Ash Wednesday

It's Ash Wednesday ... and we don't have coronavirus lockdowns ... so the Mass went ahead and we all received the ashes. I asked the sisters to lend me an old chalice so I can celebrate Mass with it without having to use the common chalice so I don't spread my cold and cold sore. That's what the doc advised.

Choppy sea at Jaffa

I decided after Mass to leave the Old City and go to Jaffa for a quiet day's recollection. Doc said my sickness is due to lowered resistance resulting from lack of sleep and overwork. Everyone in both y libraries tell me to go and rest. So well ... I did. I brought a book with me to read and no food ... being a fast day ... and was really looking forward to a reflective day. The beach promenade was very quiet with very few people. The sea was choppy and waves smashed into the rocks every few seconds.  It was really a lovely setup for meditation and quiet thinking. Then the messages kept beeping in .... from the workers in the library. No photocopy paper, one wants a holiday tomorrow .... It's all a conspiracy. It's a setup to send me away and then dump more problems from a distance.  

Field of tulips

Well I had to come home earlier than planned. That's Lent at it's best ... forced to do something I had not planned or expected. The long one hour ride was stuffy in the 10 seater minibus. The old man next to me was coughing and sniffling. I got off near the King David's hotel and walked across the park just to get my last breath of fresh air. It was a wonderful sight ... fields of wild clover and tulips in bloom. That was one positive thing for an otherwise ruined retreat.

While in Jaffa, fighter jets were flying overhead towards the south ... probably to bomb Gaza. The unexpected flare up in fighting between Gaza and Israel lasted the past 2 days and we now know its because of a video showing Israeli soldiers using a bulldozer to move a dead gazan's body. Well it's all over and today Israel is reopening the borders and even extending the fishing zone for gazans.

Meantime some rabbis have been publicly calling for an end to anti-asian and racist aggression. It is bad .... really ... here. And the rabbis remind the jews that they too were once strangers in a foreign land, blamed for the ills of their host country and made as scapegoats. They should empathise and not victimise asians.  https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/loving-the-stranger-in-a-time-of-covid-19/?fbclid=IwAR0m1bGgDf_UuPo27g3DsTtkN2tbDYX1yZI96LhViVoSneKSEvLwT5XaaZU