After breakfast, we began our walk down the hill towards St. John of the Desert. It's the place where the local Christian community remembers St. John the Baptist's time when he was a young man, before his public ministry. Some of the men mentioned that this area doesn't look like any desert they've ever seen. The guide book clarifies that Luke's allusion to the desert can mean an uninhabited place. On our way, we past the spring which gives the village its name, Ein Kerem (Spring of the vineyard). It's now covered by a mosque (restored, but unused) and goes by the name of Mary's spring.
We began our ascent up the other side of the wadi and passed the entrance to the church of the Annunciation, where we will have Mass on Monday. We continued up the narrow road, which became a rocky path. After a while, we came to Hadassah Hospital and because it's an orthodox hospital, there were no cars in the lot today. It was almost spooky. They provide care, but because it's the sabbath, no one visits until it's sundown. So, because the gate at the end of the lot was locked, we had to crawl under it. Since I was likewise crawling, I missed the obvious photo op. Sorry. But we got through without getting stuck - our group tends to be physically fit.
We crossed the road and entered the park through which you pass before you arrive at St. John of the Desert. The chickens from the neighboring moshav - thousands of them - make quite a racket.After 20 more minutes of walking, we arrived at the monastery.
I made a friend almost immediately - she came up and said "Hi!"...
We saw the spring there and it was running very low. Usually, I'm told, the lower pool which collects the water is full, but it was dry today - no gold fish or water lilies. (They were cleaning.)
We prayed in the cave where it is believed St. John lived (I saw this same fresco on wikipedia last night. For some reason, I was really surprised to find that it was actually there. In fact, it was the most surprising thing about the trip so far. I don't know why it did, since everything you read online is true...)
And then went up for Mass in the small chapel. It was quaint. I liked the color balance - a sort of desert motif. (My class will raz me about this, but it reminds me of freeway overpasses in Arizona. Desert. Paint to fit in. See the connection? Well, anyway, this is what it looked like...)
The acoustics in these stone churches make us sound like a gifted choir. We then had time for quiet prayer and some of us continued our climb to the hermitage where the tomb of St. Elizabeth is a small chapel. Even with an empty tomb, the place felt sacred to me. I was also struck by the view from the hillside and the array of flowers. (I'm collecting such photos for another entry...)
I said goodbye to my new friend and we began our trek back to civilization. I found more evidence that some of us need to get in better shape. There's a long uphill climb and we took our time getting back. We all made it back in time for lunch and we all seemed to have good appetites.An afternoon of relaxation followed; we chanted Evening Prayer I of Pentecost; we had dinner; a lot of us crashed. It was a good day.
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