Each day of our trip is better than the last, it seems; and each day has its high point. For me, today, the high point seemed to be the Wailing Wall. I was moved there, with the many who come to pray, both men (on the left) and women (on the right), each carrying their different concerns to a place where they prayed God would hear them, accept their offerings of adoration and worship, and honor their petitions for their hearts' desires.
I suppose my reaction is because these were people of the here and now, people with expressions arising from their daily, very present lives - in contrast to people who are simply on a pilgrimage (such as might describe us) who have the luxury of time and money to travel to interesting (and, yes, holy) places.
I am always touched by the real lives of people. I went to the wall, but I did not touch it. There were many women there who were deeply involved in their conversations and pleadings with God, and I was only there as an observer and tourist.
I stopped and exchanged blessings with one young woman who described herself as a widow and mother of two, and then sat in the back of the area for a while and thought and prayed about the daily lives of these women, their concerns, their many desires - both the spiritual and the mundane (I know there's a better pair of words for that), but real perceived needs for their daily lives - their daily bread, one might say. I joined them with my daily needs, knowing that we are somehow in this together. We need each other.
As a woman, I felt especially close to them, whatever their petitions and needs, and I felt I was most definitely in a holy place.
I am giving up posting to Flickr while we're traveling. Neither Yahoo nor Flickr seems to like the IP address from which I'm writing (and both are owned by Yahoo, I believe), and Blogger is much kinder to me. So a few notes here and there will have to suffice.
What marvelous sights we are seeing. Not the least of these is the olive trees in the Garden - they may be as many as 2000 years old. They are called Silent Witnesses because they may have been here at the time of Christ. How awesome that thought is. 
The colors we are seeing are spectacular. Every time I take a picture, I feel gleeful laughter as I see how wonderfully the colors are rendered. I believe I could spend a week here on my own, just so I could stay in any particular place for a while and think about what I'm seeing. I never pictured Israel looking like this. All I thought about was desert, but it is the most beautiful desert. There is a gold cast to so much that I see, whether indoors or out. It's amazing to me. My eyes are enjoying a sumptuous feast. This particular picture was taken in one of the chapels we visited (I will have to refer to my notes later - but I think this is the traditional spot where Peter denied knowing Jesus) using NO flash. I set my aperture to +1/3 to capture more available light, and this is what I got. Pure joy! Because I'm having no luck with uploading to Flickr, I will need to start sitting down in the evening in our room (we have to go to the lobby for Internet connections) and just dumping all my impressions in Wordpad! These first impressions make me feel so alive, I hate to lose them before I complete my journaling of this trip.
It's hard to imagine that we have waded in both the Arctic Ocean and the Dead Sea this year. Never in our lives did we ever believe we would ever travel to these places. In this place, in Israel, I am blessed to say that God has been good to us way beyond our wildest imaginings. Praise be to God! And that reaction was exactly what I was hoping would be the result of our trip. This is, indeed, a pilgrimage - maybe not in the classic sense, but in the sense I seek to be renewed and reawakened to my brothers and sisters, all around the world, who also seek.
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