make it back to my seat. Ahh Mike you idiot.

The work here in Tabgha is not the most glamorous: unloading visitors, cleaning, painting, gardening, and soon cooking. I am not saving lives everyday, I am not getting very far in making Israel a peaceful state (obviously I am not contributing to the violence, yet still), and so I don’t feel as though I am making a difference. Lutz, one of the departing Zivis, said something that really hit home though. “Remember who you are doing the work for.” Tabgha is mainly used as a retreat place for religious pilgrims, mentally and physically handicapped, the sick and dying, and those of the monastic life. To them this Biblical miracle site is a paradise/heaven of their own. Smiling and welcoming people with open arms (along with keeping the place in ship-shape) are important. I have trouble doing something when I do not feel I am making an immediate impact, but I am learning that I do not have to save someone’s life to make a difference in it. I should think this is a better circumstance also.