With Open Doors

Up these 92 steps to say hello to some friends that I made a few years ago. The whole world could certainly learn something from the Palestinians about welcome and hospitality. The fact that it was a surprise, they did not know I was coming, they didn’t even know that I was in the country, and it has been a couple years since I have seen them, made no difference whatsoever. Just a quick hello and visit would not do. I was to have lunch with them, of course. When moving toward the table, one of the women apologized for using plastic plates and flatware for lunch, “We have no water.” The Israeli government controls how often the people of Bethlehem are allowed to buy water. It had been twenty days since they last got water. I noticed that the only small glass of water was at the place where they invited me to sit down. Stupid me, it did not dawn on me until later what they had done.

In Bethlehem there is an order of nuns who dedicate themselves to perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

It is not often that one sees an image of Jesus nursing at the breast of Mary. It is here, venerated as a place where Mary fed Jesus, that women come to pray for the blessing of being able to conceive and birth and nurse a child. For some reason I feel very safe in this place called Milk Grotto.

This is one of my favorite photos thus far. I had to almost force myself to visit the church and “the star that marks the spot,” as guides will assure you. I was so busy with so many invitations to lunch and dinner, so tired when I finally got back to my hotel, so many times I have already been there – and besides he is “not there” anyway, any more than he is in the shrine of the empty tomb, as the angels told the visitors on Easter morning. But I am glad for this photo and the experience that went with it. Unmoved by visiting the place of the star, unmoved by kneeling in the local parish church from which Christmas Midnight Mass is broadcast, I spotted the sign marking the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament. I knelt there for a moment, “Here he is, just like he is back home in St. Andrew, on the altar at Mass and in the tabernacle after Mass.”

You are entering into the Church of the Nativity, the birthplace of Jesus – picture taken at night. I can imagine the shepherds guarding the door, “Shhhhh. the baby is sleeping.” In the arms of his mother, Jesus slept like he could sleep nowhere else. Every baby is lulled into calm by the arms and bosom and voice and heartbeat of its mother. Blessed are you, if you still have your mother to hold you. Blessed are all of us who can place ourselves into the arms of Mother Mary. By the way, I am sleeping like a baby in Bethlehem every night, in heavenly peace.

At a lunch feasting on “Upside Down” (Makluba) at their home table with Joseph and Nadia, with Ranim and her brothers Nasri and Bishear, we were talking about how God has protected us in everything, in things that we were worried about and also in things that we did not know would happen or in things that surprised us. Nadia said her mother used to pray that God would protect them “during the hour of the nap.” What a great prayer to pray for our children.

When I met Amir for the first time, after Ranim asked for my permission to call him to invite him to come meet me, I told him right away that it was going to difficult for me to like him. He was very quiet, as I kept chattering away. When I told him, “If you break her heart, I will kill you,” he responded, “I would kill myself first.” Hmmm. Good response. Do you think Ranim had prepared him to meet me? I am not sure how or why the next topic came up. Ranim was surprised that I had never heard a song before. She and her Amir looked it up online. “Yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda. Don’t touch this. Yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda. Don’t touch this!” She started singing. You keep singing it to him, Ranim.

The young woman with me is “used-to-be-thirteen-year-old-visitor-to-Milford-Ranim.” The photo of me is so dreadful that it makes me think of her one day visiting me in the old folks home. But I had to keep this one taken at her home. She had just surprised me with the news that she was getting engaged, and that I was going to meet him after lunch. I told her that, even before I met him, I hated him!

My sole mission for this morning was to walk through the old city of Bethlehem looking for a hair brush and notebooks. Not the typical souvenirs for a pilgrim to take home. Something made me feel sorry for Joseph looking for a room in an inn.

The Curious George in me, that’s my Confirmation name, asked what Halva was. The waiter kept saying, “Sweet, sesame. Sweet, sesame.” My first shall not be my last.