As I went down to the river to pray...

Today I was in the lowest place on earth, geologically speaking. The Dead Sea is beautiful, with turquoise blue water and white sand (from all the salt and minerals). Sadly, the Dead Sea has been losing about 2 meters of water a year. Scientists speculate that it may be likely that in my children's lifetime the Dead Sea will be completely dry.

The Jordan River runs into the Dead Sea, and we took the opportunity to visit along the way. When we got down to the water, there were two larger crowds of pilgrims. So we sat on the banks and read Matthew 3 and said a prayer remembering our own baptisms. When the crowd subsided we went down to the river and Graham, our dean, renewed our baptisms with the water. I wandered in my bare feet, feeling the cool dampness and listening to the reeds sway in the wind.

Then it was on to Qumran to learn about the Essene community that lived there before their destruction by the Romans in 67 CE. We have the Essenes to thank for their work as scribes, meticulously copying the books of the Hebrew Bible and sending them out to the community. They were a monastic sect with three important teachings: they saw themselves as the sons of light and expected a messiah to come from their group, they saw the system (especially the priesthood) as corrupt, and the kingdom of God was at hand. It was because of this immediacy that they did not marry, and women did not live among them. And I've got to think that the immense gift shop that is there, featuring every possible manner of cheap souvenir, would have made them extremely upset!