Do You Want To Be Healed?

[Jerusalem, 14, July 2007] On my first afternoon of my fifth trip to Israel Palestine, I headed down Nablus Road to the Old City of Jerusalem. The stairway down through the Damascus Gate was packed with street vendors hawking cheap goods from China. It was shoulder to shoulder people until I arrived at the Via Delorosa; legendary route that Jesus walked while carrying a wooden cross. Only a few tourists were about, but I saw many more Israeli soldiers than the last time I was here in November 2006.

The shop owners were just as hungry to get me into their stores, but I told them all, "I am not buying anything today! I am on my way to the Pool of Bethsaida."

After many wrong turns and back tracking, I spied a Fransiscan brother and enquired, "Do you speak English?"

He replied with a Cheshire grin-but no guile, "For you? Sure!"

"How do I find my way to the Pool of Bethsaida?"

"You have arrived! Go in there!" He laughs as he points to the left of where we were standing.

It was different than the last and first time I had wandered into the ancient "healing site" for renovations are in progress but once more a most surreal sense overwhelmed me again. For nearly an hour, I was the only human being who stood, sat and meditated at a place where I had been 'twice' before and where Jesus asked,

"Do you want to be healed?"

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; 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.

Between 2000 and 2001, I was a first year student in the Episcopal
Diocese of Orlando's Formation Program for Spiritual Directors. I
knew going into the program I would never be hanging out a shingle
as a Spiritual Director that I was there for other reasons. I was drawn
to the program because of the curriculum; to deepen my prayer life
and study the lives of the saints. During the first year all the students
attended three weekend retreats.

On the second night of the second retreat, we had a guided meditation on the story of Jesus at the Pool of Bethsaida.

I remember it as clearly now as I experienced it then.

There were seven of us in the class and we were instructed to close our
eyes, listen to the story and allow our imagination to lead us to respond to
the character that called to us. Our leader prefaced the story from John 5:
1-6, by telling the legend of the angel from heaven who would descend
and agitate the waters of the Pool of Bethsaida. Only the first leper, blind,
or invalid who made it into the water would receive a healing. One day
while Jesus was there, he walked by a man who had been paralyzed for
thirty-eight years. Jesus asked him, "Do you want to be healed?" The
man answered he had no friends to help him get into the water first. Jesus asked him again,

"Do you want to be healed?"

Our leader then went silent, and in my imagination I was immediately
upon the back of that agitating angel. I hadn't thought of that
experience until four years later when I found myself at the site of the
Pool of Bethsaida. What triggered the memory of that guided
meditation was the recollection of a dream I had had a few weeks after
that day we call 9/11. In my dream I had stood at the edge of a dried
up pool where crumbling stone columns were overgrown with vines
and weeds and scores of doves and pigeons nested and flew. To my
right was a large shade tree, but to my left I saw a few square squat
dwellings with large satellite dishes attached to them. I remembered
thinking the moment I woke up from that dream what a strange place
it was, but then I quickly forgot all about it. That is, until the afternoon
of June 12, 2005, four years later, when I found myself standing at the
edge of a dried up pool where crumbling stone columns were
overgrown with vines and weeds and scores of doves and pigeons
nested and flew. To my right was a large shade tree, but to my left I
saw a few square squat dwellings with large satellite dishes attached to
them. What a strange place I thought, how could it be that I had seen
this scene in a dream a few weeks after that day we call 9/11?

On the afternoon of my very first day in Jerusalem, I told Mother
Agapia about my dream and what I had seen at the Pool of Bethsaida.
She shrugged and smiled, then told me about the Jerusalem Interfaith
Peace Conference with satellite link to the world that was happening
the Sunday after the Thursday I was scheduled to return to the USA. I
knew immediately that I needed to attend and after saying goodbye to
Mother Agapia, I phoned my husband to get his OK.

On June 26, 2006, I attended the world wide satellite linked Interfaith
Peace Conference at Jerusalem's Notre Dame Cathedral. Dan Rather
moderated from Washington DC and the Holy Land interfaith panel
were all moderates attempting to reclaim the battlefield of ideas from
extremists on both sides.

Reverend Theodore Hessburgh, President Emeritus University of
Notre Dame began the evening with a pledge and a summons:

"The Peace of the world begins in Jerusalem."

Dr. Tsvia Walden, Board of Director of the Peres Center and Geneva
Initiative stated, "There is a need for a third party in the negotiations that
could enable both sides to trust each other. There are more people in this
region interested in making concessions, they all want peace so desperately."

The Coordinator of World Bank emergency services to the PA, Rania
Kharma informed the world, "We all need to be the bridges to our
leaders that justice, equality, and human rights will bring peace. Give
people justice and they will reward you with peace."

Sheik Imad Falouiji warned, "Religions must go back to their origins.
God commands us to love each other and live together. This Holy
Land was given to all people. This land is on fire. There is an
occupation that must be removed. The language of peace cannot
succeed without justice for all."

The Rt. Rev. Bishop Riah Abu Assal affirmed, "Peace is an act.
Blessed are the peacemakers not the peace talkers. Peace is possible in
the Holy Land. The root cause for the lack of peace since 1967 is the
occupation. For peace to make progress in the Middle East we need to
deal with the root cause...Religion was not meant to bring death. All
those involved in searching for peace should commit themselves to
work for justice and truth."

Throughout the entire evening, I kept remembering what President
Bush promised in his Second Inaugural Address:

"In the long run, there is no JUSTICE without FREEDOM.There can be no human rights without LIBERTY. All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know the United States will not ignore your oppression or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for liberty, we stand with you."