It's March...? Already?

Oh my... it would seem that I have not written anything in quite a while. Maybe it had something to do with traveling the world. At least as much as traveling the world pertains to traveling the southern regions of this country. Our first big field trip has come to a close. Technically it has been over for 24 hours, but we're still recuperating over here.

I will try my best to be your tour guide through the southern regions of Israel, let's hope you don't want to fire me by the end. Since I have Shabbat dinner in an hour it is likely I won't finish, so we'll embark on this adventure now and pick it up tomorrow or something. Here we go.

We left Monday morning and headed for the area of the Biblical Negev. Today the whole southern part of Israel is more or less referred to as the Negev (on a map, brown = death and the south is full of brown :). The Biblical Negev is a smaller area; it begins in the middle of the country and sweeps to the east, beginning just south of the hill country and heading toward the coast (like the Gaza area). It's sort of (and when I say sort of, I mean barely) in the shape of an hourglass, the top bubble is smaller and in the east and the bigger bubble is out toward the coast. Anyway, the sites that we went to are what's important to you I guess.

Our first stop was Tel Beersheba, which is just few miles east of modern Beersheba. The city ruins are pretty cool, Bill thinks that the actual Beersheba is buried in the modern city and the one we visited is just a little daughter town or something. Anyway, it was not so warm that day, like cold-ish and windy, making for a bone-chilling visit. The excavations there have revealed structures that are likely from the time of Hezekiah, about the time he was fortifying cities all over his country. There was a pretty amazing water system, which was super deep, that was carved so that the water runoff from the nearby Wadi Beersheba would make it into the city (something about water-table depth and all that). We experienced a few things this trip that Bill has only seen once or twice (or maybe never, I forget on some things). One such thing was water running in the wadi, he said it has only done that once or twice when he's been around Beersheba (which is many, many times in the last 20-something years). We've had lots of rain lately up here in the hills and it was enough to make a real stream out in the pseudo-desert that is the northern Negev.

Next stop: Tel Arad, which for the sake of you knowing location, is up to the east of Beersheba. There is an Israelite period citadel up on the hill, inside there was even a temple. It was probably one of those temples outside of Jerusalem that was regularly denounced by the prophets. Oh those Israelites, they were not so good at worshipping the LORD alone. But the cool part of Arad was the ruins down the hill a little. Those ruins dated back to the Bronze Age, which means that Abraham and Lot were most likely among those who walked the streets that we walked. That's some old dirt - like 4,000 years old.

Here I lose track of the order, but I will just go with what comes to mind. So "next" we went to Avdat, which is a Nabatean city somewhat south of Arad. The Nabateans were originally nomadic traders, camelling spices from what is now Saudi Arabia to the coast of the Mediterranean. But then they began to settle down, most likely because they discovered wine, and apparently, "the moment a nomad drinks wine he ceases to become a nomad." These were the same folks who built Petra. To briefly sum them up, they're pros at whatever they do. They camelled across the desert like nobody's business and when they settled down they became experts at pottery making. But most of what we saw at Avdat dated to the Byzantine period. When Constantine converted the world to Christianity, the Nabateans went with the flow (many of them for real I'm sure) and so now the town has chapels/churches galore. If you look at the IBEX site with pictures (whenever they are posted, I'm guessing in four or five days) then this is the place with the big metal camels.

I can't remember where it was, but I know that we were going to hike in one of the big valleys, but with all the rain some of it was flooded so we had to drive to the other end of the main canyon and hike up the less deep area. Less deep is like 15 feet deep verus 150 feet or more... but it was still really amazing to see so much water flowing in a desert land. Bill reminded us of the passage of scripture that talks being blessed with streams in the desert, it takes on some amazing meaning when you see what it is normally like and what it looks like when there are actually streams. Along the way we found a broom tree. So like my namesake, I sat under a broom tree in the Negev and pretended to look like I wanted to die. Fortunately the spiritual state of my counterparts at the time is not one to make me want to give up, though in saying that I suppose I should think about the overall spiritual state of our world with a little more of a somber attitude.

From there we went to Mactesh Ramon, a GINORMOUS crater, look at a satellite map sometime, it's huge. It's not a crater from a space rock, it's like a giant washout crater, like one caused by a big flood perhaps ;). At sunset we stood near the edge of the 200+ foot cliff and pondered our day. A full first day to say the least, but pretty cool to think about all the history that surrounded us. It's time for me to go put on nicer clothes for Kabbalat Shabbat (shorts and flip-flops are not my style for such a dinner as the one where we receive the Sabbath, but maybe that's just me and my conservative - very much not Californian - background)

Until next time...


p.s.- there is this terribly uncool fad going on over here, we fondly call it coughing up one's lungs. It is sort of like a junior high boys choir, no one likes it, everyone coughs their part, and the result leaves a lot to be desired. I am so fortunate as to be part of said choir, this morning I was talking in contra-bass, but some improvement is slowly coming into view. We would all greatly appreciate as much prayer as you can muster right now. Do it for the sake of a the junior high boys choirs around the world if nothing else.