Living Water
On the road again. The aqueduct was breath taking. Ancient, enduring, and decorated in this, it’s 900th year, with sweet rocket and wild poppies. Cool and serene a lake opens up to my right, with fishing vessels tucked in coves, hints of ruins peeking from olive groves, and tall Cyprus trees adding to the grandeur. New apartment block communities line the hillsides, punctuated with their by mosque. We pass through town and the new mall sports three story ads for the latest fashions. Companies with names like ‘Justice Garments’ and ‘Ruling Modesty’ show women in hijab. Decked head to foot in drab Muslim garb, the models sport beguiling smiles. The graveyard flashes past. It’s daisies and tall grasses splashed randomly with vivid poppies. A wave of linden wafts through the window and is gone in a flash, mirage-like in this cigarette smoke filled world.
Villages with simple, rural names like ‘Bitter Well”, “Falcon Hill”, and “Wolf Valley” rush by. Wild gorse springs up around construction sites, but little other green is available in town. The buildings share flat roofs and satellite dishes. Dusty streets accept horse cart and motorized vehicles as equals. But once we leave town the little gardens around each farmstead are bright with tended glory. Fields lie patchwork on the hillside, checkered with grain ready to harvest in golden contrast with fields of carnations, spinach, and cabbages. The orchards are heavy with cherries, apricots and kumquats. Pomegranates bloom profusely.
Speckled amongst the fields and orchards are tels; those telling little mounds that indicate an archeological site yet to be excavated. With 6,000 years of history this region takes acropolis and temple ruins for granted. Newer buildings often stick in bits of ancient rubble, just to get it out of the way. Truly, the sense of ancient weaves its way into one’s senses.
And with it, the biblical. Everything is crispy dry, except for those places painstakingly irrigated. Every single aqueduct, ancient or modern is desperately needed. Every well is crucial. Every spring is guarded like a holy site. Out in the wild nature has a tinderbox look, in the fields hours are spent daily providing life with precious, hard earned water.
Spiritually this land seems to reflect this truth. looking into the eyes and watching the daily lives of people you sense a shriveled, parched thirsting, with no concept of where to turn for spiritual refreshing. It strikes home that I pass through the Valley of Bacca; people suffer and are thirsty, but don’t even know that Living Water exists. Thus my whole being cries out to become a channel for that Living Water to flow out of my inmost being, bringing them Hope, and making their Valley a place of Springs.