The Interfaith Amigos, Pastor Don Mackenzie, Rabbi Ted Falcon, and Sheikh Jamal Rahman, offer their pilgrimage reflections. Allow their images and words to penetrate your heart, wherever you are, right now.

Pilgrim Guides: The Interfaith Amigos (L-R): Sheikh Jamal Rahman, Rabbi Ted Falcon, and Pastor Don Mackenzie

A Journey to the Heart: Inner Paths to Compassion, Connection, and Peace Pilgrimage
Interfaith Pilgrimage to Israel and Palestine
27 October - 5 November 2010

Sheikh Jamal Rahman
Spiritual Reflections

I am grateful for spiritual insights I received from the Spiritual Directors International pilgrimage to Israel and Palestine:

The fifty or so pilgrims who gathered in Jerusalem and  travelled to religious sites in Israel and Palestine, bonded quickly The seekers felt safe in sharing diverse thoughts and feelings about religion, spirituality and politics. The caring and respect for the other in the group was genuine. An authentic community evolved. I was inspired to reflect on insights by two Masters. The Buddha says that a true community grows out of a circle of “friends who love the truth” and Rumi asks us to “come out of the circle of time and enter the circle of love.”

The packed program of daily visits to sites, and lectures, was happily balanced by twice a day meditations and spiritual practices. Consequently, both mind and heart were nourished. We worked, as Rumi might say, in visible and invisible worlds. Both realms are sacred and necessary. I reflected on my personal need to balance work in my outer life with work in invisible realms. We are like fish out of water thrashing and quivering on the bank. From time to time, we need to dive in the life-giving waters of silence and spiritual practices.

The brokenness and fragility of the situation in Israel and Palestine were easy to discern. Feelings of fear and anger that fester on both sides were palpable. I pondered on a Quranic verse that points out that when there is chronic frustration, hopelessness and helplessness, it leads to a human condition in which “it’s not that the eyes are blind but their hearts…” ( 22:46). When this happens, the use of force and violence clenches the heart even more. Reason is helpful but will not persuade the heart to open. Only that which comes from the heart can open another heart. What does this mean?

The answer came in the remarkable series of outside speakers who SDI chose to enlighten us about their citizen projects.

• A young American woman brings together heartbroken Israeli and Arab families to reach out to the other and together talk about the senseless violence that have claimed the lives of their children.
• An Israeli woman graciously converted her house, previously owned by a displaced Palestinian family, into a school for poor Palestinian children and a center for peace.
• A Palestinian Arab living in Bethlehem has courageously built a school and institute adjacent to the political wall. There, the arts of peace and reconciliation are taught and practiced.

The heart knows that things that appear to be apart are really one. It opens up to experiential messages and heart-felt actions that restore love and compassion to a relationship that has been torn apart through fear and hatred.

Rabbi Ted Falcon
A Note on Our Spiritual Pilgrimage

Sacred space, intentions for personal deepening, and a community of seekers—it’s a recipe for a spiritual pilgrimage. And spiritual pilgrimage is always an invitation to move into unchartered territory; it will always be filled with unexpected wonders as well as challenge. It turned out that this journey invited me to meet the far less Jewish areas of Israel, and experience the worlds of East Jerusalem and Nazareth. Much of the time, I felt as much in the minority with my kippah as I have felt in Seattle, and that was an unwelcome surprise.

But what delighted me most was the open-hearted nature of my fellow pilgrims. Representing a wide range of mostly Christian backgrounds, all seemed available to be truly present in sacred space, and to contribute to that space through both formal and informal sharings with the group. I remember that Harrison Owen, the originator of Open Space Technology, created that model after noticing that often the most significant sharing at conferences took place during the coffee breaks. On our pilgrimage, I found those special unscheduled moments unfolding on the bus, during walks, or at meals. During these spontaneous conversations there was the space to share lives, concerns, and responses to the trip we were experiencing.

In some ways, it seems to me that pilgrimage transcends place. Particular settings provided the foundation for insights, teachings, and awakenings that opened our minds and our hearts far beyond those specific places. What we discovered at the most sacred moments were glimpses of the Eternal Loving Presence that we serve, when we are awake, as vehicles. Our Israel Palestine Pilgrimage provided the holy ground where we could celebrate the One awaiting us always.

Pastor Don Mackenzie
A Reflection on the Spiritual Directors International Pilgrimage to Israel and the West Bank

How can it be that Jerusalem, one of the holiest cities in the entire world, is also host to what seems to be the most intractable conflict one could imagine? How can it be? Everything I might think or say about our 2010 SDI pilgrimage to the Middle East fits into the frame of that question. Everything I experienced there fits into the frame of that question.

A holy site, any holy site in the world, is a place where something important happened, something with spiritual and theological significance. Often that significance points to the potential for some kind of healing, some kind of stepping away from brokenness and stepping toward a coming back together.

The three large churches built over places important to Jesus’ life–the Church of the Annunciation, the Church in Nazareth built over the suggested site where the Angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she was to become the mother of Jesus, the Church of the Nativity, the church in Bethlehem built over the suggested site of the manger where Jesus was born, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the church in Jerusalem built over the suggested site where Jesus was crucified and buried–serve as good examples of my theme. Whether or not any of the things that are supposed to have happened at those sites really did happen at those exact places, is secondary to the hope that when one is at the site, one is experiencing a kind of energy that might actually make a positive difference in one’s life. People stand in line for hours to see and touch these places and they do that not because they are simply curious. I think the vast majority of those pilgrims are hoping that they can actually take “something” away from that site, take it home and use it for some healing or transforming purpose. This is, after all, the purpose of a pilgrimage, is it not? We go to a place because we hope it will make a difference, bring healing, bring transformation.

It is hopeful to me that Jerusalem, in spite of the terribly heavy load of conflict, also bears within its soul, the capacity to rise up from that and, once again, be a beacon of hope and healing in our troubled world. Each of us, filling the role of pilgrim, has been given the precious gift of being present at sites in Israel and the West Bank in the company of other pilgrims and have returned with a measure of the hope that was there to be found. Thanks be to God!

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