Chasing the Divine in the Holy Land (16 page)

Lord, my daughters! Watch over them!

My prayer is instant, going straight from my heart without pausing in my brain.

The cable car swings, and through the windows the distant desert floor appears, disappears, reappears. Everything about this experience heightens the sense that we're suspended between heaven and earth — indeed, the sense that anything might happen. When the engine does finally make the right kind of noises, where things catch and turn, the car slides one final time before resuming its normal descent. That final crazy bout of swinging seems to be an answer to my prayer.

When we finally step off the cable car, we each have some words on our lips to describe the ordeal to the onlookers.

“Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” exclaims Ashley. “And I'm not taking the Lord's name in vain — Oh, my God!” Jessica rushes to Ashley's side, and they clutch each other.

I know it was terrible, but to me there's something invigorating about terror, about scraping against the face of God and surviving. I feel like a child after a particularly scary roller coaster ride. Knowing that everything comes out all right, wouldn't I do it again?

After Masada, the bus takes us to the Dead Sea, which sits in a basin of hills striped white and gray with minerals. The Dead Sea is the lowest point on the surface of the earth and one of the planet's saltiest bodies of water, too salty to support animal life — hence its name. Even if we can't actually swim, we're ready to immerse ourselves in water. We go to one of the resorts on the sloping edge of the sea. The resort has a few clusters of palm trees and a central pool with a single lackluster fountain. We are each dispensed a plastic bag containing a dry roll slit open and laid with a thin piece of pink meat, a whole unpickled pickle, and an unripe piece of fruit that we cannot identify, something similar to an apricot. It doesn't take us long to eat a few bites and pronounce ourselves done.

We women take our swimsuits into a changing room. The mirrors are shiny pieces of metal, so at least we can't fuss too much about how we look. We come out wrapped in our towels and conscious of the cameras. We wobble down a path of rounded rocks to the water's edge. The rocks are smooth, but they're the size you want to palm, not step on.

The water itself is very clear, even though the shoreline is crusty white. The bigger rocks are frosted with stalagmites of salt. I pick up a wet rock and put my lips against it, tentatively, tasting the salt. The water splashing my toes is surprisingly warm. My feet are blistered, and the salt stings wherever the skin is broken. JoAnne says the salt is healing, and I want to believe her. I want to believe that pain can be healing.

We hobble further in, exclaiming, until the water is around our waists. We've been warned not to splash and to keep our faces away from the water.

Shane must have slipped — I didn't see it happen — and gets submerged in the water. He comes up raking at his face.

“There's a water spigot,” yells Brian. “See it?”

Shane can't see it, of course, but someone on the shore helps him stumble over to it and get his face rinsed off. I wince, just watching. I don't blame him for not getting back in the water after that.

“Remember what they said,” Jessica reminds us. “When it's deep enough, just sit.” We sit back as if we're on chairs, except there are no chairs; there's only the salt of the sea, which buoys us up. We laugh. Charlie pulls his toes up in front of him.

“Is this like walking on water?” he asks. “Toes on water.”

Emboldened, the rest of us pull our feet up. We bob like weighted yellow ducks.

“Now that's a view you don't see every day,” says Michael. “Faces and toes but no bodies.”

On the shore, the cameras roll. We know we look silly, like every other group of tourists. Nothing about it feels real.

I feel thirsty. How odd to be suspended in water that cannot slake thirst, that cannot sustain life.

The Sea of Galilee

CHAPTER 14

Flotilla

Where do you get that living water?

J
OHN 4:11

I
N THE
B
IBLE,
Jesus is forever traipsing from town to town. I imagine him walking down dusty roads wearing sandals that don't have good arch support. It must have been very wearisome. No wonder he needed to stop and get water from a well. No wonder he asked that Samaritan woman for a drink. I always thought he asked as a lead-in to their conversation. He knew she was thirsty — not physically, but metaphorically — for living water, for salvation. Now I see that maybe Jesus wasn't only opening a conversation. Maybe he was actually thirsty. Traveling is hot, hard work. I'm feeling travel-weary from sitting on an air-conditioned bus with a water bottle!

We're headed north now, to “the Galilee,” where we'll spend a few days. Stephen always adds the definite article — “the Galilee” — short, I suppose, for “the Galilee region.” JoAnne picked up on that and has been adding “the” in front of random proper nouns to make me laugh. “Shall we go listen to the Stephen?” Sometimes it's fun to make jokes that have nothing to do with God or Jesus or the Bible.

We packed our bags for three nights, and were asked to include our swimsuits and a flashlight. On the bus JoAnne comments,
“I've been checking the moon, and it's been getting bigger every night. Maybe we'll go swimming under a full moon.” It hadn't occurred to me to even hope. Somehow I assumed that the Sea of Galilee would be polluted, or that there would be a war raging across it, or that it would be surrounded by wire. I know that the Golan Heights, which is Israeli-occupied, borders the east side of the lake, and I'm not sure exactly how that works.

To break up the trip, the bus first takes us west to Caesarea Maritima, on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, so we can see some pristine ruins. The day is picture-perfect, with a bright blue sky and the sun sparkling on turquoise water. The first ruins we pass belong to an aqueduct, and they run for miles.

Excavation is underway everywhere. Caesarea Maritima was a harbor city built by Herod about a generation before Jesus was born. The city's capstone was a pleasure palace built on a piece of real estate jutting out into the water. An amphitheater we tour is huge and stunning. I picture it filled with wildly cheering Roman citizens as the chariots race in long loops. What joy!

“Herod built this for races,” says the guide, “but after the Jewish revolt of 70
CE
, it was used for gladiator games. Some twenty-five hundred Jews were killed here.” The gaily colored scene in my imagination ends abruptly.

The guide leads us through a maze of ruins to a particular wall. Like the other walls here, this one is constructed of cut stone. A series of partitions, or projections, extend from this wall like a rib cage.

“What do you think this area was used for?” the guide asks.

“Stalls for horses.” “A dressing room.” “Storage areas.” Our guide is bemused and encourages us to keep guessing. People call out things we've seen in ruins elsewhere, no matter how unlikely they are here: “An olive press.” “A bathhouse.” “An altar.”

“You're trying too hard,” the guide tells us. “It's something a crowd would need, especially in a venue of this size.”

“A restroom?” someone asks.

“That's right. A toilet. Multiple toilets, actually.”

Michael and Charlie immediately climb onto the stone
projections to take a seat. They make funny faces as they try to situate themselves with a cheek on each stone projection.

“Maybe they had bigger butts back then,” JoAnne suggests.

“You stand on the stones,” says the guide. “They're for squatting, not sitting.”

While the guys mimic squatting, to everyone's merriment, the guide points out two grooves near the bottom of the stone wall. “These are troughs. Fresh water would be continuously pumped during events, one trough for constant flushing and one for hand-washing.”

“Four people at a time — pretty neat! Better than some concerts I've been to,” says Ashley.

“But what about being smack-dab next to each other like that?” one of the older women asks.

“I wouldn't mind sharing,” says JoAnne. “After all, everybody poops.”

“That's your whole theology, isn't it!” exclaims Charlie.

“Well, it's true,” says JoAnne.

We get back in the bus to ride another two hours or so, east toward the Sea of Galilee. We arrive at our lodgings just before suppertime. Pilgerhaus is a large facility sprawled along the western shoreline of the Sea of Galilee. There are multiple buildings and beautiful landscaping.

I've heard Bible place names all my life: Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Nazareth, Galilee. One of the gifts of this pilgrimage is the very different mental pictures I will attach to each of those names from now on. Today I realize that the Galilee region, where Jesus grew up, is much more verdant than Jerusalem. There's color everywhere: green and yellow grass, pink and purple flowers, trees dripping red blossoms. Not only is there more color, but the light isn't as harsh. Perhaps in Jerusalem all the rock and sand reflect the desert sun.

Our rooms are surprisingly modern, with ceramic tile and
modular beds. JoAnne and I exclaim over our new digs and take luxurious showers. When we walk into the dining room, we're greeted by a man in his thirties who clasps both of JoAnne's hands, then both of mine.

“My name is Victor, and what a lucky man I am! I am a Palestinian, and I have a job! What's more, I have a job serving food to beautiful women such as yourselves!”

I decide to let myself be susceptible to his charms. Isn't that part of the allure of travel?

We sit down to a well-appointed table. There are the local foods we have come to expect — pita bread and salads and lamb and eggplant — but more besides. I eat my fill of broiled fish and fresh green beans swimming in butter. We buy wine from Victor, then clink our glasses to this new chapter of our pilgrimage. The wine is called Cremisan, and it's made by Palestinians on their ancient lands. We solemnly toast our solidarity with them — and each other.

After dinner we decide to change into our suits and go for a swim. It's mainly the documentary group plus a few others, including Krisha, the young woman who's hoping to see Jesus on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. We pick our way, barefoot, to the rocky lakeshore and understand why we were told to bring flashlights. They aren't necessary tonight, though, because the moon is full and bright.

Brian and Camera Michael, our full-service filmmakers, had stopped earlier to buy inflatable inner tubes. The first pilgrims in the water call encouragingly to the rest of us. Their happy voices carry across the water. The rocks on the shoreline are the size of chicken eggs and make for slow going. I'm a bit afraid I'll turn an ankle. And I know I'll need my pilgrim feet tomorrow.

The water is soft and warm. Just yesterday the salt water of the Dead Sea stung the blisters of my feet, but this is an entirely different experience. This water is soothing, with a texture like silk. It must be chock-full of minerals. I have the sensation that I'm slipping into a second skin, an undergarment. The skin of my feet is already plumping in this water. My calves and thighs drink it in. I walk deeper, to my waist and beyond. I'm buoyant
as I breast-stroke. I've never felt more graceful in water. I feel elevated by the very touch of it.

I'm not the only one whose spirits are rising. The day of too much bus exhaust is becoming a dim memory. Our group gets sillier as the moments pass. We start splashing. I can tell that dunking is only moments away. I put my whole head in the water so I won't have to fear it. Besides, I want to coat my hair with this wonderful elixir.

“Jesus swam in this very lake,” Ashley says.

“In this very same water,” someone echoes.

“It would be different water,” someone else says, correctively, and a science debate ensues. The water would have evaporated and rained down a million times between then and now. Yes, but a lot of that water would have stayed in this same region. And what about the minerals? I listen with one ear, enjoying the silliness. I decide to believe that this is the very same water that Jesus stepped in, that some critical mass of the substance of the water is the same. Sometimes theology is like that: you listen, you think, and in the end you choose what you want to believe.