Here it is — footage which all Jerusalem awaits, that may yet take the movie world by storm with its innovative camera techniques and generally Andy Warhol Underground Style applied to unusual subject matter. In it we see the Bishop of Oxford and a Junior Colleague trying to sink in the Dead Sea. We conclude that this is no place to go baptizin’. It was strange indeed to float so high as to be able to hold a camera above the briny and film.
You will notice, and I hope appreciate, Busby Berkeley rotary effects, an occasionally vertical focal plane, and a 1960’s surfin’ theme applied to an inland lake of battery acid with 2 cm waves. This battery acid is said to cure Psoriasis — or perhaps cause psoriasis. Soon we’ll find out which, anyway. Those who market its mud tell us that their product reverses ageing. Therefore John and I only stayed for half an hour or so, because neither of us particularly wanted to return to the UK as a baby...
Day 3, and we’ve taken the road to the South through a rather commercialised Baptism site on the Jordan, through Jericho, and down to Bethlehem. We are actually staying behind the wall in the (comparatively) new Franciscan hostel next to the Church of the Nativity. Today has seen close encounters with Holy Oil, A White-Robed Army of American Baptists being baptised among the fishes, and the security fence which was erected in 2003 to divide Israel from the occupied West Bank. People are trying to be polite aout it, but the contrasts between quality of life both sides are disturbing to many members of our party. Big basic issues of justice and equity arise, and the signs are not good.
We have also some up against the full force of today”s Religious Souvenirs market — wanting to help delightful people to turn an honest bob, but sonewhat blown away by some of the Holy Things on offer. After thirty years doing this job I ought to know what to go for in a religious tat shop, but have to say I found myself strangely confused on this score!
Holy Land Pilgrimage Day 2, marked by an amazing sunset which made the land of the Gergasenes irradescent pink like Ayers Rock. I watched the show unfold from a supine floating position in the Sea of Galilee, with friends from the party. Some impressions of today: This was also the Day of the Marmot, for I have had two possibly auspicious close encounters with these sleekit wee beasties today. They are all round us, and their ancestors were in ancient times.
Herodotus knew all about them. I think I remember that Herod Antipas’ school chum the Emperor Claudius used to call him “Marmot” as a term of endearment.
Anyway, Returning from my early run and luscious swim in the Sea of Galilee this morning, I heard vigorous rustling near my room — a gross Mummy Marmot, lumbering along the passageway, inquisitively. It fixed me with a steely gaze, such as an oversized Rodent might direct at a bishop in funky running shoes, and then legged it at speed.
I thought that was my daily marmot experience over with, but I was wrong. During this morning’s Eucharist a Large Daddy Marmot lumbered over to where we were breaking bread after the manner of the Apostles, and lay down for a sunbathe on a lumpy warmed-up rock. He rolled over on his back, and untensed his paws in a most povocative way. Finally, around the peace, he lumbered off again into the undergrowth. This portentious visit was signalled (or so both the Emperor Claudius and Herod Antipas would have thought) by a telling bird event. Up from the bank flew a Kingfisher, a streak of lurid, almost flourescent, blue.
Any reader of significant auguries is welcome to try and interpret the tremendous, but currently obscure, meaning of my Close Encounters of the Marmot kind today. What does it all mean for my destiny, or, indeed the Kingfisher singularity? Not that I’m superstitious. Or convinced there is any. All suggestions on a postcard, though...
Sadly I was not able to phtograph either Marmot, being otherwise engaged, but I attach an historic stock image in case you wonder what one of these things looks like. Failing further inspiration, I attach also a movie I shot of a guy demonstrating how to cast nets for fish on the Sea of Galilee à la Gospels. This certainly coloured in the concept for me of fishing for people, if not Marmots:
Violence escalates in Gaza. The military do their stuff, short term relief that aggravates the long-term problem. Gandhi was right — an eye for an eye and everyone ends up blind. Meanwhile the weak, the poor, the vulnerable become roadkill. What is there to say?
You may not have been following the Israeli charts, so here is Sarit Hadad singing Shema’ Israel — the title recalls the ancient words of the daily foundational prayer, the Shema’ (Dt 6:4) — When the heart shuts up, every breath cries out, make it stop...
and the words, vocalised and translated by John Hobbins:
When the heart is crying only God hears the pain rises from within one’s breath a man falls before he goes under with a short prayer, he cuts the silence
Hear Israel, my God, you can do all you gave me my life, you gave me all in my eyes a tear, silently the heart cries when the heart shuts up, one’s breath cries out
Hear Israel, my God, I am now alone make me strong, my God, so I won't fear the pain is great, there's nowhere to flee make it end, no strength is left in me
When the heart is crying, time stops moving in an inkling a man sees his whole life pass to the unknown he does not want to go to his God he calls, on the edge of the abyss.
When the heart is crying only God hears the pain rises from within one’s breath a man falls before he goes under with a short prayer, he cuts the silence
Hear Israel, my God, you can do all you gave me my life, you gave me all in my eyes a tear, silently the heart cries when the heart shuts up, one’s breath cries out
When the heart is crying only God hears the pain rises from within one’s breath a man falls before he goes under with a short prayer, he cuts the silence
Hear Israel, my God, you can do all you gave me my life, you gave me all in my eyes a tear, silently the heart cries when the heart shuts up, one’s breath cries out
Here it is — footage which all Jerusalem awaits, that may yet take the movie world by storm with its innovative camera techniques and generally Andy Warhol Underground Style applied to unusual subject matter. In it we see the Bishop of Oxford and a Junior Colleague trying to sink in the Dead Sea. We conclude that this is no place to go baptizin’. It was strange indeed to float so high as to be able to hold a camera above the briny and film.
You will notice, and I hope appreciate, Busby Berkeley rotary effects, an occasionally vertical focal plane, and a 1960’s surfin’ theme applied to an inland lake of battery acid with 2 cm waves. This battery acid is said to cure Psoriasis — or perhaps cause psoriasis. Soon we’ll find out which, anyway. Those who market its mud tell us that their product reverses ageing. Therefore John and I only stayed for half an hour or so, because neither of us particularly wanted to return to the UK as a baby...
