Class 55 A Temple Without Walls: Seeking the Sacred in Morocco October 30, 2026 By Class55 Share: The bus was quieter this morning. The travel days were catching up with everyone, and fatigue was setting in. Between the shuffle of feet and invitations to sit in a new spot, there was an air of discomfort. We were being asked to stretch, not just between bus stops, but between ideas. Phones were put away for the day and journals brought out as we were challenged to focus on the moments we were in. Today, we were asked to look more carefully at the world around us and at what our reactions to it might reveal about ourselves.Our drive took us through a striking landscape of red-rock desert hills that dropped into bright green valleys of olive, fig, and pomegranate trees. Wadis that fill with water during the rainy season lay dry, their banks marked by black silt and white salt left behind as the water receded. As we left Ouarzazate, our guide Omar described how the Amazigh people, who have inhabited North Africa for centuries, rely on agriculture and tourism to make a living. Water connects the entire landscape. It sustains farms and communities, but too much can be destructive. Drought, flash floods, and seasonal extremes shape the choices people make.Every stop along our route introduced us to another aspect of mountain and desert life. Families have farmed these lands for generations, growing several crops, raising livestock, and making use of the resources available to them. Irrigation ditches, cut by hand, divide the fields. Goat herders dot the landscape. In a parcel tucked against the river and surrounded by fruit trees, two men worked a plow pulled by two mules, a sight many of us had previously encountered only in pictures. The hospitality of these communities was evident in the guesthouses that occupy traditional kasbahs and in the farmers who waved us over to watch them work. In one village, a group of young children appointed themselves our tour guides, following us through the streets and small agricultural parcels. They were eager to show us their surroundings, and we were happy to follow.As we stood among the irrigation fields, a quiet settled around the group. Without our phones, we had fewer opportunities to document every interesting sight and more reason to stay with an experience. The rock formations, the rose fields, the farmers at work, and the children who played rock-paper-scissors with us each offered different possibilities for attention. We picked dandelions with our young guides, followed running water, stopped to examine wild squash blossoms, and simply felt. Looking up at the rich red mountains surrounding us, listening to birdsong cross the valley and the soft shouts of children playing, we found ourselves fully present. Our attention had nowhere else to be. The landscape itself invited awe. Earlier in our travels, we had stood before the Church of St. Simon, the Blue Mosque, and Hagia Sophia, each a place whose scale, architecture, and history inspire wonder before we even cross its threshold. These places become truly sacred when people gather within them, united by faith, reflection, community, or a shared sense of purpose.Here in Morocco, we found ourselves in a different kind of temple. The red-rock formations rose around us, shaped by geological forces over vast stretches of time. There were no vaulted ceilings, carved columns, or elaborate mosaics. The mountains provided their own grandeur. As we paused together in this landscape, we felt a familiar sense of awe, though the setting was entirely different.The comparison stayed with us. A place can move us through its beauty and scale, but the experience takes on another dimension when people gather there and share a purpose. In the religious spaces we had visited, that purpose had been shaped by centuries of faith and tradition. In the red-rock valley, it was our collective willingness to pause, observe, and reflect. We had come as visitors, but for a moment we were sharing something beyond the simple act of sightseeing.Throughout the day, we listened to stories about communities built into these hills and valleys. We learned about families who work with what the land provides, growing different crops, tending livestock, and sharing labor and resources with their neighbors. We watched men work with mules and a hand plow, and saw how generations of experience had shaped the way people farmed this challenging terrain. The fact that local farmers welcomed 27 strangers into their field to watch them work left us questioning the systems we are surrounded by and the ways we interact with them. At the beginning of Class 55’s journey, the Diamond model asked us to forge a new reality for ourselves, relying on love, courage and faith to sustain us during this transition. This quiet time in the valley asked us to take a moment to observe and consider this faith: what moves us, what unsettles us, and what those reactions reveal about our values. The children who led us through their village, the farmers who welcomed us into their field, and the landscape that surrounded us each asked something different of us, whether curiosity, humility, or simply the willingness to slow down.Perhaps seeking the sacred begins with this kind of attention. We may find it in a grand mosque, an ancient church, or a natural landscape that inspires awe. We may also find it in the ordinary work of growing food, the generosity of welcoming strangers, or the shared experience of being fully present with others.As our international seminar nears its end, we are beginning to understand that some lessons require more than looking and listening. They ask us to examine what we carry within ourselves and what we choose to do with what we have learned. The red-rock valley offered us no single answer, but it left us with a question worth taking home: How might our lives and our leadership change if we gave the people, places, and responsibilities around us the same attention we gave that natural temple in Morocco?