July 2, 2008
I have never understood the phrase “doggy heaven.” My mom has repeatedly used it over and over again, but I just simply have not understood it. Therefore, I have decided to create my own definition. I will use it to describe today, a state of absolute bliss. Now, with bliss comes suffering (hot buses, hot sun, hiking, tired, lack of water, lack of sleep) but the joy completely outweighs the suffering. Today we went on a field trip and I kind of loved it. For official field trips we split into two groups of forty according to our religion classes, go on two separate buses and just take the Holy Land by storm. I’ll break the trip down, but do not rely on my spelling of certain locations; I just do not want to take the time to check them all. We first visited Samson’s stomping grounds in the Sorek Valley. All that really entailed was a big valley, but it was cool to review the Samson story right there and kind of guess the exact location he slaughtered all of those folk with the jaw bone of an ass. Really exciting stuff. Then we moved over to the valley of Elah and did the unthinkable. Okay, not that unthinkable. The valley of Elah is where David slew Goliath. Yes, you guessed it, we all got slings, went to the same brook where David found his 5 smooth stones, gathered our own not so smooth stones (despite my dedicated searching for smooth ones, the brook is dried up in the summer you see) and flung stones across the valley. It was awesome! There we are at the exact scene where David slew the giant Philistine, and we are throwing stones back and forth at each other. Okay a couple of times I hit myself with the stone, but those string slingy things are way harder to handle than they look. Eventually I worked my stone into like a big arch through the air, and then finally into a straight shot. Still, smashing a guy in the head, however large the head, would prove exceptionally difficult. Therefore, what did I learn? A greater respect for David’s skill with the sling, and a trust that the Lord was definitely with him. As you can imagine, I just loved that experience, I just absolutely loved it. Slinging stones in the valley of Elah, come on! That is what I am talking about! Later we visited a place called Lachish, at one time an Israel stronghold; the Assyrians totally sacked it and just butchered the survivors. At that site, are the remains of an ancient Hebrew Temple. It was cool, we went and stood in the Holy of Holies, which is today just a pile of really old looking rocks, surrounded by outer piles of old looking rocks, that once made up exterior walls. However, this is where your imagination and love for history comes in. This site was particularly sweet to play the imagination game. I stood on top of the ruined walls and imagined that I lived there. I could see the Assyrian armies pressing forward, the thundering of their feet, the dust being turned up from their fierce march and I could hear their drums pounding. A million thoughts went through my head. When a bloodthirsty, feroicious, take no prisoners army is marching on your city and begins to build a ramp on which they plan to just run up and over the walls of your city, what thoughts go through your head? Hopefully, you begin to immediately analyze your relationship with God, and your preparedness to meet Him. Well, I started to get scared at this point in my imagination game, so I stopped imagining and reminded myself that in a few minutes I would jump on a bus and leave the area unharmed and with all my limbs. It got a little too real for me there, but it sure was neat to be transformed in time for a second. That was way sweet and the rest of the day just did not disappoint me, because we spent the rest of the day visiting caves. Oh wow. It was so fun! Luckily, I found a suitable substitute for Parker as an exploration buddy and she and I just went nuts! Where people would think they kind of came to the end, we would totally pushed the limits and found little passageways and crawl space that lead up to big open rooms. There was one cave that was all like worm holes between large rooms. I kind of freaked out in that one, but a couple of girls talked me through it. I escaped breathing into the paper bag and then I was right back at the caves again. We climbed through the ceiling on one of them and just kept climbing and climbing until my shoulders couldn’t fit anymore and she went a little further and reached a layer of actual earth. We shimmied back out of that one. Our goal was to find treasure that would lead to fame, wealth and honor and… um… we are still looking. Most of the tunnels were carved out by men in like the late B.C.’s! How cool is that? I explored all of these tunnels that were made by men thousands of years ago? I loved it! At a place called the Bell Caves, we all pulled out our Hymn Books and sang together. It was particularly cool because we actually met the other group of forty there, and so all 80 of us belted out, “I heard the Bells on Christmas Day” (kind of random, I know) inside the cave and it just sounded awesome. However, the video I took of it only picked up my voice and thus… not so awesome…oops. It was a really cool moment though. We also sang Come, Come Ye Saints in that cave. Another random one, but I sure am glad that we did. Do you remember the words to that song? They are inspiring. The message of that song is the message I learned today. Stick with God, do the right thing, persevere through difficulty and God will not abandon you. He will help you do the impossible. Brothers and sisters, David killed Goliath, he really did. I saw the gigantic skeleton with a rock sunk in his forehead. Okay, I didn’t really, but I just know that David did win, that event actually happened. Remember that the next time you face a giant problem. The one on Jehovah’s side walks away victorious.