Johanna Van Fessem | voetreis naar Jeruzalem

Johanna van Fessem

Walk to Jerusalem

- Johanna came to Jerusalem on Monday, 5th March 2001-

A book in Dutch, concocted from the pilgrimletters was published in March 2002.

Double Audio CD for listening has been published in English and available via the guestbook of the website

Den Haag, 9 February 2000.

Please let me introduce myself:

My name is Johanna van Fessem. I am a Dutch woman of 52. My children are grown up and left the house. My working contract finished in February. I am free to start realising a dream, which has grown in me for 13 years after visiting Israel for the first time in 1987.

On April 2nd 2000 next I intend to begin a foot pilgrimage to Jerusalem. 7.000 kilometres will take me about a year to come to Israel again in March or April of 2001.

The reasons I want to do this are, that I am very interested in the peace-process in the Middle East. It has been close to my heart ever since I realised the spiritual and political importance of Jerusalem in the western and Middle-east world. I am a Roman Catholic of origin, but travel beyond the borders of traditional belief. I studied Talmud for eight years, which was a big enduring influence in my life and opened my mind and heart for the value of Jewish views on life, people and God.

I worked for four years with immigrant Islamic woman in a language project and learned more about true moslim values. I am greatly interested in and practising new forms of spirituality like meditation/prayer especially in connection with body consciousness. This has for me a connection with living planet Earth from which our bodies are made. That is why I want to honour the planet by walking, a non-pollution way of travelling and I want to honour women by travelling alone.

On the way I intend to visit churches, abbeys, synagogues, mosques and other power places, pray there and ask people there to write down their prayer for the peace of Jerusalem on little slips of paper of 1 by 12 cm., which I hope to carry through the countries step by step, connecting to the earth, making "stitches"; a golden thread of prayer from The Hague to Jerusalem.

My dream is to offer these prayerslips to God in Jerusalem in a small ceremony on the mountain summit before the Dome of the Rock, where once the temple of Salomo was. I realise of course, that this is, of all places, a most conflictious one, and of course, I would need all kinds of official permission of all the relevant local authorities, but why shouldn't I try to make a dream come true even if it could prove to be too difficult?

Sincerely yours

Johanna van Fessem