Lalibella

    Today started out extremely early. Our alarm went off at 4:30 am and we were downstairs ready for breakfast at 5:15. After a healthy and delicious breakfast, we headed off to the airport to catch the morning flight to Lalibella. After about an hour in the air, our plane landed in the city of Gondar. It looked quite beautiful there, so I am excited to return to Gondar after Lalibella and Axum. Our plane took off again and we flew a brief 30 minute flight and landed in Lalibella.

    Lalibella is one of the best known tourist spots in all of Ethiopia. Getting off the plane, I was awed by the mountains around us. There are mountains in Addis Ababa, but the mountains in Lalibella are totally different, less green, terraced farming fields, small villages with round thatched houses. Riding in the van from the airport to our hotel we were blessed with amazing views and beautiful country.

   

Over the past two days we spent in the remote area around Lalibella. This region is well known for the world famous rock-hewn churches. Much of our time was spent touring all of the churches in the area. It is hard to find a word to truly describe what these churches are like.

Each one is different which speaks to when and why they were made. The story goes that King Lalibella (which means honey eater in Amharic) made a journey to Jerusalem and saw the important sites of Christianity and Judaism. It is important to note that Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity is a very unique blend of Christianity and Judaism. Having the Ark of the Covenant (supposedly) on Ethiopian soil has created an almost cultic (not intended to have a negative connotation) belief in the mixture between the two religions. Upon his return from Jerusalem, King Lalibella went about building these churches with each one dedicated to one of the important sites in Jerusalem. They are all highly symbolic. They also occur in three groups, separated by a small waterway symbolizing the Jordan River. As a whole, the churches were built in the twelfth century and it took 23 years to build all thirteen churches. There have been estimates to how many people it would have taken to build all the churches, and they are in the tens of thousands. However, local lore points to the help of Angels who would come at night and continue work through the night. In one church, there is even the legend that King Lalibella's wife carved the entire church herself with the help of the angels at night.

The thirteen churches are all distinct and are varied in layout and design. Many loosely follow a basilica format, yet somewhat altered in that they must still contain the three sections of the church, the outside where hymns and chants are sung, the secondary area where Holy Communion is served to the priests and deacons and the most important, the holy of holies, wherein a replica of the Ark of the Covenant is kept, out of view of all but the head priest.

One of the most amazing experiences took place on the afternoon of our first day there. We were able to enter into one of the larger churches where we were able to sit and listen to the ritual chanting for an hour or so. It was almost time-warping, to sit in this church carved out of a single stone over 800 years ago and listen to the chants of the priests and deacons, accompanied by drums and with the scent of incense thick in the air. To close your eyes and spend some time in prayer was both refreshing and powerfully meaningful. To be in a place so far from home and yet feel so close to God, brings to mind the reality that wherever God “is” is where we are. Distance is a state of mind more than it is a physical reality. We spend our lives trying to get to heaven. A noble task, but in our modern church, maybe a bit misdirected. Rather than trying to live our lives to go somewhere else, maybe we should spend more time working on making that someplace else a reality here. Isn't that what Jesus means when he talks of the Kingdom of God?

There is a reverence here that is refreshing, from seeing the faithful attending church even when it is difficult to do so. Even when there are other demands in life, still they come. Yet, we look for excuses not to attend church, even when it is just one day a week, even when we have nothing better to do. There is a lack of reverence in the US, and I fearit is stifling us. I don’t even necessarily mean a reverence for Jesus Christ, but even just a reverence for the Divine, that essence or spark that is in us and around us, regardless of where we believe it came from. We lack a reverence for our inherent humanity and the connections that unite us into communities of individuals, communities of faith, communities of change and communities that seek to know more and do more and love more and learn more.

From this sacred place, we leave for Axum, the ancient capital of Ethiopia. More from there in a following post.