The Holy Land: strange and yet familiar

It’s hard to decide what was most important about my nine-month experience living in Jerusalem. Was it the ways in which the Holy Land was strange or unexpected, different from other places? Or was it the ways in which it was so ordinary, so much like what I already know?

A mustard tree overlooking the Kidron Valley

Unfamiliar but eye-opening to me was the physicality of the land: the ups and downs of Jerusalem, where many of the streets are like staircases; the steepness of the Mount of Olives, which my leg muscles still remember; the deep clefts of the Kidron and Hinnom valleys; and the sight of Mount Tabor arising alone from the plain of Jezreel (“one will come who is like Tabor among the mountains” – Jer 46:18). Then there was the shortage of rivers and streams, so strange to an Englishman, and the closeness of the desert – you only need to go to the Mount of Olives and look eastwards beyond Bethany to see the first barren hills of the Judean wilderness. Oddly, because of the return of the rains after six or seven months of hot drought, the autumn was a time of new life for the grass and the flowers, a phenomenon that also brings to life the words of the psalm about the autumn rain covering the bitter valley with blessings. Fiercely strong midday sunshine meant that even in winter children could be seen playing in the fountains. The gnarly olive trees are a constant and iconic feature, and I got a quiet pleasure in using oil pressed from the olives of the friary garden. I never enjoyed salad so much as I did in the Holy Land, where most of it, along with the fruit and veg, is fresh and tasty. Last and smallest, but by no means least among the natural features, were the mustard seeds: so much smaller than the mustard seeds we’re familiar with, and growing well above head-height into shrubs with trumpet-shaped yellow flowers, which attract the shiny blue-black Palestinian sunbird to feed on the nectar.

I never got the hang of bartering – I probably got ripped off a few times – but it’s a method that requires you to enter into a relationship with the shopkeeper, rather than mechanically paying a predetermined price. In the local culture the key factor is not what you know but who you know. I eventually learnt which people would give a good price to a poor Franciscan. Family relationships are also very strong and important. Meanwhile, the obvious religious atmosphere was an unfamiliar but welcome experience; talking about God is quite normal, and the Muslim calls to prayer and the Jewish trumpets heralding the Sabbath still echo in my mind. Going to Masses in Arabic, where God is invoked as ‘Allah’, was an eye-opening experience. One of my favourite memories is of hearing ‘Laudato Si’ being sung in Arabic in the Palm Sunday procession.

Less welcome memories are of the prevalence of checkpoints and guns: it was quite normal to round a corner in Jerusalem to see a dozen fully-armed police or soldiers marching towards you. The hostile political atmosphere was unsettling; but I did realise that it has a lot of similarities with the situation in the time of the Gospel: then it would have been Roman soldiers patrolling the streets.

All of these strange experiences serve to make the Bible less strange. But there were other experiences that were almost as strange in their familiarity. My previous mental image of the Holy Land didn’t really include green fields; but in fact for nearly half the year it is a ‘green and pleasant land’. During the wet season the limestone hills of Judea are not dissimilar to the Pennines, and Galilee in the winter is like the Lake District in the summer. Dry-stone walls and flocks of sheep also served to remind me of our National Parks. I knew that the Promised Land was supposed to be a fertile country flowing with milk and honey, and John’s Gospel tells us that people sat down on green grass when Jesus fed them with five loaves and two fish; but I wasn’t prepared for how much the hills around Galilee could look so much like England or Wales. I also wasn’t prepared for cold nights, needing several layers to keep warm while sleeping.

The people were in many ways like people anywhere. Children could be seen playing on their bikes or in the fountains, families would picnic in the parks, and of course smartphones were everywhere. Staying a night in a Palestinian village, I played noughts-and-crosses with the children. People enjoy the sunshine and stay out of the rain if they can, and they laugh and grieve like other people do. Some people were aloof, some were friendly, and some would go out of their way to welcome a stranger and help him on his way. I especially remember an Arab, who couldn’t speak any English, giving me and another friar a lift to the bottom of Mount Tabor when he saw us waiting at the bus-stop, and even offering to buy us something to drink. Traffic rules are much the same as at home, apart from driving on the right.

All the nations are flowing to Jerusalem, making it strikingly diverse at times; but even that felt quite familiar to someone who had been living in multicultural London the previous six years. West Jerusalem and other Jewish areas looked and felt very much like European or American cities, while the Old City and the Arab areas were more noticeably Middle Eastern in their culture. But even the latter could feel very homely. I loved to visit Bethlehem: there was something wonderfully comforting about the atmosphere there. And Nazareth, once a village of only 200 and now a small city, still feels cosy in its hollow in the hills. The ancient houses, being half-cave and half-building, are somewhat reminiscent of hobbit holes. The grotto of the Annunciation was part of one such home, and still seems homely, despite the big basilica on top of it.

All these feelings of familiarity make it seem more likely, more believable that miracles can happen in my own country, if the great events of salvation can happen under the same blue sky.

I’m no nearer to answering the question as to whether the strange or the familiar aspects of my experiences were the most important. Perhaps they merge into one anyway, as the initially strange became familiar to me over the nine months I was there. But I find my thoughts turning again to the unexpected greenness of the grass, so homely yet the scene of marvelous events. “The green earth, say you? That is a mighty matter of legend, though you tread it under the light of day!”