As our journey is coming to a close soon, just two more days! I realize just how many pictures on this blog are of various types of stone structures. Well, even as I realize this, I must post a few more because today we visited some very significant stones. Today, among many other places we visited the Western Wall; you may be more familiar with its other name, the Wailing Wall.

The Western Wall is considered the holiest site in Judaism since this wall is the remains of the retaining wall of the Temple Mount, and a place to mourn the Second Temple which no longer stands. Although a holy site, visitors are allowed to visit and pray at this wall. I had an opportunity to do this.

I walked down towards the woman’s entrance (the wall is separated by gender) down to the wall passing persons seated in plastic chairs or standing with their Hebrew prayer book in hand. To be respectful I did not take pictures of those deep in prayer. But I can still show the prayers to you, you can literally see many of the prayers themselves, the exist on the hundreds (maybe thousands) of pieces of paper.

I waited until a space opened up and I unfolded the piece of paper where I penned my prayers earlier this morning. With one hand on the wall, I read through my prayers. On this piece of paper were prayers for my friends and fellow seminarians as they go through the assignment process this week, prayers for my family, all those I love and prayers for peace. Then I did as so many do and tucked my prayers with the hundreds, thousands of others in the cracks of the walls. There are so many prayers that as you push them into the cracks many shower to the ground at one's feet.

I think of the questions I typed last night. It is amazing how one can be moved by the holy places of another, even if one does not fully understand. Yesterday at the Mount of Olives I thought of the three monotheistic religions lifting their prayers to God at the same time. Today I felt very connected lifting my prayers to God silently as well as pushing them into the cracks of this these revered stones. I didn't wail at the wall but… well... to be honest, I did tear up as I read the names of loved ones I had penned on that piece of paper with the rest of my petitions, and that reaction surprised me.

Those moments at the wall will definitely be part of my pilgrimage story in the Holy Land…

Today was also filled with other journeys. To be truthful, today was two days rolled into one. Did I mention our wake-up call was at 5:30? Tomorrow we travel to Bethlehem before our last day in Jerusalem, but let me share with you a few more snippets from other parts of our day…

Today we walked the way of the cross…(carrying this olive cross that we passed around our group and gave to our guide a Palestinian Christian)

We visited the Church of the Holy Sepulcher

Traveled beneath Jerusalem in the Western Wall Tunnel

St. Anne’s Church and the Pools of Bethesda

We also visited the Dome of the Rock (the third holiest site for Islam, the Israeli Museum to see a model of Jerusalem and Yad Vashem, a remembrance of the Holocaust.

We ended our evening with Rabbi Rob Kahn, a U.S. native now living in Jerusalem and coordinator of an immersion experience for young adults from around the world here in Jerusalem.