כנסיית קבר מרים

A Servant at Mary's Tomb

This quickly captured image of a woman sweeping the entrance to Mary's Grotto in Jerusalem, near the Garden of Gethsemane and Mount of Olives, is provocative in the sense that, in Christian theology, Mary was a servant to give birth to God's Son, this woman is serving the historic Saint's memory by keeping her resting place clean and tidy.
I imagine this scene not indifferent from what it must have looked like 2000 years ago to watch a woman tidy up in the evening after a dusty hot day.
Mary's tomb, as most holy places in Israel, has been turned into a menagerie of icons, paintings, candles, and gaudy decor. Yet, I left feeling remarkably refreshed by the mundanity of a common servant.