Something there is in me that hates shrines. Mobs of tourists, matching scarves or caps, sleek bubble buses, guides babbling a potpourri of languages.
A shrine makes me feel I’m being played or fed a story. Even the bare fact that most of the shrines have historical evidence for their existence doesn’t put a better taste in my mouth. I am not a groupie, a follower, a shrine worshipper.
Give me Susita or the cliffs of Arbel. Let me wander with some Israeli teens on a school outing darting down the path in front of me, faces flushed with laughter. It’s the “pilgrims” I detest, however devout they are.
I seem to remember Jesus rebuking Peter when he wanted to build a shrine on Mt. Tabor, if that is actually the right place. There’s a shrine there now. Obviously, the pilgrims that have walked this land for centuries didn’t bother to read the script.
Thanks goodness I took the “green” tour where the grass amid ruins is our usual lecture venue, far from the pilgrims and groupies.
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