Good Morning.

No, I'm not going to be analyzing the ongoing downfall of the United States...we're going back rather further in time.


Somewhat randomly, I have started listening to an audio Bible. Not because I have re-discovered any sort of Christian Faith, mind you - but because of my fraternal organization.

A great deal of the Masonic Origin Story is tied to the building of King Solomon's Temple, and much of our ritual is tied to Israelitish customs adopted by Masons. In any case, I thought it might be beneficial to listen to the entire thing in order for my own personal edification.

I am into the Book of Deuteronomy now; the Israelites have reached the Promised Land!

But in some ways, I feel like I too have suffered by wandering through the earlier books of the Bible for 40 days, which in some ways felt like 40 years. Leviticus and Numbers are categorized by repetition and tedium, and honestly, the utter ridiculousness of the God of old.

No offence is intended to anyone here, but listening with modern ears, a whole lot of the ancient instructions to his people sound like paganism, occultism, and honestly, God saying to his cohorts, "Hey, hold my beer - watch me make them do THIS!"

Lengthy passages about the ritualistic things to make people "clean" again after ordinary things like sex and menstruation, or how to determine if somebody has the plague or not, or even things like touching a dead body. Water, fire, prayer, sprinkling bodies with Hyssop and goat blood, I have no idea what is going on in there.

And then there are the sacrifices! Chapter after chapter of specific instructions over when, how, and how many animals are to be sacrificed and burned as "an aroma pleasing to the Lord". By the end of Leviticus, it started to feel like "Every morning, sacrifice every animal in the camp to me, splash their blood on the altar, burn them to ashes and then take the remains out of camp to an unclean place." The Priests got to take a share at least, but none of the good parts. All the fat, specific lobes of the liver, and the like. Yeah, blecch.

But....that finally leads me to the point of this today. In the book of Numbers, the Israelites finally reach the promised land - the deserts around Canaan.



But here's the problem. When the Israelites arrived in Canaan; the land was already occupied by the Canaanites!

So what happened?



There it is. A "chosen people" arrived at a place, found it occupied, and took it in war, expelling the native inhabitants.

I'm sure that when I put it that way, you can immediately see a parallel with our own history.

Manifest Destiny.

This has driven much of American policy since the 19th century. We can see it again today. A Messianic figure, annointed as the "Chosen One" is looking to lead his people to the Promised Land.

Today's promised land is not full of milk and honey, but rather Rare Earth Elements and Oil. Those Chosen Ones are of course the billionaires and elites, and well....

Whoever is there now are the newly-designated Canaanites. Or Wampanoags. Or Lenape. Or Chocktaw, Cherokee, or any other people that "got in the way."