How It Began

This is really kinda funny, because I am not a journaler, uh journalist...person who keeps a journal. Ever. Never. And I've tried to begin this project multiple times in multiple ways. I have several little notebooks which I've started over the past 3 months, plus this is my second attempt at a blog.

Backing up, I would have never guessed in a million years that I would go to Israel. Israel. Me.

My Mother is lucky enough to get to travel a lot. In the spring, there was a blurb in our church bulletin about our priest taking a group to The Holy Land. "I've always wanted to go to see Israel" she told me. When she was young, she was a nurse in the Air Force stationed in England. She used to take "hops", flying space available when the pilots were headed to Europe and she has lots of stories, pictures and souveniers of her weekends in France, Portugual, Spain, etc. Once she met my Dad, that sorta put a slow-down to her adventures in travel as she began adventures of another nature. It seems that she had planned a trip to Bethlehem over Christmas though, and Dad talked her into staying in England with him, which she was happy to do at the time. Now, 55 years later, she was thinking about finally taking that trip with the members of our church.

But she was worried. Probably for multiple reasons, but the question she kept asking me over the months is "Do you think it would be safe to travel there?" ("How dangerous do you think it really is in the Middle East?" "I wonder if that trip to Israel would be safe?" "Do you think it would be crazy for me to go on that trip?")

Finally I gave her my honest answer "If I had a chance to go to Israel, I wouldn't worry about anything, I would go in a New York Minute!"

That must have started her thinking because by the fall, about a week before my birthday, she asked me if I would go with her.

I could not believe it, couldn't wrap my brain around it! I was too afraid that if I got excited it wouldn't happen! Like if I made too much noise I would wake myself up and find out it was all a dream.

But it wasn't a dream. It was real. I really, really did go to Israel. To places I had heard about on the tv and in the news; in songs and in psalms; testament places both old and new; places where our Lord Jesus Christ lived.

And it was wonderful and unusual and mysterious and exotic. It was surprising and unexpected and heartbreaking and joyful. It was awesome and stressful and inspiring and scary.

And it's over. Oh it's over. : (

And I don't want it to be. It was too fast. I want to remember. I want to understand what happened. I want to dissect it, to explore my feelings, to search my heart and mind for meaning from it. I want to glean all the significance, I want to grasp all the importance, I want to hold on to the essence and savor it all until I've captured all the spirituality I can from the experience.

I knew that's what I wanted. I prayed about it before the trip, during the trip, after I got home. But how? How could I capture the experience?

Everyone said that I must do a journal. So, like I said in the first paragraph, I started writing. I think I started three different journals before I left. I even read articles on how to do a journal. I started a fourth one on the trip.

We returned from our pilgrimage only 12 days before the First Sunday of Advent. And I was still floundering with my attempts to write down my thoughts from the trip when I went to church that first Sunday and heard the Gospel that day. I remembered that place. I knew where they stood when they spoke those words. All the memories of the place I had been which related to those couple of verses from the Bible came flooding in. It was beautiful. It was amazing. I was overwhelmed with the wonder of it.

And realized that this would probably happen all year as I attended Mass! So why not write down those thoughts as they came to me? In the order that they came? Here was the answer to my prayer!! And this blog was born.

So here it is, my journey to Israel. My journal of Israel. Not day by day following our itinerary, but liturgically.

My prayers have been answered. I am happy and satisfied with the path I've been inspired (thank you Holy Spirit!!) to use to "journal" my trip and am finding great peace.

Dear God: You are Good, All the Time!  Please use my story for your glory! Amen.

My beautiful Mother Rosemary and I in front of the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

2012 Pilgrimage to Israel