Psalm 122
The title for this post may seem a bit of a stretch - the Psalm is titled "A song of ascents. Of David"
I believe that the song of ascents refers to the journey to Jerusalem that was supposed to be made three times a year.
For me I would describe a pilgrimage as a physical journey with a spiritual goal.
Historically a pilgrimage would have been to a holy site, in the UK we have a few pilgrim sites. Historically Canterbury was the main one to visit the shrine of Thomas Beckett (parts of him actually came back recently following the destruction of the shrine during the reformation)
Anyway back to the Psalm - how do you feel when somebody says "Lets go to church"?
I guess for a lot of people the response would be For why, Keats, for why? (extra points if you get the movie reference!)
Here, though I rejoiced with those who said to me "Let us go to the house of the LORD"
Our feet ar standing at your gates, Jerusalem.
Jerusalem, I believe is built on a hill top and is pretty built up
The Psalm asks us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem holy to three major world faiths (if only we could see eye to eye on living peaceably there! But hey there has been a long time to wind each other up!)
I honestly do think that praying for peace in the middle East is a worth while thing to do - after all we have had a few thousand years of human "diplomacy" to demonstrate that we cannot solve these divisions on our own!
Those of no faith may argue that the divisions are religious - in which case go in there and sort it out using atheism and pure "logic" - see how you get on!
Oh wait, we saw how that works with the purges and pogroms of totalitarian atheist states!
Perhaps there is something to be said about making a journey together - after all sometimes the journey of discovery is as important as the destination?
The title for this post may seem a bit of a stretch - the Psalm is titled "A song of ascents. Of David"
I believe that the song of ascents refers to the journey to Jerusalem that was supposed to be made three times a year.
For me I would describe a pilgrimage as a physical journey with a spiritual goal.
Historically a pilgrimage would have been to a holy site, in the UK we have a few pilgrim sites. Historically Canterbury was the main one to visit the shrine of Thomas Beckett (parts of him actually came back recently following the destruction of the shrine during the reformation)
Anyway back to the Psalm - how do you feel when somebody says "Lets go to church"?
I guess for a lot of people the response would be For why, Keats, for why? (extra points if you get the movie reference!)
Here, though I rejoiced with those who said to me "Let us go to the house of the LORD"
Our feet ar standing at your gates, Jerusalem.
Jerusalem, I believe is built on a hill top and is pretty built up
The Psalm asks us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem holy to three major world faiths (if only we could see eye to eye on living peaceably there! But hey there has been a long time to wind each other up!)
I honestly do think that praying for peace in the middle East is a worth while thing to do - after all we have had a few thousand years of human "diplomacy" to demonstrate that we cannot solve these divisions on our own!
Those of no faith may argue that the divisions are religious - in which case go in there and sort it out using atheism and pure "logic" - see how you get on!
Oh wait, we saw how that works with the purges and pogroms of totalitarian atheist states!
Perhaps there is something to be said about making a journey together - after all sometimes the journey of discovery is as important as the destination?
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