Palm Sunday

Tonight I stood side by side with a Palestinian priest and an American priest in an Anglican church in Jerusalem and read the Passion aloud from Luke.
This morning I watched Christians of all denominations carry palm fronds down the Via Dolorosa - the way of suffering, the way of the cross.
Two days ago I stood in a church in Bethlehem and sang hymns that echoed up to the high ceilings and stained glass windows, beneath the icons of those considered holy; icons which are new to me, but which have become such a part of the way I see faith.
Tomorrow I will visit the Dome of the Rock - one of the most holy sites in Islam, and to get there I will walk by the Western Wall and remember how I watched the Jewish men come down to the wall from their Yeshivas (religious schools), dancing and singing Psalms of David.
In Hebrew, Jerusalem means "it will see peace", and Jesus said of the city, "if only you had known what would bring you peace." Perhaps we will never truly know, but no matter how cynical I get, and no matter how much I begin to despise religion, I can't believe that God has abandoned this place. He is still here.
A few moments ago I sat in a chapel among statues of Christ and pictures of Saints and Latin inscriptions whose meanings I have long ago forgotten, and I listened to the chords of a guitar fill the space between the pillars, and I remembered that God is holy. Eastern Orthodoxy, Islam, and Judaism: all of the Abrahamic faiths in their Eastern forms converge in this city, and all have such a powerful sense of the sacred - something which we in "the west" often tragically fail to understand.
Here, among the Jewish pilgrims here for Passover, the the Christian pilgrims here for Easter, and the Muslims celebrating the birth of Muhammad, it is easy to take sides, and to criticize, and to forget the implications of Jesus' life in the place of his birth, death, and resurrection.
Sometimes in my need to separate myself from the over-zealous religious fervour of so many who visit "the Holy Land", I forget that it is still sacred (like all of creation) and that perhaps if religion/faith can so divide, it can also unite.
So as the Palestinian priest murmured tonight, "pray for the peace of Jerusalem, the peace of the Middle East, and the peace of all the world."