Do you want to be healed?

The following is excerpted from

Memoirs of a Nice Irish American ‘Girl’s’ Life in Occupied Territory

Chapter 3:

This, That and The Wall

In 3 parts

THIS

In May of 2005, just prior to my first journey to Israel Palestine I phoned Mother Agapia Stephanopolous, a Russian Orthodox nun and the administrator of the Orthodox School of Bethany in Jerusalem, to schedule an appointment for Spiritual Direction and to discuss our mutual feelings about The Wall. Mother Agapia is the sister of ABC News commentator, George Stephanopolous, and she had recently and passionately informed Congress about the fact that, “Israel is destroying the local Christian community.�

On April 18, 2005, Robert Novak’s article “Walling off Christianity� reported on the nun’s letter to Congress and how East Jerusalem had been cut off from the rest of the West Bank. Mother Agapia predicted, “It is only a matter of time before Christians and Muslims will be unable to survive culturally and economically.�

Mother Agapia spoke bluntly about the nine yards high wall of Israeli concrete that have “shattered� the Christian communities. She told Novak, “I witness the strangulation of East Jerusalem, and the deprivation of her non-Jewish residents’ religious rights every day. Even the United States seems to have been taken in by Israeli spin.�

On my very first afternoon in Jerusalem, on June 12, 2006, the nun met me at the Ambassador Hotel in East Jerusalem and I told her that I hadn’t been taken in by the spin, but what could I possibly do? She had no answer.

I also told her of the surreal experience I had that very morning while wandering around in the Old City. I had landed in Tel Aviv with ten other members of the Olive Trees Foundation for Peace just a few hours before dawn on that Sunday morn. We all checked into our rooms at the Ambassador Hotel, East Jerusalem; they all crashed, but I was wide awake. As soon as the sun rose I began to explore, and after attending mass at St. George Cathedral I wandered around the Old City, which was eerily empty. I stumbled upon the site of the Pool of Bethsaida and experienced déjà vu, which was more real than imaginary...

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