In which Staige visits the Western Wall
posted by Staige, youth group member
One of the sites I was most looking forward to visiting on this trip was the Western Wall. This wall is also know as the Wailing Wall because worshippers customarily come to the wall to mourn lost loved ones and leave slips of paper on which their prayers and requests to God are written. I anticipated that my own visit would feel like a release, a chance to lay down my burdens.
The night and morning before our visit, I wrote out my prayers for the Wall. I prayed for my family, beloved friends, and for those I knew that were hungry, sick, or oppressed. When I was finished, I had something that looked like a personalized Prayers of the People written on seven separate slips of paper.
Upon our arrival at the Wall, I walked to the women's section and, prayers in hand, took my place in the haphazard lines of people wishing to get close enough to the Wall to touch it. As I waited, I observed the crowds of women all around me weeping, praying, and bowing as they tried to connect with the Holiest of Holies. I noticed the hundreds of tightly folded prayers wedged into he crevices between stones, and, suddenly, I felt humbled. The prayerful requests I held in my own hands seemed too numerous, too self-centered. Quickly, on yet another slip of paper, I wrote out, "I pray for peace, love, and forgiveness," and wedged it between two stones, slipping all the others back into my bag.
As I walked away, I thought that the prayers I left had more to do with how I could solve my own problems than how God could miraculously relieve me of the things that burdened my heart. "OK," I thought, "I guess that's the lesson? God doesn't answer our prayers directly but gives us the tools to solve them for ourselves?" I felt annoyed with myself for arriving at one of the holiest sites in the world with a to-do list for God. My assumptions seemed selfish and naive, and I still had those burdens in my backpack.
Later on that morning we visited Bathesda, the site of Biblical healing baths and St. Anne's Church, which is remembered as the birthplace of Mary, the mother of Jesus. St. Anne's sanctuary made entirely of soft white Jerusalem stone, with few adornments and high graceful arches. To me, it was by far the most beautiful church we had visited, and in its walls I felt comforted and peaceful. In a small side chapel, I found a basket full of prayers left for the Virgin Mary. I gathered my own prayers out of my backpack and dropped them in the basket, feeling content that my worries lay in the serene arms of Mary rather than wedged into the cluttered hubbub of the Western Wall.
I feel that the real lesson for the day was that sometimes we have to be patient with and aware to our surroundings for the right moment to reveal itself.
Thanks for the reminder. Like Kate’s sermon last Sunday. You can’t always get what you want but we can get what we need. Rolling Stones song.