Tag Archives: faith

Assurance

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What completely blows my mind (breaks my heart, actually)
is that there are people who think this is all just a

Fortunate Accident.

But I am one of the very lucky ones, I suppose–
No! Not lucky, blessed
–whose surety is simple enough that

In the morning when the rosy light bathes the mountains,
And shines through my soul like a tile of glass,

I know that there is a God.

That is all it takes, really.

Yet all things bear witness of it.
The way Julia says my name, “Dee-dee-dee!”
The miracle of birth and
My Family
The sinking-into-a-warm-bath feeling of true friends
The poem “Jerusalem” by William Blake
Sitting at table with my Barlow grandparents,
The life that they have lived
Friendship of two brothers who astound me with their goodness.

And even in my life’s darkest night,
the glitter of the stars
is enough

to know.

Palm Sunday in Jerusalem

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On Sunday we joined with thousands of Christian pilgrims in the Palm Sunday procession to Jerusalem.

The procession began at Bethphage, the church marking the spot where Christ mounted the donkey to begin his journey into Jerusalem. There were swarms of Palestinian boys selling palm branches; I bought one for three shekels and joined the rest of the worshipers at the top of the hill. The procession began.

There were people from every country and every walk of life imaginable. I detached myself from the BYU JC crowd to have a more authentic cultural experience. On Palm Sunday, it’s all about the journey.

Along the way, I talked to a woman from Holland who was here with her family. I met two girls my age who were studying conflict resolution at Hebrew University. I walked for a while with a retired couple from Missouri. I walked beside a Polish Catholic group, all dressing in matching uniforms displaying the Polish flag. There were Boy Scout groups from Jericho. There were a few young families there, the daddies carrying their toddlers on their shoulders. There were nuns who had donned baseball caps under their white habits so that their faces wouldn’t get sunburned.

I walked with the processional band, a marching band of sorts, except that it had guitars and hand drums and tambourines. The crowd walked in rhythm and we waved our palm branches in the air, doing our best not to hit anyone in the eye, since the crowd was so thick that we were all elbow to elbow. We sang “Ho-oh-sha-ah-na, ho-oh-sha-ah-na, hoshanna!” There were so many people that the procession reached from the top of the Mount of Olives all the way down into the Kidron Valley.

The singing and celebration continued all the way down into the city through Stephen’s Gate. The band led the crowd into the courtyard of St Anne’s Church; I didn’t know how it was possible to fit that many people into the court, but somehow we all made it.

The festivities didn’t stop at St Anne’s; the band continued to play and everyone danced, including the clergy! The nuns led a line dance, the monks joined in our dance circle, and we all rocked out. My favorite, though, was a Catholic tour group from Spain. Spanish people know how to dance, I tell you what!

After about an hour the merriment had died down, and then the bishop of St Anne’s stood and spoke. He must have translated his speech beforehand, because he read it in Spanish, then Russian, then Arabic, then Hebrew, and finally in English.

He said that we had all come to the Holy Land for different reasons, but we had all come on pilgrimage. He prayed that God would bless Jerusalem with peace. He said that even after we left Jerusalem, it would forever be a part of us. He said that the sacredness of the sites would enter into our souls. He said that it was our responsibility to carry the spirit of Jerusalem to the world. And when he spoke, I knew that his words were true.

So here is my message from Jerusalem, from Palm Sunday:

The Old Testament, the New Testament, the Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine and Covenants all weave together to form a testimony of Jesus Christ. That is because he is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is the god of the Old Testament. He did come to earth as our Savior.

He does not forget his promises to us. He is the Savior of the entire world: the Jews, the Americans, everyone. He overcame death and sin. He will gather his people again in the last days. Israel will be gathered, and Christ will be our king when he comes again. He will be king over all the earth.

Long Time, No Blog

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Hey everyone! It has been a really busy week, full of exams and papers and pulling all-nighters. Consequently, I haven’t posted for a while, so here are the highlights of the last ten days:

BELIEVE IT OR NOT

We had a nice little blizzard here in Jerusalem. Since snow is so rare here, everything in the city shut down and our classes were canceled because none of our professors would come teach–people just don’t leave their houses when it snows here, and there aren’t any snowplows.

AND THEY CAME TWO BY TWO…OR THREE

We went to the Jerusalem Biblical zoo, which has the actual ark built by Noah. Seriously. : )

IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH

The field where David slew Goliath doesn’t have any monuments or churches built there, so it’s easy to imagine the battle of the Philistines taking place there.

Some thoughts I had on David v. Goliath:

“And Saul armed David with his armor, and he put an helmet of brass upon his head; also he armed him with a coat of mail. And David girded his sword upon his armor, and he assayed to go; for he had not proved it. And David said unto Saul, I cannot go with these; for I have not proved them. And David put them off him. and he took his staff in his hand, and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them in a shepherd’s bag which he had, even in a scrip; and his sling was in his hand: and he drew near to the Philistine.”
-1 Samuel 17:39-40

Because David tended his father’s sheep instead of going to war, he had never worn armor or wielded a sword. For that reason, when he put on the helmet, mail, armor, and sword, he wasn’t used to using it. Even though they were formidable weapons, he hadn’t practiced with them, so he removed the armor and put down the sword and took up his shepherd’s sling instead. He had already used his sling to kill a lion and a bear while tending his father’s sheep. In Ephesians 6:11, we are instructed to “put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” However, we cannot wield weapons or be protected by armor that we have never “proved” before. We can’t just put on the armor of God in times of temptation. Like David with his sling, we will be most effective with weapons that he have practiced and proved. Only if we seek to put on the armor of God every day will we be able to use it to defend ourselves in times of trial.

Any thoughts on this, or on David and Goliath? I’m interested in what you guys have to say.

RED CRESCENT SOCIETY HOSPITAL

Madison and I volunteered at the hospital nearby; we fed the babies there.

High on the Mountain Top

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Sinai is exactly what you’d imagine it to be: dry. We drove for hours over sand dunes and flat ground so barren that not even sagebrush grew there. Once we had left behind all other human civilization, the flat dry ground turned to rocky and mountainous dry ground.

Mount Sinai and the eminences surrounding it are rugged and jut out of the earth. We set out at 3:00 AM to summit Sinai to watch the desert sunrise. Because we were hundreds of miles from any town or city, the stars were more abundant than I have ever seen them in my life; the whole sky glittered.

Along the trail, we were met by dozens of bedouin merchants who had gotten up in the middle in the night in hopes of making some money from us. “Camel? You need camel? Camel to the top?” “Coffee! Tea! Chocolate! We have!” “Need flashlight?”

The last half hour of the hike was up steep stone steps to the summit. We reached the top just as the first light was appearing over the horizon. I left our big group of students and went with a few friends to the edge of the cliff; we watched the sun rise in silence, then sang a few quiet hymns, including “High on the Mountain Top” and “For the Beauty of the Earth.”

We watched the sun slowly turn the deep blue of morning to its orange glow. I thought of Moses leading his people out of Egypt, and the great miracles that the Lord did for the Israelites. I thought of Brigham Young and my pioneer ancestors, and the great things that the Lord has done for me. Moses spoke with the Lord here more than three thousand years ago, I thought, and his covenant with Abraham is even older than that. But it still applies to me, and someday it will apply to my children, and theirs… To quote a favorite hymn:

For God remembers still
His promise made of old
That he on Zion’s hill
Truth’s standard should unfold

The Lord’s promises are being fulfilled in our day. That is why the most beautiful, breathtaking sunrise I’ve seen is on Sinai. The Lord is the light of our souls, and his promises and blessings are sure.

The Tomb of Joseph of Arimathea

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At the church of the Holy Sepulchre, we got a tour from an Augustine monk who showed us the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea (not the tomb that Christ was laid in; the one that he acquired after, since the fist tomb was overrun by Christ’s disciples). You have to descend down to the lower levels of the church to get to it, since that all happened two thousand years ago, and people have been building things over the old city of Jerusalem for two millenia.

The tomb is a small cave with no lighting; you have to take a candle in with you. Of course, the candle light adds to the early-Christian effect. : )

The Via Dolorosa

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Via Dolorosa means “Way of Pain” in Latin. The Via Dolorosa is the road on which Christ carried his cross through the city of Jerusalem. Along the way, Catholics and other Christians reverence the fourteen stations, or fourteen spots where incidents occurred along Christ’s journey. (For example, one station is where the Catholic Saint Veronica is said to have wiped Christ’s brow with her veil.)

We were walking near the third station, where Christ is said to have fallen while carrying his cross. There is a church, more than a thousand years old, that stands on the spot. We toured the chapel, and when we came out there was a group of Franciscans doing a re-enactment of Christ’s journey and carrying a cross. They carry it all along the Via Dolorosa, following the route that the Savior took. They stopped at every station and read from the accounts in the Gospels of Christ’s crucifixion, and they sang hymns in Latin. We followed them on their journey.

Shabbat

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As the sun begins to set over Jerusalem on Friday afternoon, a feeling of impatience falls over the city and an air of hushed excitement falls over our group. We are going to the Western Wall to see the Jews welcome in Shabbat.

We enter the Old City through Lion’s Gate. The streets are barely wider than a car, so we press against the wall as cars come through. All the Palestinians are going home for the day, some to homes within the Old City and some to homes outside. The vendor of every shop that we pass is anxiously packing up his merchandise. Everyone is trying to close before the Sabbath at sundown. All the Orthodox Jews pass us quickly on their way to the Wall; some are almost running. No one wants to be late.

Contrary to popular belief, the Wall is not actually a remnant of the temple. It is a remnant of the retaining wall built to support the large temple mount where the Herodian temple sat. We arrive, and Wall is already packed with people.

The area near the wall is fenced off into two separate sections: men and women. As we enter into the women’s side, everyone is greeting friends and family. We crowd in, and some women are singing and dancing, while others are holding their Hebrew prayer books and rocking back and forth as they pray. One singing group welcomes us in. We don’t know the words, but we clap along and then later we join hands and dance with them (we don’t know what we’re doing, but we try our best to fake it). The whole time, we are careful, like the Jewish women, not to turn our backs toward the sacred Wall.

I go to touch the wall itself; it takes about ten minutes of waiting because the crowd is so dense. Hundreds of Jewish women press their faces against it as they pray. Finally it’s my turn; I touch the cold stone and think of all the prayers that have been uttered there. I say a quick prayer of gratitude to be in the Holy Land, then leave the women’s section to go watch the men (walking backward the whole time, of course!).

The men are having a very different experience. Their side of the wall is bigger, but much more crowded–there is hardly standing room for everyone. And their celebration is much livelier. The men sing loud songs in Hebrew to welcome in the Sabbath. Then they form circles and begin dancing. And things get even rowdier from there.

In the circles, three men link arms and spin around the circle as fast as they can (one frail-looking old man looks as if he’s about fly away!). Other men wave their arms and shake them–I am absolutely serious–like Tevye in “If I Were a Rich Man.” The rest of the men in the circle jump up and down, clap their hands, and sing louder than ever. The rule about not turning your back to the Wall definitely does not apply on the men’s side!

As the other girls and I watch from behind the fence, the Jewish men welcome in our guys completely. The old men and the young men, the most Orthodox and our American boys, dance and sing together. This is not a show put on for tourists; they are sincere in their fervor. They are expresssing complete joy in welcoming Shabbat. As I watch them, I feel an overwhelming sense of brotherhood (and a twinge of jealousy).

Maybe on other days of the week, the Western Wall is a wailing wall, as it is commonly nicknamed. But on Friday night, it is a place of excitement and celebration. The Jews are welcoming in the Lord’s day with complete joy and reverence–not quiet reverence, but worshipful reverence nonetheless.