Merry Birthday to Me!

Since Wednesday was a work day, I had to wait until today to give myself a little birthday treat.  And that treat was just to go exploring again in the Old City.

Sometimes I don't speak at all while I wander the ancient streets -- I just receive, absorb.  But today I had several random encounters with people.  And by "people" I mean "men", because it was all men who approached me, with the exception of one be-scarfed old woman who unleashed a torrent of Russian at me. I tried to stop her, saying "Sorry, I don't...I don't speak Russian." She paused a beat, looked at me incredulously and asked "Nyet?", and when I shook my head she just kept right on talkin'.  ("In Soviet Russia, Russian speak you!")

I went for the second time to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  Before moving here, a friend who'd lived in Jerusalem told me "Visit the Church of the Sepulchre as often as you can-- it will be an entirely different experience each time you go."  He was absolutely right.  The first time I went was mid-afternoon on a weekday, and the church was an ocean of pilgrims pushing and shoving and jostling for better camera angles.

Tonight, however, I arrived just in time for Friday evening prayers.  The church is shared by 5 different religious sects, and those with monastic orders take turns walking throughout the whole church chanting their evening compline, with robes, beads, candles and incense.  It is as though the church is washed by three separate tides of worshippers -- three distinct processions of monks and priests and holy fathers who stop at each chapel to intone the very words their brothers and fathers have intoned in those same spots, for millennia.  A sacred three-part round.

Here are a full two seconds (sorry...I'm not so talented at videos) from the Armenians:

Watching each procession pass through the church was an otherwordly experience.  And finally, for the first time in Jerusalem, I really got it-- I felt the pull, the magnetism, the sheer gravity of such a sacred space.  I was entranced.  I could have stood watching the shadows flit across those ancient stone for hours, inhaling deeply the clouds of incense -- a different, indescribable perfume for each of the three congregations -- until it rose above the monk's candle flames and disappeared into black vaulted heights.  Someone had anointed the Stone of the Anointing itself, and the aroma of the holy oil was so overpowering that it soaked into your skin and made you feel dizzy.

I must have wandered past each chapel at least four or five times (some of which pictured below).  I couldn't get enough; this kind of holiness haunts a person.  It was, for a wanna-be-mystic like myself, like being in a womb: dark, warm, all at once deeply comforting yet unsettlingly ethereal, infused with a keen sense - an unshakeable awareness - of life-giving-ness and of death.

Stairs leading down to the chapel of St Helena

 

    Lighting candles outside the Aedicule, where the Holy Sepulchre is housed.  I have not yet entered       the Aedicule, but will try on my next visit.

One of today's random encounters with men happened just behind the Aedicule: an Orthodox man came up to me and started conversation in hushed tones.  He is Aramaic, and has family on the West Bank.  He is a carpenter in Jerusalem, but also sometimes tries to make a little extra cash by giving tours in the Old City.  He asked me about my faith, and I told him I was a Christian.  He said "Yes, I am Orthodox Christian too.  But I am not very religious."  I asked him what that meant, and then explained that it was very different for me.  That's how I ended up sharing the Gospel with an old man right there in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  When we had finished talking, he blessed me and said he hoped we would see each other there again.  His name was Ammon.

On a less serious, yet related, note: I figured out how to get rid of random guys who hit on you.  It isn't a sure-fire method, and it really only works in Jerusalem, or possibly certain parts of Brooklyn.  But this is how I figured it out: I was sitting outside at a cafe, minding my own business (and that business happened to include one large cappuccino and one generous slice of Snickers pie) when a very short, very eager young man walked up to my table, pulled up a chair and engaged my attention with the following statements produced in abnormally quick succession: "Wow, that pie looks delicious You have the most lovely eyes Where were you born, You are American probably, I am from California but now study the Torah and am learning all about my Jewishness."

When he finally gave me a chance to respond to all of this, it very quickly emerged that I was not, in fact, myself Jewish (I was here for work, primarily).  Upon learning about my non-Jewishness he said "Oh well, that's alright" (Um, thanks?) "The important thing is to get along, and to be friends, don't you think? I think that's most important."

To which of course I said (because I'm an idiot and can't help starting philosophical argument with every. single. person.) "But do you really think it's as simple as that?  Surely it wouldn't be so difficult to 'get along' as you say, if there was nothing deeper to our differences.  But there is, don't you think? Different faiths represent entirely different ways of seeing the world, of looking for truth.  Don't you agree?   I mean, I am a Christian--  a Protestant, in fact..."

At this point he cut me off and mumbled (seriously, he looked down at his shoes and mumbled) something along the lines of "Oh well, yes, I think we can be friends, very good friends, just friends, but in terms of marriage, yes, marriage is a very different thing I think, so I don't think that I... that you... yes, marriage is different but we can be friends."  And as soon as he said this, he hastily shook my hand, got up,  and sped-walked back down the street.  I guess I should have realized sooner that the key to divesting oneself of kindly-intended yet unwanted attention from men here in Jerusalem is to (i) determine their religion, then (ii) claim affiliation to a religion they deem "incompatible."  They'll doff their hat and move right along to the next girl.

My last random encounter occurred as I headed home through the markets.  I tend to ignore the shops all along the streets in the Old City because the vendors are fairly aggressive -- if you make eye contact with any of their merchandise they're aware of it immediately and hound you for several yards past their shop.

So yes, as a rule, avoid eye contact with peddlers and their wares.  But tonight I happened upon a little shop where a young man stood at the back making his own t-shirts.  I walked in, asked him all about how it works, and then we spent the next 25 minutes designing and making my very own birthday present.  He was an enormous flirt, but he wasn't so bad looking, either (and he thought I was funny. Yay! I'm funny!) so I ended up paying the guy 32 bucks for the shirt when I suspect I could have haggled him down to $20.  The truth, though, is that together we made something absolutely priceless. No... it wasn't "a nice memory" or "a friend".
Wanna see?

That's right, kids: it says Green Bay Packers in Hebrew. Somewhat shoddily, too, if you look closely.  It's so random and excellent I just can't help but love the dickens out of it.  The perfect end to a perfectly odd little evening spent in the J-town.

And so with that, Merry Birthday to me, and to me a good night!

(Good night to y'all too... in a few hours ;)