Wilderness

I went to the Dead Sea Saturday. It's only a 30 minute drive from Jerusalem. In the 30 minutes, you drop from the hills of Jerusalem several hundred meters to the lowest spot on earth. The temperature rises 10 degrees C, to 20 (nearly 70 F). Shirtsleeves after the wet cold of Jerusalem was a treat!

There were very few people. We went to a "nature preserve", really just a park for picnicking. Sat at the beach for awhile and did as the locals do, covering ourselves with the rich, dark mud that is supposed to be therapeutic. Feels great. See the slideshow. We stumbled upon a path going up the hillside that surrounds the Sea and had a great climb with a spectacular view of the entire Sea, the surrounding landscape, and Jordan on the other side.

This is one of the areas where John the Baptist hung out. "The Wilderness." And it is. The landscape is harsh, dry, and barren. The hills are steep, rocky, and rough, pockmarked with caves like the one where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found just a few miles away. It's a hard place. John the Baptist wore camel skin, a leather belt, and ate locusts and honey. In the times of the Gospels, the Wilderness represented a place of trial and testing. Of harshness and suffering, pain and death, a place to grow through adversity.

The trip to the Dead Sea was the first time I'd spent out of a city. It was peaceful and relaxing and refreshing. For just a while, we could forget the conflict and what it is doing to people. When we returned to Jerusalem it was the city that seemed harsh and difficult, full of threatening energies and suffering.

The City and its "civilization" became the Wilderness on Saturday. But no prophet was there.