Sitting and writing at Ein Gedi today was absolutely amazing. After a long climb up and some monumentally important spiritual lessons at the foot of David’s waterfall, we came back down for lunch. After that I found myself climbing back up into the cliffs with an amazing assignment: write. I wound up at the place where the lower waterfall forms shallow pools over smooth stones, all surrounded by rough cliffs. I crawled through a few crevices and climbed over a few boulders searching for the perfect place. I wound up on a large tan stone just beside the foot of the little fall within easy reach of the wading pool below. I pulled my hair up, dipped my hand in for a drink and set pen to paper… and my soul was refreshed. It was a moment that mattered to the core of me; one that I’ll never forget.
I remember thinking beside the great waterfall that I didn’t know why David would be so bothered about hiding here, in the midst of such beauty. Of course a hunted soul wrestles bitterly, perhaps even more so in the midst of beauty it cannot fully rejoice in. His unrest was of a spiritual sort and his time in those hills was far from voluntarily taken. What David experienced at Ein Gedi was isolation. But as he himself certainly shows, there is an important work wrought by isolation. Forced seclusion, even in a place of majesty, is often a harsh tool in the hand of God, used to work humility and dependency in us.
But Ein Gedi was for me something different: a moment of sweet solitude in the midst of chaotic activity on all sides. A sudden stop, a deep breath, a handful of cool water. And in a much sweeter way, solitude is also of great importance. It is something I have neglected since I’ve been here. But I heard God in those hills and need to incline my ear far more often.
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