The Valley of Jezreel

'Sometime in the early 80's Joan and I were atop of Mount Tabor, which tradition identifies as the Mount of the Transfiguration. We had been in Israel and Palestine for close to two weeks by then. We looked south from the mountain top down the steep slope to the valley of Jezreel and beyond to the cotton fields of the plains of the Gallilee. On the valley floor was the ancient road that took the Babylonian army to Egypt and the Egyptian arms to Babylon, Later it was the road for  Alexander and the Greek and then Roman armies, and eventually the Arab and Turkish armies, later the British and German armies. It is a famous road and in the way of these destructive forces though history was Israel and the city-state of Megiddo sitting dab-smack in the middle of the valley. It was destroyed , sacked, rebuilt  and destroyed many times and now, as we observed is a deep and testamentary excavation of the horror of war. The name of the city has given rise to the word for destruction, Armageddon.
       I often think of our visit to Mount Tabor and at this time of the year because Jesus was here atop the mountain with his friends shortly before he went to Jerusalem. As he descended the gentle North slope with them after his Transfiguration he must have had an inkling that it would be his last journey and he was facing his own armageddon. He wasn't stupid you know.
        It's hard to stand on that kind of mountain, look at that kind of valley, think of that sort of city, that man knowing the doom he faced and moving steadily towards it, knowing he faced abandonment in the end, and not feel  myself be touched by the history and conflictedness of death.