Looking ahead at our daily itineraries, I knew I wanted to write about these three things at the same time, even though our visits there were not in this order.  So remnants of this post have been sitting off to the side for some days.

The Gospel story of The Visitation has long been one of my favorites. I’ve always thought that the reason it speaks to me lies in the very early memories of my own fatherhood.  I’m talkin’ real early.  The memories of feeling, and even seeing, the movements of my children in their mother’s womb.

This mosaic depicts Mary making her way up to visit Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, when they were both pregnant.  Elizabeth is the tiny figure in the upper right.  Luke in his Gospel tells of the baby leaping in Elizabeth’s womb the moment she heard Mary’s voice.    You can see the mosaic above the entrance to the church that celebrates the story of The Visitation.

Across a courtyard from the church is another wall of many languages.  I know the Bible passages on these plaques as The Canticle to Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist.  It beautifully foreshadows the role of John and the coming of A Savior.  Some know it as the Benedictus.  All can read it in the Gospel of Luke, Chapter One.

 

The Judean Hills of southern Jerusalem are where the sites of The Visitation and the birthplace of John the Baptist are.  It is also the area that, in the time of Jesus, was the Road to Emmaus.  The story of this road can also be found in the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 24.

When I first went back and looked at this picture I thought, now where is this?  I realized eventually it was the passage leading down to the site of the birthplace of John.  I also realized it was representative of many of the old staircases we made our way down to the holy and historic sites.  They are all well below what is today’s street level.

The cavelike site of the Birthplace of John the Baptist.

These two photos are from the site of the Shepard’s Fields outside Bethlehem. The Angel of the Lord appeared to them, announcing to these lowly men of their day, the birth of A Savior and telling them to “go and see”.

If I remember right, this church is Armenian.  When there is not some service taking place there are often different groups taking turns signing Christmas Carols, which we happily joined in on.

A little taste of what Bethlehem looks like today in the area of The Church of the Nativity.  Below is the entrance to The Church.  Tradition has it the size of this entrance is so all who enter bow before The Lord.  More pragmatic people say it’s small because the original gate was filled in to prevent the irreverent types from riding their horses into church.  I’m a fan of both ideas.

Inside is probably not what one would expect.  Sections of the church and sanctuary are curtained off because excavation of the church site is ongoing.  Very recently some mosaic floors were discovered and the work to uncover them is taking place.  One can only imagine how they might incorporate this discovery into the present day church.  And always, the people, all wanting to visit “the manger scene” of their heads.  Our guides both told us after that this was a fairly calm day at this site.

Jesus was born in a stable where the livestock were kept.  In His time, the stables were the protective caves on the property.  Even today, caves are everywhere in The Holy Land.  The manger was one of the troughs where the feed was put.  The passage stairs down to the birthplace of Jesus are particularly narrow and low.  The reward, ……., well, …….  To write about it is to relive it, which by itself is amazing.

And only feet away, practical thought about the cave makes this the likely spot of the manger that the newborn Jesus was laid in.  I know it’s an easy thing for me to say, but I have to say it anyway; everyone whose a Christian should try to come to The Holy Land.  I could never express adequately how glad I am that I did.  In no small part because of the invitation and urging of some great friends.

I am so doggone well I can’t describe, and hope you all are too.  The Peace fo Christ to you.

 

 

At the risk of being overly flip while writing about Mount Tabor,  Jesus, and at three of his Disciples, had one heck of hike to get to the top of this baby.

Mount Tabor is the site of The Transfiguration.  Mathew, Mark, and Luke all wrote an account of it in their Gospels.  Jesus was bathed in light with Moses and Elijah in the presence of Peter, James, and John.

The ruins on Mount Tabor are both Byzantine and Roman, and the church is Crusader.  We were able to have Mass in the church while we were here.  To say that the places where we have been able to celebrate Mass on this trip have been special would be a monumental understatement.

The view from atop Mount Tabor.

This day we were in the Palestinian West Bank and had a fantastic traditional Palestinian lunch in Samaria.  A man was offering camel rides outside the restaurant, however his version of hospitality was not freely given.  🙂

This was another of my catch up posts and I have one more of those to do before writing about our last day.  I am well and hope you all are too.

After a chance to eat and dry out a little, we travelled back for more opportunity to tour and see Old Jerusalem.  Before entering the Lionsgate, we passed the Muslim cemetery that we had seen from across the Kidron Valley while on the Mount of Olives.

Our first stop was St. Anne’s Church.  So there are two traditions, (read that beliefs, or schools of thought), about the actual birthplace of Mary.  One is that she was born in the little area of Sepphoris, which was near Nazareth where she and Joseph made their home.  The other is commemorated at the site of this church.  St. Anne was Mary’s mother.

This little grotto, which as usual is well below the level of the church, features this icon of the birth of Mary, commemorating the spot.

Outside, on the church grounds, are two interesting spots.  One is this little garden which I think is one of the most beautiful little spots I saw in the entire old city.   And the other is this excavation site.

This site features archeological levels from both the Byzantine and Roman eras, and is believed to be near the area of the Pools of Bethesda, which even the pagans believed had healing powers.  The Gospel story of Jesus healing the paralytic took place at these pools.  Jesus met the man as he was trying to crawl his way to the pools.  Back then it was believed that in order to be healed by the pools, you had to be among the first ones to enter on any day.  Having encountered Jesus, he didn’t have to make it into the pools.

Here are just a few street scenes from the Old City.  We had walked this first one hours earlier in the dark and rain.  Then, a couple of different market streets.  I know the first one is in the Muslim Quarter, and I think the other is near the edge of the Jewish Quarter.

The other two quarters are the Christian Quarter and the Armenian Quarter.

The prominent site in the Jewish Quarter is the Western Wall, what used to be called the Wailing Wall.  It’s the Western Wall because it was the western wall of the original Temple Mount, the Holy of Holies, where the Arc of the Covenant was housed.  Because the site of the Temple Mount has been in the hands of the Muslims for many generations, (remember the Dome of the Rock from an earlier post?), the Western Wall is the closest spot to the Holy of Holies, that Jews can come to and pray.  It also famously features many notes stuck in the cracks that are the prayer intentions of countless pilgrims from over the years.  Who knows how many years the oldest note has been there.  It’s one of the things I meditated about while there.  I also left my own prayer intention as well as one requested by some friends.

Across the square from the Western Wall is this soup kitchen sponsored by a family from New York.  I didn’t realize until later that some rebar from a construction site in front of it obliterated the view of the name of the family.

We were “let off the leash” by our tour guide for some free time in the afternoon.  I took off on my own little solo walkabout, to “see stuff” and find some falafel and Arab coffee.  Later, I reunited with some of our group to tour the archeological tunnels under the Western Wall.

These are some of the oldest and largest stones that have been uncovered.  They look “brand new” because they’ve only been exposed for a relatively short period time.  No photo could do justice to how massive these stones are.  It’s amazing to think about them being quarried, shaped, and moved all without the benefit of modern machinery.

Along the way we were at the oldest gate that’s been uncovered from the excavations.  And below, a sign that tells about the gate.  When you look closely, you can see on the left is a section of the arch, and next to that, what centuries of old rubble looks like from the destruction of the Temple Mount.

 

Here are some notes placed in the wall.  While these tunnels are open only to people taking the tour, Jews are allowed to come down here and pray, and little alcoves have been cut out in the rock for them to do that.

This gives you a little taste of what some of the excavation tunnels look like.  A claustrophobic person would not be happy down here.

Eventually you get to the spot where the lowest courses of the wall meet the incline of the mountain.  When I took these pictures I was standing on the street that ran along the wall of the Temple Mount in the time of Jesus.

And lastly, some beginning quarry work that is more than two thousand years old.  For those of you who have been reading me for awhile, you know this kind of stuff is right in my wheelhouse.  I’m so glad I chose to use some of my free time to go on this tour.

Our blurry eyed little band of pilgrims got up at 4 AM and made its way into the Old City.  It was rainy, and it was cold and windy, but we were ready to do The Stations of the Cross on the walk Jesus had to make to Golgotha to be brutally executed.

As they are prayed today, The Stations of the Cross is a Catholic prayer tradition that goes back over three hundred years.  But the history that brought The Stations to its current form began in the 12th Century after Jerusalem fell to Saladin.  You can Wiki The Stations of the Cross and read the complete history, but the essential point is that the Stations are meant to imitate the walk that  pilgrims from all over the world have been taking on the streets of Jerusalem for centuries.  Of course the streets today are not exactly as they were back in the time of Jesus, but we know the exact spot where Jesus was condemned to death by a reluctant Pilot, and the exact spot where Jesus was crucified, so today’s Via Delorosa evokes all of the emotions one might expect and then some.

Speaking of pilgrims, back to our little soggy group.  The early hour was to allow for doing this walk before the streets of the Old City took on their daily crowded chaos.  Even so, by the time we got to The Church of the Holy Sepulcher, it was both crowded and chaotic.

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is erected over both the spot where Jesus was crucified and the site of his tomb, which surprisingly, are not that far apart.  Both are now inside The Old City, but back in the time of Jesus they were outside the city walls.

Our group was able to have a private Mass right on Golgotha.  Even with the distractions of chanting going on elsewhere in the church, and people walking around, I will not forget how amazing that felt.

There is an altar that sits over the spot where Jesus was buried.  This Chapel covers the altar.  It’s a lot smaller than it looks in this picture, and it has a door on two opposite sides to accommodate the ever present territorial squabbles of different denominations.  We were not able to go inside.  While we were there, the Franciscans were on one side and the Coptics were on the other, each trying to make the loudest “joyful noise unto the Lord”.  Ironically, with all that going on, there are still “guards” walking around saying, shush, no talking.  Go figure. 🙂

The tomb itself was destroyed by the Romans, but other tombs just like it are right there because it was a cemetery.  Gospel readers will remember that Joseph of Arimathea, a follower of Jesus, had tombs nearby, and gave one to Mary, John, and the others present, so they could bury Jesus.  The last Stations depict Jesus being taken down from The Cross and his body being prepared and placed in The Tomb.  Remembering that these people were all Jews, this all had to be done with some haste, because it was Friday and the start of the Sabbath was fast approaching.

The dark, the cold and rain, the tricky walking on the wet streets, and of course the emotions, all made it seem like we had lived a whole day by the time we made our way back to our hotel to get dry and have breakfast.  And it was barely past eight in the morning.  Later, we would make our way back into the Old City, in the daylight this time.  More on that coming up.

We are nearing the end of our pilgrimage.  In a couple of more days we will be back in the cold and snow.  But until then, I am well and hope you all are too.  The Peace of Christ to you all.

I’ve already written a little about how Nazareth was the boyhood home of Jesus.  Nazareth is the site of one of the most famous churches in all of the Holy Land.  The Church of the Annunciation celebrates two important things in Christianity.  One is the location of Mary’s home in Nazareth, and the other is the appearance of the angel Gabriel telling Mary she was to give birth to The Son of God.

Straight down this walkway you see the Church of the Annunciation. To the left of where I’m standing, on the same grounds is the Church of St. Joseph.  Almost all of the imagery in St. Joseph’s Church is of the Holy Family.  Some even refer to it as the Holy Family Church.  There is a gallery of stain glass windows depicting the Holy Family.  The one below was a favorite of mine.  It is Mary and Jesus caring for an aging Joseph.  The circumstances of Joseph’s death are not known, but it’s fairly certain it was before Jesus began his ministry.  There are no references to Joseph in the present in the Gospels.

Annunciation marks the location of the home of Mary.  The excavation projects in the Holy Land must number in the hundreds of thousands.  I’ve already written how churches mark and protect the important sites of Christianity.  These photos show the preservation of the home where Mary grew up.  And the grotto marks the spot.

I mentioned earlier about all of the imagery in St. Joseph’s.  You as my readers are at somewhat of a disadvantage when it comes to the subjects and sites of this particular trip.  In my travels, I discovered just by circumstance, that I am not comfortable taking pictures of worship spaces.  I have no judgement about people who do, it’s just a line that i stay on this side of.  Pictures of things outside the confines of the sanctuary I’m fine with.  The Churches in the Holy Land are particularly incredible in my mind.  I mean going from church to church just keeps getting better and better.  So in truth, on my site, you are missing out.  The good news?  You can find all kinds of photos on line of any of the places I mention.

Here are a few other things around the church grounds in Nazareth that drew me in.  One of the side doors leading into the Church of the Annunciation.  A gift of African art depicting Mary and the Angel Gabriel.  A statue of Joseph with the patina worn off the knees from all of the people touching it.

 

One of my favorite areas was a gallery of icons from all different countries depicting the Annunciation.  Not surprising, one of my favorites, Guatemala.

Our last stop of this day was Cana.  The church in Cana commemorates the spot where the Gospel story of the Wedding Feast at Cana took place.  The married couples in our group had an opportunity to renew their wedding vows.  Not all of them opted in.  Just kidding. 🙂

Thanks so much for being out there and following along.  Take care.

I’m taking you back to last Saturday on our trip.  At least I think I am. 🙂

In the past, when I’ve been traveling on my own and blogging, it was much easier to keep my photos and my activities straight in my head.  And I could actually “write” a post in my head as I drove along in silence.  With this trip, not so much.  In fact not at all.  Okay enough of that whine.  It’s a real privilege to be here.

We started our day with a nice little boat ride on the Sea of Galilee.  We just moseyed across to catch our bus in a different location.  That’s Tiberias, where we are staying, on the hillside in the background.  And that’s my good friend Cathy with the cool sunglasses.

This is a scale replica of the kind of boats that the fishermen were using in the time of Jesus.  A boat like this features prominently in a number of Gospel stories.  Not very many years ago, when the level of the lake dropped dramatically, the remains of a nearly intact boat was discovered buried in the mud.  It was carbon dated to the time of Jesus.

We left Galilee to travel to the Mediterranean coast, to Caesarea.  Caesarea was an important city in the time of Jesus.  Mostly important to the Romans, but it was also the place where Paul left Palestine when he was arrested and taken to Rome for imprisonment.  Herod the Great built the city to be the main port and administrative center for the Roman Empire’s presence in northern Judea and Palestine.  He was considered ahead of his time in the methods he used to construct a protected harbor.  Much of those ruins are under water.  One of his accomplishments, with evidence even today, was the construction of a great aqua-duct.

Even though Caesarea is still a busy port city, most of what is interesting about it are the ruins from the Roman presence here.  The picture below has columns that are replicas, placed just to demonstrate the site of the old palace area.

Here’s our group sitting in the arena waiting to hear a short talk about the history we are going to see.  The arena is part ruins and part rehab so it is used for events.

 

The ruins of the floor of a coliseum.

Caesarea is a beautiful spot on the Mediterranean.  It must have been an impressive Roman city.

On to Nazareth.

I know it’s been a couple of days.  Maybe three.  I don’t know, the calendar and clock in my head is somewhere between intermittent breakdown and full implosion.  I’m on sensory and emotional overload.  Today I decided that tonight I have to write about today, and then try to catch up working somewhat backward until I’ve covered the stuff since Capernaum.  So I might do catchup posts just by the day or I might write a post about a specific site.  I’ll decide as I go and by the end you might be as confused as I.

Today we started our day at the Mount of Olives.  When you read the Gospels, you get the distinct impression that during the days that Jesus and his Disciples spent in Jerusalem, the Mount of Olives, and particularly the Garden of Gethsemane, was a favorite place to hang.  The Garden is at the foot of the Mount of Olives.

This is looking across the Kidron Valley at the Mount of Olives.  The church in the middle of the picture, The Church of All Nations, is in the Garden area.  The French Franciscans look after it.  In the upper right, with the golden dome, is a Russian Orthodox Church.  And up on the horizon, at the very top of the Mount, is the Church of the Our Father.

The are over 180 panels around the church grounds of The Lord’s Prayer in different languages.

The one below is Aramaic on the left, the language spoken in the time of Jesus.

And I picked out a couple of others; Spanish, here to the right, and down below is Lakota.

As you move down the Mount toward the Garden, there is a very large Jewish Cemetery.  In the middle of this photo is the area which was The City of David.  Jerusalem about 1000 years before Christ.  On the horizon, close to the middle, is Mount Zion which is the traditional burial site of Kind David and also the site of the Upper Room.  That’s in our plan for later today.

This photo is looking past the Jewish Cemetery and over the Kidron Valley to the wall of the old City.  That’s the Golden Gate where Jesus entered the city on Palm Sunday, and below the wall is the Muslim Cemetery.   The golden dome is the Dome of the Rock, the historic site of the Jewish Temple, but it’s now controlled by the Muslims.  I will sometimes refer to who has dibs on what sites, but Jerusalem has been fought over for centuries and destroyed seven times.  The history, nuances, and details are endless, so for the most part I won’t go there.  I’d never get any sleep. 🙂

Here’s a couple of shots of the Garden of Gethsemane.  The one below is the oldest preserved section.  It is the area where Jesus and his Disciples came to pray the night he was arrested.  Adjacent to this garden area is the The Church of All Nations which is built over the rock where Jesus prayed.

The oldest olive tree in the Garden.  Could be as old as the time of Jesus, but it’s more likely about 1500 years old.  Olive trees go hollow as they age so you can’t age them by rings.

Our next stop was the house of Caiaphas.  He orchestrated the arrest of Jesus and led the plot to kill him.

After Jesus was arrested in the Garden, he was led across the Kidron   Valley and very likely up these steps to the house of the Chief Priest. When this site was excavated, these stones were dated to about 2000 years.  And the dungeons that we know existed under Caiaphas’ house can be seen below.  They are way down in the bedrock.  It is where Jesus would have spent the night after being questioned by the Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin.  In the morning, the morning of Good Friday, he would be taken to Pilot.     

Other foundational ruins around the grounds of Caiaphas’ house.  An Armenian church is built on this site now.  By the way, in the photo above, the prisoners were lowered into the dungeon with ropes through this hole in the prison caverns.

 

Our last stop of the day was to the site of The Cenacle, or as most people know it, The Upper Room.  It is very certain that this is the site of The Last Supper.

It didn’t look like this back then of course.  These columns are Roman era columns.  The shallow grotto in the photo was added fairly recently.  The Muslims had control of this room last, until the Israeli Government took it over, thus the Arabic stainglass window seen below.

This sculpture was given during a Papal visit in 2000.

Mount Zion is crowded with schools and a synagogue.  The Franciscans were allowed to build a small chapel on this site in the last couple of years, and we were able to use it for Mass.  A special celebration in special and important place.

After dinner we returned to the Church of All Nations for the traditional Holy Hour that happens about three times a week.  It was a special privilege of timing that we were able to do this.  A silent hour of Adoration remembering the words of Jesus to his Disciples when he found them sleeping instead of praying.   “Could you not stay awake with me one hour?”

I’m going to depart slightly from my normal closing.  I feel sluggish from to much eating. 🙂 The food has been amazing and I’ve test driven some that I’ve never had.  I’m also wearing down a little.  An accumulative effect of the pace.  Otherwise, I’m pretty ok.

Oh, and I hope you all are too.

One of the “dangers” of coming to The Holy Land is having all of those nice little Jesus movies that are in our heads shredded by the modern day.  But this area is so beautiful.  The hills, the vineyards, the olive trees, the rocky ground, the fertile ground.  My fellow travelers, if they have noticed me at all, might think I’m the world’s most accomplished gazer.  I’ve thought so many times in recent days, it’s easy for me to picture Jesus thinking when he was ready to start his ministry, I know where I’m going to hang.  We’ve already seen so much, and I am so appreciative of the opportunity, but I could spend the whole ten days within a couple of miles of Capernaum and come back next year for another ten.  It becomes a where do I start, and I hope I can do it just a little justice.  I guess really, I already started at the Mount of the Beatitudes.

Then next I’ll go  here.  This is our group, and that’s Giovanni regaling us with his gentle wisdom.  Even standing back from him I can hear him in my ear.  He has a single channel mike and we all have little receivers around our necks with an ear piece.  It really adds to the experience I think.  There are so many tour groups all over the place, and in such close proximity, and the technology removes the necessity for them to shout to be heard.

No where was that more in evidence than when we were in the Chapel that commemorates the site of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes.  There was a small group of Russian Orthodox Nuns gathered in front of the alter singing a cappella.  And Giovanni was in my ear reading the story from The Gospel in a soft voice.  It was the most beautiful moment.  Ya just can’t make this up.

You can’t tell that well from this picture, but this church is built up on pylons right over the archeological ruins of Peter’s house.  Below is another view from the side.  I took this picture while I was standing inside the ruins of the synagogue where Jesus preached a number of times. 

And speaking of the synagogue ruins, here are a number of shots of those. The new synagogue is elsewhere on the site.   

The man himself.  Well, not that Man, this man.  You are Peter, and on this Rock I will build my Church.

It was warm, and so hazy that day on the Sea of Galilee, that you can’t tell that the water is in the background of this photo.  All of these pictures are taken right near the shore.  Peter, and Andrew his brother, made their living fishing, so it just makes perfect sense that they would live on the water.

Here to the right, these ruins would have been Peter’s neighbors.  And one could speculate that this would have been an important man of Capernaum because these foundations are right next to the synagogue.

And just above, a well in an area just up the shore from Capernaum called the Seven Springs.  And below, shore lunch rock.

You’ll have to indulge me just that little moment of irreverence.  If I don’t have one occasionally my eye starts to twitch.

In all seriousness, after the Resurrection, not knowing what else to do, some of the Apostles had gone back to their fishing.  One day when they were coming back in, Jesus cooked them some breakfast.  This chapel commemorates and protects this site.  The Gospels tell this story a lot nicer than me.  You should read ’em.

I’ll close this post by sharing a moment with you that I had with my closest friend, and fishing buddy, Tim.  We were standing on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, right outside this chapel, and we remarked to each other how cool it was that we were experiencing this place together.  And while I’m on that subject, if I haven’t shared this already, I’m on this trip with a number of very good, close friends.  They’re like extra frosting on the world’s best carrot cake. 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay, in a previous post I promised to come back to how the Tour Guides talk about the various important sites that tours and pilgrimages visit.  In my view it is an important contextual piece.  In the Holy Land one cannot just hang out a shingle and become a tour company.  With the millions of people who come to the Holy Land every year, these guides are considered important representatives of their countries.  In our case it was Omar in Jordan, and Giovanni in Israel.  They go to school for several years and have to maintain strict certifications.  Many of them are highly educated before they become tour guides.  Think about the varied points of view and belief systems that they encounter in the people they interact with while doing their job.  In my view they are obviously trained in how to be authentic and accurate about the important sites they are leading groups to.  When it comes to any given site, they will use phrases such as, tradition has it, or, we know that near here, or, we know that this IS the spot where this took place.  And they are graceful and gracious about how they talk about the delicate political balance, or lack of it, in this region of the world.  To me, this is extremely important and it is not done cavalierly.

This is nowhere more important than when talking about what I will call the “miracle sites” of our Christian Faith.  So I’m going to do my best to express what I think and believe about this.

If Jesus had just been an interesting guy, who talked good, and went around preaching for a few years in a little known region of what was then the known world, what would have been the likely result of that?  I can’t pose a more key question to ponder.  As Christians we believe that Jesus was both Human and Divine.  Without that, could his life have launched another major world religion in a time when the other major religions had already existed for thousands of years?  What would it take for a baby to be born in a muffler shop in Nowthen, Minnesota, that would have people changing their whole way of thinking and being 2000 years later?  As flip as that may sound, I could not pose a more important scenario to myself and to anyone else who would listen.

I have come to believe with everything I have that when we die we get to know all the answers.  It has taken me a long, sometimes dark and painful time, to get there.  And I believe that until that time, there are mysteries that we are not meant to fully understand.  I believe that our souls are eternal.  I believe that they weave through all living things and give us an opportunity to be part of the Sacred.  This is my faith, and it has taken me to place where most days I think everyone should have my life.

Rewind just a bit.  Back to the Tour Guides.  I know right?  Just stay with me a little longer.

What gives them the confidence to say, “We know this is the place.”  This is the place where Jesus healed.  This is the place where He comforted his closest friends even after they had thought Him lost?  The answers are in both the mystery and the practical.  In the decades after the Crucifixion of Christ, four different guys thought that all that had happened had to be written down.  But it wasn’t just that.  And this is what becomes immediately apparent when you are actually here.  His followers almost immediately began to commemorate and protect these sites by building churches and chapels right over them.  And through the centuries they built churches on top of the churches.  With records.  Today in some spots you can go down through several archeological layers that are the history of the “this is the place”.  They have become part of the Gospel story.  We know where Mary lived.  We know where Peter lived.  We know where Jesus preached in the synagogue.  Some places we can walk right up to it and touch it.  Some places you can’t.  Humans being what they are, some places you can only view from a few steps back.  The preservation of the physical story becomes part of the story.  I feel in awe of the truth that the early followers of Jesus somehow knew this.  An interesting guy who talked good and had his fifteen minutes of fame.  Not this time.

I am well and hope you all are too.  But phew, writing this one wore me out.  What you can read in a few minutes has been doin’ a dance in my head for three days.  And you thought this was going to be about tour guides.   🙂

The Scots Hotel has been our “headquarters” for the past three nights.  Part of the hotel is an historic hospital site.  On the front of the pamphlet given to each guest is this simple mission statement: Owned and Operated by the Church of Scotland.  Maintaining Christian Witness in the Land of Christ.         As a proud Ross Clansman with maternal heritage from Scotland, it warms and percolates my pride.  By the way, the joyful presence by the front door is Hein, our Magi Travel Coordinator, who has deftly herded us from place to place.

In 1885, a young 23 year old surgeon named David Torrence arrived from Scotland to set up “The Mission for the Jews” in the Holy Land. His work, along with the work of others in Tiberias, eventually led to a hospital being built on this site that opened in 1894.

In 1959, with establishment of a state-run hospital in Tiberias, it was no longer needed.  It closed for a time and eventually re-opened as a hospice for pilgrims which led to it expanding to a full fledged hotel.  All supported by Scotland and The Church of Scotland.  Today it is a beautiful and welcoming place in Galilee.