Wadi Rum formation, JordanWadi means valley. Rum doesn’t mean liquor; I don’t know what it means. Just Rum Valley . These eerie and beautiful rock formations remain from an ocean that once covered the whole area.
The Bedouins provide tent villages for tourists. You can hike the dunes, or climb the rocks during the day, and come to your tent village for an evening of dancing. No kidding. The belly dancer invites tourists to join her. After she departs, Arab men start a round dance ending up with a long line of hand-holding, Europeans snaking merrily around the dance area.
In the morning we are awakened exactly at 7 by a bellowing camel behind our tents. Enterprising young men offer camel rides to early-rising tourists.
Bedouin alarm clock
Did the Children of Israel traverse this land in their forty years of wandering? It’s possible. Nobody knows for sure. The sandy desert would have been considerably harsher than the wilderness to the north.
O’Toole’s Lawrence had a horrendous ego problem that became his undoing. Moses didn’t. The Bible refers to him as the meekest of men. I take “meek” to mean Moses was a good listener. He listened to God because he couldn’t figure out how to lead his people on his own. Which is a pretty good reason!
So my lesson here is to learn to be as good a listener as Moses. That means silencing the inner chatter, silencing ego, silencing the desire to be right, silencing distractions. And listening to that one Mind who created all those stars glittering above us around 3:30 am.
No comments:
Post a Comment