A Geography lesson

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Last Sunday I had a lesson in Geography. My lesson consisted in a visit to one of the three shepherds' fields in Beit Sahour, namely the Catholic one. As I have mentioned previously, Beit Sahour is known to be the place where shepherds received the news about the birth of Jesus. There are three different compounds held to be the place of this event in Beit Sahour, belonging to the Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Protestant churches respectively.

I have lived in Beit Sahour for a while, but as we walked through the gate and passed the rosary sellers, a whole new world opened up. Tourists whom I so far only had seen through the windows of their buses, strolled around the area. They were from all parts of the world, it seemed. Many of the groups had brought their own priest and were holding services. The air was humming with prayers and singing. For me, coming from a Lutheran context, witnessing the phenomenon of pilgrimage was something quite special. Religion isn´t much about geography in Norway, even though some people have started walking to our cathedral in Trondheim the previous years, reviving an old tradition from our Catholic period.

I guess you can call the shepherds the first pilgrims, as they made a travel in order to witness and worship. The word pilgrim comes from latin peregrinus, meaning foreigner. Still the shepherds were not foreigners in Bethlehem, they were travelling within their own neighbourhood. And these pilgrims in today's Beit Sahour seemed to feel quite at home as well. So maybe pilgrimage can be about being at home in the world, about seeing the religious significance of the geography surrounding us.

Since I have studied Church History and the history of Christian art, I was thrilled to see that there was not only a quite new chapel at the compound, but excavations of a church and monastery from the fourth to sixth century. The remains even included an olive press! I was especially fascinated by all the (according to my lay judgement) well preserved mosaic floors. Almost all the colours were gone, but I kept gazing at all the little pieces, trying to imagine the patterns and writings. Maybe they also said something about geography, about the significance of the ground beneath our feet?



Looking out from the monastery ruins, we could see the settlement Har Homa in the horyzon. Har Homa is maybe the most visible presence of Israeli occupation in Beit Sahour. Does this geography have anything to do with religion? The World Council of Churches think so. In the beginning of September, they issued a declaration calling the settlements illegal, unjust and incompatible with peace. The declaration ends with a prayer:

Jesus Christ, our brother and Saviour,who walked the roads of the Holy Land and lived as one of her people,

walk with those who find their roads blocked and their families divided through illegal actions in an occupied land.

Jesus Christ, our brother and Saviour,

who challenged injustice and offered new definitions of power,

challenge us to express non-violent support to all who suffer and to speak out on the injustice they experience.

Jesus Christ, our brother and Saviour,

who embraced encounters with people from different faith and cultural communities,

embrace and uphold all who seek a just peace and reconciliation between divided peoples in the land of your human experience.