Passover Seder

Tonight is the Seder dinner. I have been feeling irritated all week, tired of the cliques that have been forming in the center, tired of feeling like I am always trying to make friends and that it’s never the other way around. I called my mom last night and complained to her relentlessly. While I feel better today, I am a little stir crazy and decide to work out since I’ve done so probably only two other times this semester. My roommate and her beach-blonde friend talk to me for a minute, asking me which guy I think is the cutest in the program. It’s funny to be having this kind of conversation with them, like it’s a scene from a stereotypical and badly scripted Hollywood film. But I smile and enjoy talking to them before they leave for Arabic. My roommate said she knew I wasn’t feeling well last night and wonders if I’m okay. I’m surprised that she can sense my mood so well because while we are closest as far as roommates go, we never do things together outside of our room. I find that I like knowing there is someone looking out for me.

I run across the center’s grounds, skipping up the steps that wind through the garden, my feet light and crunching over the gravel. I have missed exercise and the kind of solitude and connection with the world that I feel when it is just me and the sun and the sky. I jog past the archways at the back of the building and around towards the front, circling the olive press and getting my fill of the springy floor in the kids’ playground. I hear the Arabic teacher as I run past their room. Luckily the shades are pulled down, so I don’t have to worry about being seen. After another round of running, I do the exercises on the grass that my sister has taught me, balancing on one leg and doing jumping jacks as I keep an eye on the Dome of the Rock. I love being out here on my own with a scene as stunning as this. It feels like a gift. Sometimes I forget as I am attending classes and doing homework and trying to make friends that I am here to know myself and my God better. It is good to remember to put myself in balance again.

I cut my stretching short and hurry to my room for a quick shower. Throwing on my clothes, I am paranoid that my shade shirt under my cardigan is too tight, but I am tired of wearing the same combination of clothes every day, so I take my roommate’s advice and decide to wear the outfit.

My seat in the Oasis is at the head table. I had volunteered to do a reading for the dinner, thinking I might as well get involved if given the opportunity. To my chagrin I realize I am assigned to sit right next to my Judaism professor. He is on my left while the two students on my right are unofficially dating and talk to each other whenever we are not instructed to sit silently.

As the dinner begins I remain very still, bringing my cup closer to my professor when he pours grape juice into my cup.

“L'Haim,” we say in unison. It reminds me of Cottonwood Height’s Fiddler on the Roof and makes me think of Tevye and miss Hailee all at once. The dinner is a slow process. First we dip a piece of celery green into salt water, representing bitterness and tears. My professor breaks a piece of mazza in front of the room and hands me my portion. We are allowed to make a tiny sandwich out of it with spreads of purple horseradish and sweet dates. Further into the dinner we recite the plagues of Egypt, releasing a drop of grape juice into our water after we say each one. I watch as the blood-like liquid dissipates into the clear liquid, and the sight strikes me as being slightly eerie.

I looked at my reading for a few minutes before I had worked out, though the words were confusing. Still, I wait for my turn to read, blocking out the meaning of those who speak before me in slightly nervous anticipation. I want my words to feel as though they have weight to them; I want the audience to feel like there is a kind of music to the letters, to the vowels and to the consonants. My voice is a little dry, but I like the way the words on the page warm up the room when I speak them, how I can hold a moment captive just by the sound of my own voice. I also take part in a song with a group of students. It is a children’s melody and I like singing in Hebrew, even though the words have my tongue all tangled up in knots when we sing the sixteenth notes.

My professor, Ophir Yarden, washes his hands using a bronze cup and dries them off on a towel. We do the same at the far end of the room when he gives us permission, though with the little water I used and the now well-used and limp towel drying my hands, the purpose of washing is full of irony.

Our dinner is in several courses, and it is my task to bring out each one for myself and for the girl next to me. We have salad, salmon, mashed potatoes shaped like a pear, cranberry chicken, and the first broccoli I’ve seen since I’ve been here. I get an extra half a piece of salmon from another girl nearby who doesn’t want her’s and it is a good conversation starter with my professor. I ask him about all kinds of things—how we both love salmon, what his children’s names are, if they have favorite treats his kids eat when they camp with the Scouts. Apparently smores haven’t made an appearance here in Israel, though they do roast marshmallows. The conversation is awkward, since Ophir talks to his six-year-old son sitting beside him now and then, and the rest of the time sits silent. His boy has shoulder length blonde curly hair and charmed the room the moment the students saw him. I try and talk to the girl who gave me her salmon. She plays the harp, and I ask Ophir if he plays an instrument.

He says he plays the CD player.

I ask him if he likes any particular kind of music.

He doesn’t.

I ask him if there’s any kind of live entertainment we should see while we’re here.

He says he doesn’t get out much.

By the end if it all, I know that his mother-in-law is a Viking, his children speak Swedish and English at home, and that he doesn’t seem to have a particular affinity for the United States even though he was born there. He has a smaller frame, is completely bald, and missed a hair above his lip when shaving. He told our class that he keeps his kipah on with double-stick tape, and there was a definite awkward moment when a piece of lettuce was on his chin and I didn’t know if I should tell him it was there. Luckily I think his son did the dirty work for me while I was still in the midst of a long internal debate about what to do. 

For dessert we have square apple pie and Ben and Jerry’s vanilla ice cream, which is my new one weakness. There are also little finger desserts that I can’t possibly eat, but I try a couple anyway.

As the meal closes we open the door in the Oasis for the coming of Elijah, and I wonder how so many people cannot know the truth of it all, how they are unaware that the prophet has already come. And as interesting as it is to see the silver platter full of objects of symbolism like the egg and the chicken wing and the bitter greens, as much as I loved the food and the words and the song, I know there is something missing here. And I wonder if the Jews have ever felt that.

And did they ever have the courage to look for it? Would they have searched through the holes in their stories and found that there was something wanting?

Would I even bother searching, if I were in their shoes?

On the Road to Jericho

It's too soon for another field trip. After a week in Turkey and not enough sleep, my body feels like it is trapped inside a constant yawn. But I would choose a field trip over class any day, and today we are off to the wilderness and Jericho. We are quiet as we leave, keeping an eye out for goats and shepherds on the side of the road. The city fades to the background and the desert mountains swallow us up. We are descending 740 feet below sea level. 

The Bedouin people greet us when we step off the bus. Their arms are outstretched and laden with beaded necklaces or scarves, and they try to hand us fruit juice and Coke for a price. We were instructed not to buy anything, though, so we climb to the peak of a hill and look down onto a road that winds between two cliff faces. Above it is a monastery from the sixth century clinging to the rocks like a beetle that is afraid of the coming sun. We read from the book of Matthew and a couple of us move from our current positions and into the shade, because even though it's just past nine in the morning, the heat is already baking our backs.

Our professor rattles off a few of the important events that have happened here. This is where Elijah stopped when fleeing Jezebel, or this is where Mary's parents were married. But these details are small and in some ways meaningless to me. It is when we turn to the New Testament and read Luke 10 that I become more alert. This is the parable of the Good Samaritan, when the lawyer asks Christ the famous question:

"What shall I do to inherit eternal life?"

I had been reading this parable frequently before I came to Jerusalem, trying to understand the significance of the Samaritan who stopped to help the man on the road when the priest and Levite just passed by. While I am yet come to a satisfactory conclusion, I have always judged the priest and Levite rather harshly. But today it is mentioned to our class that perhaps the priest is going home to his family. Maybe he's just had a long day and he needs to make it home as soon as he can. I feel a kind of connection with that. How many times have I had the opportunity to serve in the moment but gave up that opportunity for another goal that was already on my mind? Our professor tells us that most often when we have an opportunity to reach out, it's inconvenient. At the same time, it is our responsibility to find a reason to stop. 

A disciple of Christ will find that reason.

We crest the top of a hill and overlook the valley around us. Some people are reminded of Utah up here, but I feel that this wilderness is dustier, drier, more barren. The sky is clear by Israeli standards what with the morning mist evaporated and we can see the Dead Sea from here. We talk about Christ's temptations. Our guide, Professor Chadwick, holds up a rock. It is flat and tan and he says it reminds him of a pita. He is one of my favorite professors here, a weather-beaten archaeologist obsessed with the land and all things ancient. He tells us that he brought home a rock from this wilderness so he could show others what it is like and also what kind of food Satan may have tempted Christ with. He encourages us to take something from the land every now and then, so I find my own pita-rock that is dusty and sun soaked and put it in my backpack. I want to remember what it was like to stand on that mountaintop and feel the spirit of the land. I want to remember what it is like to feel a little of what Christ has been through.

Luke 19 is the next scripture that comes up on our list, so we stop by a tree and talk about Zacchaeus who climbed into the branches of a sycamore so that he might better see Christ as he passed by. I'm not familiar with the story and think it's quirky that we have stopped just for this tree. But at the same time, it's almost two weeks later and I can picture that tree protected by the iron-wrought fence and know what it looked like. And I can imagine myself in it, waiting for Christ to walk by me.

We finally arrive at Jericho. It is an oasis in this nutmeg brown land, dotted with a few palm trees whose leaves are the only green to be seen. Professor Chadwick despairs of this place but I think it's the most fascinating of the old ruins we have seen. I like that archaeologists have made mistakes here in their attempt to prove whether or not the bible is true. To me, it doesn't matter so much if the wall we are looking at is the one that came crumbling down during Joshua's time. Instead, I like the unknown, and I love that it is my faith that proves the truthfulness of the bible to me more than this place.

Right across the street is Elisha's Well. Arabic pop music is playing at the local cafes we walk past and floaty toys are being sold at the shops. This part of the land is controlled entirely by the Palestinians, and to see how the two worlds (the ancient and the contemporary) merge together makes me smile. Israel is a place full of personality, and I find that it is always surprising me.

I think of my dad the moment we pass through the gates and look at the water. It starts in a kind of watershed, and if I remember right, is actually a spring. Some of the students ask if it would be okay to drink the water, and I can't help but mutter to myself that if it comes straight from a rock, then it is. We actually drink from a pump here and talk about how important water is in a place like this, how it is the source of life. I understand more than ever that it must have been enticing for the woman at the well to never thirst again. We focus on Elijah, though, and I still struggle finding a connection with my life to the Old Testament. The bible is distant and strange to me in ways that other scripture is not, and I find that to be frustrating. 

Our last destination is a winter palace of Herod the Great. I wish the building was still intact, that I wasn't just looking at stubs of columns and the remains of a swimming pool where he killed a brother-in-law for being a threat to his throne. But it is interesting to see the sphere of Herod's influence, to know the kind of power he had and yet all that is left of him here on earth are crusty bits of plaster and diamond shaped stones. I feel a kind of pity for him. He did not live in a way that would bring him the greatest reward of eternal life. His inheritance will not be a grand one. 

Herod missed the road to Jericho, the opportunity to do something in the moment that was greater than what he may have immediately wanted. And that, I think, is a shame. For what greater reward is there than eternal life?

The Western Wall

It is the second time I have been to the Western Wall and the sun is about to set. The Jewish Sabbath is just beginning and it’s strange to me how everything in the city and the center revolve around it. We attend church on Saturdays. The shops close Friday night. But it is beautiful, too, like the people here are unified in the belief that there is a time to remember and love God.

Our class walks through the security, men on the left side, women on the right. The guard hardly gives me a second glance, and soon we are past the drinking fountains and approaching a walkway where the men and women divide for worship. The girls who are with me are afraid to approach the wall. They say they want to give the locals a chance to say their prayers. But I want to go up and touch the Herodian stones, to see if I can feel the Spirit while I am up there.

My eyes are drawn to the other side of the wall. I see the head of the tallest boy in our class. He must be 6'7" or so, the height a little like home to me since it reminds me of my brothers. His gelled and statement-driven hair is at odds with the kipah on his head and makes me smile.

There is so much life over there on the men’s side. Clumps of them stand together in circles within circles, their hands in the air, lifting each other on one another's shoulders and singing together in unison. They are brothers, these men, and I wonder why some wear fur hats and others have wide brimmed black ones. Some just have a kipah. A few teenage boys peek their heads over the fence and talk with the young women on the other side, proving that even religion can't ban boys from flirting. I smile at that because over here, half a world away, the people aren't so very different as one would think.

The women are sparse in numbers in comparison, their prayers hummed murmurs between their lips. The more devout ones sit on plastic chairs as though prepared to sit out the night. I wonder if any of them wish they could go to the other side of the wall, if they wish they could sing and dance and rejoice with the skies like the men do. Instead, they hold prayer books between their hands, a personal worn copy with a brown, leather-soft cover. As I approach the wall, I see that they press the pages to their faces as though the words printed there could soak into their skin and transform them into something ... more.

A woman directly in front of me is completely clothed in black, her body pressed against the wall, her hands clinging to the stone. She sobs and prays unintelligibly. I am wary of coming closer, but the other women around me do so without hesitation, some of them even smiling as if they doubt the woman's despair. When there is space for me I reach out my hand and touch the white brick, my hand just above her head. I don't stay long. There are others waiting to come up behind me, but I put out my hand once more just to feel the texture of the wall again, hoping my fingers might memorize this night and what it has been like.

There is a reverence here. I don't feel drawn to the wall like I did to the Garden of Gethsemane or the Church of All Nations, but the love the people have for this place bleeds into the air and washes over me.

We talk to a couple of the women here. I am surprised to learn that the woman I'm speaking to is from Germany. She came to Jerusalem all by herself, deciding she wanted to work here. I ask her about the meaning of the kipah and learn that it serves as a reminder that God is above them.

The women are not dressed as uniformly as the men are. Several have long skirts, while others wear short ones. Some have their heads covered, and others don't. One woman's midnight blue dress is cut too low, and I can tell she is a tourist.

There are also soldiers, beautiful young Israelis with olive skin, sharply defined jawbones, and eyes that the girls in my class covet. One even looks like she hails from Africa. The prayer books in their hands and the guns at their hips make me pause. They are fulfilling their one required year in the military and it is the soldiers who encourage the women to gather together and form a circle. They shout out songs in Hebrew and the women wrap their hands around one another's shoulders, swaying or holding hands, sometimes coming together in the middle of the circle. I join them and love the fact that these women will hold my hand and love me for this moment.

I end up standing next to a woman in her sixties. She wears pointed cheetah print patterned shoes with a gold buckle. Her auburn hair sweeps over her cream colored shawl, and a pair of glasses rests over her nose. She sings in Hebrew and all of us are together now, at peace with ourselves and with God. And I’m sure that if God is looking down at this moment, He is pleased with us. 

We head for the busses soon after, blue lights on over our heads, and I sit next to a boy and tell him that we should be friends. The kids around me laugh because I have earned the reputation of being the overly optimistic one who secretly likes being the center of attention. And even though I am a little worried about what I will end up doing tonight with the rest of my free time, I feel like there is a place for all of us. That we all fit here in our own right, the Mormons, the Jews, and the Muslims, and that we can and we should be friends.

The Garden of Gethsemane

I dread the classes even though I know that I shouldn't. I know that I am here in Jerusalem and I should love the intellectual stimulation, the perspectives of both my Jewish and my Palestinian teachers, plus the comfortable feeling of being taught the gospel by people of my own faith. But I hate sitting still. I hate knowing that I am sitting inside when I could be out there. I want to see the city, to feel the energy of the people and their life and their ways.

Instead, I have to read multiple twenty page articles by tomorrow. Two of the girls convince me to go out to the city with them. The three of us are so alike. Calm, the misfits in high school, and a little reserved when first meeting a stranger. We join a group of ten kids going out of the center and cut through a street at the bottom of the hill that leads up to the Mt. of Olives. We are only allowed to do this when there are at least ten people with us, so I have never seen this street. A teenage boy rides his bike and cuts us off, offering a pomegranate from the tree on the side of the road. Young girls and boys wave to us as we pass, the dust around our feet powdering our shoes. 

This is more what I imagined Jerusalem to be like. The trees sprinkled across oven browned hills. A Jewish graveyard scattered over the curve of the hillside, the expanse of it as broad as the faith of the people here. It is a hard home for someone to have their final resting place, the limestone graves white and rectangular, rocks in place of flowers, cement instead of grass.

We top the hill. Across the street and to the left is the garden of Gethsemane. It is strange that a place so sacred can be in the middle of so much tension. It feels different here, as though the light between the olive trees is cleaner, as if the Spirit fills the open air, the ground, the walkways between the shrubbery. 

The Church of All Nations cradles the garden, it's walls in the shape of an "L" as though protecting it. I walk through the doors and the lilt of latin curves into the ceiling and around my sweating body. A nun with glasses and olive-black skin plays the organ and a congregation sings a prayer to God, their voices mixing with the priest.

The walls are purple and laced with gold. I walk between the Corinthian pillars and the plum colored stained glass windows tinted a soft red violet depending on the light. As we rest on the wooden benches, it is without a doubt the most beautiful church I have ever seen. Not gaudy and just for show, and not plain. It complements the garden. I feel open here, like you could spread out my being and I could be a part of the wrought iron tree designed door, the tile mosaic beneath my feet, or the sun drop roses peeking over the fence.

The steps leading up to the church are protected by a gate, and just beyond its borders are cars flying past in levels, the streets layered like a yogurt parfait. We leave the garden, and I am struck by the image of a car parked right outside its walls that is covered in blankets and necklaces and cheap little trinkets for sale. It is so opposite of the garden, this car that is draped with worldliness, and I think of Christ's anger in the temple with the money changers, even though I know the people here are just trying to make a living.

I go to the old city with Emily and Vicki. We wander around without a map. Vicki is on the hunt for shampoo, and I am surprised that one of the shop owners is a woman. She is the first one I've seen here, here hair wrapped up in a scarf and her floor length coat in a military style that is conservative, though it is feminine looking and she wears it well. 

I stop at a shop to admire some books, and the store owner pulls me inside claiming his nativity set is over a hundred and fifty years old. He pulls out carpets and rugs and tells me that nothing is expensive, but I didn't bring my money with me, so we keep wandering the streets. My camera dangles from my wrist and I swing it as I walk. Suddenly I feel a hand close to mine, and I turn my head and see a man's arm still outstretched, his attempt at pick pocketing failed. We laugh about it as we walk around and go back to the center, though I hold my belongings close in front of me from then on.

I've volunteered to be an usher for the cultural concert tonight. I love seeing the people come into the center. Most of them are elderly, the women's hair fine and wiry, the men gruff and offering a nod to my welcome. I take their tickets and slip inside for the concert with a few other students.

Two guitarists are in the center of the stage. A son and a father, I think, though the father's playing is far superior. His fingers dance across the strings and uses the guitar in ways I have never seen, as though the instrument were an extension of him and he knows it like he knows his own heart. They play Spanish melodies, the music speaking to the father so much that at times he shakes his head with such energy that his nearly shoulder length, curly gray hair is a blur. I love his glasses, the way his tanned and leathery Armenian skin bags slightly beneath his eyes, the way he tells jokes in Hebrew that makes me laugh even though I don't know the language.

A flamenco dancer comes on stage. Her violet gown is embroidered in gold, her hair a rich Spanish brown and adorned by a tall comb. She is proud of her body, of the control she has over her hips and arms. Even the very curve of her fingers is self assured, and I am mesmerized by her feet and the dress fanning out behind her like a fan. The crowd claps in unison after the concert, a Hebrew encore, and I am boosted by the conservative joy in the crowd.

I stay up late to finish my homework, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. The garden, the church, the flamenco dancing at night with a background of Spanish guitar and the Dome of the Rock. So I read while the world sleeps and realize that though I am far away from my home, I haven't changed so very much at all. I am still the last one up, reading away the hours, and that feels like home. And I love having that with me.

My Jerusalem Moon

As far as I can tell, I am the last student studying. It is one twenty in the morning and I haven't finished my homework. We are all overwhelmed by the pages of reading, by the theories of scholars who've put a lifetime of work into articles students read just so they can make it through class the next day.

Zoroastrianism.

Catholicism.

Islam.

Judaism.

So many religions interconnected and weaving into one another like the streets of the old city in Jerusalem. And yet we keep our religions separate like the physical walls and gates in the Holy Land do for peoples of different beliefs. But we run into one another. We talk to one another.

We cannot escape one another. 

And perhaps we don't want to, despite history and hard feelings. I watch Arabs taking photos of me and my friends on the sly as we study, our backs against a wall that has history mortared in its cracks, and I do not feel afraid. The people here are in some ways a novelty to me, just as I am to them ... to the taxi drivers who ask if we want a ride. To the seven year old boy who wants us to kick his soccer ball. To the teenage girl who has been dared by her friends to speak to us in English.

We cannot escape one another.

And later as I force myself to study, to flip to the next page in the small confines of the royally carpeted library, I eventually walk down to my room. The hallway exhales with open sky above me, framing the moon above my head. It is ripe and full enough for my fist to hold. I have sung to this moon in this very spot. I have whispered to it and gazed on it, and found comfort in the fact that my family and people everywhere, no matter our differences, are looking at the same moon that I am. That we are inseparable even if we do not know it. 

That we are sharing this moon. 

It is ours.

Jerusalem Overlook Field Trip

Isn't it strange that all I can have at times is a room to myself? Right now I am stretched across the floor in the deserted primary room and lying on my stomach, having just played a soul satisfying round of Ingrid Michaelson and Beethoven.

~

                                                                                 

It is our very first field trip after I've had a day of wandering about the ramparts of one of the oldest cities in the world. Two of my roommates set their alarm for five thirty in the morning for no apparent good reason and so I purposely stay in bed because I'm trying defy their obsessive planning. I also like to have the whole room to myself while I get ready.

I eat breakfast in a rush, tugging on the leg of my pants so that they might pass inspection and then pulling them up to keep them from falling of my hips when the branch president's wife isn't looking. I have grown tired of eggs, and my breakfast is small, the watermelon on the way to fermentation and the oranges never as sweet as the kind we have at Christmas time.

My backpack is gone. Someone accidentally picked it up, and so I go early to the busses to find it where an adult chides me for losing it, saying I'm not supposed to leave my bags lying around. He is thin and straight, like the towers that dot the Jerusalem hills and I tell him that I left my bag out just while we were eating breakfast, which is when we're allowed to. His response is a quiet one, and I am secretly glad because while the faculty often tells us this is our home, they too frequently treat me like I am in my terrible two's and should be paying attention to the rules better.

We stop at an overlook point. A tourist screams as a camel kneels to lift her high into the air, and crowds snap pictures with an eagerness that reminds me of children begging their mother for more fruit snacks. I have forgotten my headset, so I listen to one earbud of several students' during the day, my head bent down, my face glazed with sunscreen and UV rays. 

"This is the tower of Hebrew University," they say. "This is Augusta Victoria and the Russian Church of the Ascension." But there are mosques and valleys and towns, too, and I am lost in this sea of bone bleached buildings, this place where history has been melting into itself for generations until the religions have mixed themselves up and everyone is living on top of one another and looking for air.

I have seen churches before. Ones with stained glass pans curling over the windows as it holds onto its pictures, ones with incense that fill up my head with the heat of smoke. Augusta Victoria is Lutheran. Simple, with candy cane pillars and a book on the altar. German sayings stretch across the walls, and while the paintings and gold and blue tiles are lovely, it does not strike me as something truly beautiful. But the students soak it in like they are seeing life for the first time, and I wonder if I am missing something deeper in the making of these stones, or if the students don't know that there is likely something more amazing that awaits them in the future.

We climb a tower to look out over the city. My legs are burning from yesterday's excursion but I am the first to go up and have no intention of giving up my pride, so I take one staircase, then another. The views at the top are obstructed by metal grates, so I stick my hand out of an opening and pray my camera doesn't fall to the ground.

The next stop looks out over Bethlehem. The land is parched here, the ground white and rocky covered by a fine powdery sand and thorns the size of my thumb print. Everything is so hard to see... where each city is, where the nativity church is hiding... Herod's Mount stands stocky in the distance, its head chopped off as though a testament of the king's more wicked days.

I know the bus shouldn't be one of my favorite parts, but I love sitting in air conditioning, I love letting my foot dangle over the aisle and relieving my hands from carrying scriptures and cameras and notebooks. I tell one of the boys I am getting to know that I love goats, and he jokes that he thought we might see one while we were looking out over Bethlehem. I play twenty questions with the Australian behind me and my friend Emily who is wearing a Captain America shirt and is worried that if anyone in Israel sees it, they might be offended. She didn't realize the possible implications when she put it on this morning.

Our last destination is the Mosque-Synagogue of Nabi Samwil. They tell us "Nabi" means "prophet" and "Samwil" means "Samuel." I don't know why they've named it after him. There are so many churches here built after prophets for even the smallest of reasons, like at the previous stop, where Elijah may have been when he was running away from Jezebel. 

We look at the landscape again. I can feel the sun burning my Scandinavian skin and I have to keep making sure I am keeping dress code. As we walk around the building, our teacher (who also happens to be Australian) points out Gibeon and leads us to a scripture in Kings 3: 3-14. I think Joshua may have led the Israelites to Gibeon, and now we are talking of Solomon. One night the Lord appears to him and asks Solomon what he can give him. In response, Solomon says he would like an understanding heart that he may judge the people and discern from good and bad. The Lord does so, and then gives him more, including riches and honor.

We get thirty minutes to ourselves after this. I walk over to a table in the shade, cigarette butts sprinkled around my feet and reread my scriptures. The word "walking" is repeated many times in these verses, and Solomon is described as a child who knows not "how to go out" or how to "come in." But despite his apparent lack of independence, it says in verse three that Solomon walked after his father, who was righteous and truthful. The Lord also says that none will ever be like Solomon, and that specifically none will "arise" like him. In verse fourteen, the Lord commands Solomon to walk after his father David, and then his days would be lengthened (like a stride).

I realized through these scriptures that perhaps Solomon is supposed to be likened to Christ, walking after his father with such a humble heart that he does not even ask the Lord to kill his enemies (just as Christ asked his father to forgive the Romans as they killed him on the cross). Instead, Solomon asks for spiritual discernment. It also mentions that there would not be "any among the kings" like unto Solomon (who is an ancestor to Christ). There are also no kings like unto Christ. If we walk after our father, specifically our Heavenly Father, we can become like Christ. If we arise and are reborn in Him, we will not be asking for mortal and selfish desires even if given the opportunity. Instead, we will be like God, and he will give us even more in return. He will watch out for us. I felt the Spirit there more than I had for the entire day as the breeze cooled my sun warmed skin and a fig tree offered me shade. This was where the prophets had walked. This is where God had made promises and covenants, and where men had received something like a patriarchal blessing that gave them hope for a future they may have feared.

Our teacher asked us what we would ask God for, if given the chance. I hope I would be humble enough to ask for something that would be a blessing for those I am with, rather than being swallowed up in my own doubts and grief. I hope I would ask for an understanding heart.