Jerusalem Journal # 209
Having recently crossed the bridge of my seventy-second natal anniversary last month, I am hammering out these words on the laptop from a panoramic window view of Jerusalem’s Old City, where [...]
The Jerusalem Journal
By: Cindy Bayer
How the Journal began…
Welcome to Jerusalem! Greetings from the eastern wall of the Temple Mount, where the Kidron Valley and Mt. of Olives stretch out behind me.
Imagine living in this land where the Bible comes to life every day…and under the stars each night! What an amazing opportunity it has been to put down tent pegs in this strategic crossroads and to come under the ancient canopy of those who have called this place home for generations. As a women’s Bible teacher since the 1970’s, I viewed Israel as the place where my heroes had walked.
Twenty-five years of marriage came to a close in 2000 after my former husband chose infidelity and divorce. I needed a heavy dose of hope and a reminder of God’s faithfulness. What better place to return to than the land where the impossible often happened and where faith lessons are around every corner?
In early 2001, when Israeli tourism was at a record low because buses were being blown up around the country, I came for a solo retreat at the Sea of Galilee. During breakfast one morning I had a “turning-point conversation” with a woman and her daughter who were the only other guests at the hotel. Dianne was pursuing a masters degree in Jerusalem and the thought of studying here lodged a seed in me. Nearing 50, divorced, with one daughter married and my younger daughter leaving for college, I sensed it was time for new beginnings.
Family and friends were concerned for my safety when I came to Israel in 2002 to enter a graduate study program at Jerusalem University College www.juc.edu. Here, in a rooftop apartment overlooking the colorful jumble of the Old City and the Mt. of Olives, I began writing Jerusalem Journal to assuage the fears of those who bought the “war zone” perspective of the news media and also to stir the hearts of others to come visit this amazing land.
Through Jerusalem Journal, I began to spill out my passion for this land and the God who created it…revealing a tapestry of stories and word pictures. I sign my letters with the phrase, “Enjoying the walk home,” a reference to the fact that the Lord has cared for me as a husband on this journey and that I am anticipating my “eternal” home. On my walk home, I met Gary Bayer in Jerusalem and a year later we were married here in 2005…another new beginning. The “season of Gary” has come to a close with his death in 2017, but there are new adventures on the horizon. Israel is “my hope place.”
Cindy Bayer
Enjoying the walk home
How the
Journal began…
Welcome to Jerusalem! Greetings from the eastern wall of the Temple Mount, where the Kidron Valley and Mt. of Olives stretch out behind me.
Imagine living in this land where the Bible comes to life every day…and under the stars each night! What an amazing opportunity it has been to put down tent pegs in this strategic crossroads and to come under the ancient canopy of those who have called this place home for generations. As a women’s Bible teacher since the 1970’s, I viewed Israel as the place where my heroes had walked, and each 10-day visit here was never enough to absorb all of the cultural drama unique to this land.
Twenty-five years of marriage came to a close in 2000 after my former husband chose infidelity and divorce. I needed a heavy dose of hope and a reminder of God’s faithfulness. What better place to return to than the land where the impossible often happened and where faith lessons are around every corner?
In early 2001, when Israeli tourism was at a record low because buses were being blown up around the country, I came for a solo retreat at the Sea of Galilee. During breakfast one morning I had a “turning-point conversation” with a woman and her daughter who were the only other guests at the hotel. Dianne was pursuing a masters degree in Jerusalem and the thought of studying here lodged a seed in me. Nearing 50, divorced, with one daughter married and my younger daughter leaving for college, I sensed it was time for new beginnings.
Family and friends were concerned for my safety when I came to Israel in 2002 to enter a graduate study program at Jerusalem University College www.juc.edu. Here, in a rooftop apartment overlooking the colorful jumble of the Old City and the Mt. of Olives, I began writing Jerusalem Journal to assuage the fears of those who bought the “war zone” perspective of the news media and also to stir the hearts of others to come visit this amazing land.
Through Jerusalem Journal, I began to spill out my passion for this land and the God who created it…revealing a tapestry of stories and word pictures. I sign my letters with the phrase, “Enjoying the walk home,” a reference to the fact that the Lord has cared for me as a husband on this journey and that I am anticipating my “eternal” home. On my walk home, I met Gary Bayer in Jerusalem and a year later we were married here in 2005…another new beginning. The “season of Gary” has come to a close with his death in 2017, but there are new adventures on the horizon. Israel is “my hope place.”
Cindy Bayer
Enjoying the walk home
Current Jerusalem Journal
Current
Jerusalem Journal
Jerusalem Journal Archive
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Jerusalem Journal # 208
When warnings of an imminent Iranian air attack on Israel began flooding Israeli media during the evening hours of Saturday, April 13, we braced for impact. The early hours of April 14 were memory-makers here. Israeli military intelligence had put the country on the highest alert status, and they were right on target in more […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 206
Part 1 of “A Story of Forgiveness” The dense dust and sand-mixed scrim hanging from ethereal curtain rods over Jerusalem and all of Israel has lifted, whispering on the western winds hints of hope that triple-digit temperatures may have subsided for a new season. In my region of the Middle East, a desiccating east wind […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 205
How do I love my neighbor? I have been turning the Rubik’s Cube of my mind in all directions for a solution, and I am still wrestling to progress after almost six weeks back in Israel. When you read this, I will probably be back in the USA with my family to continue waiting for […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 204
It has been over a year since Jerusalem Old City craftsmen, my “Betzalel Team,” completed their construction of my room addition to the tiny 400-square-foot apartment I had called home for twenty years. Their departure left me with a fabulous new space for writing inspiration and hosting others; however, the dust bombs created by wall […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 203
It was early December of 1965 and the U.S. had entered the Vietnam War. Psychedelic hippie counterculture sought answers to big questions to which the Beatles soon responded with their song, All You Need is Love. Socio-political protests like the Civil Rights Movement were growing, assassinations took the lives of high-profile leaders like the Kennedy […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 202
The metallic whir of a dusty stand fan creates a whoosh of breezes, mitigating the Jerusalem heat under my canopied pergola. Stately royal lavender and a pink explosion of geraniums live side-by-side with mint, rosemary, and basil on my Via Dolorosa apartment terrace—an oasis. Sitting in the crosshairs of the fan, my hair dances like […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 201
Intoxicating perfume from lemon blossoms envelops me as I step across the threshold into my garden, a haven of healing and hope during these days of Coronavirus quarantine. Lemons and their grafting root of wild orange adorn the branches like jewel pendants amidst blossoms of next season’s yield now casting off their flowers and some […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 200
Why are we waiting to savor something ephemeral with excuses like, “I don’t have time,” or “It just isn’t convenient,” or “I am leaving soon, so what’s the point?” This morning, having returned from the bucolic calm of the north to the frenzied rhythm of Jerusalem’s Old City, I opened my refrigerator door to see […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 199
Prayer shawls, fringes fluttering in the breeze, envelop Jewish Orthodox men streaming through Damascus Gate, as they flow toward the Western Wall on this Sabbath morning, lips muttering in silent prayer. God’s care and protection are figuratively described by the Psalmist as being “in the shelter of His wings,” or kanapheka, which includes references to […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 198
Music fills the streets of Jerusalem as the annual crescendo of colliding sacred calendars begins to rise and resound down the Via Dolorosa and at Jewish Passover Seder tables throughout the city. It is a time of remembrance generating hope for the future and I am living in the middle of that crescendo. The spiritual […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 197
It was a rainy Monday morning and my internet was down. Although the melancholy 1970’s song by The Carpenters goes, “Rainy days and Mondays always get me down…,” I was thankful for the drought-breaking precipitation on that Monday morning, but the internet being down—that was tough for a writer’s research abilities to handle without an […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 196
How is your French? My university major in Spanish and minor in French were foundational to my cauldron of language soup which, since living in Israel, now includes Arabic and Hebrew. This alphabet soup has unfortunately cooked down to only the basics, but there are choice words which continue to stir up my love for […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 195
I will be in the US Nov. 21-Dec. 26 sharing stories about life in Israel plus visiting family and friends. My itinerary is at the end of this email. Hope to see many of you! Racing against the clock and traffic, I drove more than two hours south from the Sea of Galilee down […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 194
Romance is in the air! Don’t get the wrong idea—this isn’t the kind of romance found in steamy novels, but it is passionate, provocative, and palpable. It entices your heart to dream, to be lavished upon or to be the giver of lavish generosity. That word “lavish” comes from the Old French word “lavache” which […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 193
Give us this day our daily dust. I DO live in the Middle East, where winds from the east are stirred from barren desert stretches and, regardless of whether the doors and windows are closed, the dust (Hebrew, aphar, dry earth) finds a way of intruding through crack or crevice with a calling card. […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 192
Do you enjoy the creativity of taking a jumble of disjointed words and turning them into a phrase understandable by others? I have a few of those magnetic boards filled with small magnetic words and a purposefully blank section of black just crying out for guests to leave their prose or poetry. Having created with […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 191
Chilly and crisply clean northern winds rush down the snowy crown of Mt. Hermon colliding with sandy warm winds stirred up from the Arabian Desert which spill over the Golan Heights ridge. The opposing winds meet this morning, before me, over the Sea of Galilee in a low-hanging mist which moves southward down the Jordan […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 190
A male jewel-toned Palestine Sunbird ducked into his tiny purse-like nest of fuzz, feathers, straw, and sticks which was perched in the lattice of my pergola this morning. His iridescent feathers of emerald, deep purple, and indigo catch the morning sun. He is experiencing “the season of the children” along with his grey-brown mate, and […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 189
Laundry, strung across countless clotheslines for the world to see, flaps violently in the afternoon wind. Veiled women, cloaked in black, play the clothespins and strings of drying racks like instruments as they adjust their family’s garments to face the shifting sun. Muslim prayer calls, just hours after Friday’s vitriolic sermon at Al Aqsa Mosque, […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 188
More than nine months have passed since the Israeli gatekeepers at the Ministry of Interior put the kibosh (or kabash) on our application to become residents of this land we’ve called home for the past thirteen years. It has been a journey of faith and, I must say, a humbling one, as our stack of […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 187
Surging whitecaps of swirling sea foam leap across the azure waters of the Sea of Galilee, appearing from my window this morning as a miniature armada of white sailboats propelled by powerful winds from the east, crashing upon the western shore. Cedars and palms bend in submission to the fierce gusts hurled at our western […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 186
“This is your captain speaking. Sorry to awaken you. We have just received word from an airplane ahead of us that there is severe turbulence in our flight path. Flight staff, I need everyone in their seats with seat belts fastened, NOW! Secure all loose objects. Flight staff, I need you in your seats NOW!” […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 185
“It has been said, “Be careful what you pray for–you might just get it!” I have been painfully reacquainted with the truth of that adage. Gary and I had been praying for breakthroughs on many fronts: for his prostate cancer and side effects becoming a thing of the past, for the medical TV series script […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 184
“…for such a time as this.” So read the words of a man who saw the hand of God at work and gave counsel in a critical, even potentially dangerous day when the collision of kingdoms, cultures, and passions threatened his existence, his people, and their generations to follow. The Megillah of Esther, or […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 183
Hezekiah’s Tunnel is the subterranean marvel beneath Jerusalem’s ancient City of David. Judah’s king had ordered the tunnel be hewn through bedrock by two teams of construction workers as the Assyrian army advanced on Jerusalem in 701 B.C. Using only the sound of pick axes on rock, the teams, starting at different locations, miraculously met […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 182
Our tiny un-air-conditioned apartment in Jerusalem’s Old City is located on an expansive tiled rooftop. Four challenging flights of steps (especially with suitcases or groceries) ascend heavenward from an enclosed church courtyard to the most amazing view of historical landscape unfurled toward the four points of a compass. Breathtaking! Those who invest in the climb […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 181
Computer perched securely on my lap as I typed, I was rocked by the breeze in a colorfully striped hammock strung across my balcony above Jerusalem’s Old City. Beyond the rusting railings I saw flags representing Greek Orthodox, Catholic, Israel, and various soccer teams like Real Madrid and Brazil. The gusting winds allowed the flags […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 180
Beyond my curtain, the thunder of artillery fire rumbles in from the east across the Golan horizon, resonating over azure waters of the Sea of Galilee. The explosions jolt not only the foundations of our home, but also the corridors of my mind. Here, images of the three-year Syrian Civil War hang like unwelcome photographs […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 179
What is your “bamah” and are you using it for good, for honor, or for dishonor? Before you sports fans of the University of Alabama burst out in a cheer of “Roll Tide,” let me explain the word “bam-ah” as understood in ancient times here in the Land of the Bible and how that same […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 178
Symbiosis– “interaction between two organisms living in close proximity to each other, giving mutual benefit to both.” In this Land of the Bible, shepherd and farmer experience this inter- dependent relationship. As farmers harvest the crops, leaving husks and plant material on the ground for the shepherds, their flocks graze and fertilize the fields. Symbiotic […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 177
Have you ever had the sensation that you were witnessing history and you felt compelled to chronicle it in some way, whether through film, photograph, journal, or a letter? Step with me onto the narrow garden pathway for a glimpse at just a few of the images which serve as a reminder of God’s power […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 176
Pilgrims from all over the world have converged on Jerusalem for Sukkot, The Feast of Booths spoken of in the Bible. It is the “Season of Rejoicing.” For eight days people spend much of the day (and sometimes overnight) in their sukkah (sook-kaw), which, in Hebrew, describes “a hut, booth, pavilion, tabernacle, or tent.” Historically, […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 175
Winds of change have blown across Middle Eastern desert sands causing archaeological evidence of civilizations who once staked their claim upon the “terra sancta” of Jerusalem to become obscured, even buried under rubble, city infrastructure, and the ideologies of past cultures. A melange of cultures still struggle like ancient gladiators in the amphitheater of historical […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 174
“This is absolutely beautiful wood,” I remarked passionately, as Ron, an employee at a Galilean carpenter’s dream-shop, breezed through the doorway past me into a display area where slabs of dramatically grained wood await their debut as benches or tabletop works of art. “It is not from us (translation: We didn’t make this),” he responded, […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 173
“Are you safe?” “Wondering if you are OK…can you let us know?” “We’ve been watching the news and praying for you.” Such were the emails and Facebook posts from friends around the world who were viewing an escalation of the Israeli/Hamas conflict through the media’s eyes. We’re living life in the crosshairs, but that isn’t […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 172
One step inside the narrow green door tucked obscurely into a massive stone wall was all it took to convince me that the derelict oasis within was like an ancient buried mosaic tile floor, designed to give a message to the world, yet lying unappreciated and in disrepair for years until the timing was right […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 171
There has been a lot of construction going on around me in recent months and the message that keeps hammering away in both my head and my heart is “Make it count, not just for today, but for years into the future.” Snap decisions can lead to design flaws which are costly and may eventually […]
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Jerusalem Journal # 170
The embracing walls of the Old City glow with golden brilliance as the sun sets on another day in this land where other walls, seen and unseen, divide ideologically, theologically, culturally. In this place much has been built, destroyed, then rebuilt. No other real estate on earth commands the attention of the world like Jerusalem. […]
