Camels in the Judean Wilderness
Noel was VERY excited about spending some time in the Judean wilderness, a place where people regularly ‘meet God’. Well I don’t know whether I did or not, but the landscape was absolutely incredible, and as we turned the mountain corner to see our ‘tent hotel’ accommodation for a couple of nights, I knew that I was on a very special trip. A couple of my favourite wilderness moments – on the first evening after a short walk away from our tent, we met a young Bedouin guy on a donkey and got to have a quick ride. He was very gracious given my (lack of) donkey-riding skills and as he leapt back on cow-boy style to continue his journey, it was a reminder of a traditional, simple way of life that is now very much under threat. The next morning, we were instructed to go and sit by ourselves for 2 hours in the desert for a bit of solo contemplation. I was really looking forward to this but it was already pretty hot at 8am and I spent the first 15 mins wondering what I would do if confronted by a snake! Thankfully no snakes or scorpions materialised and I had a fantastic picture-postcard moment when I looked up and just for a few seconds saw three camels at the top of a mountain on the horizon – wow!
Peace-meal in the Garden
Inevitably in these moments of reflection, my mind mostly wandered to some of the stories we’d heard in the West Bank. I did find a bit of time to pray for my god-children but was mostly occupied with the politics – and I guess that’s how it should be. The spiritual and the political are inseparable which is why I find it incredible that people / pilgrims will travel in their droves to see the holy sites but won’t ask the questions that matter today. As we were reminded on the Mt of Beatitudes, Jesus taught “Blessed are the peacemakers”, and if he was here today I think he’d be standing in front of bull-dozers. That might be controversial and others might disagree but I certainly don’t think he’d be in a church and definitely not the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (which does not feature in my top 3 spiritual moments)! But Jesus did also need those times on his own to cement the relationship with his Father and to focus on his mission. Sometimes as activists, it’s all too easy to rush in and ‘just do it’ but I will treasure these moments of contemplation which gave me time to process all I had seen in the Holy Land – now that I’m back, the challenge is to create more space in my pretty hectic life which allows me to step back and maybe see things differently....



