End times

The elevator plays a strange, haunting song as I descend: "Bye-bye-bye-bye-bye-bye-bye" in an Israeli girl's voice. It's a sorrowful message that helps me prepare and become present. I need to take in every moment; this is goodbye. I may never return.

A bridge too empty!

I've loved every moment of this tour because I've lived in each one. This will be no exception. I'm out with a smile and forward stride. The bus waits, we identify luggage, off we go. We drive under the harp-shaped "Bridge of Strings," designed for pedestrians in homage to King David's harp; enormous, expensive and unused!

In a few moments Yossi welcomes the group to this, our final day in Israel. He talks about what we'll see and learn, about ancient travel and passports ... Passports! I left mine in my room's safe! What a blessing he used that word! I could have been at the Jordan border before thinking about it! We turn back. No-one complains. The hotel comes out with my passport and cash. I am covered, cared for, even in my shortcomings. "Who can despise the day of small things?" (Zechariah 3:10)

This time we're really off, and drive to see all Yossi still has in mind for this last day. We stop, debark, and survey the land.  Zion.

Bedouin donkey - seen later this day

The prophet Zechariah said, "Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion! Behold your King is coming to you; lowly and riding on a donkey, the foal of a donkey" (10:9). Handel's Messiah has an unforgettable piece based on this. But it was also Zechariah who said, "They weighed out for my wages thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said to me, 'Throw it to the potter'" (11:12). Yossi shows us the potter's field and we look in silence at that dark history, foreshadowed by Zechariah and fulfilled by Judas. This land has more than its share of betrayals and blood buried in it, through Jew, Muslim, Christian. Yet these are a people who tell their history in terms of personal triumphs and enemy defeats, an equal partnership of humanity rising up in action with divinity. The name Isra-el, "warring with God" is a powerful one for them.

How could a city like Jerusalem otherwise have survived? Heroditus says a city must: 1. be located high  2. have fertile land  3. be on a commercial route  4. have plenty of water. Jerusalem is in a valley, in the midst of scrub desert, nowhere near the sea or trade routes, and it has no natural springs. Yet it stands, a bastion for the ages, the heart cry of differing faiths.

Montefiore windmill

Near the gates of the old city is an incongruous sight: a windmill, white and high; we stand by it in the morning sun. Behind us is an antique carriage, preserved on display: such European elements! Yossi tells us the story: in the 1880's a British Jewish banker, Moses Monetefiore, visited Jerusalem and saw the poverty and indolence of the ultra-orthodox Jews there. He created another opportunity for them, a chance to work and earn their food rather than live on charity. He planted fields in the valley, built the windmill on top, along with beautiful little terraced homes (the community of Yemin Moshe), and invited them to live in these homes. There was a simple condition: they must spend some time working the fields themselves, and grind their own flour in the windmill. They never did, preferring poverty and ease to routine and opportunity, a pattern that continues.

Artist's front garden

Today the windmill stands immobile but the houses, white and sparkling in sunshine, are lively homes to intellectuals and artists. It's stringent to get into the community; I feel particularly pleased, because my Swedish friend with the UN, Elisabeth, lived there, and I was completely charmed by her and her sun-embraced, flower-filled, artistic home when I visited last!

Shoshanna flower

Pausing under a flower-laden tree, Yossi asks what we think it is. He points out a flower, six-petaled, like the Star of David, and says it's the Shoshanna flower, flower of this nation. This, we learn, is the pomegranate tree, bursting with life, hope, colour and vigour.


A few steps around a corner and we come to the Tomb of the Sons of Herod. There are no other visitors here, but it's a significant spot: Herod's family's burial place! (Even though he did kill half of them himself!)

Round tombstone, high as a man

... But here is a perfectly intact round 1st century tombstone; archaeologists have stopped at precisely the right moment to capture it in place. There's a slide channel for it to run through. History underfoot! Since it's from the same era, no doubt this is where we get our Bible story design of the stone that rolled from Jesus' grave!

Ezekiel's Living Creatures - in stone

We quickstep to the courtyard of the YMCA, where Ezekiel's "living creatures" gaze over us, carved into stonework. Built nearly 100 years ago for the "new Jerusalem" of God, the Y here was planned by a Brit as a Messianic safe haven and tribute to "the visit of Jesus to England" during his "unknown years" of age 18-30, with Joseph of Arimathea. Now it houses guests from around the world; its motto is one of peace. Yossi's flute fills the courtyard with the soaring, majestic "Jerusalem Hymn," music that Prince William and Katherine, and William's parents, had at their weddings. Ten days ago we drove into this city with the other "Jerusalem" hymn; we leave today with this, based on William Blake's poem, gleaming with "the Countenance divine shining upon these cloudy hills." It has done that for us. But the chapter is closing.

"Where political & religious jealousies can be forgotten..." - in Arabic, English & Hebrew

"We have 10 minutes," says Yossi, man of strategic vision. "I think we can make it to see King Solomon's Mines, if you will." King Solomon's Mines! Images from National Treasure movies and Indiana Jones flit through our minds: gleaming gold heedlessly tossed in heaps, waiting to be uncovered - but woe to the unworthy! Are we amongst those counted worthy to glimpse? We fervently nod! We'd love to see!

Inside King Solomon's Mines

We pull up right at the city wall. King Solomon's Mines are here? Into a door in the white stone wall we enter; Yossi pays at the inner gate. We follow and descend into darkening spaces that widen out into golden-lit cavernous rooms. Down into the depths of the under-city we walk, wonder filling us with exclamations! Who knew that this was here? "The spaces under the city of Jerusalem are like Swiss cheese," says Yossi. "Caves and tunnels everywhere - Hezekiah's tunnel is another example."

But these caves are magnificent, magnetic. We're drawn inexorably into the belly, under the wondrous city of God - to the heart of it all, where stone was chiselled, carved, quarried faithfully, steadily by hidden workmen, who kept the sound of the hammer and pickax far from the Temple itself ... but not so far that transportation would have been an absolute pain. They mined for veins of rich, reddish rock: earth's blood, not gold, and much more precious! 1 Kings 5:17 tells us that the king ordered "great, costly stones" to make the foundation of the Temple!

Maybe it really is a gold mine!

Walls shine in the dim glowing lights. Yossi tells tales of Freemasons, and of miners in Solomon's time; points to the secret spring, known as the "Spring of Zedekiah's tears" - "a myth!" he says, letting us know that if a leaking pipe in the Austrian Hospice was fixed, Zedekiah would soon stop weeping! When we laugh, he stops us, "Ah, but what is mythology?" he inquires - still asking questions, still teaching "on the way" even though we're in our last 10 minutes of Jerusalem. "Mytho-logy" includes the concept of Logos/Logic. It is the "true word" that shapes our ideology. "See this," and he points ahead. "This dark tunnel takes us under the Holy of Holies. True."

Tunnel to under the Holy of Holies

We gaze. 5780 years ago this opened the way to the Rock of Foundation, also known as Mount Moriah, on which was built the Temple of Solomon. We're at the bedrock of history - the tangible truth of the invisible greater truth, Rock of Ages. Yossi points to a corner, carved out huge and empty: "That is where the Cornerstone came from."

Oh, it's so hard to take it in; all the worlds and words, the worries, whispers, wonderings, weary moments of our souls combine and are melted and formed into something far more precious than any treasure we saw in movies. All the language - the "mythology" that leads us from concrete to unseen - comes together in that place of tunnels, of questions followed, trails explored, leading to the foot of the Holy of holies. What a quest humankind has always been on. We follow.

The enormous cornerstone block gap -
recalls Jesus as our Cornerstone

Yossi's flute emerges and plays in the flickering glow. Notes bounce off secret hollows, going who knows how deep into the caverns of the under-city, taking with them the light of the world, brushing dust off deep inner shelves with logos of truth: words embedded in the music he spills out from Psalm 147:

"The Lord builds up Jerusalem; he gathers together the outcasts of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; his understanding is infinite. The Lord lifts up the humble. Hallelujah, O Jerusalem! Praise your God, O Zion! For he has strengthened the bars of your gates; he has blessed your children within you."

Christine in the sparkling cave!

At that moment, we are literally children "within" the city. We are carved and caressed into the blessed of the ages, clothed in light and rock and music.

Liminal luminosity lasts but a glimmer; we catch the falling gleams; and now it's time to go back out, with a quick stop at the (most practical) King Solomon's toilets. They are not as glorious smelling as the lilies of the field, clothed in greater splendour than the king! But I'm equipped, and with a quick pump or two of my tiny perfume vial, all is well! I figure the Queen of Sheba would have done the same when she was here!

Tiny trail in the desert - made green thanks to flash floods

We're on our journey back into the visible, zipping past Bethany - "El Azaria" (town of Lazarus). It's now a Muslim village and they renamed it after him, honouring the great miracle of Jesus raising Lazarus from death.

Resurrection lingers with us as we return by bus to the dry desert. Is there any life here? We walk a narrow trail. It's hot, dusty, and most of us don't know where it will lead. The wasteland too is part of our mythology - our true life story - and here in this land we sense it and see it. Besides being moon people, these are desert people. Even the word "Zion" means "desert." When we're marching to Zion, do we know the cost? Glory comes mixed deeply with dust and grit.

Scott shares; monastery behind

Yossi knows, and leads us to the end of the trail: to a shaded place here in Wadi Quelt, where flash floods occasionally rip through, providing torrential streams; where today a Bedouin and his donkey stand, selling wares. Yossi tells him we will look later, first we must talk. We do: words from Scripture, words of prayer, words rising in time with deep chants from the Greek monks in the monastery below and with silent prayers from hermitages dotting the mountain. Words rise as incense, carried on the shimmering heat of the desert, and return to quench thirsty souls, filling outstretched cups with grace, brimming with light.

St. George's Monastery in Wadi Quelt

Yossi gives each of us a Holy Land pilgrim certificate, our names written on them in Hebrew (a phonetic language, so he reads and pronounces them out loud as accurately as if they were written in English.) He tells us that we are not in actual desert - it is not "desolate." There is life here; we can see it! Maybe it's not how we envision life, but it lives! We gain perspective for our own worlds. The Lord who walked these very hills behind us, to be tempted as we are, passed through the desert to life indestructible. Not dust to dust, but dust to glory. We are not left desolate. We will survive!

Bronwyn and the Bedouin

We trek back to the bus, first sampling some of the "genuine camel bone" goods from the smiling Bedouin and his patient donkey.

Cheerful Greek Monastery

Yossi doesn't leave us desolate either. A desert is not a good place to depart from. He takes us to a cheerful sanctuary within another Greek monastery, where doves perch on sills. People come to pray, relics rest in boxes, candles are lit with hope.

The candle man

Outside, the Taverna awaits, vine leaves stretching over rooftop, stone floor made for dancing. Yossi pulls out his last gift there: a baglama - a Greek instrument that great-grandfathered the guitar, though this one is new and shiny. Very small, with incredible resonance, notes spin out as sweet as baklava, smooth and deep as date honey, bright as a peacock's crown gracing the Mediterranean sky. Yossi announces this will be a multi-media show: he'll play and Scott will dance! But sabbatical hasn't ingrained that deeply yet, so it's just the music ... and it is enough!

Dove in the desert monastery

We clap and kiss and get on the bus. It's time to go to Jordan for the final stage of our journey. We'll have a new guide there, on the other side of the river.

At the border: the final parting. Moses leaving the children (only in fact we're the ones going to Moses' territory.) We process paperwork and cross over safely. Bye-bye-bye-bye-bye-bye-bye. Israel has warred with our hearts - and won!