Amazing Grace

Our first couple of days in Jerusalem were spent walking through the Old City, visiting St. George’s College, a requisite stop for any Anglican – but one that was very worthwhile, and visiting the Dead Sea and Masada. I got to check those destinations off my list and got 185 great shots!

Day three brought Aldred and I together with the other members of our tour group. Apparently two clergy does not make a clergy tour and so Aldred and I were blended with a group of 33 fundamentalist ministers from Bemidji, Minnesota. Now before I go any further, please let me say that there are fundamentalists in virtually every part of the world, including America. So Bemidji has no particular exclusive in that department. Let me also say, that the degree of fundamentalism varied from one man to the next (and yes they were ALL men!), and so once again – tempting though it is – I am unable to use the broad brush in my hand to paint this picture. Suffice it to say that the most fundamentalist person in a group that has fundamentalist leanings nearly always sets the spiritual tone and the doctrinal boundaries for the group. It’s just the way fear based groups work. It turned out to be true for this group as well.

Aldred and I were introduced to our traveling companions at dinner. Part of our tour package included eating at an assortment of restaurants while in Jerusalem so we could experience a variety of places that might motivate us to bring our own groups back in the future. On this particular evening the restaurant where we’d been scheduled was a large open space and the featured restaurant among four that were part of the hotel complex. Aldred and I entered the space and immediately recognized our tour group. They were assembled around several long narrow tables that had been pushed together. It was really quite ridiculous. It was a sad version of Michaelangelo’s Last Supper - a configuration requested by one of our group – so we could all “break bread together.” When we arrived, we were immediately subjected to the normal fundamentalist interrogation – a protocol in which I have far more experience than I wish I had. It always begins with the man who is deemed to be the most extreme in his thinking. In this case, he had the “Jesus seat” at the center of this table for 35. If the newcomer can pass muster with this person, he or she may then be welcomed into the enclave for others to test. The good thing about this pattern is that the outsider learns immediately who the leader is.

The interrogation usually begins with something like, “Nice you could join us and tell us a little about yourselves.” Never threatening in the beginning. Always charming, like a snake sizing up its prey. The leader, as is frequently the case, revealed an edge of suspicion right from the start, probably because he thought he knew something about us Episcopalians. But the revelation of that suspicion also demonstrated his insecurity in his leadership role. If he were sure about his role, he would have acted with more grace. The fact that he revealed his bias and was looking for something to attack suggested something about the variety of viewpoints within the group or perhaps his own insecurity about his role. Of course, that didn’t slow him down. I knew he wanted to hear why we were thrilled to be walking in the footsteps of Jesus, or how we’d already had some sort of religious experience, or how this trip was ordained by God as part of our life-journey, or some other pompous, “God and I have a “special” relationship kind of bull shit. And so knowing that’s what he wanted I answered his question by saying, “Well, I’m hungry. I’ll tell you that. What’s for dinner?” Unsatisfied but not yet unnerved, our Christ-figure began telling Aldred and me about the past few days of his group. They started their tip in Jordon and then came to Jerusalem, whereas we had been in Jerusalem the whole first three days. While in Jordon, our host explained, they’d met some of the nicest people they’d ever known. “Oh yeah,” he said. “These folks fed us like kings and couldn’t have been more generous – and interesting.” (That’s always code for “different and therefore threatening.”) “Yeah,” he went on, “these were some of the nicest people you could ever know. It’s such a shame we won’t see them in heaven.”

Now if you have half a brain you’ll just leave a remark like that. The conclusion that only a certain brand of ‘Christian’ will be part of whatever awaits us after this life ends is so profoundly hateful and stupid that no retort of any kind can penetrate it. But I have never been especially disciplined – and being of Italian heritage I tend to err on the side of passionate and impulsive. So I swallowed the piece of bread that was in my mouth, looked across the table to see a smiling face postured for a reaction, and I smiled back. He looked at me momentarily as if to say, “Maybe he IS one of us,” but that temporary hunch was quickly clarified when I said, “You don’t really believe that, do you? I mean you don’t really believe that whatever God is has a penchant for punishment doled out with particular prejudice for non-Christians? I mean you can’t really be serious.” That kinda’ quieted our section of the table and within about thirty seconds some version of what transpired was communicated up and down the table. When I recognized that I was clearly the center of attention and the table had become sufficiently quiet to speak with everyone, I asked in a loud voice, “So, what’s on our agenda for tomorrow?” The three or four people eager to move on no matter what had happened began filling the space with a detailed description of our next tour sites. Our host just sat there staring and then finally through his now reddened face said to me, “Yes, I am serious,” to which I replied, “I’m so sorry. I’ve never met THAT God. Hey how do you get some wine in this place? Waiter! Waiter!” Aldred and I were the only ones drinking. He had two glasses of wine; I had six. I finished my dinner before the rest and left the table to use the restroom, which brought me through the very grand lobby of the hotel. On my return trip towards the Last Supper I encountered a black man playing the grand piano in the lobby, and he was playing some 7th scale gospel-like phrases. I stopped to listen and before long we were chatting as he played. Then a woman who had been sitting nearby in the lobby joined us. She obviously knew the piano player and she began to sing softly along with his playing. The lobby of this hotel was an open atrium rising the full twelve stories of the building. Each floor was visible from the lobby, with tiered balconies, each receding a few feet away from the previous one, so you could plainly see each of the twelve floors from the main lobby floor. The music filled this rather grand space and it just seemed natural to look up as if the notes themselves might be visible as they rose to the domed glass ceiling that showered light down on us all. As I did, I saw another black woman leaving her room and making her way around her 9th floor balcony to one of the six glass elevators that rose and fell in the atrium. Then a man on the 4th floor joined appeared on his balcony, then another on the 11th. Within the next few minutes more than 70 men and women – all of African heritage – all touring the Holy Land as part of a Georgia based Gospel choir, made their way out of their rooms – and down into the lobby. They seemed to walk with respect for the piano’s tempo and smile with affection for the lryics they knew. I was in Jerusalem and I was in the middle of a Busby Berkley movie! The choir grew in size as one hymn led to another. Within ten minutes church was in session: standing, moving, singing, rocking, weaving, smiling so hard that some had to bend at the waist to honor the depth of joy that was its source. It all happened so naturally that I became part of the congregation – and I had enough wine in me to join in on some of the singing and lots of the smiling.

Although unfamiliar with some of the tunes I was able to echo a phrase or two with others who were doing the same. At one point, a woman next to me said, “You sing good for a white boy. Why don’t you lead us on the next tune.” After a brief negotiation that settled on Amazing Grace as the only hymn I knew the words to, the piano player started with an absolutely killer intro – more blues/soul than gospel, more in touch with the promise of life than the fear. I offered my fragile and flawed first line, to which the room received echoes from the now 80 plus voices. The choir was undaunted by my inexperience and lack of talent. It was about making the best of a great old hymn and them helping this white boy join their community – if only for one song. They succeeded. We made music and for a moment we were in communion.

In the middle of the first verse, the Last Supper boys appeared in the lobby and looked with shock that a “pretend Christian” like me was singing with a choir – no – leading a choir! As I made eye contact with their leader, my anger turned to sadness. I got through the first two verses and realized there were others far better equipped to lead, and so I passed the baton with a hand gesture to the woman who’d first invited me. She accepted and ripped into the next verse delivering it with a connection that brought life to this old tune and to my broken heart. Time stalled. The building moved.

This wasn’t on my list.