Sunday 27th:As they were walking on the road to Emmaus....

We are entering the 'pack it up and get ready to go phase' which is not just tinged but slathered with sadness. We commenced today by talking about our preparations to go home, and the fact that we were now pilgrims and disciples: planning how to go back and take what we have learned to our home communities. Raphael, our guide, talked about pilgrimage as using the scripture text as a door, through which we walk to our own worlds. Today was a magnificent day: we visited the road to Emmaus (two of the three possible sites!) with the first road being what our guide considers the 'authentic' one, the Roman road remains, upon which we walked and 're-enacted' the Gospel; and the second being not so authentic but gob smackingly gorgeous: a Benedictine church built in the 12th century by the crusaders, and all still standing. Raphael's 'take' on the multiple sites was fabulous: he said that we are a perambulatory church: that our holy places move because our hearts move, and that when our sources (texts) differ, and therefore the places referred to differ, it allows us to appreciate the message of the scripture even more, rather than getting attached to one place which may or not be authentic.

I spent some time sitting in a little dark corner on the stone floor of the crypt of the Abu Ghosh church and contemplating the meaning of life....which is basically that life is good!! We followed that by attending the Abbey's mass, complete with singing nuns and monks (who are famous for their music world wide, in the gregorian chant style) and celebrated in both French and Latin. It was a little bit of heaven on earth; very moving with LOTS of singing parts: The whole mass went for a bit over an hour and a half, but time flew. I was actually sitting with my back against a stone crusader wall (I'm a bit into feeling the surroundings, to remind myself i am really there...) with my eyes closed soaking up the music when I realised that I was dreaming (ie: really dreaming, asleep!) I think I sort of drifted in and out a bit, swept along by the music which really was something else.

We had a free couple of hours this afternoon, on returning from Abu Ghosh, and so I went wandering in the market place which is a bit like 'shopping endurance sport'. I might have told you already about the antics that go on with the shopkeepers here: it is something I will not miss. By the time you've walked a few alleyways, or the Via Dolorosa, which is of course the 'main drag' of shopping in many ways, you are completely exhausted , and weary of the men stepping out in the path and blocking your way saying combinations of the following phrases: "Come into my shop. Just one minute, just look, no need to buy. Where you from? Are you American?" or WORSE: "you told me the other day you'd come back to my shop. you must come in NOW" (which happened today, dammit)

Tonight we 'bookended' the day with another cultural experience: A concert down the street at the Austrian Hospice to launch a festival called 'Sounding Jerusalem' which is a chamber music festival. A few of us went and it was just beautiful. Lovely lovely music, with Armenian, Jewish, Spanish, Arabic tunes or themes to the tunes, and some Bach thrown in. It was a bit of a head spinner: sitting with mainly Austrians (and a couple of Australians!), listening to music played by Europeans and Jews in the Muslim quarter of J'rem. Woke me up good and proper (must have been all that sleeping in mass this morning!) so that I could come down and do some typing for the first time in a while.

I had to give my reaction to the experience yesterday on a video tape to go to Rome for the chapter meeting of the Sion sisters, and the more I thought about it the more I realised that this has really been an immersion experience, plus scripture study, which means that I have 30 days x 24 hours worth of new experiences under my belt. (given that I haven't slept a lot I'm not even going to count the day as any shorter than 24 hrs!) This blog has captured some of the experience for me, but I wish I had managed to keep it more faithfully!! There are a few gaps, alas.

On the homeward stretch now: won't be long until I am facing cold weather again. I will miss much of the life here, but I won't miss having to carry a 1.5L water bottle around with me all day! Or dodging market men....