Rode into the Sahara desert on a camel tonight… in a camel caravan convoy… the rhythm of the up-and-down is not much different from a horse… except you sit a lot higher and you have to, sort of, lean back and roll and let gravity sway with each camel stride… like riding a rollercoaster or a rocking boat… and the grunting and snorting is much louder…

Once we arrived and unloaded, we settled into camp and got the full Berber treatment with a traditional Tajine candlelight dinner, everyone digging their hands and bread into the community center… followed by pomegranate for dessert… I got laughed at for eating my pomegranate one seed at a time… in all my life, it never occurred to me to bite into all the seeds at once, getting an entire mouthful with each stab…

Afterwards, we went out into the black and sat around a quaint and humble campfire… the smoke kept drifting into my eyes (I can’t remember if smoke chases beauty or runs away from it)… Eventually, Muhammad, our Berber trekking guide, disappeared into the dinner tent and returned with a candle and threw it into the fire… I thought, “What a waste, Berber dude, that still had a few good hours of burning left in it.” Then, something mystical and magical occurred. The beauty smoke that was stinging my eyes stopped immediately. It was a desert miracle! No more smoke…. just fire…

For the rest of the night, I deciphered as much French as I could, drank my mint tea, and stared the campfire down until it gave up and burnt itself out…

Instantly, another Christmas miracle fell upon us… (yes, even on the Muslims and Berbers)… I was hypnotized and pulled into a trance as I laid on my back and silently watched the blanket of night stars in the sky, spun out and frozen-still like a giant kaleidoscope… so strangely crystal clear… like God was holding up his own personal magnifying glass to let me see…

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