Warning:  this ain’t your usual tourist account, but it does address the question of spiritual vs. religious, at least in my experience of Jerusalem, that great city of three religions.

What was I thinking?  has been a fairly oft-repeated question for this trip.  Set off from Tel Aviv in my rental car without looking at the map.  Sounded easy, though startling.

Directions to your hostel:  From Ben Gurion airport, take Highway One east to Jerusalem.  Follow the signs to the Old City.  Go clockwise around the historic golden walls of Jerusalem from Damascus Gate to Lion’s Gate.  Continue until you reach the Garden of Gethsemane, turn left and continue eastward and up. 

Besides the feeling that I’m stepping into a storybook, no problem, right?

I left my hotel in Nairobi at 1am and haven’t had much sleep for almost 24 hours.  That may be why two hours later I haven’t even found Jerusalem, let alone my hotel.  Highway One morphed into Highway Twenty and I didn’t notice and it’s rush hour.  We crawl for forever, and then back for forever, and the city itself makes no sense at all to an outsider.  How can I be missing the entire Old City, with its golden walls?  An elf, first of several, appeared at my car window and very, very carefully gave me directions up hill, down hill, no that won’t work, but this will.  A professional driver in the city, lucky me.  I find the walls, and eventually my hotel, but I’m done in and not at my best.  Three hotel staff (this is a budget hostel but they’re nice) are on the sidewalk to cheer me in and to let me park there (they’ve been on the phone with me for ten minutes, and they know American-at-end-of-rope.)

The next morning, more frustration.  Okay, it’s a great city, but they tell me they’ve removed all the street signs downtown so they can (eventually) put up new ones.  Even if I knew Hebrew I’d be lost.  Enter another elfin person, this time a woman of about my own age, who tells me of her love for Jerusalem.  She approached my car window because she saw the map and she loves maps.  She’s usually shy, she says.  She has a wonderful glowing air and I take to her immediately, soak up her spirit, and stay cheerful for at least another three minutes until I’m lost again.  But I know I’m close to my destination, so I park the car and find the friends I’m joining.

Chocolate croissant, some really good latte, a wonderful talk with these friends and then some others we join, and Polly has been restored partway to sanity.  Still grouchy, though.

Off to Jerusalem (picking parking ticket off window), park (legally), try to make my way into the Old City.  My new elfin friend lives in the Old City and has invited me to drop by.

Pandemonium and no sense of where I am almost immediately.  I find my way from New Gate to Jaffa Gate, quite an accomplishment, and the tourist office has a cheerful sign saying the Ministry of Tourism is on strike.  Seems there is no such thing as a good map of the Old City (I ask everywhere) and the one street I can find is the bazaar street (of course) which sucks you in like a barracuda and then won’t let you go.

I call my elfin friend and her husband answers, grills me about what I want, and won’t let me speak with her.  I say I shouldn’t have called and hang up.

It was in this mood that I arrived at the western wall, which you probably know as the wailing wall, which I am told is an offensive name, which I therefore wouldn’t use except some of my readers will not know what I’m talking about if I don’t.  Hereafter it will be the Western Wall and it’s a holy place, one of the most holy if you are Jewish.

Nothing.  I don’t get anything.  Not surprising in the state I’m in, but I also did not experience the sense of power energy which I’ve discussed elsewhere.  I am totally blown away by that.

Of course I feel the presence of the divine spirit, which is supposed to be always at the Western Wall.  I can feel that too, but then I can always feel it.  I spend some time there, trying to settle into the place.

Men and women pray separately.  I go down where women are praying, respectfully I hope, sitting quietly and adding my own prayer for my friend Lisa who asked me to do so.  A woman behind me is crying; most are against the wall saying prayers.  There are some children; most people seem serious, but happy or tranquil.  I do not look directly at anyone and I do not take photos, as requested, though that rule seems to be disregarded quite a bit.

I did photo the overall scene and you will see that there is a huge wall section for men and a small crowded one for women.  I will indulge myself in pointing out that the wall people are praying against may have been built by the divine spirit, but the wall which separates the men and women was not.

Then I went out into the labyrinth and there at my elbow was my elfin woman.  Who are You? I basically asked, to her slightly hurt eyes.  We repaired that, and she proceeded to take me to her place of work, where she made me tea.

Please understand that this clearly does not happen.  The place is huge.

After tea, she took me to the area of the main Christian monuments.  I had given myself over to her hands, but I was still grudging about it.  She told me about losing the Old City for -- fourteen years? -- and then getting it back, miraculously, and about the gratitude she feels for her life.  I got a little less grouchy.  Seeing that I don’t like feeling lost, she took me up, up, to what she called the rooftop way across the Old City.  There are pathways up above.  We went on those.  I took a picture there (below).  Wonderful.

She guided me down into the Muristan and left me there, running off to get back to her work.  I felt a bit ashamed of myself.  The Church of St. John the Baptist was closed but at least I found it.  I really wanted to get somewhere among the major Christian monuments to see, well to see what that was like.  It was getting dusk and I was afraid to be here after dark, but I persisted a few steps more.

I found the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, just beyond a mosque which was playing arabic music from a loudspeaker.  The doors of the church were open, and there was organ music coming through them.  There were crowds of tourists milling around.

In my better-but-not-good state of mind, I went through those doors.  No shock of energy center there either, but there were the familiar pictures and words I’ve heard since my childhood.  There were images, and stories, and guides explaining to crowd after crowd of more-or-less hushed visitors.

Now I know that Protestants don’t accept that these places are where the story happened.  The place identifications come from the fourth century, and that’s probably good enough for me.  Anyway, it’s not exactly the literal which I need to feel a sense of reverence.  It’s the story itself, the idea that a man loved us so much.  The idea of God coming to earth.  That I can understand.

I walked up the steps to the Golgotha part of the monument, following a large group of tourists, up stone steps worn so deep you had to hold a handrail, worn by centuries of pilgrims.  I heard music which has been part of my happiest moments.  I’m not a regular weekly church-goer, but I have been; I’ve sung in the choir, and I go to church when I can.  This is my tradition.  As I walked the steps, I dimly recognized that for the people at the Western Wall, that is their tradition and it would overwhelm them with feelings and reassurances just as mine was doing for me.

I let myself be a Christian in a holy place.  I thought of Lisa and the Western Wall, and I wanted to carry the spirit of a Christian here.  So I thought of Francis -- you know who you are -- and I carried that thought.  I opened my mind to others I know who might have wanted to make this visit so I could carry their spirit here.

Then I dropped my tears on the stone.