This article is chapter 10 of his new book, Leap Over a Wall and appears by permission. The Brook Besor marks an important episode in human history. An event was enacted there that's definitive for people whose family tree goes back to Jesus, a tree of life with roots in David. I've never understood why the Brook Besor doesn't rank along with other definitive place names, such as Bethany, Galilee, Shiloh, Calvary, and Bethel. But that portion of the David story that originates at the Brook Besor keeps being re-enacted among men and women who stay in touch with the God of their everydayness.
Names are important.
They identify particular places, specific persons. They save us from the swamps of undifferentiated generality. They protect us from the arid wastelands of abstraction. A name is a lifejacket that keeps us afloat in the ocean of anonymity. Names locate and identify.