Future Possibilities

on March 17, 2011 by Walt Dilg

Future Possibilities

Our group will gather soon to unpack the trip - we'll share some photos and memories, and talk about what the trip meant to us.  We'll remember the camels, the sheep and shepherds, and bedouin we saw on the hillsides (very biblical!), the road blocks and the security checks, the mist on the Sea of Galilee and eating St. Peter's fish, the feeling looking at the remnant of the home of St. Peter's mother where Jesus gathered often with his disciples.  We'll remember the magnificent churches over the sites for the annunciation, nativity, miracles of loaves and fishes, beatitudes, gethsemane, crucifixion, resurrection, first breakfast!  We'll remember our communion at St. Anne's and at the Garden Tomb, dipping our toes in the Sea of Galilee, rubbing mud on our bodies at the Dead Sea, climbing stones at Petra, haggling for deals in Old Jerusalem.  We'll remember that we walked where it all happened and that the only reason it means so much to us is that people in our part of the world at different times in our lives taught us about it and lived as example to us its powerful message.  We found Jesus there, because we have known Jesus here.

Well I am going on...

I had one incredibly surprising occasion during the trip - a serendipity of sorts.  As we were riding the gondola up to Masada, one of the faces in the crowd started to look familiar to me, and by the look on his face, I was beginning to look familiar to him.  He was Alan, a guide used by Tantur during my experience in 2007.  We had kept in touch via email on occasion over the years.  I had always thought that he would be a good fellow to pair up with if ever I wanted to lead a tour to the Holy Land on my own, particularly for the Old Testament parts.  And here he was, doing for someone else what I hoped one day he would do for me.  Amazing.  What are the chances of that happening?  What is the meaning to me that this happening?  With my bulging discs and pain meds claiming all my attention these days, I am not sure I can decipher it all, yet I think it has something to do with the comments I have gotten of "Hey Walt.  We have got to do this again!  This was just amazing!"