We Can’t All Worship St. Obama

Been busy with boring tasks today.

Yesterday’s sabbath observation went well. I feel strange calling Sunday the sabbath, but I don’t know what else to call it. I read a lot and relaxed and spent a fair amount of time in prayer, and oddly when I woke up today, I was still not perfect.

Maybe it will take two consecutive Sundays.

I am still confused about prayer in tongues. I reviewed some NT teaching on it, and the scriptural support is there. I guess what I question is whether I have ever done it, because when I do, it always sounds unconvincing. It’s a tough issue for a sincere person. You want to do it, so you try, but how do you know you’re not making it up? What if you’re so good at making it up, you think you have it when you don’t, and you quit trying to get the real thing, and it passes you by? And then you feel truly stupid in the afterlife, because everyone else got it and you didn’t.

People being what they are, I can say with certainty that not all people who do it are really doing it.

I read more of the book of Enoch, and I tried to find information on why it was rejected by the Jews and by most Christians. The bit about angels reproducing is problematic for Jews, but it has also been suggested that they bailed on Enoch after Christianity appeared, because so much of the book seems to be about Christ.

I cannot buy into some of it. I do not believe there is a place where lightning is kept, ready to throw, like cigars in a box. But it seems like the facially weird bits can be pared away from the plausible parts that ring true.

I found out about it while I was researching Mt. Hermon. On my own, years ago, I got the idea that the Jordan Valley seems to be set up in a way that symbolizes the progress of human lives. I don’t think God’s symbolism is confined to the Bible. The water originates above, falls on Hermon, goes into several springs including one by an ancient shrine to Pan (the model for modern depictions of Satan), moves on to the lake where the disciples symbolically harvested fish, and then passes through the desert to the Dead Sea, which contains Sodom and Gomorrah. Not the new town, Sdom, which is on the banks. The actual cities. And we all know what they represent. From there, the only escape is evaporation.

If this idea pans out, it came from God. If not, it was all me.

The Enoch story lends a little credence to it. It says evil angels alit on Hermon and went from there to procreate with women, creating a race of superhuman beings which did all sorts of horrible things, leading God to flood the earth. The parable of the wheat and the tares seems to comport with this idea.

I don’t have it all worked out, but anyway, I haven’t yet accepted the notion that Enoch is garbage. Jesus’s brother quoted it, so surely it’s worth something.

I may sound silly talking about angels, but I know they exist, so I don’t care. Some day we’ll be dead, and you’ll have to admit I was right. If you’re a Christian and you don’t believe in angels, you must be watching too much Oprah. You have to believe Jehovah and Jesus are two real beings, and that they are observing us at this very moment, and that Satan is real, and that there are legions of angels and demons. If those things sound ridiculous to you, what exactly is it that makes you think you’re a Christian?

The shrine to Pan is located at a thing called the Banias. It would be called the Panias, or something similar, but Arabs don’t have the letter P. Pagans used to worship false gods there and throw sacrifices into the spring. You would think that would defile the Jordan all the way to the Dead Sea, but I haven’t read anything suggesting that the Jews cared about this.

I went to the Banias once while I was a kibbutz volunteer, on a weekend tour sponsored by the kibbutz. I didn’t realize at the time that it was adjacent to the location of Caesarea Philippi, an evil city and the site of Jesus’s declaration that he was the Messiah. Remember “Get thee behind me, Satan”? He said that near the Banias. Which may have some prophetic significance. He said it to Peter. But are we sure he was only addressing Peter, given the peculiar location?

The Banias is truly creepy. There’s a giant hole in a red rock face, which the kibbutz volunteer supervisor told us was believed to be the birthplace of Pan. And there’s a stagnant pool there, which used to be a bubbling spring. That’s where they threw the sacrifices. Not sure if they were all animals.

I’m dying to go back to Israel. I should just get up and go. Spend a week. I wonder if I can still go to all the places I went last time. Jericho is out, I suppose.

A recommendation: for some reason I no longer recall, I had a copy of The Spirit-Filled Bible, and it seems very good. Maybe the reason I used to read the Bible too little is that the versions I had lacked useful annotations and so on. This book is packed with them. Background on each author, historical information, insight on the actual words used, and it was written by people who believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Sunday was very nice. There is more to it than I’m telling, but it was a very good day. Peculiar thing; my tomatoes and peppers seem to be doing much better, suddenly. I don’t claim a causal connecition, but it’s true.