For the Holy Land

In June 2023, I co-hosted a tour of sacred sites in Israel and Palestine called “Embodied: Women in the Holy Land”. Our group was comprised of two dozen women and non-binary folks from three generations who came from all over North America. They didn’t all know each other, but by the end of Day 1 we were kin. Some were church workers and some weren’t so sure about church. (Some were both!) They had roots in the Greek Orthodox Church, Mainline Protestant denominations, indigenous influences, and pagan wisdom. It was dynamic and holy. Our stories were infused with the stories of women in scripture and sumud (steadfast perseverance and resistance) embodied by today’s Palestinians. These poems and liturgies were created for that unique group of people and experience. I share them here in case they can be a blessing to your context and engagement with these sacred sites.

Good Morning, Sea of Galilee

Throw back the curtains 

and inhale a bright sunrise, 

every single shade of pink.

Now exhale and send your wind 

across the water, the diameter of a sea 

still stirring with sacred stories.

She is the lowest lake on earth, 

depths that know what generations 

forgot and forced and forged. 

Come outside and play, Traveler, 

in relics and revelations that live. 

They already know who you are.

Bring your breath and dust 

all the way to the water’s edge 

and put down your nets for awhile.

The Churches of the Annunciation, Nazareth

It’s just a cave, 

one humble home 

deep in the rubble of time,

hidden beneath the pomp 

of crusades and empire.

It’s just a cave, 

a sacred layer of stone

below basilicas and bells, 

with iron gates that still aim

to keep me humble and chaste.

It’s just a cave, 

and still they come as though 

I might invite them in for tea 

and inquire how they managed 

to find me after all these years.

Peer inside to find a candle 

keeping watch for every woman 

who cannot be contained, 

whose song inspires nations!

She has long since left the cave.

Capernaum

These ruins remain 

signs of a place chosen, 

beyond threats in Bethlehem 

years waiting in Egypt

whispers in workshops 

about Joseph’s son. 

These ruins remain 

so you can behold the view

that took Jesus’ breath away, 

that found him grown 

and making a way in the world 

where there wasn’t one. 

These ruins remain 

so you can remember 

home does not depend on 

birthplace or length of time, 

but on friends and belonging 

that sends you out in love.  

Mount of Beatitudes

A Service of Holy Communion

This is an altar, where we worship

the One who provides for creation,

where we remember we are so small

and also we matter so much.

And this is a dinner table, where we arrive

humble, hungry, and empty handed,

where there is more than enough

and everyone has a place of honor.

Blessed are you, O God.

You plant gardens and rain manna,

multiply bread and fish for thousands,

eat with outcasts and drink with women.

You are sacred love and life made flesh.

Words of Institution & The Lord’s Prayer

Jesus has promised his full presence in this meal.

We don’t know how he does it, showing up

with the bread and wine

so that we cannot pull them apart.

This love is impossible and irrational.

It is everything we need and cannot give ourselves.

And so we open ourselves to the mystery

and hold out our hands to receive the gifts of God.

Come, Lord Jesus. Be our guest.

And let these gifts to us be blessed.

And may there be enough to share

on every table everywhere.

Receive the Meal

God of Abundance, we give you thanks 

for your promise to provide enough for creation. 

Make us stewards of your generosity, 

prophets of your plenty, 

and growers of your goodness 

so that the whole world might taste 

manna from heaven and bread broken 

in the name of Christ who is our salvation. 

Amen.

Migdal Synagogue, Magdala

Dig and find a powerful friendship, 

a stone table buried in ruins, 

in a reverence facing east

where men and women 

worship undivided 

the higher voices unchided, 

called into the telling 

by the Word who loved the Tower 

and refused to make her small. 

Duc in Altum, Magdala

I wonder what would happen 

if the women let go of everything 

they’ve been handed and holding up, 

if they let the church they did not ask for 

crumble to the ground, new ruins 

for the next age of explorers to wonder 

why women were support beams 

and men dared to write on ceilings 

in the town that has always known

Mary is not a column. She is a Tower. 

Mount Tabor

Stand in the story 

of a brave general

asking for help

because he knows 

his own limits and 

who can light the way. 

Stand in the story 

of a savior who shines, 

who is revealed among 

friends old and new 

for the sake of faith 

that transfigures us all. 

Stand in your story 

and remember the ones 

who set you ablaze 

like black eyed red tulips,

with whom you climb 

and move mountains.

Stand in these stories, 

restored and rooted 

like Tabor Oaks, stretching 

and aglow with power 

that comes from knowing 

you are not alone. 

Jordan River

Thanksgiving for Baptism (From Speak It Plain)

Blessed be the holy Trinity, + one God, 

who creates, saves, and sends us with love that lives! 

Amen.

Joined to Christ in the waters of baptism, 

we give thanks for the Great Exchange, 

the mercy and forgiveness that cover 

the fullness of who we are with love from heaven.

Thanks be to God. Alleluia!

For your Genesis Word at the dawn of creation, 

which spoke water and life into being.

Thanks be to God. Alleluia!

For the great flood that revealed nature’s power 

and your commitment to life after death.

Thanks be to God. Alleluia!

For the river that carried Moses safely,

building a bridge between mothers and nations.

Thanks be to God. Alleluia!

For the rock split open in the desert, spilling water 

for your thirsty people still learning to be free.

Thanks be to God. Alleluia!

For the One who turned water to wine 

and met a woman at the well with living water.

Thanks be to God. Alleluia!

For the gift of Holy Baptism, the promise 

that there are no more godforsaken places 

and nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus.

For Christ is Risen! 

Christ is risen, indeed. Alleluia!

God of life, we rejoice with the waters that cover creation, 

our songs of praise echo their dancing tides and streams. 

Pour out your Holy Spirit on this community

and all of creation. Cleanse our fears. Drown our divisions. 

Give us mercy and grace to drink so that our whole lives 

are signs of death defeated and thirst quenched 

thanks to the Risen Jesus, the Son of God. 

Amen. 

Women of Bethlehem

Once there was a loud lamentation, 

a cacophony of mothers who wailed 

because their children were no more. 

Their righteous rage still vibrates 

in the streets of a city where 

popes and people come to behold:  

A humble town where kings are born, 

where God with us becomes small,

crying out for milk and love and life.

Look for mothers and their children, 

the faces of a freedom that does not quit 

no matter how frightened the Empire.

Shepherds’ Field, Beit Sahur

There is a field where 

Boaz kept the law 

and spared some grain 

to feed the widow and traveler, 

where he moved beyond 

a mere keeping of the law 

with faith that fulfilled it.

There is a field where 

Naomi came home bitter 

and refused to smile 

and please her kin, 

where Ruth picked grain 

until laws uncovered love and

the whole harvest was hers.

There is a field where 

nations come to sing like choirs, 

their voices echo Gloria! 

like angels telling shepherds that

heaven is still stretching to cover 

the ones who glean and tend

with love that bears more love. 

Ein Kerem, Jerusalem

She flings wide the door

and saunters outside

to bless her little cousin

to announce what is already true 

to add her delight to God’s

and celebrate how good it feels 

to embody the impossible

and take up space in the story.

She opens her arms wide

so they can embrace 

with shoulders, bellies, and voices 

that bear witness to how much 

God trusts women to carry 

what is dangerous and holy

for the sake of generations 

still forming inside us all.

(This poem is called “Elizabeth” in Ordinary Blessings for the Christmas Season p. 84)

The Walls of Jerusalem

Show me a single story 

when land lives 

and people persist, 

when ancient stars 

are baked into daily bread 

and water remembers 

worship a thousand ways. 

Show me a single story 

when borders change 

and people chant in every tongue 

when murals and music 

announce bravado and joy 

strong enough to make 

even the highest walls tremor.

Show me a single story 

when stones still cry out, 

the wails of millions 

the prayers of millennia, 

a Kingdom’s cacophony 

alive with the truth about love, 

like plowshares still on the way. 

Via Dolorosa, Jerusalem

If you have come 

for quiet contemplation 

or footprints in the sand,

a somber and solitary experience

with your personal Lord and Savior,

you might be disappointed. 

The stones beneath our feet 

are rubbed smooth by the steps 

of pilgrims and pagans, a parade 

of intentions too wide for one route, 

a ruckus of love that weaves through 

all the company Jesus still keeps. 

So look way up and get a little lost. 

Listen for the muezzin’s song

and let your tongue pray with knafeh.

Perhaps the colors and crowds 

are signs and the Way of Suffering 

is not so straight or solitary after all.