If I were making horcruxes, one would be here

Because part of me will probably stay anyway.

Today we wandered along the Via Dolorosa, where Christ is rumored to have passed bearing the cross, and eventually found a new friend, Hisom (hi-some). We went into his shop as he hawked "Antiques, lamps from the time of King David, ancient coins," and wanted to see the coins. I just hung out with him. He looked like a classy 28 year old. On the way in I said "Marhaba" (hello) to another guy, who was handicapped. Hisom said in a cheerful but almost vulnerable way, "He's handicapped." Another guy with slicked back hair ended up helping my friends while I learned Arabic from Hisom. What's the word for shop?" "Doocan." "Doocan-ak jemele" (your shop is sweet/beautiful). The way people take compliments seems so sincere--I don't think you can humbly take them unless you could just as humbly give them, unless you're humble enough to dare believe other people truly mean them. Charity believeth and hopeth all things. He clearly appreciated this compliment from a stranger. I was touched by the way he cared about that.

Aleah--Slick :)--was showing my friends authentic widow's mites. "These are the best coins in the world, because these Jesus said were worth more than all." These people are all Arabic, by the way. The northeast quarter of Jerusalem is the Muslim, (SE = Jewish; SW = Armenian -- I have no idea how they got here :) ; NW = Christian) so that is the culture we come to first on our way to the "Old City's" ancient walls from the Jerusalem Center. Heading "home" you can see the seashell bright palace high on the Mount of Olives descending like a terraced waterfall. The Jews call it Mount Scopus--we have to learn how to distinguish between the Jews and Muslims so we can refer to everything in non-confrontational terms: "Shalom" to greet Jews, "Marhaba" to Arabs, we don't say Israel or Palestine, just "The Holy Land," for now, etc. I feel like I should recount a small but telling event my friend witnessed so you could feel sympathy for the Arabs--whom I felt least akin too, and perhaps still do--but I don't want to elicit anything negative against the Jews. Anyways, the details are too many to tell, and too complex (and too not understood yet).

As I browsed in the shop I turned to see Dalynn arm and arm with Jaat, the handicapped man--he'd wanted to get a picture with her, apparently. Apparently all the men were brothers too. For a second I was like, "What the heck is happening if she's got her arm around a Muslim guy?" but I saw Hisom and Aleah smiling with warm eyes at them (the expression on Slick relaxed me--I'd initially been a little intimidated by him). Maybe it was different because Jaat was handicapped.

Jaat was gesturing excitedly and Hisom told Dalynn, "Show him the picture! He wants to see himself in the picture." She turned her digital camera back on and Jaat was clapping when he saw it. Slick pinched a bunch of Jaat's cheek and shook it like a grandparent who was too affectionate to help it. Hisom had done the same thing earlier. No wonder Hisom had sounded vulnerable at first.

It turns out Hisom had a degree in sociology and had had a fine job in a more impressive area; so had Slick, who had some other degree; and so had another brother, who was a lawyer.

"So why are you here?" I asked.
Besides mentioning the value of taking care of a family business, he said,
"Because here life is better. Here life is safe." He told Aleah to cut the widow's mite price from 33 shekels to 20, which may have been bartering and may have not, while a few friends were considering still. "Student discount," he joked with me on the side.

"Masalaami"--we left.


I was reading about how the Dome on the Rock, where the Jewish Temple had been before the Romans razed it a few hundred years before the Muslims took Jerusalem (the Jews had been expelled since an uprising in the 2nd century AD). That is the rock where Muhammad said an angel took him to ascend through the seven heavens and into the presence of God. Maybe the place had been sacred to him too, beforehand (maybe not--I don't know). Either way, it made me wonder, maybe everything religious is circumstantial when you compare it to the motive for which you live it.

"Gladly would I die a thousand deaths, to look upon the face of Tash."
--Emer, a young Calormene in C. S. Lewis's The Last Battle

"My strength is as the strength of ten, because my heart is pure."
--Sir Galahad, in Tennyson's telling of the legend of King Arthur