after the wilderness

At 6.20am we stopped 20 minutes down the hill from Jerusalem at Wadi Al Qelt in the Judean wilderness, looked, and listened to Luke 4: Jesus after being tempted 40 days goes onto Galilee and then to Nazareth, our itinerary for the day! People were glad to see Galilee, although amusement at the touristification and churchification of it all mixed strangely with a sense of awe and wonder. We all enjoyed the Church of the Annunciation at Nazareth, for its emptiness and the mixture of the ancient 'home' of 'Mary & Co' deeply inset within the space, and the stunning new architecture on a cathedralesque scale. We are now staying high above the town looking across the centre and towards the hills of Jordan; we make the journey there in the morning to explore the Roman city of Jerash before going on to float in the Dead Sea. We'll be in Petra by Tuesday, with the Bedouin Thursday night, and back to Bethlehem for Orthodox Christmas Eve on Friday night.