Easter and Writing About Travel

 

 

Christ is risen.  He is risen indeed. Alleluia. 

Nowhere did I feel this so intensely as - not on an Easter Day - but during October 2016 at the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem.  Husband Bret and I had been in Israel for seven days and this was our last before flying home.  Our holiday, which included many Biblical locations, had been intense, and, although it was not an official pilgrimage, almost all members of our tour group were committed Christians.

The Garden Tomb is where, according to General Gordon of Khartoum, the Resurrection took place.  General Gordon, of course, was a controversial character and there is some doubt as to whether he got this right, but I wanted to see The Garden Tomb.  We saw the signpost but we couldn’t find the place itself.  We walked round and round and eventually ended up at the bus station.  There, above the buses and the modern buildings, that I spotted a sheer sandstone cliff with shallow caves.  ‘It’s there,’ I said.  ‘We’ve got to walk behind that.’  So we did and what we found took us straight into today’s Gospel. 

In this beautiful garden, Mary Magdalene may have stood weeping and calling after ‘the gardener’.  I heard her cry of ‘Rabbouni’ as we stood and took it all in, while two robed Gospel choirs sang softly in the background.

And the tomb.  I pictured Simon Peter rushing in and remarking upon the linen cloth where Jesus’s head had lain.  The tomb?  I don’t know, but what I realised as I stood there is that the Risen Christ is with us all, those of us who want to know Him, everywhere.  And I wept tears of joy.

I have never written up this experience.  I have a travel blog, although… ah-hmm… I don’t post on it very often, and I didn’t have it at that time.  We don’t focus very much on travel writing at the Association of Christian Writers, despite having a Travel page on the ACW website bookshop.  Unfortunately, there is only one book on it (Walk the Land by Judy Pex, which is also about Israel), but many travel writers like to share their experiences through their blogs.  Do you have a travel blog, or have you written travel-related posts on another blog of yours?  Would you like to share posts on the ACW site?  Yes?  Please send to me at webmaster@christianwriters.co.uk: your name, title of your blog and a link (URL) to the post you would like to feature on the Travel page.  (That’s a link to the page, not to the whole blog, as otherwise I won’t know which post you want to share.

This brings me to my next point.  I have been webmaster since 2000 and on the ACW Committee since 2015.  It’s time for me to move on.  Do you have web skills?  If so, please contact me at webmaster@christianwriters.co.uk

 

Rosemary Johnson is author of Wodka, Or Tea With Milk, a historical novel set during the Solidarity years in Poland and of many short stories and flash.  Rosemary is also the ACW Webmaster.  In real life, she is a retired IT lecturer, living in Essex with her husband.