"The wound is the place where the Light enters you."  The quote--from Rumi--and the picture move me today.  For in a week's time, our delegation of 19 sets out on an interfaith pilgrimage, a journey of discovery and hope.  We're traveling for all kinds of reasons.  Many hope for a clearer picture of conflicts and possibilities.  Many yearn for a spiritual connection.  All of us look forward to deepening friendships.

Undoubtedly, we'll arrive in Jerusalem on Tuesday, October 25--exhausted from travel, grainy and still somehow attentive to amazing opportunity.  In just two weeks, we'll visit with determined practitioners of nonviolence in Palestine, rabbis committed to human rights; we'll spend hours walking the halls of Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust memorial in West Jerusalem; and we'll meet families who've lost almost everything in a decades-long conflict over land, security and more.

Over time, I'll return to Rumi's words and maybe call them to our group's attention: "The wound is the place where the Light enters you."  I'm not sure this is a verifiable truth, a scientific certainty, as much as it's a choice.  There are moments when giving up on the choice seems most wise.  But not now.  Not this week.  Will we choose--together--to surround the wound with love?  Will we choose--together--to gather whatever resources and courage required to heal?  These are the questions I ponder this week.  In a week's time, we travel.