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.
~
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.
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