Studying in Israel, September – December, 1982 For pictures

Studying in Israel, September – December, 1982
For pictures associated with this, see
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In Athens we met the 32 other participants, mostly members of religious orders
or seminarians. Only three lay people were along. We could not have asked for
a more congenial group. Resident faculty included as field director Carroll
Stuhlmuhler CP, whose class would be Exodus Traditions in the Bible, Robert
Karris, OFM for Gospel of Luke and Pauline Theology (I had already had the
course), Lyn Osiek for the Gospel of John (I had already had that course as well,
so just audited it). Carroll also taught
History and Archaeology of Israel in
Context. Jennifer Corbett was along as
coordinator.
Greece
Once in Athens, my roommates Jeanette
Lucinio S.P., Jeanine Butler O.P., Yolanda
Durango C.C.V.I. and I visited the Plaka on
our own, shopping, lunching, listening and
dancing to the music. With the group, we
visited the Acropolis, then climbed the Areopagus,
northwest of the Acropolis, where we read Paul’s
words to the Athenians from Acts. We took day
trips to Delphi and on Sunday to Aegina, where at
the temple of Athena, Rolly said Mass for Frank,
Yasuhero, Barbara, Jeanette and me. I found a
place to swim before we left for the return trip to
Pireaus. The waves were crashing against the
boat and the passengers were squealed with
delight. On an all-day trip to Corinth (right), Dr.
Oscar Bromeer (archeologist who excavated the site) spoke to us. At Cencrae
where Paul had left on his missionary journeys, we had Mass. Again, in our free
time, I managed to go swimming.
St. John’s—Ein Karem
On September 7, we left for Israel,
landing in Tel Aviv and thence by bus
to Jerusalem, passing by the rusted
relics of the 1948 wars. In Jerusalem,
we were based at the Franciscan
Monastery of St. John the Baptist in
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Ein Karem, a suburb in western Jerusalem. At one time it had been home to
Yemenite Jews, but had been since taken over by European and American
settlers. The monastery itself was quite a complex--a church, a vineyard, a
garden with pomegranates which attracted various insects (that liked me).
Beside the garden was a separate building for kitchen and dining room. We
were housed in the large but airless rooms of the monastery. I had a private
room for which I had paid a little more. Still, the entire semester, including
rooms, meals, travels, and tuition cost at the most $2500, I remember. What a
bargain! (Now the cost for the whole trip—a shorter version, in fact—is over
$12,000). Residing with us at our monastery while taking classes at Hebrew
University was Paul Chow, from Taiwan, a very gentle, poetic soul, a lover of
literature and an elegant dancer, a renaissance man—he taught us how to dance
a pavanne. Paul turned out to be an expert on everything and frequently
accompanied us on our trips.
Ein Karem was then just a village, hilly,
surrounded by wadis--valleys or dry
watercourses. It was dry climate, with
rocks and olive trees everywhere. It
reminded me of Greece. Our evening
walks took us down our hillside, past
the numerous one-story houses, into
our wadi. I grew to love the desert, the
silence, and was to find many other
desert sites to love. After watching the
sunset over the desert, we returned, passing the small synagogue on our left,
where on Friday nights we would see men congregating. In mornings when we
had no class, we would head up the hill to catch the No. 14 bus which would take
us to the Jaffa Gate of the Old City.
The Spanish-speaking Monastery was run by a genial Spanish Franciscan,
Father Amelio, who came to our parties and enjoyed the fun. The church next
door was French-speaking. And there was a touch of German, as Kasha (left),
who was from Poland picked up
German during the German
occupation, and German became our
language of communication. She and
I bonded over my concern for the cats.
She had no concern for them—they
were wild and could look after
themselves. But the way they hung
around waiting for scraps forced me to
become their provider. I became the
cat lady, bringing them leftovers from
our meals, feeding them each day
when we went out for our walks after dinner in the evening.
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Carroll laid out the rules for us. Energy resources were limited, so we should
conserve water, gas and electricity. We should be quiet after 10 o’clock. We
should fasten the wooden door latches, as a wind would start blowing from the
west about 3:30 or 4. Rooms # 7 and 8 were designated as library rooms.
Room 7 had a table of odds and ends, e.g., canteens, which we could use, but
were to leave at the end for the next group. There were English bibles which we
could use. Room 7 was for books on Reserve—its purpose was a reading room
and we were to observe silence there. Room 8 had books which could circulate.
We were surrounded by vineyards and yes, we could eat the grapes. They were
not being saved for wine. We could go into the Monastery church or choir up to
8:30 at night, but always go through the monastery, not outside. There was a
general weekly schedule, including hours for breakfast, classes, lunch and
dinner. On Sundays, we could go to different liturgies around the city. Mondays
were free; Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays there would be
scheduled class lectures, and Thursdays we would go on all-day excursions.
(This schedule was often not followed as we would go on Sunday excursions.)
The frig had beer and drinks that we could pay for. We could keep our own
foods separately. We were to sign up for cooking teams of 5 or 6 to cook on
Sundays and Mondays and were to help out with the lunch and dinner dishes.
On our very first day, we were free, so of
course, we visited the Old City, and found the
enticements of the Arab quarter, and the street
inside the Damascus Gate, where I bought a
Bedouin dress. (Father Amelio called me the
“Queen of Sheba” in that outfit). After Mass
and dinner (in a separate building) we returned
to our rooms and found that someone had
managed to get in and had robbed us, taking
$135 from me, $40 from the kitchen purse, and
$209 from Yasuhiro (“Yash”). As soon as we reported the robbery, the others
got together and took up a collection—about $10 each-- to replace our money.
They gave me $100 of their $330 collection. I felt guilty after I had just paid over
$200 for my Bedouin dress, and gave Carroll $20 for the purse. I was humbled
by their generosity and still have a copy of the note I wrote to thank them.
Every day took us on new adventures—to a sheep auction outside St. Stephen’s
Gate and Herod’s Gate, to the Mount of Olives, to Tel Aviv to see the Diaspora
Museum. My impression was that they were trying to prove that the Jews had
always been a “nation,” though scattered among and assimilated into many other
nations; they were just waiting to come “home.” They did this by showing unity
in family and religious practices and culture of Jews around the world. If they
were really just waiting to come home, why hadn’t they done so earlier? The
Muslims and the Christians had been the builders here after the Romans. There
were many soldiers with their packs at the museum; the army was mobilized, so
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they had to remain ready. After the museum visit, we swam off the Hotel
Mandarin’s beach.
On another day we went the opposite direction, east of Jerusalem into the desert
to visit Bethany and Lazarus’s tomb. In the
church there, I broke down and wept, thinking of
my brother Joe who had died four years earlier.
on walks through Arab lands, to the Shepherd’s
Fields, Herodian, the Oak of Abraham, Hebron,
Mowre (where Abraham saw the three angels
and where Philip baptized the Ethiopian), to
Solomon’s Pools, Bethlehem, Rachel’s Tomb.
We got an idea of the places of Jesus’ Passion
by visiting the model of Herodian Jerusalem to
see what the various places looked like back in the first century, then to the
present sites--the Via Dolorosa, the Lithostratos (the courtyard where Jesus was
presented) , and the church of Ecce Homo. So many places to visit!
I loved the way Christians, Jews and Arabs lived side by side in Jerusalem and
got along. Their holy places were all intertwined. Alongside these places sacred
to Christians on which we were focusing were places sacred to the Muslims
(Dome of the Rock), and Jews (the Wailing Wall-where we met a family celebrating their sons’
bar mitzvah. I felt sorry for the girl.) We
celebrated the great feasts--Rosh Hashana and
Yom Kippur--with lectures by local rabbis on the
meaning. In our evening liturgies, we
celebrated along with whatever Jewish feast it
was. Lyn Osiek presided at a Gnostic liturgy one
evening, after which we had dinner, then danced
into the halls singing Hevenu Shalom Aleichem. We sometimes kept Shabbat,
so we would have the feel of a quiet day. Daria especially, grew to love keeping
Shabbat. We were definitely experiencing not tourists.
On any free days I usually went with someone-- Jeanette, Yolanda, Barbara
Barry were frequent companions--.on excursions—to sites, e.g., St. Anne’s,
Bethesda Pools. Doris, Jeanette and I planted trees, contributing $7 to the
Jewish National Fund. We loved the markets—with the barrels of dried fruits,
nuts and spices, topped off with falafel.
We cooked every weekend. One dinner none of us will forget. Our team had
decided to make chili, and I had been designated to buy the ingredients in town
that day. I had stopped at a butcher shop on the way back, and found a large
selection of delicious-looking ground beef, all with names in Hebrew. I should
have asked for ground chuck, but went by the appearance and was satisfied with
some that looked very delicious, at a very good price. We cooked it all up and it
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smelled delicious. The beef imparted a delightful taste, but as we all began
chewing, we discovered that we were chewing ground up bones. What I had
bought was ground beef for dogs!!! Our group took it with good humor, but the
chili was a thrown out (maybe the kittens got it)!
On a sunny day George Carthage and I ran into each other on the inbound #17
bus and teamed up for a walk that took us past Beguin’s house (guarded
because of the Lebanon Massacre), the Rubin Musical School, the Rosary
Convent, Pontifical Institute, the YMCA (from the roof we could see the
spectacular view of the city for 10 sheckels), the King David Hotel (we sat to
imbibe the atmosphere), and then on to Yemen Moshe, a charming old
neighborhood near the windmill, outside the Old City. Urban renewal had turned
this area from a no-man’s land inhabited only by refugees who had no place else
to go, into an upscale new neighborhood with building codes so strict that only
the rich could afford to build there. Now it was one of the most beautiful sections
in new Jerusalem, just west of the Jaffa Gate and west wall. There were studios
of painters and sculptors, architects (including Rochomim, in charge of Ein
Karim), all homes of blond Jerusalem limestone, surrounded by gardens, with
great views facing the old city. Neaby was the Craftsman’s Corner, a line of
shops of printers, jewelers, leather workers.
Several times we all went to the Center for Biblical Studies inside the Damascus
Gate, run by Biblical archaeologist Jim Fleming. He offered us a multi-layered
historical view of Israel combining geography, history, theology, and archaelogy,
(as well as a dramatization of a Passover meal). He described the land of Israel
as divided into two sides. On the right side (the east) was the desert, home of
the Bedouins, silent, infertile, the land of milk (from the herds), where God and
life were unpredictable. On the left was the sea, home of the settled people,
noisy, fertile, the land of honey (fruit trees), where life and God were predictable.
This became a metaphor for two faces of God—the forbidding and demanding
side and the welcoming, comforting side. I
thought about these two dimensions more as
the term went on.
Assignments:
As we were getting credit for these courses,
we were given assignments. We were to visit
most of the holy places on our own, and for the
History and Archaeology of the Holy Land
course, we were to do a 2-4 page paper in
which we study a particular site and present
the evolution of that site. We could also trace
the archaeology of the site, and/or trace the
devotional aspects of that place. We also had
to keep a study log of or diary of our
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excursions, noting the spots, drawing maps, embellished with notes. I liked
maps and would make my own, detailing all the spots we visited. This
assignment would develop into a major project for me as time went on. I would
eventually do all the most familiar sites of Jerusalem, Bethlehem and the Sinai
and Egypt, associated with the Exodus. It would be an exercise that would give
me a purpose; involving architecture and archaeology as well as history of places
I would visit.
Toward the end of September Carroll began preparing us for the Galilee, telling
us what supplies we would need (bedding, towels, soap, toilet paper, drinking
cups and canteen, insect repellant, as well as a table service.) He helped us
expand our historical and geographical idea of Israel but highlighting the various
spots along the way. (Yolanda said she got carsick just listening to him tell us all
the places we would be going.) In every place we would visit, e.g., Caesarea
Maritima, we would heard about the history of the place, its prehistory, its
presence in the time of the Romans (complete with Biblical references), the
Revolts, through the early Church, the Crusades, and into modern Israel. My
notebook filled up
Galilee- September 29- October
On September 29, we left for the
Galilee.on the bus, driven, as on all our
excursions within Israel by Gazzi. Our
route took us through Emmaus--where we
had Mass outdoors (right); Caesaria
Maritima, where I read aloud in the
Roman amphitheatre to test the acoustics
and later waded out on the rocks. We
arrived at Tabgha where there were the
Heptapegon or Seven Springs. We
women slept in an airy dormitory, (better
than the airless rooms at St. John’s, we said) Tabgha was our base for the week
in the Galilee, encompassing within walking distance
three churches—the Multiplication of the Loaves and
Fishes, the Mount of the Beatitutdes (right), and the
Primacy of Peter, as well as a Crusader building,
which we could explore on our own. Many of these
holy spots in the Galilee seemed to be high up on the
tops of hills, or down along the seacoast— It was not
the desert that the south of Israel in Judea was—it
was fertile, because it was high and northwest. (The
low-lying areas to the south and east in Israel were
the driest.) I loved the Galilee and was glad that
Jesus had started his ministry up there, and did most
of his preaching and miracles in the “evangelical
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triangle.” This area, in the northwest corner of the Sea of Galilee, between
Chorazim to the north, Bethsaida to the east and Capernaum to the west, Isaiah
had prophetically referred to as “the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali”
where the people waiting in darkness had seen a great light. (Is 9:1) In this area
along the north shore of the Sea, life still looked a lot like it must have in Jesus’
time—fishing villages, rural life, relaxed. So many beautiful churches adorn the
area also, and ruins going back to the time of Jesus in Chorazim and
Capernaum. Beaches where you could almost imagine Jesus, after a day out on
the Sea in their boats, relaxing around a fire on the beach at sunset, enjoying
some of their day’s catch. We could swim there.
Our first trip from our base was to Mt. Tabor, where we had Mass in the beautiful
church of the Transfiguration. Gerry Nolf, a missionary White Father from France,
based in Africa, read and gave a beautiful homily. Many of the men were
missionaries and all were very flexible about saying Mass in any conditions—
whether outdoors on a big rock in the desert or indoors in a splendid church.
When we were traveling around outdoors in Galilee I felt like we really formed
ourselves into a group of disciples who followed Jesus anywhere--any desert
place. Mt. Tabor felt like the most peaceful place we had been.
On our way back from Mt. Tabor, we stopped by Tiberias, the “big city” on the
Sea of Galilee. It had been a Gentile town in the time of Jesus (the Romans built
on a cemetery, so the Jews couldn’t live there). Jesus, who said he was not sent
to the Gentiles, never went there, that we know. On our stopover, I managed to
see some Holy Cross sisters who had a house in Tiberias—Sr. Olivetti, Sr.
Carmen and Sr. Miriam Therese (Theresa Slattery, whom I knew from the
novitiate).
Another day we covered the evangelical triangle, starting from the east side, over
in the Golan Heights in Kursi/Gergesi, in the land of the Gergesenes where
Jesus cast out the demons called “Legion” and sent them over the cliff in a herd
of swine. It is set atop a hill. Below it was a Byzantine basilica with wonderful
mosaics. The floor was especially beautiful. From there we went to Bethsaida,
or at least a rock commemorating where they thought it was. The seacoast
came farther north in those days.
From there we headed to
Capernaum by the Sea (no longer)
and visited Peter’s House, and
thence to Chorazim. These towns
formed the “Evangelical Triangle.”
We went above the whole area
and stood overlooking the area, to
get an idea of the area Jesus
evangelized. Although he came
from Nazareth, he made
Capernaum (Peter’s house) his
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home base, and worked miracles in Chorazim and Bethsaida, went off to Tabgha
for a rest, where he multiplied the loaves and fishes, preached the Sermon on
the Mount and made Peter primate. On the other side (land of the Gerasenes
and the Golan) he cured the demoniacs.
We ended the day at the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves where we
held a healing Mass for George Carthage, a seminarian in the St. Paul diocese,
who had a disease that required that he get occasional blood transfusions.
Fortunately, some men in the group volunteered to
donate regularly at the Hadassah Hospital, so
George could always get his transfusions when he
needed them. I later heard that George, who was
already probably in his 50’s when he entered, had
been ordained, but not lived long after. He was a
genial, creative, musical fellow whom we all loved.
We ended that memorable day with a swim in the
Sea of Galilee.
Reflections in Galilee
Although every day was filled with activity which kept me occupied, The Galilee,
which was enchanting and lies in the greener northwest of the land, not the drier
desert of the southeast, reminded me of what I was missing-- the green-green
fields of home. I began to struggle with the God who was revealed to me on that
trip—the forbidding, harsh God of the desert. Although God is of course the
God the fertile land as well, I I felt I had run up against God’s harsh side. God
felt like an antagonist. Why had he given this land, so difficult to cultivate and
subdue, to His chosen people? It was too barren and rocky and hilly, too dry,
difficult and harsh, too unwelcoming and unfriendly and unkind. There were no
kindly streams with paddling ducks, no copses with fruits and nuts, no little lakes
and gently rolling hills. Here nature was too strong for man. It was not generous.
And yet they had to continually fight for it! I could understand Jacob’s struggling
with an angel, Job’s questioning God. The God who would give this land to His
chosen people was a testing God. I could see how prophets foretelling doom,-with small oases of consolation (in Isaiah)--would arise in this land. Prophets
would take one look at all the rocks and immediately conclude that this people
must have offended God mightily to deserve all these rocks and dry places.
I felt a tension in myself between leading a “nomadic” life of spontaneity and
unpredictability and trust looking for the serendipitous, and leading the “settled”
life of projects I can carry through. Here I was living too much the nomadic
unpredictable life. I could identify with the disciples who felt lost, whose heads
and hearts were hard as rocks. My heart and head too felt like rocks. Why did I
fight them? I recognized my own harsh, rugged, resistant side-- rocks and
deserts which I see in myself. I longed to have within me springs which would
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make the desert bloom, a rich oasis with tropical fruit, but I dreaded that I was an
un-watered desert. I was in need of God’s spring water. How joyful the woman
at the well must have been to hear Jesus offer living water to her, here in this dry
land.
Like the disciples: the only thing that got us through individually was our
interdependence, our being part of a group. How could we survive in the desert
alone? How could we climb the mountains alone? I truly understood, for I could
not get through this experience alone. I needed this group of disciples to share
with. We supported each other and buoyed each other up. George’s joy in spite
of his illness inspired me. These friends were the springs in this desert. I could
not do it without them. My independence could not survive here.
Nazareth
In Nazareth, there is a church for everyone—a Greek Orthodox one for the Angel
Gabriel, another for St. Joseph, and a basilica for Mary’s Annunciation. In the
basilica was an original crypt with inscriptions about Jesus as Son of God. The
House of Joseph at St. Joseph’s Church had come from a house church. The
Judaeo-Christian community, excommunicated by the Byzantines at the Council
of Ephesus, went over to the House Church of Joseph’s House. When pilgrims
came, they didn’t visit there. There is also a chapel for Mary’s well, where Mary
was claimed (by the Greek monks) to have received the visit from Gabriel, and a
Casa Nova for the Sisters of Nazareth. Our Mass was in the grotto of the
Annunciation. Next to it was supposed to be the house of Joseph. (All very
convenient.)
After Mass, Peter Christensen and I walked down into the town. We met an
Arabic poet who when told we were artists, said there was an artist in the town—
Ein Hud. On we went together to the Convent of the Poor Clares, where Charles
Foucauld worked as a gardener when he first went to the Holy Land. We also
stopped in Cana and visited the church with the crypt where the wedding at
Cana supposedly took place. There was no clear witness about a Christian
church there. Tradition was late that that site was The Church of Bartholomew
was identified with Nathaniel of Cana because in one list there was a
Bartholomew and in another a Nathaniel of Cana. That evening, Gazzi cooked
supper, with his Arab specialties.
The next day, we headed south, along the seacoast, to the promontory of Mt.
Carmel. The church on Mt. Carmel, where we stopped for Mass, centered on
Elijah’s Cave, above the Valley of Esdraelon. There he prayed and sent his
servant up to see if there was any rain. From the porch at Muhraqa we could see
the whole valley of Esdraelon. Carroll explained the conflict between Elijah and
Ahab (married to Jezebel of Tyre). . He represented the cosmopolitan outreach
to the nations (Samaria and Canaanites), representing also lush fertility of the
plains. Ahab at Megiddo and Hazor and in Samaria, built forts, granaries,
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remodeled water systems, mustered forces against Assyria and blocked the
advance of Assyria against the country. He represents the whole force by which
religion acculturates itself but also represents the danger of losing its identity by
becoming world-wide, sensual, soft and indulgent. Elijah represents the force of
God coming out of the desert and establishing itself in the mountains. Against
the forces of Ahab, God told Elijah when he went back to Mt. Horeb (Sinai) that
God was not in violent earthquakes but in the gentle breeze. God was telling him
that his violent attacks were not the way to go. Israel’s first 200 years did not
prepare them to become settled and established in the land. Only with David
and Solomon would that come. I have always liked that idea of God speaking in
the gentle breeze, not in earthquakes. I have found that in meditation, it is when
I am utterly quiet, without preoccupation or emotion or plan, that I feel God’s
presence/immanence. For that reason, the quiet deserts began to appeal to me,
and I could understand how the great religions came out of the desert, and why
John and Jesus sought refuge in the deserts.
When a flock of sheep crossed the highway in front of our bus, Carroll remarked
that the image of the good shepherd leading his flock is a false one—that in fact
the shepherd should follow the flock, looking out for strays. Glad he cleared that
up. Along the road we saw a Bedouin woman dressed in black, sitting under an
olive tree, and later a long white-bearded Hasidic Jew.
Our bus made further stops along the coast, in Akko and Haifa, where there were
ruins not only from the time of the Romans and Jews, but also the Ottomans and
Crusaders, who made Akko their chief port. The city-states of Venice, Pisa and
Genoa each had its own harbors there, and the Templars and Hospitalers had
establishments to look after pilgrims and crusaders. This area was much fought
over throughout history. Israel was overrun by a series of conquerors--the
Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Egyptians--in the time of the prophets. The
Romans managed to stabilize the area, to the point of building theatres and
buildings with mosaics. After the Romans, the Byzantines, the Crusaders, and
Islam carried on the battles. Destruction followed destruction, with the Israelites
doing their share
Our last full day was spent on an excursion to Megiddo, stopping on the way at
Beth Abfa (with a mosaic of the zodiac), Beth Shean (a well-preserved Roman
theatre), and Beth Shearim (a Jewish necropolis). At Hazor, an immense Tell of
over 200 acres, with Solomonic gates like Megiddo, I was overcome by the heat
and became dehydrated and sick (a lot of people came down with a bug that
day) and didn’t manage to explore all the, storehouses and stables, four-room
houses, Canaanite buildings. Once Carroll announced on the bus that we were
on our way home, I rejoiced and managed to control my stomach for the rest of
the way home, though others didn’t.
Our last day in Galilee we had a late sleep, so I got up at 6 anyway so I could go
for a last swim in the Sea of Galilee. We had a lovely one-hour sail from Tiberias
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to Ein Gev, a resort area, where I met some people from New York, who had
come over to celebrate during the month of holidays from Rosh-Hoshana though
the Celebration of the Torah. From Ein Gev, Gazzi drove us down to where the
Jordan leaves the Sea of Galilee.and from there drove down to Belvoir, an
overlook where we had Mass and made our farewell to Galilee. After lunch we
toured the best preserved Crusader fortress in the country. From there, we
drove down through the Jordan Valley, which is lush up north but down south
became just like an oasis in a desert. The border with Jordan runs alongside the
Jordan and is completely barren. We stopped to watch a baptism in the Jordan.
A line of white-robed candidates waited to be immersed in the Jordan. Further
down the river, in the oasis of Jericho, we visited Hisham’s Palace, a
monumental winter palace, with a paved courtyard, mosque, fountain courtyard,
a huge area of mosaic decorations showing plants, animals, especially the Tree
of Life on the floor of the bath house where audiences and banquets were held. I
have never seen anything quite like this ruin anywhere in the Roman world,
except perhaps in Sicily, which I visited decades later. The palace was lived in
for only four years before it was destroyed by an earthquake. A caliph, whose
home was in Damascus, used it as his winter palace in the 8th century. Arriving
back home on the 6th and celebrated our trip by dancing after dinner, to Yash’s
tapes.
Back Home in Jerusalem for Sukkoth
Thursday after our return from the Galilee was a free day, so after Mass I went
with Jerry Nolf to get supplies and bought a Newsweek, which I read from cover
to cover, delighting to catch up with the cultural scene in the US. Cats was
opening in New York; Richard Ellman’s biography of James Joyce was being
reissued; the Italian cinema was reviving! Hurrah! It was like I had found an
oasis in the desert. To celebrate I went in town and bought a silk scarf for $25.
How worldly I am!
This was the time of Sukkoth, and in our neighborhood we noticed people dining
outside in a shelter or succa made of palm leaves. While the Arabs often
seemed to be enjoying themselves, I seldom saw Jews having fun. They
seemed to be either guarding places like the Holy Sepulchre with their guns, or
praying at the Wailing Wall, but here families were-- picnicking in their side
yards, relaxing! I mentioned this to Jan so we down to see what they were up to.
The men were sitting around smoking their water pipes and drinking tea and
coffee, (without which they didn’t seem to be able to do anything) while taking
turns chanting the Torah, the Book of Deuteronomy. (In Ein Kerem these were
Yemenite Jews, reared in Arab cultures). They invited us to join them, giving Jan
a kippah, and serving us cups of tea, flavored with mint leaves. (I had diarrhea
the next day, but a coke cleared it up!.) After dinner, we were told, the boys
would be sent to the synagogue to have their names written in the Book of Life.
Their fathers would stay home. (No smoking of water pipes allowed!) It would all
climax with Simchat Torah-- rejoicing and dancing with the Torah. On Saturday
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morning, the reading having finished, they would chant again and again in
tandem the last verse of Deuteronomy and the first verse of Genesis, until all the
men had been “called to the Torah.” Then they would take the Torah and dance
around the great synagogue (Schlomo) and through the streets into the Old City,
to the Wailing Wall. We thought it sounded indeed like fun and wanted to join in,
in our own community, so Saturday afternoon, after lunch, I went with Jan to
Sion, where he said Mass. He tied the readings (from the Book of Wisdom,
Hebrews and the Gospel of the Rich Young Man) together with the feast of
Simchat Torah. The young man, who had kept the Law from his childhood, like a
good Jew, didn’t go far enough, he said. The Christian must follow Christ, in
suffering and denial. Later that day, after a spaghetti dinner prepared by Bob
Kerris, (who had bought barbecue sauce thinking it was spaghetti sauce), we
danced with the Torah through our monastery. (I usually called home on
Saturdays, and my parents told me that they had gotten five of my six boxes of
slides. Mother said “No more pictures at the Wailing Wall!.”)
Mount of Olives
Monday October 11, I set out on the No. 75 bus, where
I found a friend--John Swing (the guitarist of our group).
We joined a group of our fellows and toured all the
churches on the Mt. of Olives—the Pater Noster (which
has the Our Father in every language around the
courtyard.) We descended into the grotto where the
memorial is celebrated. Everything that dated to the
early church was in grottos, because public Christian
celebrations were forbidden, and most ceremonies took
place in house churches. Nearby is the church of
Dominus Flevit (”the Lord wept”), the Mosque of the Ascension, the Church of All
Nations and Gethsemane.
Across from the Church of All Nations, we went down the path to the Tombs of
the Prophets in the Kidron Valley (aka the Valley of Jehosaphat where all the
bones will rise again.) This, being outside the city walls to the east, was the
burial ground of the Jews until Justinian forbid Jews from the eastern Roman
empire.) Some of the tombs (Jehosaphat, Absolom, Hezir and Zechariah, looked
like Egyptian tombs. From there we entered Hezekiah’s Tunnel, 600 years of a
meandering underground stream. With our water shoes and flashlights, we bent
over sometimes to fit through the narrow shaft. Jerry Nolf led our group—Doris,
Jeanine, Jeanette, David, John and I through through in 40 minutes. Some of us
teamed up and went from there up to St. Peter in Gallicantu, where an English
group were getting a lecture about Caiphas’s house, the foundations of which are
supposed to be in that property. This house where Peter betrayed Jesus, is a
lovely place with tall pines and alongside it is a shair going down from the Pool of
Siloam (at the end of Hezekiah’s Tunnel). Under the church there(which has
scenes from the Passion) is a prison, with a dungeon pit, into which a prisoner
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was lowered by a rope through a hole. Here Jesus would have been kept
overnight. and the Dormition (celebrating the death of Our Lady). .
Northern Kingdoms
On October 14, after Carroll’s preparatory class the previous evening, we made
an all day trip along the Nablus Road to the Northern kingdom, stopping at El
Queberba (the other possibility for Emmaus, where we had Mass on a rock along
the road). After Mass, the community blessed the laity, the clergy and the women
religious. We looked at the spectacular view northward along the Roman Road,
with crusader houses alongside, all now in a grove with lovely pine trees. From
there we drove to El Jia (formerly Gideon), next to the plain where Joshua is
supposed to have made the sun stand still. We looked at the water works, at the
circular cisterns with steps, now abandoned. Ramallah is a large Arab town with
a Christian side (south) and a Muslim side (north). This was a mostly Muslim
area (the West Bank). We passed by Bethel, Bira (a small Muslim village where a
mosque commemorates Joseph and Mary’s first stop when they noticed Jesus’s
absence from their caravan). Finally we were in Samaria, where only four or five
hundred Samaaritans now lived, having been crushed after the revolt. Annually
they all move up to the top of Mount Gerizim to refugee houses for a month to
celebrate Passover, sacrificing a lamb and going into a frenzy. We drove along
very tight curves to the top ourselves This was the spot where Abraham is
supposed to have led Isaac for sacrifice. Other memorable spots in Samaria
were Tel Balata (the capitol city-state guarding the last pass and entrance to the
South in 1500 BC). , Mt. Gerizim (Tel ir Ras), Jacob’s Well.
After that Northern outing, Carroll began to prepare us for the Exodus, and our
trip into the Sinai, scaring most of us with descriptions. After an all day trip on an
Arab bus, our passage would take us through the checkpoints to clear us into
Egypt from Israel, after which we would be sleeping out in the desert, for a
number of nights going and coming, in our sleeping bags which we had been told
to bring. It would be cold in the deserts at night. We would break camp about 5
each morning and at 3 am on the actual day of our ascent up the 7500 feet to the
top of Mount Sinai, which would take about 3 hours and we wanted to be at the
summit by the time the sun rose. Carol had led a number of groups up before
ours and had learned that it was best to prepare us for the worst. It was all we
could think of after that, and each of us wondered in our hearts whether we
would make it. Some of us were not spring chickens; Carroll’s sister, Sister
Louise, was 70! But we were a cheerful lot and no one dared voice his or her
fears.
Skits
To cheer ourselves up, we had a party that Friday evening, including skits. Mine
was about trees from Judges 9 (Molly, the olive; Yolanda, the fig; Joe, the vine;
Jerry, the thorn bush; Jeanette, the narrator; Daria, the generic tree who cries
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“Reign over us” and I was the Queen of Sheba). Then Doris presented her
fashion show: what to wear--to the beach; to visit a Tel; to sleep (sleeping bag,
mosquito net, broom, Bolivian hat, flashlight, etc.; to cook, etc. In another skit,
Robin interviewed Jack and Bob, regarding the Galilee trip. Q.“When you get
back to the US, what will you find hard?” A. “Going into people’s house and
asking ‘Can we drink the water?’ Peter did a skit with a sleeping bag. Bob
Kerris’s group did some musical numbers: “Climb every mountain, ford every
stream, follow every ruin, till you find your Tel.”; as well as “Rock around the
Clock” to all the places we’d visited.
On Saturday, I was on the cooking crew, and after another morning class about
the Sinai, we had an afternoon Town Hall, where we all “confessed” why we had
come. It was sad and inspiring—sad because most of the reasons they had
come seemed to be so far from what they were doing. Those who had planned
to do something academic because they were dissatisfied with seminary classes
were out at the beach in Tel Aviv or Eilat every weekend, and those who wanted
more political info were not even doing the work already there. One who came in
a half hour late for everything complained that the first ten minutes of every class
were wasted on announcements. I thought probably most of the priests had
come to say Mass at as many shrines as possible. But I can’t resist the
opportunity when everyone is serious to lighten up by being a little goofy, so I
announced that I had come to shop! (Actually, I had bought a lot, including the
Bedouin outfit, slides and postcards and notecards, even a Byzantine icon of the
Resurrection.) Seriously, I said, my real reason was that I had a sabbatical and
as I had been taking scripture classes at CTU regularly for the past 3 years,
what could have been more logical than to want to come study in Israel? That
was why I had come, but why was I staying? Facetiously, I had concluded it
must be (God’s plan for me?) to make a retreat—the longest on record.
On Sunday, Oct. 17, a free day, but a cooking
day for me, I went to Mass in the Old City at the
Greek Patriarchate Church, where the Mass was
in Arabic! Sr. Olivette was there with her bevy of
African children. On the way home I stopped by
an art store and bought paper and colors. I had
decided that I to relieve the distress I had felt, I
needed to DO something creative, to express all
that I was seeing in some organized way that I
could keep forever, and something to full the
assignment about choosing a place and doing
everything about it. I decided that I would make
a BOOK of all the places we had visited, a
pictorial history, with pictures (postcards were
everywhere, about every place) narrative, maps,
etc. As I had recently finished a course in
Interior design, I longed to get my hands on
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some paper and pens and start scribbling and drawing and designing, and using
rulers. I had been sketching, but wanted to do something organized. The next
few days were miraculously free, so I began, spending all my day drawing maps
of Israel, Jerusalem, a picture of Ein Karem (which I later gave to George) and
another of Galilee.
One more touring day before we left for the Sinai included the Tombs of the
Kings, including the garden with the “stone rolled back.” Also we visited the north
wall of Herod’s city, the Gate of the column (Damascus Gate) where the Cardo
(the North-South axis laid out by the Romans running through the city to the Sion
Gate; the Decumanus runs east west between the Jaffa Gate along David’s
street to the Temple Mount), tand finally the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where
we spent the rest of the day. I could not feel any reverence there, though, as
there were so many tourists, so many distractions, lamps hanging, Greek priests
escorting us, even into the tomb area, where I offered him a tip to get rid of him.
I much preferred the Garden Tomb!
Trip to the Sinai-October 23- 28.
Finally, we were off to the Sinai “at first light,” as usual. We drove into the
northern Negev, where we saw the brown tents of the Bedouins, down through
Avdat (home to the Nabateans). It was raining in the desert, and the wadis were
running with waters. I was drawing pictures of the rock formations along the way.
We entered the Arava Valley and by 5:15 arrived at Timna Valley Park, with its
lovely red limestone rocks. We danced around the campfire and slept in the
desert in our sleeping bags. If we needed to relieve ourselves during the night,
we went off into the desert and dug a pit. Jeanette said she had seen camels
roaming free.
Again, up at first light, we broke camp, cooked our breakfast, and left at 6 a.m.,
and made it to the border, south of Elat by 7, but had a two hour wait for
Marlene’s passport. She was from New Zealand, and the border patrol must
have thought it looked suspicious, although Jan was also from NZ and they didn’t
pore over his. We had lunch at Nuweiba, where we swam and snorkeled, then
entered the Sinai at Wadi Saal (right). We
were heading south, following Bernard
DeVaux, who places Mt. Sinai in the southern
part. We passed through Wadi Rozali, and
Wadi Reqeita. Throughout our trip, our Arab
bus driver stopped and knelt beside the bus
on his little prayer rug, keeping faithful to his 5
times a day prayer routine, even. By the
time we arrived at our camping area near the
mountain designated as Mt. Sinai), it was dark
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and cold. Our guide cooked dinner and we retired—the lucky women into a oneroom roofless shelter from the wind. The men slept outside in the sand and
wind.
Summiting Mt. Sinai 2
On Sunday, we were awakened at 3:30
a.m, It was profoundly dark. We cooked
oatmeal in a pot over a fire, ate and
packed up the bus (still in the dark) and
drove to Santa Katarina, at the foot of Mt.
Sinai, where we began our climb at 5
a.m.in the dark.
For a long while the steps led up
gradually, part of a camel’s path. We
stopped several times. We eventually
came to a place on the east face
where Paul said “Now the climbing
begins in earnest.” From there we
were going up and up, mostly along
the east face. At one point the sun
rose and it finally grew light.
Eventually we got to a plateau, after
scrambling between rocks, where I
took a welcome chance to relieve
myself. Then we started up some
steps—700—to the top and lo, the
welcome sight of a little church and
mosque. We arrived at the top at
8:30-- a three and a half hour walk. I plopped down, stretched out my legs, and
leaned against the little stone Greek Orthodox chapel. The elevation is almost
7500 ft, and understandably,
some gave up., but I continued
on. If others could keep going,
so could I. The view from the
top was incredible; it looked like
a lunar landscape. I felt like I
was on Mars. It was truly the
most awesome sight I have
ever seen.
The Sinai experience was one I
could never have had in my life
without the support of a group
like the one we had. Their good humor made everything seem fun and easy. I
16
thank God that He gave me that opportunity, as a member of one of the early
programs. And I was so blessed to be with Carroll, who always emphasized
God’s beneficence. (Amazingly, Father Carroll’s sister, Sister Louise
Stuhlmueller, who was 70 at the time, made it to the top!)
From the top, we watched the sun rise,
had our pictures taken, and by nine were
on our way down, the back way—the
Steps of Repentance that had been
carved by ancient monks from Sta.
Katarina monastery next door. The steps
down were more frightening than the path
up for me, for we were now looking out
and down. I felt as if I might stumble right
off the top of the mountain into nothing.
John Swing gave me a hand down;
otherwise, I would have descended on my
bottom.
As our reward for making it to the top, we were allowed to tour
the monastery of Sta. Katarina. The burning bush still grows
there, in which the Lord appeared to Moses! Paul Chow
explained that the monastery was built by Justinian after a
tradition had grown up around the pilgrim’s road. Refugees
from persecutions hid there and hermits dwelt there, and still
do. The monastery has a protective relation with the Bedouins
as well. Fortunately, the Greek Orthodox monastery has a
marvelous library with great icons, including my favorite icon
of the head of Christ. The remote location spared the icons
from the iconoclasts purge.
Climbing Mt. Sinai was the highlight of that whole semester,
as I’m sure that the others would have told you as well. .
Heading back to Nuweiba, we drove along the bumpy roads of
the Wadi Gibi, and camped near the Chalcolithic tombs. I laid
out my sleeping bag in a depression in the sand out of the
wind. It was so cold I couldn’t sleep, but I was learning how to sleep in the
desert.
Return Trip from Mt. Sinai
We were up the next morning at 6 and
went to investigate the Nowamys,
prehistoric stone structures found only
in the southern and eastern Sinai, also
called the Chalcolithic tombs (dated in
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1967 by Palmer to 3000BC). What nomads built
them, and why? Nearby was the Rock of
Inscription, an ancient stone along the main
caravan route to the north, carved with graffiti
dating back thousands of years, signing travelers
which direction to go and other messages in many
languages: Nabatean, Pharaonic Egyptian, Greek,
Roman and Hebrew. Pilgrims had passed by here,
and crusaders, marking it with their cross. A lion, an ostrich, an antelope, a
unicorn, people riding on camels, a menorah even—were pictured here.
In that area also was the Ein Hudra (from hydra—water), a Sinai Bedouin oasis,
where we had a lecture on the Bedouins and their way of life, their use of palm
trees for everything. We had seen many of the Negev Bedouin camped
throughout the West Bank in their great black tents. They weave carpets and the
women adorn their long black cotton gowns with beautiful embroidery (I had
bought one of these in Jerusalem). They are nomadic herders and occasionally
farmers, but the land is too dry to support much agriculture, so they continually
move. These Egyptian Bedouin had possibly come from Israel after the 1948
war. Bedouins consider themselves the only “true Arabs.” Their women were
formerly much freer, more independent and less religious than is usual in Islam;
men are always looking for their camels and their wives. But now, since they
have joined Islam, they are more
conservative and veil their women.
That night we camped at Nuweiba, where we
could swim and shower and eat. It was our
oasis. We were fortunate to have made it, for
our bus broke down and had to be replaced.
I slept well on the sand that night, warm at
last in my sleeping bag, though cold outside!
Next morning, up at 5 and left at 6:15, crossed the border back into Israel about
7, and drove to Eilat, where we went to Coral World, the marvelous underwater
observatory along a reef, where we saw fish from all over the Red Sea. Paul
Chow gave us a lecture on Coral, and after that we were taken to a factory in
Eilat where they make jewelry of the famous Eilat Stone, a deep turquoise. I
probably bought something, as I usually do, but I no longer have it, alas.
Back we drove toward Timna, which we
had passed on our way down. Timna was
the first known copper mines, and nearby
are the Pillars of Solomon, a huge rock
formation of eroded sandstone that looks
like pillars (possible origin for the “King
Solomon’s Mines” reference). They have
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no biblical ties, but an Egyptian one, for there is a Temple of Hathor (Egyptian
goddess of love) built against the columns and nearby, a Ramses III inscription.
Our next stop was Masada, along our way. We camped on the helicopter pad
and slept well.
We rose at 5, packed and drove on past
the Dead Sea Works (all lit up) where salts
are isolated. We arrived at the west side of
Masada about 7:30 , at the ramp built by
the Romans (whose camp is still there at
the base) in their assault upon the Jews
making their final stand on the Mountain.
Touring around the top of Masada for even
a few hours, was unbearably hot. How did
those poor rebels hold out against the
Romans? We were told that they had water and it was cooler than at the base
where the Romans were building their camp. I was glad we took the cable car
down. (Maybe there’s one on Mt. Sinai by now?)
Not far from Masada was Ein Gedi, a tropical oasis with
animals and a waterfall, in which I splashed to cool off after
Masada’s scalding heat. We drove to Qumran and arrived
about 3 and toured the Scriptorium, dining hall, pottery
workshop, water channel, and the site of Cave 4. We got to
Jericho by 4:30 and then headed east to Jerusalem. I was
sorry to leave the desert. I had become fascinated by it.
Now I wanted to tell the Exodus story in my book project!
Fortunately we had a free day after returning from the Sinai.
After a stint in town in the morning, I spent the rest of the day
drawing a map of the Sinai routes. This was October 29, the
fourth anniversary of Joe’s death, so Jan said the Mass for
him.
The following day, I went into town again to get
more paper and pens for my book projects. I drew
Doris’s community seal—her foundress, Sr.
Marguerite Bourgeois, was being canonized in
Rome that day, so the Mass that evening was for
her. Gerry presided and Doris spoke about her
foundress’s life. It was nice how we could all share
our joys and sorrows at each day’s Mass. That
day I also drew pictures of the Sinai and Negev
deserts.
Halloween fell on Sunday—Reformation Sunday in
fact. It began with an 8 am Mass at the Dormition,
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and the Gospel was about the Samaritan woman at the well. Since we had by
then been to Jacob’s Well, we could imagine, and we had been in the Northern
Kingdom of Samaria. It was helping! After shopping with Daria for Eilat stones,
and enjoying steak and mushroom dinner in town, we returned for a Halloween
party complete with costumes, props and a skit I played the Queen of Sheba
(changed into a cat), Doris was the Queen of Mt. Sinai, Yolanda the Queen of
Jerusalem. All of us wore crowns I had made. Barb was the Queen of the Dead
Sea (draped in white). Louise was the Samaritan woman at the well: “I’m looking
for my eighth husband,” she told us. The best were Jennifer and Marg as the
Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt not leave thy toilet paper on Mt. Sinai; thou
shalt not covet they neighbor’s sleeping bag, blanket or breakfast cookies; thou
shalt drink only from thy own canteen; thou shalt rise 15 minites before sunrise”
etc.
The Judean Desert
Touring of Biblical sites continued. On Monday, November 1, we went to a
lecture at the Ecole Biblique by Jerome MurphyO’Connor, a famous biblical scholar, on the Dome of the
Rock. On Tuesday, we were taken on an all-day trip to
the Judean desert. We walked down a path from the Old
Roman Road into the Wadi Qilt, where early monks had
lived in caves. The one that we visited was St. George’s
in Koceba (right), built into the cliffs. These monks
reminded me of the Eastern monks who lived on pillars in
Meteora, Greece. “When the Desert was a City” was a
book about all these communities. We were given a
handout showing the many 5th and 6th century sites of
convents, monasteries and lauras in the Judean desert.
The Wadi Qilt is not far from Jericho, and our driver
agreed to drive along the harrowing rocky Roman road to
Jericho, (the same one used by Jesus and the one
referred to by him in the Parable of the Good Samaritan). On our Jericho break,
as I was crossing a street with my ice cream, I was hit by a car backing up, and
was knocked down, injuring my foot. I had twisted and fallen on it and it felt like I
shouldn’t put weight on it. I went to a doctor who checked and said nothing was
broken but I should rest, so I was laid up at home the next 5 days, giving me free
time to draw for my book. Sometimes I have to just stop and take time out to
work on a project and not rush to see something I may have missed.
The evening of November 5, after a class from Bob Karris, we had a party for
Carroll. I decided we needed a skit, so got Doris and Gerry and wrote one about
Carroll as our Moses, and the Ten Commandments.
20
21
22
November
November--the cold and rainy season. It was so depressing I wondered why I
was still there, but I found that working on my book—writing about and drawing
the place—gave me a reason. Having a big project always motivates me--the
task of researching, writing and illustrating and organizing –publishing as it were
(for myself) a multi-page book on Places we visited—including Israel and Egypt,
which I had made as my term research project—contented me. I needed to do it,
not for any class, but for myself, to organize what I was learning in some creative
way. (I have put a Picasa web album of this project online at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/maryroseshaughnessy/Israel1982Places).
I wanted to add special touches to my book, sketching favorite sites. I especially
wanted to sketch inside the Dome of the Rock, so asked Gerry Nolf, whose
companionship I enjoyed, to come along, but I couldn’t get permission to sketch
inside until I talked to the boss, who allowed me all of 30 minutes! Gerry’s leg
was hurting, he was fussing, and my ankle and foot were killing me, so we left
without regrets and visited the El Aksa and the Islamic Museum, where we ran
into Peter, Doris and Molly. We had to leave at 11:30 and went to Dom Polski
inside the walls near the Damascus Gate with Gerry where we had lunch.
Our tour directors continued to find interesting places for us to visit—e.g., a
kibbutz—Ein HaShofet near Megiddo in northern Israel. Settled by Polish and
American Jews, its work was diversified—factories and cattle and chicken and
agricultural farms. . Families are apparently split up. We saw many children
studying, eating and sleeping together in one collective house and parents visit
their children after 4 and stay for dinner before returning home by themselves. I
didn’t know how that would work. On another day, Jim Walsh and I toured Mea
Shearim, a settlement outside the Old City. (Formerly people did not live outside
the City, afraid of thieves and besides, they expected the Messiah to come
there.) Orthodox Jews there wanted to separate themselves from the community
in every way—language (Yiddish, rather than Hebrew was spoken there), dress,
hair, politics (ultra right-wing, they wield power out of proportion to their number),
economy (they earn a livelihood by teaching or working within the community,
receiving generous grants from ultra-Orthodox Jews throughout the world) There
were signs all about, warning visitors to dress modestly and not to come in mixed
company; otherwise, they had the right to stone the offender! The women,
wearing wigs and long dresses, thick black stockings, and coats, walked behind
the men, who wore black hats and black coats and had long curly locks. The
women were usually pushing baby carriages. Their rabbis encourage them to
marry young—18 for a man, and to have as many children as possible.
Marriages are arranged. Their leisure is spent studying the Torah. No TVs,
radios, theaters, novels, no sports, not socializing with the opposite sex. In their
schools, there is no co-education. Pretty grim it seemed to me.
23
On another nice November day we were taken on a tour of the City of David in
the morning, learned about its history, and later that afternoon, Doris led us on a
tour of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, near the Wailing Wall. Although there
were beautiful homes made with the lovely Jerusalem limestone, there was no
life visible.outside. Everyone was inside. It was the opposite of the lively Arab
quarter near the Damascus and Herod’s Gates, where the streets were bustling
with commerce, and every sense was tempted—colorful, noisy, smelling of food,
spices and animals. The same was true of their respective buses. The Israeli
buses were new, clean, quiet; and uncrowded, while the Arab buses were old
and dilapidated, noisy and crowded. In general, I decided that if I were Jewish, I
would not want to live in Israel. It seemed like a very patriarchal and unequal
society, unfair not only to Arabs but to women. Even in the area where we lived,
only the men appeared at the synagogue on Friday nights.
Paul Chow and Narratology Class at Hebrew University
Paul Chow from Taiwan was getting his Master’s degree in English from Hebrew
University and invited me to attend class with him in the Poetics of Narrative. He
had been telling me about the class, and I was curious. The instructor—
Schlomith Rimmon-Kenan—spoke only of “the text” as an abstraction, an
example of a new species, which she was eager to describe. She might as well
have been discussing a groundhog. I am very concrete—Eric Auerbach’s
Mimesis, is a favorite text of mine. She was not interested in any concrete
examples; she was only interested in describing narrative in the most abstract
terms. This was a new poetics to me, saying the obvious, it seemed to me.
Wondering where she was coming from, I read and took notes on Paul’s copy of
her book on narratology. Here is an example: “The text, being a spoken or
written discourse, implies someone who speaks or writes it—a narrator, and the
act or process of production, including speaker-writer and the situation of telling,
are called ‘Narration.’ Narration is both real and fictional.” What could be more
obvious? This was late November when I got interested in her course, and as
we were going on another trip to Egypt, as well as to all the spots we had
missed, I now wonder that I took time to do such a careful study of her book and
to attend several classes with Paul, while at the same time working on my
BOOK.
Another of Jerome Murphy O’Connor’s classes at the Ecole Biblique was
followed by dinner at the nearby Notre Dame Center of Jerusalem with three of
my three favorite priests-- two Irish, Jim Nolan and Jim Walsh, and one French,
Gerry Nolf,
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Back to Egypt—to Luxor
For a final treat, our tour organizers--God
bless them for all the planning they did to
maximize our visit--took us back for a second
time to Egypt—this time to Cairo by bus,
along a different route with another Arab bus.
We followed the old trade route along the
coast and crossed the Suez Canal. Once
we’d crossed the canal, we stopped in a
small town for a toilet break. There was a
weaver at the stop, into whose shop I
wandered to watch the young boys at their looms. I ended up buying a large
wedding rug, which I still have on the walls of my home.
Staying in Cairo at the Grillon Hotel, we would have access not only to all of
Cairo, but to the ruins at Memphis and Saqqara to the south, and to the Pyramids
of Giza and the great Sphynx. Down into the pyramids’ burial chambers we
crawled. As we finally stood up around the sarcophagi of the pharaohs, I
imagined the weight of all that stone above my
head and felt claustrophobic. Glad to be back in the
sunlight, I joined the ladies who were having their
pictures taken on camels. That evening, we stayed
for the Pyramids’ sound and light show. Another
day’s excursion took us to Alexandria, where we
visited the Museum of Graeco-Roman antiquity and
the catacombs. We drove along the seacoast and
saw the Mastapha Palace, the residence of Farouk. It was all sublime! I loved
Cairo.
The Egyptian Museum was our goal November 24, including the King Tut
treasures. After the tour, we were turned loose in Old Cairo, where we visited
the Sultan Hassan Mosque, the Citadel, the Khan el-Khalil Bazaar, where we had
lunch, and then topped the day with a carriage ride back across Cairo to our
hotel by the Nile. The streets were crowded with people, but many of them
laughed as they watched us passing in our horse and buggy. The Egyptians
seemed friendly and ready to enjoy a laugh.
That evening we boarded an overnight train for Luxor. A descendant of the
Messerschmidt family was in our compartment and told us that his father or
grandfather had designed, engineered and built this train.
We arrived in Luxor the next morning at 7:30 a.m. and transferred to the Windsor
Hotel, where we rested for a bit in the morning (some people were not well).
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Barbara and I went to see the Luxor Temple and the Nile and its boats.
President Mitterand of France was arriving and preparations were underway for
his visit. After lunch back at the hotel we toured Thebes west, across the Nile,
and the Valley of the Kings. Especially notable was Deir el-Bahri, the mortuary
temple of Queen Hatshepsut. With its striking limestone terraced colonnade, not
sandstone as most of the temples, her temple won our hearts, as did her story.
She ruled in the 18th dynasty, died a
mysterious death, and her nephew and heir
Tuthmose III vandalized her tomb and
destroyed many of her cartouches. In
solidarity with her, some of our women
decided that we would be queens too, of
this or that kingdom To support her, we
had our picture taken in front of her temple.
The following morning, we drove to Luxor-in buggies! We spent the morning walking through the Karnak temple, from the
spectacular entrance, past the Sacred Lake,
.through all the pylons built by various pharaohs—
Rameses II (when the Hebrews were there),
Amenophis II, Tuthmose I and III, Hatshepsut, into
the Great Temple of Amun.
After lunch at the Etap Hotel, we went on a tour of
Chicago House—run by the Oriental Institute at the
University of Chicago’s as a center for epigraphic
studies in Luxor. Founded in 1924 by James
Breasted, it has continued to produce surveys of
the hieraglyphics and tomb paintings, trying to
recapture and preserve Lost Egypt from the
ravages of time.
I was still dying to go for a boat ride on the Nile, so
when we had our free time, I returned to the line of
feluccas and went for a one hour sunset sail on the
felucca “Thebes.” It was a highlight to my time in
Luxor. My own catboat had a single huge sail, but I
had never sailed on a lateen-rigged sailboat, which
dated to the Romans. I was taking part in an
ancient ritual, sailing in an ancient Mediterranean
vessel. .
Returning to our hotel, I saw Mitterand and his
entourage. Our train left that evening at 6:30, and
we had dinner on the train back to Cairo.
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A whole free day in Cairo before our return bus ride to Israel meant a last chance
at the El-Khalil grand bazaar with Yash. It would be my last time to shop in
Egypt so I didn’t hold back. I bought a caftan, an inlaid box, several appliquéd
wall hangings based on tomb painting (ships), a number of papyrus paintings
also from with tomb paintings-- involving reeds and agricultural figures, which I
would give to my parents for framing.. The next morning we were on the road
again at 5 a.m., returning via the Arab bus that had brought us down from Israel.
We arrived at the border by 11 and were through by 12 and back home again in
Ein Karem by 2:30 or 3.
Rain and Cold and Packing
We came back from sunny Egypt to find that rainy winter had arrived in
Jerusalem, and with the cold illnesses laid waste to us all, including the kitties. I
was sad to see that Little Jennifer-- I had named one of the kittens after Jennifer
Corbett—was gone. The other kittens all had mucus in their eyes. The rains
kept up. Riding on the bus in Jerusalem one afternoon, I noticed out how the
windows were fogged up, and the wipers were wiping away snow! I doubted
that the kitties would make it.
As for us pilgrims, our days in Israel were coming to an end. I began packing
boxes to mail to my parents, my summer clothes, purchases, along with rolls of
films, which my father would develop into slides. Mailing boxes became an
almost daily affair. One day, after class, I helped Paul, who had volunteered to
make jiaozas, Chinese dumplings, for us. Rolling the dough, cutting out little
circles, then stuffing them with ground meat and vegetables into little pockets,
closing them and pinching their edges to make little pouches, hundreds of them,
which he then boiled—he and I spent all afternoon working. I still remember the
whole process. Later when I went to China for a year, these were a favorite
food—called pot stickers, because instead of boiling them, they stir-fried them.
As I packed up boxes, I topped off each trip into the post office with a visit to
some place I hadn’t yet been, e.g., at the Citadel in the Armenian Quarter, where
at the Tower of David Museum, I saw the slide show of Jerusalem’s history. The
city has an inexhaustible history. No wonder some of the ancient maps show it
as the center of the earth.
It was already December. Our classes were winding down, with the professors
wanting to hold morning and afternoon classes, even until mid-afternoon
Saturday, December 4. As soon as we were out, we rushed up the hill to catch
the No. 14 bus into town. By now, all of us had found undiscovered treasures we
wanted to share with others. Yolanda and Daria wanted to lead us on a tour of
some underground chapels. We stayed on into the evening, when we went over
to the Jerusalem Hilton to see a play of The Book of Ruth. There was always
something else we hadn’t done or wanted to do again, like tour the Israel
Museum and the Shrine of the Book. I still hadn’t bought Mary Beth and Brian
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the crèches I had promised from Bethlehem, made out of olive wood. Yolanda,
Doris and Jeanette all wanted to buy Bethlehem souvenirs as well, so we hopped
on the bus to Bethlehem, visited the Church of the Nativity again, had lunch,
bought our gifts and immediately mailed them.
The bad weather had given me a cold, so I spent a few days in bed reading and
taking notes on Paul’s narratology book from Rimon-Kennan’s poetics class and
working on my book, and, of course, packing when I felt up to it. The cold
dragged on about a week, from December 7-12. When I was recovered enough
I headed back in town with Yolanda to get film—I wanted to have enough film for
Italy, when we got there, and thought that the price in shekels might be better
than in lira. Paul and I had become great friends, and he urged us to come with
him to visit Tantur, Notre Dame’s graduate program which I had heard so much
about (It would make a good base to study in Israel) .and from there on to
Bethlehem, for our official Christmas visit to the shrine there. The vault or crypt
selected by Queen Helena as the official spot of the Nativity, was one of the few
places that managed to maintain an aura of devotion, amidst all the heavy
encrustations of gold censors, marble statues, brass candlesticks, crosses that
obscure most religious sites. This underground low-ceilinged spot conveyed a
sense of the humility of Jesus in being born in such a poor place in a poor town,
while not far to the north were the splendors of Herod’s Jerusalem, Herodian,
and Hisham’s palace. We knelt and prayed before the spot on the marble floor.
In the bus home we sang Christmas carols.
Rome- December 14-December 28
After mailing the last box, I came back and closed my two suitcases in time to be
on our bus back to Tel Aviv and the airport. Paul came along with us, though he
would be staying on, as well as Daria, who intended to stay through until spring
at the monastery, taking classes. Our bus would leave at 3:30 and arrive in Tel
Aiv at 4:30; From there our flight would leave for Rome at 6:30 and we would be
there by 9:15.
The airport in Tel Aviv was very security conscious, before security became an
issue around the world. The Israelis were so afraid of bombers getting on flights
out (we would be on Alitalia again), that each of us was individually searched in a
private alcove. The funny thing was that after we had done all that and we inside
a roped barrier among those who were okay to fly, Paul came up and handed me
a little radio he had borrowed and forgotten to return. At the time it struck me as
a major gap in their security.
In Rome our group stayed at the Delta hotel, and for a few days we continued to
arrange trips together to various sights—the Sistine Chapel, the Vatican libraries,
St. Peter’s tomb, all the major tourist sights of Rome. Gradually our group
dwindled—Jeanette left, and Yolanda, then Doris, Barbara, until the only person
left was Jim Nolan, who would be staying a few extra days before returning to
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Korea where he was a missionary. We teamed up
to do some sightseeing together, including going to
Tivoli for the day to the Villa d’Este and attending
an opera—Verdi’s Simon Bocanegra on December
22, at the Rome Opera. I had already been
fortunate to go to hear Italian operas in Milan and
Naples, and now I heard Verdi in Rome. It was
directed by Giuseppe Patane, and starred Lajos
Miller as Boccanegra, who becomes the doge of
Genoa; Galia Savova as his daughter Maria;
Maurizio Mazzieri as Fiesco, enemy of Boccanegra,
and grandfather of Maria; Giorgio Merighi as
Adorno, Maria’s beloved; and Felice Schiavi as
Albiani, the Doge’s favorite. In those days, there
were no surtitles, but fortunately the program gave
the plot summary—complicated as are most Verdi operas-- in English, French
and German as well as Italian, so we could follow the story.
By this time I was becoming sentimental and was already missing all of the easy
companionship I had enjoyed for the past four months, so I was sorry to lose Jim,
my “last friend in Europe.” After the opera, as we said goodbye in the taxi, he
gave me his bus pass as a parting gift, with a few more days on it. After he was
gone, I felt like getting on the first plane back to Chicago, but felt I owed it to him
to use up his remaining days.
On December 23, now friendless, I wanted to keep busy. I turned to another
project. I would immerse myself in early Chrsitian Rome, the setting of
Gaudentia, the novel that I had begun writing in Lyn Osiek’s class on the Ministry
of Women in the Early Church. Fresh from the apocalyptic atmosphere during
Jesus’s times evident in the Gospels, and in the inter-testamental literature, I
had decided that I wanted to experience (imaginatively) the life of a woman in the
early Christians during the time of persecutions, especially the third century. I
began looking up all the sites from that period or that would relate to the
characters—catacombs, basilicas and churches honoring the martyrs from this
time. I turned now toward the eastern side of the city—I had visited mostly
churches and places west of the Corso.
First stop was St. Peter in Chains. I wanted especially to see the chains, which I
had used in my book in the exorcism of Crescentia’s evil spirits (her fears—
Anthrophobos, Cosmophobos). From there I hopped on a No. 11 bus to Saint
Lawrence Outside the Walls, where the tombs of Laurence, Stephen and Justin
are under the altar. Lawrence is one of the main characters in my book, and I
especially wanted to visit the church erected in his honor and containing his
remains. What a beautiful church! I love mosaics above all, and there were
beautiful mosaics over the triumphal arch, similar to that in Ss. Cosmos and
Damian. Cyriaca is also buried there in her own chapel. She is in my book as
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well, the mother of the Nicosia family from Sicily. She it was who gave the field
to the Christians, so the cemetery was called the Cyriaca. Now the Campo
Verrano, on which San Lorenzo is, is all a cemetery, and San Lorenzo is a
funeral church. There was a funeral while I was there, to make the point. To be
near Lawrence and Justin ( both in my book, dying in 258 in the persecution of
Valerian) made me feel as if I did have some friends left in Rome after all. I knew
these people, I believed, in my imagination.
From there I took the trolley to the Via Nomentana (an ancient Roman road) and
got a Bus # 36 for the catacomb of St. Agnes, on Jim’s recommendation. It was
noon when I arrived, so the catacomb was closed, but the kindly grey-haired
guard took me and another man into the Mausoleum of Costanza, built by
Constantine for his two daughters—Helena and Constantina on imperial
property, after Costanza had had the basilica built for Agnes. There was an
ambulatory around the circular domed room with clerestory windows, which flood
light on the wooden sarcophagus. (The real porphyry sarcophagus is in the
Vatican Museums.) The ceilings and floors were all covered in mosaics. Two
apses off the central chapel had images of Christ and the barrel-vaulted ceiling of
the ambulatory had charming typical Roman mosaics—birds, plants, vessels and
Dionysian images—grapes, Bacchus, cupids, etc. I ate my sack lunch in the
courtyard outside the mausoleum. The weather was grey, but there was no rain,
thank heavens, I realized that I had left my umbrella in the taxi the night before.
I was depressed enough at being without companionship, after these months of
always having someone to share an activity with.
Trying to lose myself in a task while I waited for the catacomb of St. Agnes to
reopen, I took a bus (36 or 60) back to the Castra Praetoria, which housed the
Praetorian guards. This place is also in my novel (Victorinus Nicosia,
Crescentia’s husband, is a soldier who is quartered there, before he is assigned
to the Mamertine prison). The camp is a huge place, part of the old city walls. It
looks terrible—like a fort, with no adornment or beauty, strictly functional and
almost fascistic—something that Mussolini would have liked.
Next I headed back out to the cemeteries on the Via Salaria and Nomentana,
passing by a street called Via Ippolito, and voila! There was a church there—
San Ippolito, named after Hippolytus, one of my main characters. Martyred a few
days after Lawrence, he was a priest too, and Domitilla’s husband. I felt as if I
were touching base with all my characters, finding the places where they were
memorialized after what happened to them in my novel (they were all martyred—
martyrdom having become the focus of my later CTU courses, it seemed.)
From there I went to St. Priscilla’s Catacomb on the Via Salaria, the best of all
the catacombs, I thought, especially with several frescoes of the orans (the
praying figure with arms raised)—one especially well done. I received a
personally guided tour given by one of the Benedictine sisters (you enter the
catacombs through the cloister of the monastery of the Benedictines of Priscilla.
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They run the cemetery. There are also several frescoes of agapes, one looking
like all the people, including the priest, are women, perhaps because so many
women were buried there—Ss. Praxedes, Pudentiana, and Philomena, as well
as Priscilla.
I headed back to Sta. Agnese, which was open by this time. High school
students were cleaning the church for Christmas, the first young people I had
seen in any church here. The cemetery of Agnes was huge, and not restored,
and had no frescoes! The trowel was a symbol of the profession of the man who
was buried there—a mason. Another had a ham, as a sign that a butcher was
buried there, and another had a sign of a grave-digger throwing dirt up in the air
with his shovel.
I was blessed that the very next day after my
last friend from the Israel experience left, I
met a brand new friend to share things with.
And fortunately she was a scholar, an art
historian, interested in antiquity. At the grave
of St. Agnes, I met an American girl—Kate,
an art historian teaching in Florence for
Syracuse University. She was down visiting
in Rome for a few weeks, so we teamed up
and had a drink at the bar down the way,
then came back together to my hotel, where
we had another drink with Sr. Eileen, who
was leaving for Israel the next morning. We
bid her farewell and went for dinner at a restaurant in the Campo Fiori. (I had a
spaghetti Alfredo, which had too much cream and reacted with the acid in the
wine I was drinking. I have had this problem all my adult life, and have learned to
avoid putting acid and milk together into my stomach.)
Kate told me to look for the presepios (Nativity scenes) that were a feature of
Christmas throughout the city, e.g., in the stalls on the Piazza Navonna, where
they were selling Christmas tree ornaments along with other items—sort of a
Kriskindelmarkt for the Italians.
We decided to go together to visit the ruins of the ancient port at Ostia Antica,
where we found the plaque commemorating the spot where St. Monica and her
son St. Augustine parted for the last time and lost themselves speaking of
eternity. She is buried in Ostia.
The visit to Ostia provided me with an experience of eternity, like the one I had in
1975, when, after a sabbatical in Italy I had gone back further into time in ancient
Greece, then to Alexandria and down to the pyramids and ended stranded in the
desert of North Africa, when the bus from our cruise ship broke down on the way
back from the Pyramids to Alexandria, and I found myself in the eternal land of
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wind, sand and stars. Now in Ostia after I had experienced the Exodus in Egypt,
the time of Jesus in Palestine, the journeys of Paul in Greece, and the deaths of
the martyrs in Rome, here we were with Augustine and Monica in 387 speaking
of eternity.
Kate lived in some friends’ apartment behind the Vatican, and we met there for
dinner at 7, followed by Midnight Mass in St. Peter. A good way to end my Israel
tour—with a blessing from John Paul.
On my flight back from Rome to Chicago, I again felt that if I died I would die
happy. I enjoyed of sense of total fulfillment.
From Egypt to the Promised Land-- Interim
Once I was back in Chicago, I experienced a real letdown. I felt as if I had been
riding on an elephant and now had descended and was back on a donkey. I
couldn’t return to ordinary life after that grand experience. How could I hang on
to it? How could I absorb it fully? How could I memorialize it, beyond the book I
had finished and the slides I had taken? I had bought many slides besides, as
well as postcards, etc. I could make a slide show, with music, to show to our
group when we would have a reunion. I was still on sabbatical, wasn’t I? My
time was free. I dove in, organizing them into a narrative about the Israelites,
coming out of Egypt, wandering in the Sinai, then heading up along the route we
had followed, into the Promised Land. I wrote and recorded a narrative, and as I
had collected a lot of tapes of Egyptian and Israeli music while there, I added a
sound track.
Working on the slide show deepened the experience for me but also added to
the sadness I felt. Music overpowers me. The music, on top of the art and then
our group combined to idealize and romanticize the experience for me. I
lamented that we couldn’t hold onto the moment forever. Longing to preserve
and hang on to something precious has been a problem for me all my life. It has
tinged my life with regret. “We look before and after, / And pine for what is not:
/ Our sincerest laughter / With some pain is fraught; / Our sweetest songs are
those that tell of saddest thought.” I want to love forever, to spend a hundred
years in praise of what is precious to me. Oddly, I found myself back in the grip of
the sadness that I had felt when I lost my brother, wanting to cry out to the
moment, like Faust, “Verweile doch/ Du bist so schon!” Linger, you are so fair!
Back to CTU Classes
Fortunately by March I had finished my slide show and was ready to move on, to
get back to life, to more courses at CTU. That spring term of 1983 I signed up
for Apocalyptic: Biblical and Modern from Les Hoppe, another class that
focused on Apocalyptic literature, with my continuing focus on martyrdom. In this
class I “translated and edited” an imaginary text of a martyr St. Trepida, based on
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her visions. Professor Hoppe’s comment was that true apocalyptic was cast as
prophecy, written as if looking into the future, examples of Ratinium ex eventu,
i.e., prophecy after the fact. Mine, he said, were really like pastoral counsels to
help Trepida deal with problems by explaining the significance of her history. I
thought it was very clever, but he didn’t. But wasn’t it fun writing it!
In Fall, 1983, I took From Newman to Vatican II from a Jesuit historian, Ted
Ross, a wonderful and inspiring teacher. . First we concentrated on Newman,
whose liberal ideas about the development of doctrine and the role of the laity in
the church, were to be fulfilled in Vatican II. Inspired by his journal entry (May
21, 1863) that his aim was “improving the condition, the status of the Catholic
body, . . . by giving them juster views, by enlarging and refining their minds, in
one word, by education,” I wrote a paper Newman and the Laity , lamenting that
“in all his efforts to educate the laity, he ran counter to the wishes of the
hierarchy, who preferred to keep the laity in a state of perpetual dependency, and
who viewed an educated laity, as “a difficulty, an encumberance, as the seat and
source of heresy; as almost aliens to the Catholic body, whom it would be a great
gain, if possible, to annihilate.” Reading of Newman’s efforts and frustrations
raised my ire, and while my paper was praised, the professor noted that I
sounded angry and “not everything in the hierarchical Church is bad. Your basic
tendency, almost a conditioned reflex, is to come at the Church with a gun and a
knife.” I felt better when we got to studying the Second Vatican Council, where I
saw the Church trying to come to grips with the real world and to liberate and
encourage the laity.
I had become involved with the lay struggles to be heard in the Church through
my brother Joe and his Community One, modeled on the John XXIII community
in Oklahoma City. I had gone to their meetings whenever I visited KC in the 70’s
and had seen the strong lay people running alternative non-territorial parishes in
KC, with well-known Catholic intellectuals, including Don Thorman, publisher of
the National Catholic Reporter and Mike Greene, the editor. The frustration I let
out in that paper at CTU was based on what I had come to believe from following
that community’s efforts. Their whole grand project of a lay-run non-territorial
church had come to naught, never supported by the Church itself, only by a few
maverick priests and nuns. I began collecting mementoes of Joe’s life with that
community, thinking I might one day write up something about Community One
and his participation in it .
Unconsciously, though, I didn’t want to live in the past. Something inside told me
to move on. Israel had been a climactic event. Now I needed to look forward to
another high point in my life, to reach toward a new future, a new horizon, I
soon found it, in China. I began studying Chinese that summer of 1983.
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