Friday, March 11th "Jerusalem the Golden" (and a little of the 9th and 10th too)

Today was the first full day of the program. I arrived yesterday after a long and boring flight, arriving at St. George's shortly after noon. UPon arriving I met Caroline, a fellow pilgrim in the course who is the Rector of St. Luke's in the Field and actually applied to be Rector of St. John's in Barrington ten years ago. Once I got settled in Caroline and I went to lunch down Salahadeen Street and then I crashed for the afternoon. At six we had an opening Eucharist followed by an opening reception in dinner. After dinner Kevin, the course chaplain who is an ordained Brother at the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Cambridge, and I took a walk to the temple mount. It was really interesting walking through the old city at night. They have a lot of feral cats so they leave raw goat all over the place at night (one pile we saw had a goats face). There were also Israeli soldiers stationed all over the place. Kevin has been to Jerusalem eight times so he pointed a lout out and was a great guide. We came back and I crashed for the night around nine.
Today I woke up at six thirty for the seven o'clock Eucharist. I've found their worship to be very similar but with some clear differences from the Book of Common Prayer (which they have at every pew, but we were assured this was because they were free and not for any other reason...). After breakfast we had introductions to the staff and each other and then a little free time before our first lecture. Today's topic was 'Jerusalem the Golden'. We had a very condensed lecture on the history of Jerusalem focusing on the many names it has been called over the past five thousand years. To start this off Andrew, the course director, read Psalm 122. I'm used to the BCP version which reads: "Jerusalem is built as a city* that is at unity with itself" the version Andrew read said something along the lines of Jerusalem is a city bound together with itself. Hearing this made me think that Andrew's translation was a little more accurate, considering the history and present being bound together makes more sense than being at unity.
After this we visited a convent of French nuns outside of the city where we ate lunch and then went up onto their roof for a view of the city. Words can't do justice to this city. We had an amazing view of city and the Mount of Olives. We left the convent and drove up the Mount of Olives to get a view of the desert opposite the city. It's very striking how close everything is. Today we received wide views of the city and the desert, tomorrow and Monday respectively we'll get to explore each of these more intimately. We spent the afternoon back at the college. There was Evening Prayer at six, which again was very similar with a few differences, and then we had dinner.
Over the past two days there are two things that struck me. First, last night, the smells of this city. Every block had a new smell and there was hardly a bad smell. I was very surprised by this because it is not my experience of cities at all. Today I was struck by the the sheer beauty of the city and the surrounding landscape. Looking over the city from the convent roof was simply breathtaking. I can't imaging what it must have been like traveling from the east, topping the Mount of Olives and seeing the golden city before you. I am very excited to explore and learn more about this Holy place.