The sun behind the towers

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The longest day!
Happy June solstice.

These mid-month days our City Daily Photo bloggers are having a Festival of the Solstice.
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The photo here combines four of the five classical elements:

AIR - The very air vibrates from the frequent chiming in the bell tower of  Dormition Abbey and the five-times-per-day call to prayer of a muezzin atop the mosque's minaret.
EARTH - Below the roof with the minaret is King David's tomb, well grounded on holy land.

WATER - Even farther below, ancient subterranean cisterns capture and keep the rain that falls on Jerusalem's Old City.
SPIRIT - The Spirit mingles with the past and present inhabitants of Jerusalem--Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

Fire we don't need;  Jerusalem has been burned to the ground too many times already.
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Update:
FIRE - As RuneE in Norway just now reminded me, we DO have fire in the photo.
How could I forget that the sun behind the minaret is a big ball of fire!
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(Linking to SkyWatch Friday  and City Daily Photo.)
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King David's busted nose

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It is almost Sunday already so let's do Psalm 108.

A Song. A Psalm of David.
¹ My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast;
   I will sing and make melody.
   Awake, my soul!
² Awake, O harp and lyre!
   I will awake the dawn.
³ I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples,
   and I will sing praises to you among the nations.
⁴ For your steadfast love is higher than the heavens,
   and your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.

⁵ Be exalted, O God, above the heavens,
   and let your glory be over all the earth.
⁶ Give victory with your right hand, and answer me,
   so that those whom you love may be rescued.

⁷ God has promised in his sanctuary:
   ‘With exultation I will divide up Shechem,
   and portion out the Vale of Succoth.
⁸ Gilead is mine; Manasseh is mine;
   Ephraim is my helmet;
   Judah is my sceptre.
⁹ Moab is my wash-basin;
   on Edom I hurl my shoe;
   over Philistia I shout in triumph.’

¹⁰ Who will bring me to the fortified city?
   Who will lead me to Edom?
¹¹ Have you not rejected us, O God?
   You do not go out, O God, with our armies.
¹² O grant us help against the foe,
   for human help is worthless.
¹³ With God we shall do valiantly;
   it is he who will tread down our foes.
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Translation: RSV
Find the Hebrew and English together at Mechon Mamre.
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PHOTO:  King David next to the traditional tomb of King David on Mt. Zion.
His broken strings have been restrung and he got a coat of gold paint, but David's nose is still broken.
The recurring  vandalism is generally thought to be the way of some haredi/ultra-Orthodox Jews to show they do not approve of graven images of humans in the holy city Jerusalem.
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Prayer for Christian Unity at the Cenacle

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Thursday my nun friends invited me to come along to  Day 5 of the annual  Week of Prayer for Christian Unity .
Every day a different church hosts the community and leads the ecumenical prayer service.

 But Day 5 was in the Upper Room, the Cenacle, which belongs to all Christians, so to speak, because here was the Last Supper and here the first Christian community gathered and experienced the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.

 The only ones to have chairs were the clergymen from the various denominations.
(May be helpful to enlarge the photo.)

On the right is Father  Gregory Collins OSB, who led the service and preached, in ENGLISH! 
He is an Irish Benedictine monk of Glenstal Abbey and last year he became the Abbot of the Dormition Abbey on Mt. Zion (see my coverage of that Mass here).

 The ancient columns and capitals and the six rib-vaulted bays are beautiful to behold.
For Christians I can imagine the Upper Room has much spiritual energy.
And one floor below is the Tomb of David where Jews pray, so Christianity's roots are literally underneath.
At one point the hall was also made into a mosque as you can see in the first photo above with the Muslim prayer niche, the hanging mosque lamp, and the Arabic writing on the window.

Here is one of the two small doors into the Cenaculum.

UPDATE: A short video of the Unity Week's prayer services is now  here. 
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So for ABC Wednesday, C is for Christians communing in the Cenacle.
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And the architectural elements are linking to Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors.
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Reflection in "The Scottie"

It looks a bit complicated but I think I was taking a picture,  through a glass door,  of the arched window that is  inside St. Andrews Scottish Guest House.
And of course aiming for the reflection of Mt. Zion across the valley.
The tables are on the outside patio that boasts a splendid view of old Jerusalem.
Visible in the photo are the Dormition Abbey, the former Bishop Gorbat School, and the Old City wall. 
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(For Weekend Reflections)

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Wonderful counselor

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Everyone seems to be singing Handel's "Messiah" these days, or at least the Hallelujah Chorus part of it.
This flash mob in a food court made a surprising and inspiring singing of it!

The words come from our own prophet Isaiah (9:6):
"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace."
Or as a Jewish translation leaves it:
"and his name is called Pele-yoets-el-gibbor-Abi-ad-sar-shalom."
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I sighted this almost ceiling-to-floor lovingly-made banner at the Jerusalem University College, Institute of Holy Land Studies, Machon America'i campus on Mt. Zion.
The golden protruding letters spell Pele yoets.
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Wishing all the blessings of Christmas to all the Christian friends today.
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November 11 remembering

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For Armistice / Remembrance / Veterans Day let me show you where some of the soldiers of the Great War are buried or memorialized in Jerusalem.
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At the outbreak of the First World War, Israel (then called Palestine) was part of the Ottoman Empire, and it was not entered by Allied forces until December 1916.
The advance to Jerusalem took a further year.
The Turks surrendered the city to British General Allenby (but first to two British army cooks) in December 1917.
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The Jerusalem War Cemetery is the British military cemetery on Mount Scopus.
Of the 2,515 Commonwealth burials of the First World War in the cemetery, 100 of them are unidentified.
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For more about this beautiful place, see my posts under ANZAC.
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On Mt. Zion, in the backyard of Bishop Gobat School, under lock and key, is the Jerusalem Protestant Cemetery.

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It was owned by the British and German religious congregations and contained the graves of 114 British soldiers, buried from March to December 1917 by the enemy, and then, until February 1918, by the British forces.
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(Many famous Christian civilians are buried here as well.)

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The Protestant cemetery even has this (enlarge the photo if you can read German) for 15 members of the local congregations who joined the German-Austrian Wehrmacht and lost their life during World War I.

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In the Jerusalem neighborhood of Talpiot, you will find (if you know what to look for) a small park in front of a playground.

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The Imperial (now Commonwealth) War Graves Commission was set up only toward the end of World War I. Before they starting making centralized and uniform cemeteries, it was common for their soldiers to be buried near the battlefield where they fell.

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So, as Yad Ben-Zvi Walking Tour Guide explains about these markers shown in the photo above,

"In World War I, the bodies of 290 Turkish soldiers were buried nearby in a common grave. Between July 1918 and June 1920 Indian soldiers serving in the British army were interred close to the common grave of the Turks.

They were buried in two different common graves since 31 of them were Muslims and 47 were Hindus, Sikhs, and Gurkhas.

The tombstone over the Muslim grave bears an inscription from the Koran, while above the other common grave is an inscription in Sanskrit.

The names . . . are recorded in the chapel of the British cemetery on Mount Scopus."

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Sigh . . . so many young men, sent from far corners of the world to fight and die and be buried in the Holy Land.

Let us remember them.

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A few Friday clouds

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In honor of SkyWatch Friday, last Friday Jerusalem skies actually, finally, had some nice big clouds.
Still no rain (since last spring), but at least we had clouds to block the hot sun.
It is in the mid 30s C, that's the low 90sF, still.
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I always smile to see modern communication equipment on top of very old buildings, like here atop the former St. John ophthalmic hospital on Hebron Street.
Today it is the Mt. Zion Hotel.

Or the two satellite dishes way up on the hundred year old bell tower of the (Anglican) Cathedral of St. George the Martyr.

The tower was built separate from the church to limit potential damage from earthquakes.

Today the structure contains staff housing.

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Zero degrees C in Jerusalem tonight

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I braved the driving, freezing rain this afternoon to go up to Jerusalem.
An American friend is here on a whirlwind guided tour and this was the only free hour she had.
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The group's Inbal Hotel enjoys a view of Mount Zion.
That is the church and bell tower of the Dormition Abbey on the horizon.
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Here is the Dormition up close. The basilica was dedicated in 1910.
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Pastor Suzanne dragged me out into the cold and wind and rain to visit the Old City and, just outside the Old City, Mount Zion. All for night shots.
Can you tell that my friend is a photo blogger? :-)

Hagia Maria Sion, as the Dormition is also called, is an abbey of Benedictine monks.

Their website is in German and English.

For more pictures and info you can also click my "Dormition" label.

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Jerusalem is beautiful by night!

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Biblical bench

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With the excitement that comes from discovering a place for the first time, I give you this mosaic bench!
It sits in the garden of a Christian college on the edge of Mount Zion, one that I knew nothing of until today.
What a blessing to find special, hidden gardens!
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This is my second bench in one day for RuneE's "Bench on Friday" but I hope Rune is not counting. I can't wait a whole 'nother week to post it. :)
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כִּי הָאָרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר אַתָּה בָא-שָׁמָּה לְרִשְׁתָּהּ--לֹא כְאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם הִוא, אֲשֶׁר יְצָאתֶם מִשָּׁם: אֲשֶׁר תִּזְרַע אֶת-זַרְעֲךָ, וְהִשְׁקִיתָ בְרַגְלְךָ כְּגַן הַיָּרָק. יא וְהָאָרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר אַתֶּם עֹבְרִים שָׁמָּה לְרִשְׁתָּהּ--אֶרֶץ הָרִים, וּבְקָעֹת; לִמְטַר הַשָּׁמַיִם, תִּשְׁתֶּה-מָּיִם. יב אֶרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר-יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ דֹּרֵשׁ אֹתָהּ: תָּמִיד, עֵינֵי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ בָּהּ--מֵרֵשִׁית הַשָּׁנָה, וְעַד אַחֲרִית שָׁנָה

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"For the land which you are entering to take possession of it is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it with your feet, like a garden of vegetables;

but the land which you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven,

A LAND WHICH THE LORD YOUR GOD CARES FOR; the eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year."

Deuteronomy 11:10-12

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