Let’s start with what you can’t. Here in the Galilee, you can’t count on the rain. You know, or at least you hope, that after what feels like an interminable, hot dry summer, eventually, the seasonal rains will make their dramatic appearance. And usually, by mid-October or early November, they comply. This year, our faith was challenged. By the first week of December, my East-Coast American family was bundled up for snow, and we walked around in t-shirts, on edge in the brittle heat. Then finally, the skies opened in all their splendor – rain, hail and snow – power outages, flooding.
And now to what you can count on. That monumental soaking, followed by days of brilliant sunshine, has worked its magical re-appearing act. Now you see brown, dry earth, now you don’t – replaced by rolling hills of tender, brilliant green filaments of wheat. What a soothing sight that is. And how unique for us here, that the advent of winter signals the start of our most primal, fertile season.
I can only imagine what it was like during the millennia when farmers of this land had no recourse to a water pipe. The existential threat of rain that doesn’t come could wipe out entire clans or send them wandering, all the while trying to make sense of what you can count on and what you can’t.
Which brings me to my holiday wishes –
that in the year to come, may you find balance between the unpredictable and what can be relied upon – the regenerative cycle of the seasons and the transformative power of love, as welcome as clouds on the horizon.
Abbie, Were you thinking of the double metaphor of “clouds on the horizon”? In the sense of your blog as favorable harbingers of rain, or in the always existential nature of the reality of life in Israel. In any event, you conjured up some very pleasant images, which were undeniably the intent of your pleasant observations! From the lush nature of Miami, in contrast to that of our more familiar desert, we send our greetings! Love, Dad and Laurence
Sent from my iPad
>