Today I visited once more the complex at Gethsemane. I confess I feel a draw to observe and learn every part of that area in particular. Thus far I have identified 5 sections. As we walk down the Kidron Valley from the center we walk through some younger Olive groves. These are very open, the path is dirt and very few tourists walk through there. They are simply olive trees growing in the declared green space that just happen to be on the Mount of Olives. The trees get thicker and thicker as you approach the traditional sites but they never approach the density you would find in a forest. If you follow the path marked by the park system you end up at a road that goes up and down the Mount of Olives. Following this road down almost to the valley level you find two gardens one on each side of the road. On the north side (where the “wild” grove is) there is a walled in garden termed the Private garden. It contains a casually maintained garden with some older trees in it. Only the Latter-day Saint students and members of the managing church are allowed in past the locked gate. On the south side of the street is the Church of all Nations. It was built with funds from 12+ churches which is why it has 12 domes. As you enter by the gate where we did you enter a small garden right next to the church. It contains 8 trees that are huge and ancient. They are the oldest and are said to be the silent witnesses to the agony of the Lord. It is a beautifully kept garden but is very busy with tourists. Inside the chapel is site number 4. It is a typically dark Catholic-style church although because of the international nature of it’s construction has a unique feel to it. In the center of the church is the Rock of Agony, which is said to be the spot where Jesus laid as he sweat, as it were, great drops of blood. It is guarded by two small decorative fences and Winged Cherubim. On the south side of the church younger olive trees continue but are accompanied by well kept gardens. I don’t know who is allowed in there but I have yet to see someone there.
I prefer the first part of the olive trees because it seems more natural even though the trees are much younger. I don’t feel like a tourist when I am there. Anyway, on this day we stopped in the church briefly to see what was up and saw a bunch of people performing a mass around the rock. It seemed like a typical Catholic mass but it turns out that everyone was Indian. A group of Indian Christians had traveled all this way and were now celebrating with communion on the very site where the blood was split. Interestingly enough we also ran into a bunch of Indians climbing Sinai. I think they were Christians too but they still wore the dot. Either a bunch of Hindus wanted to climb Mount Sinai, or the dot is a cultural thing not a religious thing.
Listening to the chanting of the priests and seeing the faces of those faithful Christians who had traveled so far for this moment was very touching. All around them was a constant stream of tourists snapping their pictures and seeming very out of place at that time.
We have been largely tourists in this land even though we are students. I have at times felt like I was more a pilgrim than anything else but my sense of pilgrimage is different, I think, then that of all those around me. I have not come to perform my son’s Bar Mitzvah in front of the Western wall or to pray at the Al Aqse Mosque. I don’t get to perform the sacrament in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Indeed there a very few ordinances that we can perform here. (on a side note as we have no font at the JC one of the local young people will be able to tell people for the rest of his life that he was baptized in the Jordan River and not be talking about Utah).
So how do we obtain that level of revelry? How can we obtain the spiritual experience that those pilgrims achieved as they performed sacred ceremonies in sacred spaces?
Well, the spirit has always been a product of the inner man more than the outer man. Even if you are in the holiest place on earth it won’t make you holy unless the inner self is pure. And even if you are deep within the Hinnom Valley (metaphor for hell which we also visited today) you can have a spiritual experience if your heart is ready for it.
How do I find the spirit when I look like a tourist and carry a large camera? I suppose it is the same way I would find the spirit if I were in any other part of the world. Purify the heart so the spirit can dwell with you. Oh be good and carry the spirit with you, it will be a protection and comfort to you no matter where you are, even if that place be an olive grove far far away.
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