A Walk in the Garden

We walked into the garden through a small door. I was with another bloke whos nickname was Ginger from B Company. We were on escort duty to Jeruselem in Palestine in 1939 and had wandered down a pathway that led away from St Stephan’s gate and down into the valley. The Arab boy who was with us had volunteered to show us a cool garden and we had paid him to guide us to it.

 He led us to a small door in a wall and tapped upon it. I was surprised to see it opened not by an Arab but a Greek monk who was very courteous and waved his arm in a sweeping gesture indicating we could wander where we pleased. Ginger and I wandered in and I was aware of how quiet and peaceful it was here. Ginger said “it’s almost eerie, I wouldn’t want to be here on my own at night”! At the time I did not pay much heed to his remark but later I would remember it with sorrow. But once upon a time someone had walked in that garden at night to spend his last few hours of freedom. So this was the Garden of Gethsemane

This place fitted what I had read when I was a child at Sunday school, and suddenly Ginger’s remark triggered off the events that had happened here two thousand years ago. Looking slightly to my left I could see the mound where the disciples had fallen asleep while at a distance Jesus prayed in the moonlight. I glanced at the now closed small door and could almost imagine how it must have suddenly burst open as the soldiers led by Judas had poured into the garden and Judas walking to Jesus has kissed him on the cheek, thus betraying him to the soldiers.

This place was almost as it had been two thousand years ago. I was a young man then, but now at 78 years old I reflect on what I saw that day. Flower beds with flowers supported by lots of sticks and string, also the olive trees looked so old and gnarled with but a few withered olives growing on them. This was a lonely place, more like a secret garden.

 About a hundred yards square surrounded by a wall, with the small door we had entered through. At 78 I am not religious, but when I was young that garden meant something to me then. And I am convinced that indeed something did happen here. Stories are told and re-told, and they are embellished and re-hashed until they are nothing like the truth. Not so long ago a murderer could be hanged and a week later no one remembered his name, but hang an innocent man and his name is on every ones lips for years.

 I think possibly this is what happened here, a young man doing good and becoming ever popular among the people of the land and the priests didn’t take kindly to opposition. The rest can be read in books. Sometimes, even now, I can recall the perfume of the garden and the tranquility as I walk in my own garden, but it is not the same. There is only one garden of Gethsemane.