Wednesday, Oct 23 ~ Lisa Dixon

Today we visited two majestic and historic houses of worship, and two human rights monitoring institutions. It’s unfortunate that the former does not prevent the necessity of the latter, but that is the irony of Palestine/Israel. One of the most holy spots in the world (to three great religions) is also the one full of so much strife. On an upbeat note, one inspiring place we visited was Jacob’s Well Church in Nablus.

This is where Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well. (Being embarrassingly ignorant of the Bible, I actually know this story from hearing the Peter Paul and Mary song about it when I was younger.) This is the most authentic holy site in Palestine because the well is still here, and operational.

Anyway, churches have been built over this site (and subsequently destroyed) over and over through the centuries. The current one was completed (by Yasser Arafat) in 1998 after a century of construction. The inspiring part is that the current priest came in 1975 and oversaw the construction. He made the mosaics that are all over the church. (Being a quilter I love handcrafts and tiles.)

The Church has since been attacked 15 times by settlers, but has been repaired and is still intact. This priest has made it his life’s work to make sure that at least this one church survives these senseless human acts of cruelty that are so common in this country. And he’s also quite an artist.