The Mount of the Sermon

This is a view near the church built at the spot the Sermon on the Mount was purported to be preached. I confess that I am finding myself quite resistant to the "holy" spots, which seem to me to be little more than giant churches built around biblical stories with little or no archeological evidence to support their existence. They are also heavily crowded with tourists (who knew that I would hear so many accents from America in Israel? Kevin even met a minister from a church near his in Pennsylvania, whose wife used to attend his church until she married the aforementioned pastor.) So we've got big crowds, big predominantly Catholic churches and not a whole lot of the sense of "where Jesus walked" anywhere. I finally sat myself down as far away from the madding crowd as I could get and still be near enough that our tour guide, Aharon, wouldn't get nervous and tried to see the scenery, listen to the birdsong, notice the breeze and connect with the God I was so hoping to feel while here. I wasn't totally successful, but it was better than it had been before.