JACQUELYN DONALD-MIMS | IN YOUR WORDS
Pilgrimage to Egypt unites the old to the new
Saturday, April 11, 2009, Austin American Statesman
This Holy Week is topped off by my recent spiritual pilgrimage to Easter positioning me for Jesus’ great getting up morning at Easter. I could languish in Egypt forever, being dazzled by the ingenuity and charm of my “cousins” as the natives call me as a dark-skinned Americans!
Resurrection is the code word. Jesus revolutionized the world significantly? And it was, for me, life-altering just to live to witness Israel and be awarded the precious commodity of time to reflect.
Touching the soil of Israel seemed like coming near to God; to taste, to see and to be at home with Jesus, even though I know God is mysteriously omnipresent, having repeatedly tracked me down with visitations wherever I am, especially the encounter of the divine call to become a minister.
My reflective trek took place in historically spiritual locations in the forefront of the biblical narrative, starting at the Church of the Immaculate Conception of Mary and at Joseph’s church in Nazareth. I embraced life in Israel: beholding Galilee from the breathtaking heights of Mount Arbell and Mount Carmel, seeing the “city on a hill” by night and by day, communing on pita bread, St. Peter fish of Galilee (known here as tilapia) and the local wines — Golan, Yarden, Gamla and Cana.
Then, eating the St. Peter fish of Galilee by day, beholding the breathtaking sights from the heights of Mount Arbell and Mount Carmel, peering from below the lights of the “city on a hill” by night and communing with the local Yarden, Gamla and the wines reminiscent of the wedding at Cana — I trudged through all of this in search of a word from the Lord all over again.
In the holy city of Jerusalem, my emotion was uncontainable in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre within the Old City’s Christian Quarter and the well-debated alternate burial spot, the Garden Tomb farther east.
The 22 fellow pastors’ voices resonated in the Upper Room and in the dungeon, or sacred pit, beneath Saint-Peter-in-Gallicantu (Cock Crow) Church — where Jesus was condemned by the high priest Caiaphas, lowered and held in custody until crucifixion.
Journaling, preaching, praying, giving alms to Jerusalem residents and celebrating Baptism renewal in the Jordan created spiritually fertile ground to discern and clarify the often obscure will of God for my next steps as a pastor. I stuffed the prayers of my parishioners and my own, written on little papers, into the crevices of the women’s prayer section of the Western Wall (the Wailing Wall) that once enclosed Herod’s Second Temple. That wall became for me uniquely sacrosanct for inquiring prayer.
Years ago I responded to God’s call as “one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked,” (Luke 12:48). The Israel pilgrimage magnified the reality of the diminished impact I could ever have in comparison to the profound walk and purpose of Jesus.
Fortunately, it is too early to settle the score or measure success. Maybe my story has a happy ending. Maybe it does not. I’ve discovered that’s beside the point. The relevant point is that, based on faith, the “substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen,” today my renewal in Israel has me believing so much in those promises of a prophet’s reward that I continue a feeble effort of recommitment.
Yes, I have the audacity to expect a reward, even in view of my miniscule impact. If nothing else, my spiritual walk in Israel has magnified the kindness, the generous mercy, the grace and the abounding love of Jesus.
So I am trusting God, who owns both the happy endings and the undefined outcomes, to place my tomorrow in his hands.
A traditional Nile river cruise the Ramses II start and Luxor and ending in either Aswan as embarkation points cover a distance of roughly 200 kilometers 220 kilometers of the total length of the Nile normally given as 6611. The irst stop in luxor Temple bult by two kins, amenophis III and Ramesses II
The fist stop in luxo is the temple of amun, o amenhotep III, ramesses II and Alexande the geat.
Across the Nile from the temples Luxor and Karnak are the mortuary temples of the New KingdomThe west bank of the nile is historically the land of the dead, tombs, funerary temples and cemetaries while on the east bank is the city of the living. The west bank temples include those of Hatshepsut and Amun by Tuthmosis III. The Valley of the Kings Dynasties 18 to 20 include the tomb of Tutankhamen.
One of the first stops is to view the gi-normous columns inscribed with monumental reliefs in the hypostyle hall of Edfu – just south of Lexor and north of Aswan in southern Upper Egypt. Temple is conventionally oriented towards the Nile.
There is a sense of pride among the people in the leadership of African kings of power and genius.
Jacquelyn Donald-Mims is the pastor of the Imani Community Church, African Methodist Episcopal in Austin.
