OK - catching up time.

Well the time of reckoning is truly here. Time to try and piece together what I have been doing over the last few days.

It's not that I can't be bothered to blog about all that I am seeing and doing; its just that there is so much of it and also this computer room, though very wonderful, is a cross between my mum's oven on baking day (without the nice smells) and the fiery furnaces of hell (especially when the Internet crashes just as people are in the middle of downloading emails from their loved ones)! Also, as you may have guessed from yesterday's post (what do you mean you haven't read it??) a lot of what I have been experiencing has given me much food for thought - and what better way to digest such, as with a nice cool beer, sitting out on the patio, listening to the Call to Prayer (in Quadraphonic sound from the various mosques around Tantur), setting the world to rights and playing silly games! Oops and you thought I was studying!!



OK enough self revelation, here we go.

- By the way - I will be putting links into this bit where you can look at some excellent pictures (not mine - they tend to just look like more piles of stones) and some brief information about each site. Then if you are interested you can look. I can then spend my time recounting my impressions - ok? Good.



Friday saw us heading out into the desert for a mammoth history lesson spanning over 5000 years.
Firstly Tel Arad (http://www.bibleplaces.com/arad.htm) a desert city and fort which has been populated since 3000BCE. It was amazing, but if I am honest, a little mind boggling. Amazing partly that anyone would want to live in a place like this. But clearly they did, repeatedly over many centuries. Not only that, in a time when the only place of worship in Judaism was in Jerusalem, a sacrificial alter and even a Holy of Holies have been found.

Next we moved on to Mamshit (http://www.bibleplaces.com/mampsis.htm), a major trading centre in the Nabatean, Roman and Byzantin periods (no I don't know when that was either - try Googling it!). We saw a market street, bright wall paintings (of a somewhat dubious nature) and a beautiful mosaic in a 4th Century church. Although the most recent bit of the site it was that which I enjoyed seeing most here. I seemed more within my grasp - the colours were so clear that is wasn't hard to imagine people gathering to worship Christ in this place - in different ways maybe, but experiencing the same faith as Christians do today!

We were next taken from this site on foot further out into the desert. Although we only went a matter of 15 / 20 minutes from the road, we could have been days or weeks from any other human beings - as it was for the Patriarchs wandinging these places. We sat under a ledge in silence for 4 or 5 minutes. This empty place was of course full of sound and life. Birds flying and singing, a lizzard which sat behind some of us sitting and watched, the breeze (so longed for) whispered. It was the most beautiful and profound experience.

4 minutes - incredible, but
4 hours? 4 days? 40 days? - unimagimable. That would test and prove reliance on God to the ultimate.

We heard readings from the Hebrew scriptures which refer to God's people's experience of the wilderness. I include them here both for your interest, but mostly for my memory and future reference.

I Kings 19:3-19 - Elijiah going into the wilderness in despair and being met and strengthened by God - http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Kings%2019:3-19&version=31

Isaiah 32:13-16 - his vision of the desert becoming a fertile field. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah%2032:13-16;&version=31;

Psalm 107 :33 - 40 - The fertile land becoming a desert and then being restored. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=%20Psalm%20107%20:33%20-%2040;&version=31;

Isaiah 40: 3-8 - A voice of one calling:"In the desert . . . . . . http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah%2040%20:3-8;&version=31;

Psalm 69 :1-4, 15-16 - the other side of the wilderness, when sudden rains flood down the ravine and ingulf all in their path (rather like the UK at the moment!) http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2069%20:1-%2016;&version=31;

Jeremiah 2 : 6 - a vivid description - http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jeremiah%202%20:%206;&version=31;

Psalm 23 - writen by a man who knew the wilderness experience from his boyhood, the valley of death was clear in his memory. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2023;&version=31;

Well there was yet more that day! - Tel Beer Sheva - http://www.bibleplaces.com/beersheba.htm but as I have to be up at 5 am to venture out into the wilderness once more - I will leave you to look at that for yourselves.

Goodnight. H x