The Wall and The Tower

In 2008 I was invited to join a friend on a trip to Israel.  It was the first birthright trip to take kids/students with disabilities, and I was invited to join and serve as my friend’s aid on the trip.  It was a tremendous experience; one I will blog more about some other time.

These two photos come from two places we visited.  The first is from a town call Acre (pronounce Ak-ra, also known as Acco or Acca) which was a stunning town all around; it’s one of the longest consistently inhabited towns in the world, was the first port of destination for Crusaders en route to the holy land, and has an amazing fort in which you can see the different layers built by different settlers/colonizers over the centuries.  Around the corner from that fort is a beautiful, open courtyard with an amazing clock tower.  The day we visited was our first day in Israel after a 20 hour red eye flight, so I was in a bit of a daze, and the blue of the sky was stunning.  I snapped a picture of the sky with the clock haphazardly in the frame.  Turned out to be a lucky shot; this is one of my favorite shots of the whole trip.

About 10 days later we had wound thru the country and ended in Jeruselam where we visited the Western Wall or wailing wall on the Sabbath.  The wall itself is 2000 years old and is nicknamed the address of God.  People of various faiths from around the globe come to pray here, and it’s traditional to write a prayer on a piece of paper and shove it in the crevices between the huge stones, believing that God will receive the message.  I prayed here with my friend, and put my own written prayer in the wall.  For obvious reasons they don’t allow cell phones or camera use within a certain distance of the wall.  I was lucky enough to have a decent zoom and was able to catch these men at prayer.  I don’t know what it means or why, but this has become a sacred image to me.  When I look at it I believe things can be beautiful.