Viewing the Promised Land from Mount Nebo

Fortunately today we would drive to the top of Mount Nebo instead of hiking to it. This is where God let that fella Moses sneak a peek at the Promised Land. The Bible and the Quran have Moses dying here as well as being buried here, while the Torah has him buried down in the valley. But it does not really matter and to this day the tomb of Moses has never been confirmed. Beautiful views though.





We were lucky in that the door to the church was not only open but set aside for us to view. I'm not sure we would have been able to roll it aside with modern day hardware.

This church really had it going on when it came to mosaics. In fact I would soon find out that this whole area had a deep tradition of mosaics and I wondered about it's origins. Were they called mosaics in honor of Moses who died here? Both words are of similar origin, or at least they sound the same?







Outside was The Brazen Serpent which eventually became the medical symbol of today that we refer to as The Caduceus. The story goes that God first sent a bunch of fiery serpents to kill the Israelites who spoke out against God and Moses. The God energy apparently didn't like the story they were telling and wanted to punish them, which at first might seem strange, but then maybe it is not. God then had a change of heart and told Moses to erect the Nehushtan here to protect the Israelites. It would seem that God energy was not any different then our own, conflicted, changing, and growing. So are we all Gods? We are creators after all, our consciousness writing our story. We constantly take the energy of the universe and create the physicality of our existence. The story of God would simply not exist if we did not give it energy. If we didn't continue to tell the story, no matter what direction we take it, there would be no God. Not in the Bible, not in the Quran, and not in the Torah.

Our next stop was the church of Saint George where the infamous Madaba Map was embedded in the floor that reveled the baptismal place of Jesus. Now here is that floor right before my very feet. For a brief moment I took time to appreciate everything I get to do and see. I have a pretty good story so far....

The whole church was rich with story. For the first time I no longer judged those stories, but instead emptied my mind and looked upon the mosaics with new eyes. What is the story and who is telling it to me? And most importantly why?







In this area mosaics are very much alive today and we stopped at a local factory. It's very much a paint by number. Even so they are amazing works of art.



We then made one last stop in route to Amman at Umm ar-Rasas. We were in the land of mosaics or perhaps the land of Moses, and this site would continue that theme. We first passed the local gardeners.



The site is largely rubble with few structures remaining.







As amazing as I found the last church in terms of mosaics this one would blow it out of the water.







I then found a very special place, the winery. They would crush the graps in this chamber and the juices would drain into the openings on the sides which lead to a number of storage tanks for fermentation.

We headed out of the site passing another church, or at least what was left of it. I then realized that it was not just a church but also a library. It was the keeper of stories during that time. I thought who is the keeper of our stories at this time? Who is the storyteller? And how close was the next earthquake of story?