Child along Via Dolorosa
Snapped this on the sly. A most innocent looking girl. She was standing by the wall along the Via Dolorosa, in the Old City of Jerusalem, the road where Christ bore the cross toward Golgotha where he was finally crucified alongside two thieves. The way is divided into 14 stations, including 3 times where He fell, once where Mary met Him, once where He was mocked and another where He was stripped of his garments before the final crucifixion. The last 8 stations are in the Church of the Holy Sephulcre itself.  

In the gigantic church, we queued to enter the tomb of Jesus. It was a huge, dark, forbidding and alien structure, rather repulsive for a shrine built over the tomb of a god. 

Up at the Golgotha was a hole in the floor that marked the spot on which the crucifix was planted. I went on my knees to touch it. It was a stony experience. The shrine was bright and tacky in design. I made a prayer as I had in the Church of Nativity. I asked, typically, for a sign, but even there at the fulcrum of Christianity, the holiest place the the world, the lines were dead quiet.

d e t o u r