A Spring in the Valley
“Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baka, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools. They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.”
— Psalm 84:5-7 (NIV)
The walk behind these lines was a legal duty: every Israelite man had to present himself before the Lord three times a year. The oldest wording of that command names no city, only the site the Lord himself would choose. The same law carried a promise attached to it, that nobody would covet their land while the men were away, which tells you what people were afraid of when they locked up and left. Other accounts show whole households on the road, women and children walking too. How far it was depended on where you lived: a few hours for someone close by, days of walking for a family from the north. Where this reads "hearts set on pilgrimage", the Hebrew has a plain noun for roads, and it means the built kind, earth heaped up and marked out rather than a track worn in by feet. The dry valley named halfway through, Baka, has never been fixed to any known place; its name is read either from a word for weeping or from a shrub that grows where there is no water. The last of the three feasts came at the end of a rainless summer, with the first rains of the year still ahead. And Jerusalem stands high in the hill country, so whichever road you took, the climbing came at the end of it. Whoever has come through the valley of weeping can leave a spring in it for those who come after.
A valley of weeping goes by many names: the first weeks after a funeral, a divorce, a cancer waiting room, a first lonely year away from home, months out of work. While you are in it, it seems nothing good could come of it. Then someone new walks into the same place, and you know where the water is: who to ask, what to sort out first, what nobody told you at the time. Whoever has come through that valley with God can leave a spring in it for the ones walking behind. Your valley does not have to be wasted.
Leave a spring for the next one
- 1Pick one hard place or season you have already come through: grief, divorce, illness, unemployment, a first year in a strange city or a student room. Write down three things nobody told you then that would have helped, and send or hand them to someone who is there now.
- 2If you know nobody in that place right now, leave the spring for a stranger: answer a question in a group of people facing the same thing, leave a useful notice at your parish or clinic, or tell someone who knows such a person that they can come to you.
God, you remember the valleys you brought me through, even the ones where I saw no water at all. Show me someone who is there now. Let me leave for them what I wish I had found. Do not let my tears go to waste. Amen.
What my valley taught me, I pass on today to someone who is in it now.
Where was the Valley of Baka?
Nobody knows. It has never been fixed to any known place on a map, which is why most translations simply keep the name. The word is read either from a term for weeping or from a shrub that grows where there is no water.
Why were people walking to Jerusalem at all?
The law required every Israelite man to present himself before the Lord three times a year, at the site the Lord would choose. The same law promised that nobody would covet their land while the men were away, which tells you what leaving home that long actually cost them.
What if I am in that valley myself right now?
Then you are the one looking for the spring someone left: ask one person who came through the same thing what helped them at the start.