I Saw the Dead Sea Scrolls

I decided today that heaven will have olds buildings and lots of history and museums. I'm quite certain of it.

L. and I visited the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) which is currently housing a traveling exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls. We were even more fortunate in that they are only exhibiting the scroll with the Ten Commandments for one week, and it happened to be this week. It was an incredible exhibit, and I wasn't kidding when I said that for a biblical and religious history geek like me it was quite literally heaven!

I think I was most surprisd by the size of the scrolls. They're tiny! I have a new appreciation for the painstaking work of those who discovered them and worked to piece them together and translate them to share with the world at large.

In any case, we could have spent days there, though we only had a day. But it was fabulous and I highly recommend the experience if you live anywhere near Toronto.

We're in Toronto for another day, before heading to Niagara for a day and night, and then down to spend the weekend with a very dear friend of mine.

I'm so enjoying the laughter and the simply being with friends. That is the absolute highlight, and all the other fun stuff we've managed to do has simply been icing on the cake of this holiday I anticpated for so very long.

I'm reminding myself that I need to not wait 2.5 years before the next trip. I'm already plotting future potential get-aways. California potentially in the short-term - there are a number of spots there that I'd like to visit, and a few people too ;) and then, long term, the sky is the limit. Back to Europe, South America remains very much a priority, and after that, well, there's quite a few more places my heart is drawn to. I think I need to start working again on a plan to become independently wealthy and simply spend all my time travelling the world, writing and praying and touring!

Who Counsels the Counsellor?

This article, which appeared last month, was quite striking in the way it describes the toll of being in a warzone not only on those who are there as soldiers, but on those whose role it is to help the soldiers cope.