It’s the object of overwhelming projection,a space of dreams and longing. There can be no political peace there until Jerusalem the golden is understoodTrying to organise parish pilgrimages to the Holy Land, I have often near across church people who refuse to travel to Israel, or to Jerusalem in specific,because they accomplish not want the reality of the space to interfere with their opinion of it. “Jerusalem the golden / With milk and honey blest…,” they have sung in church, or “I know not,O I know not /What joys await us there, / What radiancy of glory, and / What bliss beyond compare.”No town can ever live up to that sort of billing. The reality is always going to be more prosaic. Which is why those who accomplish make the pilgrimage can sometimes feel a little deflated by the sheer everydayness of the space – the shops,the traffic, the traffic wardens, and all the paraphernalia of a bustling tourist industry.
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Source: guardian.co.uk