Stations of the Resurrection Pilgrimage
Travelogue

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May 2, 2007
Wednesday
Day Eight

This will be a short report, as I, the blogger, spent the day on my own until dinner.

We all had time to ourselves this afternoon. On the flickr website, you will see that I went to Dormition Abbey, just outside Zion Gate, where the German Benedictine Community built a place honoring the burial site of Mary. This community sent a brother in the 1950's who founded Weston Priory in Vermont. I thought the cross, flowers, and container of water a delightful reminder of the Fifty Days of Easter that we are celebrating.

In the morning, the group went to Yad Vashem, a poignant memorial to the Holocaust. Actual audio reports from survivors, along with many photos and chronology of Nazism's rise to power flood the visitor with the grief of it all. The complex of 45 acres includes museums and monuments, and Yad Vashem had a database of all the victims. Particularly moving is the children's memorial, where an audio loop names the approximately 1.5 million children who were killed while in a darkened glass building the space expands downwards and upwards with a flood of candles lit behind a kind of scrim. One can better understand why a Nation-State such as Israel was formed to provide a safe haven for so many fleeing persecution and extermination. To find out more about this important monument, go to www.yadvashem.org

By dinnertime we met at the American Colony, a hotel that was founded in the late nineteenth century by the Spofford family as a place to welcome Christians visiting the holy land. It is now a fine hotel and restaurant. See www.americancolony.com We ate in the second floor Pasha Room, and heard Jörg Bremer, a German journalist in Jerusalem for 15 years, related his own feeling "in between" as a German in a foreign land, and as one who can support a secure and stable Israel and a secure and stable Palestine. Jörg feels strongly about the continuing Christian presence in the Holy Land, and is active in the German-speaking congregation at the Church of the Redeemer in the Old City.

This is our last night in Jerusalem. Tomorrow we head north to the Galilee, on our way through Jericho and Qumran and the Dead Sea.

Tim Keyl
Christ the King Lutheran Church
Nashua, New Hampshire


Click here to see Pastor Tim's photos of the Pilgrimage on Flickr.
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