Chaps 1-4

One City, Three Faiths a great title to such a novel about the history of a religiously beautiful city. I knew Jerusalem was a history with a rich past but the facts and information that Karen Armstrong illustrated in this novel emphasized its importance. At first I had trouble getting interested into the reading, but after the first chapter I began to realize the amazing struggle so many sects went through for this holy land. One of the many quotes that Armstrong said that gripped my attention was "such sites are 'sacred' to us because they are inextricably bound up with our conception of ourselves; they may be associated with a profound experience that transformed our lives, with memories of early childhood, or with a person who was important to us (pg8)." This statement could not be more accurate, the memories and events that have taken place with me and my family and Jerusalem are what pull my heart that much closer to the holy city. From picking blackberries off the trees in the great grandparents backyard, to jumping on the taxi with my cousins and having him drive us around the city; are just a few of the everlasting memories that I will keep with me forever. Armstrong expands that thought in the next sentence by saying "when we visit such places, we can perhaps recall the experience of enhanced life that we once had there, an experience which momentarily convinced us that despite the distressing and arbitrary nature of much of our mundane existence, it had some ultimate meaning and value, even if we would find it hard to explain this insight rational terms (pg 8)." So many of my relatives found their loves in Jerusalem, my family continues to grow in Jerusalem and unfortunately a lot of my relatives are also buried in the graveyards in Jerusalem. No words can express, just like Armstrong expresses, the ultimate value Jerusalem means to me.