Surreal

Today I began excavating the remains of a 2000 year old tomb. We found all sorts of bones and ceramic. How crazy is it to think that those once belonged to a living, breathing human being who walked and slept and ate and socialized like we do today? Who lived their life with thoughts and emotions and then, as we all must do, died and was buried? Who mourned them? Who tenderly placed their bones in this cist, to rest? Sometimes you can become detached when digging a tomb, seeing the bones as just another object like pottery or ceramic. But they command a certain sort of respect. This was someone who once lived. I wonder if they're in heaven right now, watching me. I wonder if they'll talk to me when I get there; "Hey, you dug my body up for your field school". That'll be interesting...

And as I'm typing this, I can look out over the gorgeous facades of the many tombs of Petra that dot the cliffs. The Call to Prayer sounds behind me from the mosque, declaring Allahu Akbar--God is Greatest, and asking the faithful to come worship and join in his peace. Donkeys bray, goats bleat, and children run and shout and laugh in the street. A faint song from an Arabic radio station plays from one of the houses near by. Laundry flaps in the breeze from multiple clotheslines like Tibetan prayer flags, bringing color to an otherwise harsh, desert place. The sky is dimmed today from an incoming storm, but it in no way diminishes the strange beauty of this place.

I love it. And I love that even though I never knew about this place or these people until I came here, God has been accutely aware of them as He has been of me back in the US. It's comforting to know that, whereever I go, I'm surrounded by fellow children of God, and that they are all just as precious to Him as anyone else--No matter what time or space they live in.