You Don't Know About Me by Brian Meehl

Author:Brian Meehl [Meehl, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-375-89715-3
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2011-05-09T16:00:00+00:00

30

Into the Desert

After stopping for body fuel, we followed the Snake River, a shiny ribbon winding through southern Idaho. The river was the blue stripe in the middle of a fatter “snake” of checkered green pastures and milk-shake-brown fields. On both sides of the valley were dry hills covered in sagebrush and scrub cedar.

When we passed a sign for an old hotel, THE SAGE STEPPE INN, I asked about the weird spelling. Ruah told me that sage steppe was one of the names for the high desert that stretched beyond the river valley. It was a wonky name. I mean, it looked to me like the kind of desert where no one had ever stepped, and if they had, they might’ve never stepped out of it again.

As we got off the interstate and followed the Snake River up to Notus, the sage steppe to the south got drier and wilder-looking. We even passed some giant sand dunes, like they’d been airlifted from the Sahara Desert.

The steppe looked so unstepped on by humans or animals, it got me thinking. In the Midwest, it looks like every square inch of land has been trod on by a person or an animal at sometime or other. And if footprints never went away—like dinosaur tracks in rocks—the Midwest would be a huge carpet of footprints. But out west, in the high desert, there would be places that no human or animal had ever tread. Sure, there’d be trails and tracks from the past, but there’d also be islands of ground where no creature had ever set foot or hoof. There’d be places as untouched as the moon.

It made me want to ask Ruah to stop so that I could get out and walk into the desert to one of those untouched islands. When I thought I’d found one, I’d kick off my sneaks and be the first creature to ever step on that piece of God’s earth. On that one little island, I’d be Adam.

It was just one of my dopey fantasies, but it was also God reminding me of something. Most of His good earth had been corrupted by the foul footprint of sin. And God’s will, before I got to Notus, was to save Ruah from his sinful path.

I opened my Bible to Genesis, where the Lord destroys Sodom and Gomorrah. I read it out loud. It’s as straightforward as scripture gets.

Two angels, in the form of men, visit the town of Sodom.

A man who lives there, Lot, invites the two strangers into his house. He feeds them and offers them shelter for the night.

A mob of Sodomites shows up and orders Lot to give them the two men so they can “know them,” meaning have sex with them.

Lot begs the mob to take his daughters instead. They refuse. They want the two men.

The two men pull Lot back into the house and, being angels, blind all the Sodomites outside. The angels tell Lot to take his family and leave Sodom because it’s going to be destroyed for its wickedness.

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