The Intertwingularity and the Holiest of Holies

As many of you may have been following, the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem was the site of the most recent tensions in the Arab-Israeli conflict––that are now escalating to concerning levels.

‍See this article in the New York Times for more info‍

It's an especially volatile concentration of holy days, holy sites, and conflicting interpretations as to whose storyline we're following.

I wrote about this conflation of our shared mythologies in Recapture the Rapture––comparing the strange ways contemporary myths like Star Wars and the Matrix have become splintered under the pressures of "the Intertwingularity" (instead of us all making it to a singularity end point in history, our stories are actually crashing, smashing and "intertwining" with each other in ways that are confusing, and potentially volatile).

If you're curious about the mythological backstory of at least a couple of the actors involved in Jerusalem today, check out this excerpt about the stories that are shaping it all, written way back when...

A Lion in Zion:

Given the stakes and the increasing likelihood of Intertwingular crossed wires these days, it’s only going to get more intense. After all, the worst that happens when movie fans differ are flame wars on Rotten Tomatoes and Reddit. But for other, older, even more sacred stories? Some people are willing to die for them.

When it comes to holy scripture—there’s text, there’s subtext, and then there’s context. “Both read the bible day and night,” William Blake once wrote, “but where you see black, I see white!”

***

On May 14, 2018, something momentous but also kind of strange happened in Israel. After years of talking about it, the United States moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to the historical capital of Jerusalem.

That’s the momentous part. The strange part will take a bit of explaining...

Check out the full excerpt: A Lion in Zion >>‍

(and for anyone with a particular dog in this fight, please save the outraged emails presuming we do too––we wish for swift and peaceful resolution for all involved, and understand it's a wildly complex situation––thanks!)

Cheers,

Jamie