It's All About Rocks

What an amazing day. As my old intertidal biology professor, Todd Newberry likes to say, "I saw the scales fall from their eyes." We spent the entire day in East Jerusalem, and walked through all four quarters of the city. Our guide began the day by telling the story of the Conflict from about 1890 to the present. He was so clear and elegant (and just funny enough to add insight without being disrespectful) in his storytelling that I felt for the first time I really understood the sequence of events from the beginning of the Zionist Movement to the Partition Plan to the 1948 War to the 1967 War to the first Intifada, the Oslo Accords and Camp David to second Intifada and the controversy over Settlements. He established how hard it is to understand the complexity of multiple points of view about the same events, and he laid out several themes related to complexity and ambiguity that he returned to throughout the day.

Our first stop was Mt. Zion just before entering the Old City. Our guide knew just the place to provide us with a microcosm, a metaphor for Jerusalem. On Mt. Zion is an ancient limestone building, interesting looking, but not out of the ordinary here. On the bottom floor of the building is the purported Tomb of King David, the great Jewish King, known for his charismatic personality, prowess as a warrior, ability as a musician and that certain way with the women. It is a holy site for Jews, not so important to Christians, and has been converted into a working synagogue. The second floor holds the purported Room of the Last Supper, a holy site for Christians, not so important to the Jews, and has been converted into a church. On the third floor is a Muslim mosque. When the area was under Jordanian rule, the Jews and the Christians fought over access to the building for decades. So, they went to the King of Jordan to each plead their case for why the building was especially important to their respective religions, and why the other group should not be allowed access. The King of Jordan decided that since King David and Jesus were both important to the Muslims that they should have access to all three floors, and he threw out both the Jews and the Christians! Ironically, our guide tells us, it is not historically possible for King David's Tomb nor the Room of the Last Supper to be located here, so everyone is fighting about land that is unrelated to the holy events attributed to it.

The stone work of all the streets and buildings is absolutely breathtaking. Nick and Eli will both be moved by the stone work and architecture at different times during the day. Over the course of the day, we see and hear larger-than-life stories, stories of Biblical proportions, so to speak, about the Western Wall, the Dome of the Rock where Mohammed ascended to heaven, the rock that marks the spot of the Crucifixion, the rock on which Jesus body was laid, the rock that marks his Tomb and Resurrection, etc. Each one has long lines of people waiting hours to be able to touch the rock that means the most to them. Quiet, understated Eli sidles up next to me and says, "It's all about rocks, isn't it?" What do you mean, I ask. "Here. It's all about rocks here. Everything is made out of them, everyone fights over access to them, they wait in line to touch them, and when they have problems, they throw them at each other."

Today is Dear Siena's 18th Birthday. Imagine turning 18 in the most sacred place on Earth with your best friends. We don't have much time for a party, so last night Gemma hid in the bathroom in the girl's dorm room, and on her hands and knees on the tile floor, drew a beautiful, over-sized Birthday Card we all signed in the morning. The grown ups created a two-part sign that says, "Happy 18th Birthday" in English on one, Arabic and Hebrew on the other. I forced Siena to carry it around with her all day so I can take a series of Birthday Photos of her. Here is a small sampling:

We had a baklava birthday celebration in the late afternoon on a rooftop overlooking the Muslim Quarter. Hasmig offered a lovely toast to our Madamoiselle Sunshine over mint tea.

Priceless moment of the day...we had this fabulous lunch of hummus, falafel and best fresh passion fruit juice that any of us has ever had. It was set out family style, more than we could eat, in an outdoor cafe on the narrow, labrynthine streets of the Old City. The only thing I've ever seen like these chaotic, market-filled alleyways is the D'jmaa El F'naa in Marrakesh. The Cafe lined up card tables end to end in the alleyway to accommodate our group. The tables nearly touched the walls on either side of the street, with just enough clearance to squeeze into our chairs. Turns out there were pigeons standing on window sills directly above us. One did its thing and a nice, goopy poop the size of a silver dollar splatted on the table between two plates and about an inch from Ben's hand. Ben squealed, shrieked, pleaded with Ms. Minassian to clean it up for him, and finally gagged as he mopped it up with a wad of about 45 napkins. Within 10 minutes we were bombed twice more. One landed on poor Max's day pack, the other caught the inside edge of our bowl of Lebanese yogurt. Ben came unglued, and searched the table for some type of protection for this head. All he could find was pita:

The most moving part of the day for me was at the Western Wall, the site of the remains of the original Temple of Jerusalem. My good friend, Sarah, wrote my family a piercing empathetic and insightful song in the weeks after Kyle died. It's called, "I Need A Boat," and the lyrics are posted on www.sweetsweetkyle.blogspot.com. Sarah and her husband, Tim (who I met the first day I moved into my freshman dorm room in college and have been close friends with since) drove from Arizona to play it for us at the unveiling of Kyle's headstone. One of the verses,
I'll sail away to the land of Zion
I'll place your name in that sad wall
I'll see your face in the eyes of strangers
I'll feel your heartbeat inside my own

inspired us to have friends, family and CAS seniors write notes for Kyle, for peace, for themselves that we could leave at the Wall. It was a truly awe-inspiring experience to come to the wall, to touch it, to leave our messages, and do whatever form of introspection might comfort each of us. The Wall is a working synagogue; or perhaps many working synagogues. There are several arks holding Torahs, and since it was Shabbat, the arks were being opened and services were in progress. The scene filled me up and I couldn't leave. I didn't notice that no one in our group was still there, till Nick came up behind me and put his arm tenderly over my shoulders.
"How are you doing, Craig? You OK?"
"Ya, just a little overwhelmed."
"I know. Me, too. I can really feel it. Like it almost brought me to tears. You know that feeling like when you're running or riding a bike really hard, that feeling right when you stop? That's how I feel right now. I don't really pray; I'm more of a meditation guy, but whatever, I can really feel it right now."
"I can, too, Nick. I'm glad you're here with me."
"Well, this is the highlight of my teenage life..."

Tonight after dinner we met with two members of Combatants for Peace. One served in the Israeli Defense Force until he was stationed in the West Bank to protect settlers and was forced to shoot randomly into villages in retaliation for unseen Palestinians firing on his base; the other drove a bomb into West Jerusalem with the intention of detonating it at the Israeli Police Station in retaliation for an Israeli soldier going on a random shooting spree and killing several civilian Palestinians. He was arrested before he reached his destination, and served five years in prison. They are both doing non-violent peace work now.

I'm supposed to be getting up in an hour to go with Hasmig to the 6am Armenian Church service. Then we're off to West Jerusalem and the Holocaust Museum.

Whoa.