{"id":1502,"date":"2017-10-28T12:18:15","date_gmt":"2017-10-28T09:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/?p=1502"},"modified":"2018-02-27T20:02:02","modified_gmt":"2018-02-27T18:02:02","slug":"holy-moments-in-biram-then-running-where-jesus-walked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/2017\/10\/holy-moments-in-biram-then-running-where-jesus-walked\/","title":{"rendered":"Holy Moments in Biram, then “Running where Jesus Walked”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Toomi Magzal and Jerry Gray, Biram Church<\/p><\/div>\n

27 October<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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We ate our lunch at shady picnic tables near the church at Biram after our local guide, Toomi Magzal, had graciously and movingly shared historic photos and copies of documents and then shown us around the ruins of his childhood village. \u00a0Meanwhile, Joan let us know that we needed to make changes in the itinerary to accommodate the extra time we had taken at Biram. The Church of Loaves and Fishes would not be possible and our trip out onto the Sea of Galilee would be saved to last instead of first thing in the afternoon.\u00a0 In this way, we stayed flexible…and practiced “running where Jesus walked”.\u00a0It also reminded me that while\u00a0we have had the privilege of going into places that few are allowed to see and experience, we must balance it with having to not see some places many people go. It is the paradox of pilgrimage, capturing the eternal truths in a limited space with limited time.<\/p>\n

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Sarah, Tim, lovely Mar Elias student Yara Khoury who spent the day with us, Grace<\/p><\/div>\n

On our approach to Primacy of Peter, we were reminded of Jesus asking Peter “Who do you say I am?”\u00a0and of a later triple\u00a0command to “Feed my sheep” as a way to show he had been forgiven for his earlier denials before the crucifixion. Joan let us know about an attack on the Church of the Loaves and Fishes that took place a couple of years ago, a “price tag” attack by settlers, repaired, in part, by donation by a Jewish rabbi. She continued with a story about a visit by George W.Bush to the Church of the Beatitudes where Abuna Chacour persuaded security personnel to allow him to guide the president through this site. He observed that though the president could recite the Beatitudes, he had yet to put them into action. Again, the pressure is there to put the pieces together and discern our identity in Christ and the urgency of the message to get up and get our hands dirty with the work of peace and reconciliation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The level of the Sea of Galilee was alarmingly low to those who had visited as recently as May, with the three heart shaped stepping stones from the seventh century\u00a0a far distance from the edge of the water. Nevertheless, it was blessed moment to be on the shore of Galilee, walking down to the water and touching\u00a0it and seeing an egret in the distance\u00a0while a group of pilgrims arrived in blue tee shirts\u00a0to stand in the water while their leader led them in prayer. The dark volcanic rock of both old and new structures are distinct from the white limestone structures of Jerusalem. The Primacy of Peter Church with it’s\u00a0simple interior soon ran together with the ruins of Capernaum and a church there that we could not enter because mass was going on, and we were on to a very crowded Church of the Beatitudes with some parts accessible and\u00a0others\u00a0not.<\/div>\n
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With Galilee Sailing, David our skipper<\/p><\/div>\n

Time was the master and our appointment with David and the boat was swiftly approaching.\u00a0Space on the boat was limited, so Joan and George stayed on shore.\u00a0Again, with 45 minutes and two thirds of\u00a0Jesus’ ministry contained in our outstretched arms as we faced the places we had just visited, we were reminded of places we had not seen, such as Mount Gherizim where Jesus healed a\u00a0man possessed by demons and afflicted a\u00a0nearby herd of pigs. We listened to Tim read from Matthew, relaxed a little as David talked about Peter hooking a fish and then proceeded to catch, even to his astonishment, a Damascus barbel within moments of telling the story.\u00a0\u00a0Finally with a lively Fairouz piece cued up Costy invited Sara to dance and this joyful\u00a0moment is captured on video. See Pilgrims of Ibillin’s FaceBook page to watch the dance and share our enjoyment of a special time in a place still alive with memories and meaning.<\/p>\n

~ Debbie Abbott<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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27 October We ate our lunch at shady picnic tables near the church at Biram after our local guide, Toomi Magzal, had graciously and movingly shared historic photos and copies of documents and then shown us around the ruins of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2017-october-pilgrimage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502","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=1502"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1516,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502\/revisions\/1516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.livingstonespilgrimage.org\/lsp-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}