Holy Now

Holy:  Dedicated or consecrated to God or religious purpose

The Holy Land:  A region on the eastern shore of the Mediteranean Sea, in what is now Israel and Palestine

Holy Week: The week leading up to and including Easter, starting with Palm Sunday

It is the name often used when talking about the area that I call home this year.  “The Holy Land.” Every year millions of pilgrims here from all over the world to visit the holy sites.  They visit the churches that commemorate the Bible stories that many of us grew up hearing.  They visit the place where Jesus was born, where Jesus grew up, where Jesus performed his miracles, where Jesus was crucified and where Jesus rose again.  After their time here, many walk away feeling recharged, closer to God and having encountered a new sense of holy.

Yet, after 7 months of living in the so-called “Holy Land,”  I still have yet to feel connected to the holy in the ways that many of these pilgrims seem to connect after only a few days.  I have visited many of the same holy sites, and run past some of them on a daily basis, but I have also seen the things that most of the pilgrims never see. Many of these pilgrims will come in on tour buses, visit the sites and return to their hotels without encountering the people who call this place home or hearing their stories.  On their tour bus, they are allowed to pass through checkpoints as if they were nothing more than a toll booth, not even aware that they are now in Palestine, remaining blissfully unaware of the occupation. 

Seven months of living with, and hearing the stories of,  the daily realities of the occupation, of being surrounded by a “security wall”, going through checkpoints and witnessing the daily effects of prejudice and hatred, have left me wondering where the holy exists in the pain and brokenness of this land. 

As I joined several thousand of these pilgrims on Sunday for the Palm Sunday procession into Jerusalem to mark the beginning of Holy Week, I found myself wondering about what it is that makes things “holy.” 

I have spent a fair amount of time this year struggling with this. Is this the only holy land on the planet? What is it that makes this land more holy than the cornfields I grew up in? Is this the only holy week during the year?  What makes this week before Easter any more holy than the other 51 weeks of the year? 

Then on Sunday my cousin posted this song by Peter Mayer titled Holy Now

 

As I listened to the lyrics, I was reminded that “holy” is not containable.  It is not something that is only present in the sites deemed “holy” by religious traditions, or in weeks that have religious significance.   If we take the time to look, we will notice that we are surrounded by Holy. 

Even though I don’t  encounter with the holy that most pilgrims do when they visit the Holy Sites, through my encounters with the pain and the brokenness, I get to encounter the holy in this land that most pilgrims never will.  I meet the holy in the Christians who are “living stones,” the keepers of a rich history and traditions for who the holy sites are more than markers of history but are their current places of worship. I encounter the holy when I here the stories of families who remain here and remain hopeful despite the challenges they have encountered.  I see the continuing work of the holy as part of the  “original” Christian community that has been around since Christ. I get a glimpse of the holy each day in the faces of my Kindergarten students.  I am surrounded by the holy each time I am remind of the family I have become a part of here.    I feel the holy as I bask in the sunshine and beautiful flowers of the spring.  In the words of Carrie Newcomer in her song I Believe, “All I know is I can’t help but see all of this as so very holy”

During this Holy Week, may we each be reminded that we are surrounded by the holy, every day of every week in every land, if we open our eyes to it we may just find ourselves overwhelmed by it.