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The Unholy City The Spiritual Traveler
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 The Unholy City
I made a pilgrimage to the holiest city
in the world, and found that it
was the least holy.
Of all the cities in the world,
it was the least holy.
"Could it be a coincidence," I wondered,
"that this city has a wall around it-
a famous wall,
a towering and imposing wall,
an ancient wall of limestone,
a wall that pilgrims kiss and tourists flock to,
a historic wall
a wall of wonders and miracles,
a sacred wall, a blessed wall?
Could it be a coincidence, then,
that girdled by such a wall,
this city is the least holy?
It is a city of dark, twisting,
torturous streets,
of silent, ghostly inhabitants,
of wailing children with
torn shoes and smeared faces,
a city of vendors, priests, and hospices,
of domes and cupolas,
of mingled languages,
of cobbled steps and stairs,
of secret entrances and passageways.
Of all the cities in the world,
it is the most beloved,
and the least holy.
Jalal accompanied me on my
pilgrimage. We sat in a restaurant
under a bower of grape vines,
opposite Damascus Gate.
"Holiness is everywhere. It is
in everything," he said.
"I know this, Jalal," was my reply.
"It cannot be dammed up, trampled,
shut out, divided, erased,
made more simple, more complex,
negated or destroyed."
"I know this, too," I murmured.
"All places are holy-equally holy."
"Yes," I echoed him.
"Then why do you say this city
is the least holy? At least it is as
holy as the rest."
"The only unholy places," I proclaimed,
"are those that call themselves holy.
The only rejected people are those who
feel they are the chosen.
The only polluted souls belong to
those who think that they are clean.
The only cripples are those
who believe they have a special gift.
The only people thwarted are those who
are certain of their own destiny.
"Blessed are the unholy,
for they make saints of their neighbors.
Blessed are the powerful, for they open
the eyes of the weak.
Blessed are the conquerors, for they bring
the sanctity of oppression to those who
long to wake from sleep.
"Blessed are the builders of walls, the hewers
of walls, the keepers of walls, and even the
decorators of walls, and those who live
within the confines of those walls, for by
their example, others will recognize the
walls they have built for themselves, and
begin to tear them down.
Blessed are all the adulterous nations, for
they show others the path to chastity."
"Indeed," replied Jalal, "If you walk with me
through what you call the unholy land, starting from this,
its capital, you will see that it is a land
of stone. Everywhere is stone-the raw material
of walls, towers, and dark dwellings.
If you walk with me through this land,
you will see that it is a land divided.
It is really two lands, two lands of stone.
"You will see a land where stones are put to use,
a land of gleaming apartments, of neat settlements
perched on the tops of hills like figures
atop a wedding cake.
You will see a land swept, and sown, and irrigated,
watched, patrolled, surveyed, and demarcated,
a productive land, a land to marvel at and envy,
a land of grapes and figs and olives,
a new land, an old land brought to life again,
a land that is a land.
"And you will see another land,
a land where stones lie idle,
a land of misplaced stones, of dispersed stones,
of stones flung far and wide,
a land of rubble-fallen apart, in disuse
and disrepair-a land of crumbling walls
and dry fields, of lonely trees, and sorrowful
gardens, a land of dust and refuse, of idleness
and decay, of ruin, of activity without purpose,
a land that is no land.
"And I wonder, when you see these two lands,
set one within the other, as close to one another
as a pair of breathless lovers,
will your heart be as burdened in the land of gleaming
towers as in the land of rubble?
Will it feel as imprisoned amid the neatly tended
orchards as among the forlorn gardens?
Will it be as wounded by neon-lit malls
as by the somber gait of donkeys and camels?
Will it be as shocked by the sight of art galleries
as by that of gypsies and beggars?
Will it be as angered at the taste of plump, ripe fruit
as at that of hard fruit, and bitter?
Will it draw away as much from the sight of scantily-clad
women as from those covered with painful modesty?
Will your heart be as my heart-a traitor to all sweet
promises, a skeptical heart, mistrustful of its own
longings and its own passions?"
We walked, then, through that unholy land, Jalal and I,
until we grew extremely weary.
We grew weary of its promise, so unfulfilled.
We grew weary of its divisions, of its quarrelsome peoples,
of its rivalries, and its dissensions.
It reminded us of ourselves-the selves we had grown
tired of, and left behind. We thought of all
the people who had yet to grow weary of their quarrels,
of their hates, and of their fears.
We wondered aloud how long it would take
to heal their countless wounded hearts.
It seemed a monstrous length of time to contemplate.
Yet in our weariness, there was exhiliration.
"I feel that we are brothers," Jalal said to me.
"I feel that we are walkers on the walls,
men who are alone without being lonely,
banishers of pleasure and of pain.
I feel that we are masters of walls,
that we are climbers, scientists of life and death,
seers who see nothing and knowers who know nothing,
comforters who take comfort in nothing but existence."
"Yes," I replied. "I feel this as well. We have
been stopped by walls, encircled by walls, overshadowed
by walls, watched from walls, guarded by walls,
crushed by walls, mangled in the attempt to escape from walls,
until we have become blind to walls...insensitive to walls...
immune from walls...and aware only of life and of this moment." |
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Date Submitted:
2001-07-03 00:00:00 |
Copyright Information:
Copyright © The Spiritual Traveler, 2001 |
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