Salt and mountains and the lowest point on earth

The Wilderness Tabernacle, a full sized model! Wow! For those whose Old Testament is a bit rusty, it's the place Moses had built in which the ancient Israelite people could worship God.

A full-sized replica of the Tabernacle

We learn how it represents Christ in many ways, and I wish I had written all of them down. Our Tabernacle guide says it had three parts, like the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But as I am writing, I’m trying to take it all in. 

Inside the Ark

It's hard. I feel alien as I stand in the Holy of Holies, beside the Ark of Covenant, and our team leader says that I'm supposed to feel this way. It proves that nothing I do can bring me to God. Only Christ can.

After leaving, and after a short lunch, we find ourselves traveling beside  factories that extract minerals from the Dead Sea evaporation ponds. On the left are the Sodom Mountains. It’s an odd juxtaposition of modern industry and stark Biblical landscape, for ahead of us is the pillar of salt called Lot's Wife.

The Pillar known as Lot's Wife

A piece of the Sodom Mountains. Salt rock

We pull into a small lay-by. The air smells minerally, like the seashore. Yossi says it’s the bromide, which has a sedative effect. He warns us of the staff at hotels and their apathy as a result of inhaling it. 

We stand in the shadow of a huge salt mount and our guide points out that the lowest point on earth had the lowest morals, and yet, God provides for His people. At the Wilderness Tabernacle, I felt alien, intrusive and unworthy, yet here, I see how God provided for our sin through Jesus Christ. Mankind had tried to fix his own sin, as Adam and Eve had made clothing from fig leaves, but God corrected that, sacrificing an animal to fashion clothes from its skin. Much later, my husband and I discuss how sewing fig leaves together doesn't work. That there needs to be a death of something in order to have rebirth. Plucking fig leaves hardly kills the tree, but the sacrificial lamb died for the sake of sin. 
Even our guide hints at that, when he says his profession as an archeologist is a destructive one, destroying layers of mankind's lives in order to get to the truth.

Incredible depth. We leave this sombre landscape and travel to the Daniel Hotel on the edge of the Dead Sea, one of many hotels in this urban oasis. 

At the shore of the Dead Sea, the hotels behind me

Inside this imposing hotel is a tall atrium with two banks of elevators as its spine. It’s almost the Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath, and the sun is already dipping below the range of mountains behind the hotel. 
Why does the Jewish Sabbath start at sundown? In the desert, it’s cooler at night, and much can be done then, so the day always starts at sundown. It's the same reason the crescent moon represents the Muslim faith. Nomadic people travel at night here in the desert, as it’s too hot to move during the day in the heat of summer. 

Our meal this evening is alfresco and sumptuous and the Orthodox Jews that spend the Sabbath here are in full party mode. It's a festive atmosphere. Why can't start our Sabbath with a party, I wonder?

 

Desserts in the Desert

It doesn't matter, though. Tomorrow will bring its own delight. 

Tried and True recipes

I decided to make a seafood soup yesterday. I wanted one with a tomato base, so I dug through my Time Life cookbooks to find a suitable recipe.
I found one, and typically, just scanned the list of ingredients, saw I had everything and decided to go ahead.
That’s when I ran into trouble. But it’s also the start of an epiphany for me. You see, I ‘know’ things, but sometimes I really have to learn them again to truly ‘know’ thing.
I started by sautéing onions and garlic. While they are caramelizing gently in olive oil, I needed to assemble the stock. A can of tomatoes, two tablespoons of fresh basil, two cups of red wine...
What? Two cups? Are they nuts? Even if I had two cups of red wine, I wouldn’t be putting that much into a soup recipe I’d never tried before.
Oops, I tell a lie. I do have two cups of red wine. Years ago, my husband took a tour of Dieppe, France, while still in the military. As a souvenir, he brought home a bottle of a Grand Cru de Bordeaux, for which he paid a hefty sum. We decided to age in the basement, and it’s been there ever since. So I do have two cups of red wine, but of a Grand Cru de Bordeaux wasn’t going into this soup. But, I did have about two tablespoons of red wine on my counter, something I kept to deglaze my next fabulous pot roast should that ever come. So into my soup it went.
The next thing on the list is one whole lemon, thinly sliced. Well, I did have a quarter of one that my daughter had for her Perrier water. But lemon? In a soup? Going on faith, here, after all, this is a Time Life cookbook, I thinly sliced it and tossed it in.
I took a sniff. Phew! It smelled like a university dorm after a win at homecoming. Talk about awful. After dumping the seafood and onions in, I slapped on the lid and let it simmer. Surely, the Time Life chefs made a mistake here, but I would try it. It’d have to simmer for a while, anyway, if we were to eat that lemon. I mean, wouldn’t it take a few hours to soften lemon rind?
Not wanting to lift the lid again, I let it go for the full two hours. Then, I finally screwed up my courage...
It smelled wonderful! Amazing! The alcohol had long since burned off, leaving whatever gets left behind when wine is simmered, and the lemon and garlic had mellowed into something smooth and delicious. I took a taste and found it a flavorful blend of sweet and tart and rich and satisfying. I loved it!
The Time Life guys do know what they were doing. And you know something else? God knows what he’s doing, too. He can mix people in the strangest combinations, either in a marriage or a small group or a church body. He can put oddball characteristics together in one person and in His time, the result is amazing.
We just have to trust Him, like I trusted those chefs. Then we have to set the lid on our judgements, keep the heat just right, and not rush the results.
My husband and I enjoyed that soup very much, and if I remember this lesson, I’ll enjoy all the people I have in my life, in my small group, and in my church. God knows the end results. His are tried and true recipes.