My Pilgrimage: June 14

The third and longest day at Magdala has been the less successful and most frustrating so far.  I literally found nothing today, save a tiny piece of pottery not worth anything.  I just dug up dirt and moved it to the discard pile all day.  Meanwhile, everyone else in our group has found something.  Numerous coins, some glass, ritual purity limestone, a cutting instrument, etc.  I’m beginning to think I wronged someone and they placed me there on purpose to not find anything.  I try to make it interesting: “I’m excavating the moon!” (the clay is very grey).  “In one week, I’ll be in Vienna!”  Unfortunately, they only work for a little while.  I was so frustrated that I did not even remember to pray the rosary while I was working.

But, we move on.  It was a similar schedule to yesterday (leave at 5:30, etc.), with something added.  After Mass and lunch, we hung around for another two hours to clean pottery.  This is pottery from last year that is in storage.  It actually made me more depressed, because the bag I was working on had beautiful, large pieces of pottery including many jar handles and tops.  On the one hand, it was cool to handle them, on the other, all I could think was “why can’t I find something like this?!?!”

Tomorrow is our last full day at the dig site.  At this point, I have no expectation of finding anything.  Perhaps, as one person in our group said, the trick is to not look for something, then you find it!