The Dan Reserve

The Dan Reserve is one of the most beautiful places in the world ... at least as far as I am concerned. Walking along paths that meander through lush foliage and crossing bridges arching over wildly rushing water is about as close to heaven as I can possibly imagine. There's a spot just off from the welcome center -- a bridge -- that I declare is one of my favorites in all the land. There, water which was at one time snow fallen on Mount Hermon, barrels its way toward the Jordan River. It sounds to me like the sound of 10,000 armies. It is cold. Invigorating.

But then there is this other spot. Just a ways up a path where sunlight and shadow dance as if they are old lovers and birds whistle the sweetest of tunes for them, we come up on a place called The Garden of Eden.

Ironically, we saw a man and a woman sitting on a bench there. Miriam turned to me and said, "Hey, Eva. It's Adam and Eve."

We gathered there in the coolness of the location. Sharon got a wild idea to take off her shoes, sit on a bench perched on the water, and stick her tootsies in. Ellie and I decided to follow suit.

The water was cooooooold; we shared a laugh together. Not to mention a few photos.

Miriam explained to us why this area is called The Hill of the Judge. We listened intently ... and the story was so wonderfully put. I couldn't help but notice the sound of water trickling over pebbles. It was like music. God's symphony.

We kept going, though I could have sat there for hours. But there was more to see. The High Place of Dan, where man worshiped against the expressed wishes of God. The altar is no longer there, of course, but the steps to its highest point are. We sat upon them and listened to Miriam teach us. Then a couple with two small children arrived. We asked the husband to take our picture and he did. Finally we climbed the steps and stood on what once was the "storage unit" for the priests. I pointed northward and said, "That's Lebanon."

"Where?" Larry asked.

"Throw a rock," I answered with a smile. "We're that close."

Everyone was amazed. We took some more pictures and then we climbed down. We continued on the path until we came to the ruins of what was once the city of Dan. It's high fortress walls. It's gates. It amazes me each time I come here. People lived here. They fought here. They raised their children here and they died here. And now, here we are, just passing through.

I guess, in a way, they were too.

Just outside the gates I turned and looked up the road. My eyes climbed high and higher until they rested on an old Crusader fort called Nimrod's Fortress. I'd gone there in 2007. Impressive, indeed. But now ... now we had somewhere else to go. First lunch. Then ... my return to the place where I once fell ... and my life changed forever.

Going Home

Last week I "went back home."

My hometown of Sylvania, Georgia -- about an hour outside of the coastal sprawl of Savannah -- has managed to maintain or recapture so much charm from its earlier history. Many of the old stores remain, while a few of them have been renovated to become something entirely different.

The old pool hall is now an antique store, its main room -- narrow and long -- filled with mementos of bygone eras. The old appliance store, where my neighbor made his living, is now a gift shop/drug store. The old soda shop, where I ventured with my buddies in the afternoons after school for a BLT and Coke, is now an artist's gallery.

The town square boasts a fountain for sitting around, chatting, relaxing, contemplating. Just beyond it is a patch of grass where teens used to park on Friday and Saturday nights (just to hang out). Now crepe myrtles bloom and an American flag stands proudly guarding two Napoleon cannons from the Civil War (AKA The War of Northern Aggression). Just beyond the cannons stands the church I walked into week after week, Sunday after Sunday, Wednesday night after Wednesday night.



Of course, while visiting back home I went to church on Sunday. I parked the car on the far right side of the building, under the shade of some old trees. We climbed out -- my mother, brother, daughter, and I -- and walked toward the front of the Sunday school building. I looked at my feet, thinking about the number of times I'd stepped on this sidewalk, inching my way toward the House of the Lord. My eyes cut to the main parking lot and had a vague memory of jumping rope "right here" during VBS one summer and realizing I was pretty good at it.

My mother now stepped ahead of me. I focused on the 1/2 inch heels of her shoes and recalled the 3-inch spikes of her pumps "back in the day." For a moment she and my father were walking just in front of my little brother and me -- Daddy dressed in a dark suit and Mother in spikey shoes, a sleek dress, white gloves, and a small hat. I thought about the fact that it was these heart pictures taken in my childhood that formed my opinions about adulthood. And what proper Southern ladies wear to church.

Of course not too many women wear all that to church these days. I missed the boat by about 20 years.

Figures.

The familiarity of "home" rushes back at the oddest times. Walking along the cracked sidewalk in front of some of the storefronts and remembering this person or that moment. Even in my mother's home -- the home of my childhood -- waking in the warmth of the summer's morning and having that "sense" of the same time of day during summer vacations from school. Lazy mornings. Stretching beneath yellow and green floral sheets, wiping the sleep from my eyes as I planned the whole live-long day. Watching "Concentration" or "Captain Kangeroo" on television while eating cereal swimming in whole milk. Getting dressed and then calling my best friend to see if she wanted to meet between our homes and, by that afternoon, going to the recreation department's olympic-size pool where we'd glide like eels under water for hours on end.

Not that I get to do that anymore, of course. None of it.

They say you can't go home again and maybe a part of that is true. But in some ways you can ... you really can. You just have to close your eyes and inhale a little. Breathe in a memory. Bask in the glow of what was and what could have been. Think, "You know, it really was a good life..." and mean it.

And it's nice if someone comes along and restores that which was beginning to crumble, the way the Downtown Development Authority of Sylvania has done.

Which leads me to another point ... about a cook book and some book signings.

But I'll write about those later.

Have you ever been to the Garden of Eden?

I have.

Okay, not the actual Garden of Eden; no one knows for sure where it's located. But I have been to a place so tranquil, so lovely, the natives there call it The Garden of Eden. Even in the hottest time of the year and at that time of day when the temperature reaches its peak, it's a cool spot of respite and relaxation. It seems to me that even the water dares not to move. It stands in contemplation of the One who might come walk in the "coolness of the day."

It's in Israel, specifically in the northern portion, in the region known as the Wilderness of Dan. I fell in love with it the very first time I saw it and couldn't wait to return. What I wanted to know above all else was whether or not it was truly as I had remembered it or if my romantic notions had taken hold and rewritten my memory.

It was the former, not the latter. It was as tranquil and as lovely as I'd remembered it to be.

As I stood and beheld its beauty, I wondered if my "mother," (Eve) had ever thought back to the real Garden of Eden. If she and Adam had -- in the cool of the day when work had ceased and family had gathered -- spoke of the way it had been. Before. When there was no sin. Nothing to separate them from God. When listening for His footsteps had brought about great anticipation, hearts fluttering, minds anxious and filled with questions thought of during the day.

Or ideas.

"I meant to ask you about this," Adam might have said to his Father. "This right here. I thought I'd call it a rose. What do you think?"

"Rose," God would have mused. "Rose ... rose ... rose ..." and then He might have smiled and said, "By any other name would it smell as sweet?"

Adam and Eve would have been confused and God would have said, "That's for another day ... another time ... oh, well ... another millennium!" And together they would have laughed.

There would have been so much to say. To share. To go over.

I wish I could go to the Garden of Eden in the Northern part of Israel every day. I wish I could skip along the paths leading to it, listening to the rustling of the leaves in the trees and the water rushing from the heads of the Jordan toward the river that snakes down the country. I wish I could sit on its cools banks and speak to God ... share with Him ... go over things. Things which are important to me.

To Him.

But I cannot.

I can, however, find my own Garden. My own place of respite and relaxation. My own place of prayer and conversation. Of laughter with God.