Words from Egypt

How do you end posts about a trip that was so cool?

Not sure.  It was fun to share the pictures with you all.  It was a great trip with great folks.

A couple of things that I picked up about our culture from ancient Egypt.

We refer to death as a crossing over, or a crossing over the river.  In Ancient Egypt, the people worshiped on the East Bank of the Nile.  That is where the temples were.  The tombs were on the west side of the Nile.  So when someone died, they "crossed over" from one side of the Nile to the other.  They crossed from the world of the living to the place of the dead.

Temples on one side, tombs on the other.  They crossed the river.

Steve Elkins in one of the tombs in the valley of the Kings.
West side of the Nile.

Carving/Paintings inside one of the tombs.
The deceased is in a boat, crossing over.

Second thing that I learned.  It is said that when one died and they were mummified, their heart needed to be lighter than a feather.  If your heart weighed more than a feather, then you did not enter life after death.  So there was much emphasis on being kind and gracious, and thus, light hearted.

Heavy heartedness was bad.  Light hearted was good.  And God hardened Pharaoh's heart.  Light hearted is much better.

May we all cross over, when the time comes, with a light heart!!!

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.