I confess to a certain perverse pride when I was able to put "I am on pilgrimage" on my out-of-office reply. It certainly made an impression on some of my secular colleagues.
Of course, it was only what they call a "clergy familiarisation tour" where the pilgrimage operator (in this case McCabes) take clerics at a reduced rate in the hope that they will then lead their own pilgrimage, inspired by the experience. In fact, I would love to do so, but don't see much prospect of getting up a party from this neighbourhood. We are a small church community, and I don't think we'd ever get the numbers required. People might be interested, but £2000 is beyond most of my folk here. McCabes encourage you to announce it long in advance, so that people can save up for it, and pay in instalments, but that argues a degree of organisation which is not often found on the Harrow Road. Because we were being familiarised, the itinerary was one that took in all the big sites, and quite a few others, crammed into eight days, whereas I can see that you might want to tailor your own tour, and probably go for ten days rather than eight to have a bit more space to think and pray.
When we arrived in Jerusalem it was colder than London, grey and rainy. I remarked that since the city was grey and rainy and had trams it reminded me of Manchester. Early January was probably a good time to go from the point of view of crowds, but it did mean that you had to take lots of clothes. I travelled with a much heavier bag than usual, but the only thing I bought to bring back was a kilo of Palestinian dates.
We stayed in East Jerusalem, in a Christian-owned hotel, overlooking the walls of the Old City, which was an excellent position. From the hotel roof you could see the "Garden Tomb", and in fact the hotel was said to be the place that General Gordon was staying when he got the idea that the quarry wall behind the "Garden Tomb" looked like a skull. Our guide to the Garden Tomb, a jovial Ulsterman, told us that you would be able to appreciate it better if the bus station were removed from in front of it, as that has raised the level somewhat. I thought the Garden Tomb interesting, but didn't feel anything.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, on the other hand, I felt much more moving than I expected. To be in there at dawn (on the Sunday) was a very special privilege. I didn't particularly notice the notoriously bad relations between the denominations, though the Copts were a bit brusque in defending their space. It was hugely moving to be at Golgotha, and see the rock, and to enter the sepulchre.
The biggest impression, though, was of the huge contrast between Galilee and Judaea. Why was that nice, gentle, fertile land ruled by that city in those harsh hills? The sense that God was somehow present in Jerusalem, that God had somehow marked the place out, was increased by the incongruity of the fit between the two parts. Of course Galilee enables you to see views that appear unchanged since the time of Jesus, and it is calm and lovely in a way that is never true of Jerusalem, but I won't say I liked it more, because I love those buildings with their layers of history and accumulated faith.
Of the contemporary state of the Land of the Holy One, not much to say. We drove up to the Separation Wall in Bethlehem, which separates Rachel's Tomb from the town, and saw all the Banksy-type paintings and graffiti on it. You could not help feel the crudeness and the brutality of it. We visited a rehabilitation centre in Bethlehem which has had to equip itself as a full-scale hospital, because their local hospital was in Jerusalem, and now Palestinians cannot easily go there (certainly not in an emergency). The settlements creeping over the hills are hideous, and an affront to international law, but you can understand the state of Israel's desire to survive. Someone said to me afterwards, "So what is the solution, then?" to which I pointed out that better minds than mine have been working on this for years, but I can't feel optimistic, not while so many Palestinians seem determined to nurse a sense of grievance, and while Israelis insist that they are a special case.
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