The Curtain of Magic

There we were, in what can be considered the world’s holiest place for the world’s largest religion. Arguing.

My teen son and I hid in a corner of The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, the very site believed to be where Jesus died, was buried, and resurrected. Since the earliest days of Christianity, pilgrims have traveled to this ancient place. Wars have been fought over it, crusades launched for its control. Even as we stood there, whisper-arguing, modern pilgrims speaking a multitude of languages streamed around us, lighting candles, taking pictures, occasionally prostrating themselves on the floor.

I wanted to see the church - actually an odd conglomeration of six churches – to try to imagine what it must have been like in the first century, and perhaps to see if we could catch a whiff of something holy. The child wanted to huddle with the other teens from the trip and giggle about who said what to whom.

I think not.

“I didn’t come all this way for you to hang with your friends,” I heard myself saying in best mom lecture voice, “I mean, not here. Not now.”

So I led him, both of us grumbling, through the various chapels and rooms that make up the church. I can’t say that either of us felt the brush of angel wings.

Such is life, traveling with children. You win some, you lose some.

This is the child who, at age five, refused to stay in the planetarium even though he was a huge space buff, ruining the special trip I’d planned for him. When he was eleven, he whined and complained his way through an hour and a half wait for a race car ride at Disney World. He didn’t want to go. Literally at the last moment, the ride broke, freeing him from the horrific experience of a Disney race car. We say he broke it with his brain. Don’t get me started at the number of places he’s thrown up.

However, this is also the child who, at age two, stood with me on a Washington DC sidewalk for at least an hour, watching a trail of ants go back and forth. We talked about ants and he giggled in glee as I felt a curtain of magic descend around us. It was at that moment that I realized that magical moments don’t come for the asking or planning. Moments we think will be seminal turn out to be whiney. Events we think will be remembered are consumed with grumpiness or bad attitudes or fighting. (And sometimes the kids are out of sorts too). But the moments do come. If we are there to catch it, the magic does come.

A few days after our less-than-reverent trip to the Sepulcher, our group spent the morning at Masada, a mountain top fortress where Jewish zealots made their last, tragic stand against the Roman army in 73 C.E. Sheer cliffs, some 1300 feet high, form the walls of the fortress, with the extensive ruins on top. A zig zag trail, called the Snake Path, leads up the side of the cliff, up all 1300 feet.

Yeah. Not happening. We took a cable car.

On the ride up, my son and I amused each other by pretending to be scared of the height. At the top, we tooled around the ruins, poking our heads into ancient bath houses and out of crumbling walls. We took a few goofy pictures. Then we surveyed the earthen ramp the Romans made to invade the fortress, imagining what it must have been like for the zealots to lose so dramatically in such a place. It was cool as only an expensive trip to a foreign country can be cool.

As some of our group filed back into the cable car for the ride down, we decided to walk the Snake Path. Better down than up, right?

Darn if that kid didn’t run down the entire path, all 1300 feet, beating the cable car to the bottom.

As he received the accolades of his peers and smiled at me in pride, I felt the magic curtain descend. It wasn’t there at the Sepulcher, but it still existed. If I hadn’t taken the trip, if we hadn’t taken the time, if I weren’t willing to risk a few Sepulcher moments, I would have missed it.

We’ll always have Masada.