Connection

Elijah Interfaith Summer School 2022 day 3

Gordie Jackson
2 min readJul 27, 2022
Jerusalem YMCA at night — gjphoto26072022

We did the stations of the cross along the Via Dolorosa led by Sister Rita.

At Notre Dame , the Vatican's guest house, we heard from ‘ a consecrated woman’ how in moving from Spain to here she had discovered a new openness. She relayed how she saw that people had intentions to have a relationship with God regardless of faith.

In the evening we heard from another four people of faith, a Christian, a Jew, a Buddist and a Sikh. I give value to ‘experience’ over the head often and so I did on this occasion. It was as the Rabbi spoke that I felt an awakening within. I couldn’t remember all that he said but I remember what I was experiencing. If I were to try to capture what he was saying it was that our self is the God part of us, separate from our identity, if we go inward to this divine power we become recreated whatever our state. Often people urge outward acts of repentance here I was hearing run to the divine rather than away.

I noted that I resonated more with some of the speakers than others. I think this is our experience as humans that some things connect with us and others don’t while they do with others.

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Gordie Jackson

Speaks with a Northern Irish accent, lives in Hertfordshire, England.