Churches and Ruins and Walls, Oh My...Part Three

I put walnut brownies in the oven before I started to write tonight. I know I'll need some comfort food by the time I step away from this topic.

Step away...Right.

I've flown back across the world and still can't manage to step away from the experiences I encountered. I can't step away from the idea of "walls." In fact, I see walls everywhere now. I'm preoccupied with them as symbols - sometimes positive but mostly not. I can't help but notice literal walls in all their various forms. And I find myself searching out figurative walls without meaning to - in my interactions with other people, in the interactions I observe that don't involve me.

I see walls everywhere now.

While reading up on Israel prior to the trip, I became familiar with two walls. There's the Western Wall (often mistakenly referred to as the "Wailing Wall") and there's the wall being built by the Israeli government. For the rest of this blog - and in any conversation you might have with me - it will be known as The Bad Wall. These two very distinctly opposite structures are the main topic of Part Three. But as I've been considering the content, I've realized that the symbolic nature of walls can't be ignored. Symbolism runs through everything - it shapes everything. Symbols are what we use to create a world that makes sense for us. They are how we identify what tribes we belong to. What beliefs resonate for us.

Walls. Borders. Boundaries. Barriers. Retainers. Dividers. Screens.

So many words to describe a thing that blocks.
And limits.
And controls.

Now, I wouldn't want a house with no walls. I like to have a limit on how many bugs and wild things can get to where I sleep. I like to have control over what weather gets to me - especially this year. I feel safer with the protection I feel from the walls of my home. And I have healthier relationships when I set personal boundaries with people. Sometimes walls are useful and necessary and good. I believe this.

But...

But then I got on a plane and flew to Israel. I got on a bus late at night with a bunch of people I didn't know yet. And our guide pointed out the first views of The Bad Wall as we drove towards Bethlehem. And seeing it suddenly made the word feel different.  

Wall. It started to stick in the back of my throat a little.

You know how sometimes things are more ominous in the dark? And then you feel kind of silly when you see them in the light of day? Well, I took this picture the next morning:

That sucker is way worse in the light of day.

We drove by sections of the wall where the ugly concrete had been covered with graffiti art - some of which is credited to Banksy. It wasn't until the last full day of our trip that we actually had time to get off the bus and stand by The Bad Wall. Our guide took us to the section near The Walled Off Hotel (haha).

Next door to the hotel is a shop called "Wall-Mart," inside which you can select from an array of spray paints and stencils. Signs on the front of the shop encourage you to cover the ugliness with something beautiful. To replace something destructive with something creative.

Standing there and trying to take in all of the competing sensations was difficult. And it struck me that the only time on this entire trip that I felt a bone-chilling wind beating at me was while we were stopped at this place. It didn't feel like a coincidence.

You can find a lot of data about this wall if you do a little online digging. You can read about the fact that it isn't finished yet. You can find out how long it's going to be upon completion. You can find summaries about the different viewpoints on whether the wall is a security measure or a tool of apartheid. There is a lot of information available. And you can learn a lot with research. But here's a quote from a book I'm reading (a book on which I think I'll focus my next posting):

"There can be no knowledge without emotion. We may be aware of the truth, yet until we have felt its force, it is not ours." ~Arnold Bennett

I've felt the force of seeing homes hemmed in by the cement - cutting farmers off from land that has been in their families for generations. Land that used to provide them with income and a sense of purpose. I've felt the force of watching Palestinians standing in lines to get through checkpoints as we sail through with no great inconvenience or delay. Lines, by the way, that they most likely had to get into while we were still comfortably asleep in our beds. I've felt the force of stories - even as I read them a world away - of people dying while they wait to get through checkpoints because the hospital is on the other side.

This is why I call it The Bad Wall. The truth of what it represents is a force I feel down to my core. And so that truth has become mine. And because it is mine, I now find it impossible - as I said - to step away.

I will shift my focus though - to the other literal wall we visited: The Western Wall.

This site is considered one of the holiest places for Jews to pray. The actual holiest spot is behind the Western Wall - and Jews can't get to it anymore. So this spot has become symbolic of that which lies beyond. What I knew in advance was that a friend had come here (which naturally made me want to go), and that people tucked slips of paper with prayers written on them into the wall. It's a nice idea - I was looking forward to seeing it in person. But this is a site that means a lot spiritually to Jewish people. If you read Part One, then you know I was a bit skeptical that I'd feel much emotion in the Christian sites. I had very little expectation that a site not at all tied to my own faith would hold much depth of meaning for me.

Quick facts: men and women are separated at this location. Men pray on the left - with lots of space - and women squish into a much smaller portion of the wall on the right. Our group initially split up to either find restrooms or head on down to the wall. I went for the restroom first and ended up walking to the wall on my own.

I felt strange at first - out of place. A part of me kept waiting for those looks people give to gawky tourists. But actually no one paid me any attention and I got where I need to without incident.

And then I had no idea what to do with myself once I was there. Could I take pictures? It seemed borderline disrespectful to photograph people praying. But I saw others with cameras and phones out, so I discreetly followed suit.

I didn't want to take up a spot in the already cramped amount of space available on our side, so I was getting ready to move away. But something compelled me to touch the wall. I was in front of it. It was a thing that millions of people came to see when visiting this country. I should touch it.

The instant my palm connected to the rock, a wave of emotion crashed over me. I felt as though I'd been sucker punched right in the gut.

I can feel it again as I type the words.

All those nooks and crevices crammed with prayers. The stones that have been absorbing words and breath and tears for centuries.

Centuries. 

All that energy has been stored in those stones with each paper prayer. I believe a prayer represents hope. Even if it comes from deep sorrow or pain - to say a prayer suggests some hope that someone is listening somewhere. And that maybe some answer or relief will come. Touching the wall connected me to all of that energy. All of that hope. I felt the force of it and it became mine.

And once it became mine, I couldn't step away.

I mentioned at the start that I've been seeing walls everywhere. I think it started on the trip, but I'm not sure I was fully aware of it until I got home. Of course, there were the two very specific literal wall experiences I've already mentioned. I also wandered around the crumbled walls of the various archeological ruins. I walked inside buildings whose walls were constructed to celebrate or revere a location believed to hold some sacred significance. There are actual walls everywhere. But as I started noticing those, I also began to think of all the symbolic walls that exist.

Israeli soldiers became human representations of The Bad Wall. They strolled down cobblestone walkways with their semi-automatic weapons slung casually over their shoulders. For me they exhibited the fluid nature of what The Bad Wall signifies: the desperate insistence that some people are better and more worthy of protection than others. That for order to exist, one group must have power over the other.

Words become walls. Sometimes the fear out of which words are born is so strong that we have the walls built before we even realize what we've done.

We use our feelings as walls. Past experiences that caused us pain - those are bricks we use to build walls.

Apathy can become a wall. People get suffocated in the cocoon-like walls of complacency and laziness and feelings of powerlessness.

As I started to see walls everywhere, a claustrophobia began to creep in. Since coming home I've felt an overwhelming need to be in places where I don't have to see or feel walls - even for a little bit. You can imagine how supremely irritated I've been with Mother Nature for continuing to send me weather that has me running back inside places with walls.

But as I've been pacing around my living room the past few weeks thinking about walls, I've also found myself thinking a lot about this other picture I took on the trip:

This was a rock wall that circled around a pathway near Jerusalem.

And there's life inside it.

There's something soft and hopeful pushing through something hardened and tough. It doesn't seem like it should be there. And yet...

I love this image. It reminds me that hard things crack. 

It reminds me that sometimes you have to be inside a wall in order to bring it down. 

It reminds me that when I least expect it, and in places where it seems the least likely - hope finds a way to get through.

And yes - words can build walls.
But words can also break them down. 

(As I mentioned at the start, I'm planning to do my next post on a book I've been reading - This Is Not a Border: Reportage and Reflection from the Palestine Festival of Literature. If you want to get the book - which I highly recommend just in general - here's the Amazon link.)