Impressions garnered during a recent trip to the Holy Land:

Cats everywhere. I mean all over the place.

Pilgrims too. Thousands of them, most traveling in huge buses that crowd the narrow streets of Israeli and Palestinian cities and jam the too-small parking lots at Christian shrines. 

The pilgrims are a colorful and multicultural lot. Coming from every corner of the globe, they embody the idea—or is it the myth?—of a Universal Church. My traveling companion estimates that two thirds of the pilgrims are white and the rest people of color. I make the mix at closer to fifty-fifty. They come from everywhere: Europe, both East and West; Russia and the Caucasus; East Asia; Southeast Asia; sub-Saharan Africa; Latin America; and, of course, throughout the Anglosphere. Together they offer a model of diversity that Harvard administrators would envy.