From Santiago to the Source
My whole trip to Europe (France, Spain, Malta, Greece) and the Middle East (Turkey, Israel, Jordan) that year spun a beautifully connected web with its two magnetic pilgrimage destinations – Santiago and Jerusalem
– framing its western and eastern-most points.
Jerusalem
Jerusalem. Expectations upturned. Dark arabesque arcades, narrow passageways 
between rows upon rows of Midde-Eastern fare – tapestries of damask and silk, carvings of sandalwood, jewellery, candles, lamps, bronze, gold, lokum, nougat, dried fruit, spices. We cleave our way through tangle of
market wares, the air taut with local traffic, tourists, overzealous merchants, and religious frictions. The Wailing Wall lies just beyond.
Via Dolorosa
We fall out of our hotel doorway onto the Via Dolorosa, 
the route believed to have carried Christ and his followers to Golgotha. We are able to touch and kneel before the places where Christ was reported to have fallen, to have acknowledged his mother and the wailing women, picked up the cross, put on the crown of thorns, been crucified, buried and had rose again The latter station leads us to the roof of the Holy Sepulchre church where history, myth and traditions splinter into glorious
confusion. First, an ancient cistern – reportedly where the True Cross was found – beckons and upon reaching the vast underground chambers, I sing and bathe in the acoustic awe of connecting with centuries of veneration. Ascending, we navigate through the neighbouring candle-swathed Coptic and Ethopian churches (where apparent disputes between the two ‘arms’ of Christianity have led to the ‘utility outage’) to emerge in the courtyard of the Holy Sepulchre. We are swept up into
the throngs heading into the church, transported through the last four stages of the cross by the voices of 20 young monks leading the way.
Beyond Jerusalem
Subsequent exploration of Jerusalem and the surrounding area leads to other purported haunts of Christ at the time of his arrest, arraignment and crucifixion. The Mount of Olives (site of resurrection), Garden of Gethsemane (Last Supper), Mt. Zion (City of David) and Bethlehem (Mary’s tomb). I could not help but feel the 
paganism that pervades these sites and these beliefs. The miracles, the superstitions, the blood pacts, the unverifiable beliefs (something along the lines of ‘if you do this, this will magically happen) and how Christian authorities had made these beliefs and practises seem like
they had leaked into Christianity rather than the other way around. Belief, perhaps in the end has the same source; our insufficient grasping of the world, and a need to bring coherence to what is baffling to us the most. Life.
