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Margaret Adams Parker has drawn upon her sketches, her memory, and her imagination to embody in visual form her response to the landscapes and people of Jerusalem. She has also found guidance in the written tradition; some of these texts are excerpted below.
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If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
may my right hand wither.
Psalm 137
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"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and
you were not willing."
Matthew 23:37
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The air over Jerusalem is saturated with prayers and dreams
like the air over industrial cities.
It’s hard to breathe…
Yehuda Amichai
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All these stones, all this sorrow,
all this light…
all this love…
Yehuda Amichai
from Songs of Zion the Beautiful
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We say to you in a loud and clear voice, enough of blood and tears. Enough…We, like you, are people, people who want
to build a home, plant a tree, to love, to live side by side
with you in dignity, affinity, as human beings…
We are today giving peace a chance and saying to you,
saying again to you, ‘Enough.’
Let us pray that a day will come
when we all will say farewell to the arms.
Itzhak Rabin
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| O mankind! We created you from a single [pair] of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other, [not that ye may despise each other.]
The Holy Qur’an
Chapter 49, "Hujurat", Verse 13
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| Once I was sitting on the steps near the gate at David’s Citadel and I put down my two heavy baskets beside me. A group of tourists stood there around their guide, and I became their point of reference. "You see that man over there with the baskets? A little to the right of his head there’s an arch from the Roman period. A little to the right of his head." "But he’s moving, he’s moving!" I said to myself: Redemption will come only when they are told, "Do you see that arch over there from the Roman period? It doesn’t matter, but near it, a little to the left and then down a bit, there’s a man who has just bought fruit and vegetables for his family."
Yehuda Amichai
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Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
"May they prosper who love you.
Peace be within your walls,
and security within your towers."
Psalm 122
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Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of their great age.
And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing.
Zechariah 8:4b-5
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