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dog village. He points out the places where the city walls have been located during different times in history. The lecture lasts a full hour and a half.

    After a supper of chicken and yellow rice, it’s time for Evensong at the cathedral at Saint George’s. Attendance is down to a handful, so few that we sit behind the pulpit in the divided wooden seats usually reserved for the choir. It is uncomfortable but intimate, and the cathedral glows with twilight.
    The preacher is Nael, the assistant priest at St. George’s, whom our group has been getting to know in courtyard conversations in the evenings. He gives the sermon on Acts 20:22: “And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there.” What a fitting verse for a pilgrim! Nael’s talk makes me feel a kinship with the apostle Paul, even though I’m not always a fan. Paul’s writings are the ones mostoften used to keep women out of leadership roles in church, so he and I have wrestled a few rounds. But here at last is something the apostle and I share. We both felt compelled to go to Jerusalem, not knowing what would happen to us there.
    Nael talks about the two-thousand-year witness of Palestinian Christians and how it’s changing. Christians are leaving, diminishing the worshiping communities. Someday Jerusalem may become a sort of spiritual Disneyland rather than a place of vibrant Christian faith. Nael urges us to look for the face of Christ in every person we meet. We don’t know when we will encounter Christ. “Especially in this Holy Land,” he says. “Christ could be anywhere.”
    After church, people gather for a glass of wine in the courtyard. What a delightful change from the coffee and cookies offered at my own church after worship. We chat with some of the people staying in other quarters at Saint George’s. I meet Paul, a young priest from the United States, interning at Saint George’s for one year. I also meet an older man who tells me he’s a scientist who was imprisoned by the Israeli government for whistle-blowing related to nuclear weapons. He’s gregarious and very comfortable telling his story. The two women across from him are from Sweden, here on the “Ecumenical Accompaniment Program” of the World Council of Churches, and they’ve just spent a few weeks in one of the Palestinian refugee camps. They’re eager to speak to this local celebrity.
    Charlie sits down to talk to Paul about his job at Saint George’s, which is essentially Paul’s seminary fieldwork, similar to what Charlie is doing in his Baptist church in South Carolina. After they compare notes about their duties, Charlie asks Paul, “What’s it like to minister in the Holy Land? Isn’t the devil ­really powerful?”
    â€œIsn’t he powerful everywhere?” answers Paul.
    â€œNo doubt,” says Charlie. “But here worst of all.”
    Kyle joins the conversation, with a number of issues on the tip of his tongue. I feel a trifle irritated because I wanted to see where the devil talk would go.
    Kyle says to Paul, “I’m curious about whether you use the Nicene Creed in your work here.”
    â€œTo some extent,” Paul reponds.
    â€œBaptists don’t do creeds,” Charlie says.
    â€œMore’s the pity,” Kyle says. “The Nicene is such a foundational creed. People think it’s unifying, but it’s actually quite divisive.”
    â€œHow do you mean?” asks Charlie. I notice that he is always willing to listen to Kyle.
    â€œIt was written in 381 to read ‘the Spirit proceeds from the Father.’ But in about 1000, the West added ‘and the Son,’ which pretty much destroys any chance at ecumenical dialogue. Do you see? So Paul, here you are in the middle of all these faiths, and I want to know: What’s your opinion?”
    Before Paul can answer, he’s