Day 2 — On the way to Galilee…

Arabic Hymnal

What a remarkable day! After a night of thunderstorms—I was awake for 2 of them, and I woke for the call to prayer from the mosque next door—the sun came out! We began the day with Morning Prayer said at the Anglican church in Nazareth—-Christ Church. It’s located right next to the convent—an easy walk, but three flights of stairs to get to the entrance—and no handicap access! Like much of Nazareth, it’s built into the hillside. The prayer books and hymnals are all in Arabic—in Arabic, you read right to left, even with music. They have some of the same hymns as we do, but the music reads right to left. Of course, we sang a couple of songs that Ana taught us—we are sounding pretty good!  During the service, a local rooster added his voice to ours. I light some of the fancier churches we are seeing, this felt like a community church. Some Christmas ornaments were stashed behind the organ bench…it just felt like home. 

Mt Tabor

After the service, we went back to the convent, gathered our bags and brought them to be loaded into the van for transport to our bus, which was parked several blocks away.  The streets in the old part of Nazareth are far too narrow for our bus! And we were on our way to Mt. Precipice—the synagogue members who were upset with what Jesus had said at the service intended to toss him off the cliff. It is indeed a high cliff! And it has a magnificent view…a clear view of Mt. Tabor the mountain of the Transfiguration…the Megiddo valley—-now green with agriculture, but through history, the site of many battles…you can see in the distance Mt. Gilboa, where King Saul met his end. I could go on like this for a long time. In short, being here, for me, brings the Bible to life in ways that simply didn’t happen for me in reading books….

From there, we went to the Ancient Basilica of St. Anne—a ruin really of an ancient church dedicated the Anna, mother of Mary and grandmother of Jesus. Two charming monks (and their two cats) manage the property. There was a beautiful garden there—we formed a circle and remembered our grandmothers and the other older women who have guided us. A touching moment for many.

Remembering our grandmothers

Our next stop ,was the Greek Orthodox Church of St. George in Cana—commemorating Jesus first miracle—changing water into wine. In the church are two stone containers the Greek Orthox believe were two of those jars.  I don’t know this for a fact, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Roman church next do has stone jars of their own, claiming to be original! The icons and decoration in this church are quite beautiful, but a little over the top for my liking. But I did like the St. George connection—there was a dramatic icon of his slaying of the dragon.

On the same Cana theme, we stopped at a shop to sample some wine—the same vintage as the wine at that wedding long ago! Well, no.  It wasn't great wine. The plain grape juice tasted better to me than the wine.

Hungry, we stopped for some middle eastern “fast food:” falafels and  shawarma. Messy, but delicious!

Ancient synagogue at Mt. Arbel

Restored, we got on the bus for our next stop: the fascinating ruin of a first century synagogue on Mt. Arbel—it’s possible that Jesus visited this—it’s quite near where his grandparents lived. It also had a wonderful view of the surrounding area. I don’t quite know how to express this well, but I felt “grounded” here—at home in a way that I have to ponder.  The churches we’ve seen are beautiful, but don’t touch me the way this ruin did…

I think I was not the only one who was getting a little weary by now,but we had one more stop: Magdala,  the home of Mary Magdalene. 

The Magdala Stone

This is an archeological site right on the shore of Lake Tiberius (aka the Sea of Galilee) where they have unearthed another first Century synagogue—another that Jesus might have visited.  Our tour guide was a lovely woman front western Ireland. She was passionate about this site—and helped us imagine what it would be like being there, perhaps with Jesus there. The moments I’ll remember from that visit will be making a circle around the fountain in the center of the Women’s Atrium and singing in wonderful acoustics!  I would loved to spend more time in this place, but it was time to get settled in at our new hotel before dinner.

I am now almost ready for bed after an amazing dinner buffet of many different Mediterranean dishes here at the Ron Beach Hotel—delicious preparations of all kinds of vegetables, and delectable desserts. 

I am going to publish this and go to bed. I’d like to see the sunrise at around 6:30 am, and we take a boat,ride on the lake a little later in the morning. Pictures will be posted tomorrow I think.

Later the next day—the link to the photos I took on the way to https://share.icloud.com/photos/0e0lwdbE_bZue07u48sW4ATeQ