Reading Joshua 4:1-8 with Mircea Eliade

A stone is a just a stone: that is the profane truth: just a stone, unless: unless in the stone the mind beholds sacred reality.

Hiking in the desert, a wash becomes the Jordan River and I gather stones. I take them along with me and deposit them in the place where I will spend the night.

Stones, like humanity, are born of cause without purpose to an order not designed: that is the modern truth: no meaning until we take them along with us into the night.

Eliade called the modern truth profane.

In the desert wash, I gather stones and take them along with me to the place where I will spend the night so that I might rest in nostalgia and awaken to the world as it was in the beginning.