yireh.eretz.shalom

We arrived at the pinnacle of a month of green in a land typically adorned with hues of brown. As I gazed out the window at this rare verdancy, the narrative of the land began to bud, awaiting the careful cultivation of stories and further experiences.

The geography here impacts. It is politically and tactically vital. Religiously packed. Commercially vulnerable. On our ascent to Jerusalem our bus climbed the road from flat coastal lands to the mountainous places that have captured generations of attention and held memories that span millennia. It is a climb that has been manifest in spirits seeking God, in people claiming patrimony, and in farmers tending to tangled fruit.

Yesterday we sat on the stone with our backs to the Temple Mount, seated where many have climbed. From whichever angle and whatever distances it is really a singular ascent. A singular ascent with multiple accents.

A stroll through the streets just under the mountain’s gaze testifies to the many who have set their eyes on Yeru-shalem, coming to explore and express their roots. Coming to have a go at life – real life. Coming with their hopes set on what the place promises – a Yireh of Shalem, a vision of peace.

From fertile lands, desert lands, coastal lands, and foreign lands people have traipsed the heights. Alighting from afar they (and now we are amongst them) set step after step toward this collection of contours that have upheld countless pilgrims and pushed back against the friction of traditions that attempt to tame the wildness of this place with a collection of absolutes.

With my eyes closed I can see the wilderness, as it was long ago, an arm’s length from the wall. The wall that suggested the parameters of safety. Amongst other myths that we may or may not choose to question, the myth of safety is one that begs our questions without our permission. The current feel inside the walls is tense at best – a situation that can and should and, dare we hope, is, in some corners at least, being calmed and relaxed with the hard relational work of seeking understanding and mutuality in the edgy elements of confusion and plurality. We like the idea of safe. We do our best to approach and promote safe. But that’s a functional safe, it’s a bodily and emotional safe. It is not an absolute safe. Try as we may, we cannot fend off the realities of encounter no matter how firmly we construct our absolutes.

But that’s not what our structures are for any way. Our structures invite divine presence; they don’t contain it. At best our structures facilitate encounter. They are a place to wrestle out the logistics of sacred experience.

Jerusalem is not a place that panders to absolutes. It deals in truths, not certainties. In a sense we know why we’re here, our memories and the stories of this place make us secure in this space. But our knowledge ends with question marks and security is fragile.

God will show. God will be seen. God has shown. God has been seen. Stories build on each experience of divinity like the levels of the city, the strata of stone, and the layers of wall.

These walls were built to adorn God with a place to come. Not stay. These are the walls that pilgrims flock to for sanctuary from the mundane and the profane. But they are breach-able. The Jerusalem walls have been overflowed by neighborhoods. The neighborhoods have built more walls; walls and neighborhoods that mythically keep God in and neighboring neighbors out.

We are all afraid of the wild places – the unsafe spots – outside the walls we construct. But what are we really afraid of? Do we have the courage to risk contact with the unkown?

I can imagine intrepid pilgrims moving in reverse, guided by a hunch – as if their question marks were strapped to their foreheads like phylacteries pulling them into the curious possibility that maybe God isn’t stuck in the sacred and the secure. Maybe God is out there too, beyond the walls in the wilderness. Maybe God is in them too, breaching my prejudice. Maybe God is inexplicably tangled up at the root of the mountain in thousands of years of memories.

There is no need to destroy our structures. Let us keep them in tact. Let Christians flee to the Eucharist. Let Jews cling to the Torah. Let Muslims turn toward Mecca. But let us all risk the wilderness, because God is feral. And as we go today let us not stop looking, because outside the city walls a wild God wanders the desert.