Getting an overview of Jerusalem

Tuesday, May 12, 2015. This morning we had a lecture in the morning. Rodney gave a little history of Jerusalem. He talked about the contradictory statements: God is everywhere. There are holy places. The two statements are mutually exclusive, but both are true. He also talked about different definitions of a pilgrim and asked us to think about what our own purpose was in coming. I honestly don't know what my purpose was. 

Then, after lunch, we went on a bus to see Jerusalem. Rodney pointed out different areas and the walls of ancient Jerusalem. After that, we went to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Rodneybsaid that when pilgrims first arrived in Jerusalem, they would always go straight there. They would never wait to see it. We are following in the steps of pilgrims who came here since the 4th century. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is where Jesus was crucified. In the Church, there is a rock that people believe Was Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified. At the lowest level, you can see the rock through glass. On the level above, there is a kind of altar, where you can go underneath and touch the rock. People crawl under there one at a time and touch it or pray. We also stood where people believe Jesus was buried. The location had a Roman temple built over it at one time. So, no one is sure about where it is. They think that's where it is because of oral tradition. Rodney said that it would be that for example, a father would walk by with his son and say, "They built that temple over the place where our lord and savior is buried". They do know for sure that there are bodies buried there from that time. 

Afterwards, we walked back to the college. Our little Saint Clement group continued on down the street and bought some wine. The guy in the store spoke lots of English. He said he had lived in Miami and Indiana for a while. I asked if the wine was made in an Israeli settlement. He said no, that it was Palestinian. Then we went to an ATM. When Joanne put her card in, the machine gave a message in Hebrew, Arabic and Russian. There was no English and we couldn't understand anything. I put my card in and everything came up in English. 

When we got back to the college, I went up to the roof to get our clothes off the line and then we sat and drank wine on the roof terrace till dinner. 

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