Tuesday, August 08, 2006

HOLY MOLY: A BRIDAL PARTY IN THE HOLY LAND

My buddy arrived back in Jerusalem after a summer trip to the U.S.A. She was on the phone with her husband, who was still back in the States, when she heard a commotion down in the street below from her upper-level balcony.

There were tambourines and chanting, so she thought it was a parade. He was worried about her, and she wanted to reassure him that everything was OK that many miles from the fighting. She put the phone out so her husband could hear the parade and grasp how vibrant and beautiful the city still was, despite the nastiness of the war. Too late, she finally could make out what they were chanting:

“HIZB’ALLAH!!! HIZB’ALLAH!!!”

Oops! She thought her husband might try to jump through the phone line when he heard that. It was a protest by an Islamic group outside a nearby Jewish seminary. They were soon dispersed without incident by Israeli police.

Yes, life goes on in the Holy Land, even though sometimes it gets wacky. For example, she attended a wedding of two Christian friends last week in Ramallah, the former headquarters of Yasser Arafat and now the home base of the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas.

It’s a long story: the bride is a Palestinian Christian from Ramallah with dual citizenship in the U.S. The groom has an Egyptian background and is a Christian, too. The bride’s family members in Ramallah don’t have a certain blue identity card which would allow them to travel inside Jerusalem for the wedding in the groom’s church. You have to have been born in Jerusalem, and be a resident there, to have one.

So the couple had to borrow a church in Ramallah to get hitched. That’s why it was a Coptic Christian service for two evangelical Christians held in a Greek Orthodox Church in the Palestinian city of Ramallah.

They pulled it off, and then some. Look at the regal bride and groom in traditional garb:


Isn’t it nice to know that you can still find love, beauty and joy in the midst of war and hate?

Or are you just groovin’ on their crowns? I know I am. Think what happy marriages we all could have, if you start off thinking of yourself as a king and queen. Nothing could get in the way of your peace and happiness!

Take that, Hizb’allah!!!

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