On my way back to the Philippines from New York in early 1967 I had the chance to visit the Holy Land for the first time. It was a good and bad time to be there. It was freezing cold, so there were few tourists and I had the holy places almost to myself, and I had the same taxi driver every day, a man who had worked in Chicago. At the Qumran area, I half-expected an old Essene to come down from one of the caves to explain his group’s beliefs. Alone in the traditional upper room and with just one other person in the holy spot where Jesus was laid to rest, indeed with no people around taking pictures or criticizing the arrangements that have remained unchanged in the shrines for over a thousand years, it’s easier to put yourself back into bygone years.
But I had never read that Jerusalem and Bethlehem could be so cold. And it was very cold. It must have been very cold in the stable. Perhaps the young shepherds shivered, perhaps everyone else crowded closely together, with the animals emitting the only heat.
After a day or two in Jerusalem I took a taxi to Nazareth one evening, a public taxi like our FXs. We were seven in the cab, all men, some Jewish and some Arabs. The atmosphere was friendly enough. When we stopped for tea, a young Muslim man who had been sitting in front of me invited me to go to his home. He lived at the foot of the hill on which Nazareth sat, he told me. We would stay the night with his family and go up to Nazareth the next morning. My reaction to such requests during my years in the South Bronx slums was to do whatever the person wanted, so I did the same here. I saw an older Jewish man nod his head. I hoped he agreed with the wisdom of my decision, and the nodding wasn’t a Jewish kind of gesture that said something like, “These gentiles never learn.”
Near midnight we walked from the road below Nazareth into a small cluster of new stone houses and what seemed like 100 noisy dogs. The man’s wife waited for us at his door. She didn’t look happy, especially when she saw my roman collar. Maybe the man had the habit of bringing home strange visitors. She led me into a small room, brightly painted with a bed and a single chair and a toilet next door, and then left. Later, one of the children brought me a cup of tea. I could see other small children peeking
into the room to have a look at me. It was just as cold in Nazareth as it must have been in Jerusalem. Nevertheless, I shut off the light, lay down in my overcoat and pulled up the blankets. I thought of the balmy Philippine weather waiting for me.
It was too cold to sleep. I lay awake listening to the sounds at night—sounds that many holy people and others had listened to over the centuries here in Nazareth. They had had their worries, their fears. They wondered what God intended for them. Jesus lay awake and listened just as the rest of us did.
At dawn the wife and children were at the door in a line and smiling as the man and I left to join the crowds walking up to Nazareth.
Jesus had walked this way, though the road was a dirt one then. Nazareth had been a very poor village. Archaeology shows it was apparently too poor to have its own synagogue. To the right and left were the hills and fields Jesus had passed.
In a shop near the hotel where I would stay, I bought an armful of fruits and gave them to the man for the children. We embraced as old friends, and off he went. War broke out in 1967 between
Israel and the surrounding Arab countries. I often wonder what happened to him and his cautious wife and young children. He seemed the gentle type of person who could lose out in war and life itself. Maybe his wife was being careful for all of them.
That afternoon I took a bus to the Lake of Galilee where Jesus found his first apostles, stilled the storm and taught the people from a fishing boat while they lined the shore. I sat along the beach and watched the boats on the lake and the far distant hills, and was inspired to write this poem over the next few days.
I sat by the Sea of Galilee
Small waves pushed pebbles
Back and forth.
A fish jumped and
Pulled the years away with him.
I saw him leap,
The great fish hooked
The wounded body flying
In a shower of rainbow water.
I watched mothers pull their young boys behind them. I saw old Jewish men with gray beards. They weren’t debating or hectoring as the old Jewish men with gray beards in the Gospels did, they were just sitting quietly in the sun.
War broke out later that year, continuing the country’s tragic history. It has rarely known peace, yet it remains the Holy Land, God’s own country.
The Philippines has a history of natural and manmade disasters to match that of Israel. It has had typhoons, earthquakes, wars, refugees,
revolts and injustice. That doesn’t mean it isn’t close to God’s heart. Maybe it is right there next to the Holy Land.
Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates (urbanpoorassociates@ymail.com).