Streams in the Desert

You are awakened at 4 am by the yowling prayer call, and jump out of bed to awaken the others. Grabbing a yogurt, a water bottle, and your sunglasses, you hurry through the pre-dawn streets towards Cafe Aroma. It’s still closed, but you join fellow students on the steps and are regaled with odd stories by a sleepless – and gregarious – college student who happens to be a complete stranger. At last the tour bus arrives, and you are whisked two centuries away.

Climbing the rock-strewn slope below the cliffs, you greet the sun with hymns and psalms and simple words of testimony. Afterwards, you are immersed in the story of a reclusive group who truly sought to live with clean hands and a pure heart.

However, the sun continues to rise, and even your genuine interest is roasted slowly and inexorably out of your head as you are caught between pale stones and bright sun. Your yogurt was assimilated 2,000 years before, and you eagerly await the long-promised meal.

At last, you return to the twenty-first century for five delicious minutes, as your air-conditioned bus takes you to the site next door.

All the paraphanelia of a meal lugged tablewards, you sit down to a picnic served on pottery, and your brain returns just in time for exploration.

So you cross quaking black mud and step into an oasis, where crystal water nourishes tamarisks and palms and even tiny fish. You cross branching streams, touch sprays of waxy blooms, and glimpse wild donkeys in the distance.

Did you have any idea that cool Ein Feshka was next door to blazing Qumran?

Hope you find streams in the desert today.