Holy Land - Sacred Places
There are no un-sacred places
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.
Wendell Berry
In spring 2022 I spent a short time in the Holy Land as a member of team organised by Amos Trust not far from Bethlehem. We helped rebuild a home destroyed by the Israeli army. That home, mentioned in the first entry of this blog, tragically is now destroyed again. To my mind destroyed homes (where the destroyers have breakfasted cheerfully on the ruins following their work), like destroyed hand-made objects, are ‘desecrated’, in Wendell Berry’s sense. There is an echo of the mis-deed in the air.
Amos also took us to other homes that similar teams had helped rebuild in previous years. At each one we were treated with overwhelming hospitality and kindness by the families who had suffered so much. It was a delight. I remember being amongst a group led by a small girl who proudly showed us to her new bedroom, all her own. I experienced these exchanges between people of different cultures and experiences as founded upon love. Their rebuilt homes and the wonderful feasts we were presented with, signs of how people enjoy caring for each other. People joyfully affirming their shared humanity.
When I left the Holy Land at the end of my visit, I was obliged to explain to Israeli security at the airport what I had been doing. ‘Rebuilding a Palestinian family home destroyed by the Israeli state’ is not an acceptable answer. Many people go on pilgrimages to Jerusalem and Bethlehem and they expect certain predictable responses. Though not an overly religious person myself, I found I could look the security personnel in the eye and say from the heart ‘I have been visiting the sacred places’.