{"id":1090,"date":"2016-10-20T22:47:52","date_gmt":"2016-10-20T19:47:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/?p=1090"},"modified":"2021-03-15T21:04:26","modified_gmt":"2021-03-15T19:04:26","slug":"o-little-town-of-bethlehem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/2016\/10\/o-little-town-of-bethlehem\/","title":{"rendered":"O Little Town of Bethlehem&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-1091\" src=\"http:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/img_5204-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"img_5204\" width=\"440\" height=\"330\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/img_5204-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/img_5204-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/img_5204-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 440px) 100vw, 440px\" \/>By Grace Baldridge<\/p>\n<p>This is the view from our hotel in Bethlehem. I am so taken with our temporary home. Bethlehem truly is a little town and has small town charm. \u00a0Our hosts are gracious and fed us a delicious meal. We had chicken, rice, five kinds of cold salads, soup, potatoes, fish, and of course Pita bread.<\/p>\n<p>Our journey here was full of delay. Nothing was out of the ordinary, just broken computers at customs and Sukkot traffic on our drive from Tel Aviv to Bethlehem. Jerusalem was packed.<\/p>\n<p>One can\u2019t get by without thinking of Mary and Joseph on their own trip to Bethlehem to be counted in the census. They had to have been delayed by any number of issues, but perhaps not by a faulty computer.<\/p>\n<p>The disparity of Jerusalem and Bethlehem is stark. I suspect it was as well in the old days because of the grandeur of Jerusalem versus a little town like Bethlehem.<\/p>\n<p>(I only have about 5 hours of experience here so I\u2019m not making any huge comparisons.)<\/p>\n<p>What I do know is the way I feel when I look out over the same places Mary saw from atop her galant steed (\u201cshe called me a steed!\u201d Sorry- Shrek reference). I can\u2019t help but have a storybook view. But I know better. That\u2019s not the whole tale.<\/p>\n<p>The division here may look different today, but it\u2019s still there just like it was when Herod was governor.<\/p>\n<p>All anyone wants is to be safe and sound with the people we love. That will never change. It seems impossible for me or anyone else to remember that. We want to grab for more\u2026 even at the expense of others.<\/p>\n<p>This is the world God loves: It\u2019s broken pieces still shattered even after 2000 plus years of knowing God in Christ. And it made love known here\u2026 in this little town.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Grace Baldridge This is the view from our hotel in Bethlehem. I am so taken with our temporary home. Bethlehem truly is a little town and has small town charm. \u00a0Our hosts are gracious and fed us a delicious &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/2016\/10\/o-little-town-of-bethlehem\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-october-pilgrimage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1090"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1092,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1090\/revisions\/1092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}