Posted by Abbott Bailey
One of my roles at St. Andrew’s Church in Richmond is as the chaplain for the elementary school associated with the church. During our last chapel together before leaving for Jerusalem, one of the children, a first grader, asked me to please take a picture with Jesus to share with them when I get back. I don’t remember exactly what I said in reply after chuckling in delight, but I remember thinking that his request betrayed a beautifully simple sense of the incarnation that I’d be well served to adopt while I’m here as we literally wander in the footsteps of Christ.
We have now arrived at St. George’s College — 28 of us from the Diocese of Virginia and another 10 or so from places as far away as New Zealand. Last night, a few hours after arrival, still bleary from our long travels to get here, Andrew, our course director, reminded us that St. Jerome called Holy Land the land of the “fifth gospel.” I wonder if my first grader and St. Jerome weren’t somehow speaking the same language.
Each one of us on this Pilgrimage has come with hopes and expectations, and now we are entering into the hopes and expectations of all the people who call this place “home” with everything that means to them. Here’s some of what we hope for the next few weeks:
“I am so mindful, and I begin this journey in Lent, of the words from the Gospel of Luke, ‘he set his face toward Jerusalem.'”
“I’m curious to explore the idea of sacred space in this place that is considered by many to be one of the most sacred spaces in the world.”
“I’m here to deepen my solidarity with the church in Jerusalem.”
“How as an American can I have anything to do with peace and justice in the middle east? That is my question for this trip.”
“I have been told — and I feel this — that ‘something will happen’ while I am here.”
“Is ‘he’ really here any more than he is in my house? I’m here to find out.”
“I’ve been reading the gospel stories since I can remember, and now I get to be in and actually see what I’ve been imagining my whole life.”
The psalmist wrote, “And of Zion it shall be said, ‘This one and that one were born in it’; for the Most High himself will establish it. The Lord records, as he registers the peoples, ‘This one was born here.’ Singers and dancers alike say, ‘All my springs are in you.'”
I imagine for each of us that something of us will be born here.
The Jerusalem Mile Project 
Blessings on your steps as you walk through the “fifth gospel!”