Friday, May 20, 2022
Book of Love by Who/Chapter Twenty/ Exploring Jerusalem
After settling in Jerusalem the next day we joined a tour, if It recall and he a local that lived in The Old City and he wore the most coveted bag in Jerusalem, the official badge of a tour guide and showed us things of course, like I've never seen before and yurned and wanted to do so and show anyone new in Jerusalem and history of the place as learned and parroted too others as a way of spreading the Gospel using historic locations and like your there, where it all began and like, wow everywhere one turns in the Old City of Jerusalem and the opposite of modern West Jerusalem, are interesting things to see current and ancient and the main walking street of the Bazaar that ran across the Old City, starting from Damaskus Gate the Muslim Quarter and ending in the Christian and Jewish quarter area near too the entrance of the Western Wall and formally known as the Wailing Wall and King David Street area, was and is quite and experience and seeing every form of buchered animal meat hanging out in the open and live chickens in cages and dead ones hanging or piled and goat and sheep heads in piles or pyramids stacked, with the skins stripped off and the colors and the smells and the multicolored Turkish delights and brightly colored clothes hanging everywhere and antique jewelry stores of Roman coins and ancient Roman glass art made into jewerly and also beware, it is easy to fake an ancient Roman silver coin and was warned in something I read or heard from an Archeologist, somewhere in some media that virtually all the silver ancient coins are fakes or copies so beware and everywhere on goes shop keepers are trying to huddle you to buy things and shaking your hand and not letting go and even pulling people into their stores and desperately trying to sell their wares with a grin of a smile and sizing you up by asking what hotel or hostel or pilgrims lodging in Monestaries and such to find out how much to charge you and for there are no det prices in the Old City and ones has to haggle for everything, of which is fun to have no set prices because on a slow day a shop keeper will sell you things a lot cheaper and haggling came easy for me after a while as long as they let go of your hand after shaking hands for the competition is great from the masses of tourists and Pilgrims and Israelis buying things in the Old City and also one can go underground Jerusalem in a massive cave under the city where the stones for the Temple of Jerusalem was excavated and called Jerimiahs cave from the believe that it's where Jerimiahs hid from the King, after saying that Babylon will destroy Jerusalem, because of her sins and be carried away too Babylon and the messenger was persecuted and also was put in a well to be rescued by Baruck the scribe and one can virtually walk around the Old City Wall, for a large part of the city and be all alone and away from the tourists and Pilgrims and every time I go too Jerusalem more of it is dug up from the ground and all the way down to the Roman level in places deep underground and excesable underground and fastinating beyond words and so to speak and the walks of the city are and have been dug down to buried levels and exposing more of the City Walks and down too it's foundations of which the ages have started to bury Poland naming the city walls even more dramatic to see with lights shining on then a night and my favorite Turkish Sulton Solomien the Magnificent had a dream centuries ago to rebuilt the walks, that had been broken down and he's my favorite, because he married and the daughter of an Eukraineian Orthodox Priest and she co ruled and he dismissed his Hairim to be free and marry and became faithful to one wife and her name was Roxanne and gave him so much love that he forsook all others. Another fascinating place in Jerusalem is the Valley of Gehennah where they dumped thier trash in ancient days and that there was a continuous fire burning day and night and is the scene or mephor of Hell, in the Scriptures for there the worms never die and is the garbage heap of Jerusalem and ironically it's the Hotest place outside Jerusalems walls and that I can just picture the recyclers toiling I'm the heat salvaging and recycling what one could, in such mireable conditionsd and picking through the trash, in the heat of the day and the continuous flames, like I had to do, medaphoriclly after my divorce for most of twenty years until my back was broken and then most of the next twenty years playing my guitar and ministering, to the tourists at the Sausalito Ferry boat Landing, to the tourist that missed their pets, with my little wienner dogs Caji Dog and Diamond Dogover the years as one passed away the Lord brought me another and you can see them preforming forever online if ones searchs thier names and like Lazarus in the Bible who was homeless and lay at the rich man's gate, I also ate from the trash cans and dumpsters or the wicked rich and whoes only companions were his dogs, who licked his sunburnt and skin cancerous sores and thus wi be the end of the unrepented wicked, who will be thrown into the trash bins and dumped into the Valley of Gehennah to pick though the trash and recycle for a living and feeling the shame and no one dare talk too them in thier judgements and stoking the fires of hell and in the night, cold comfort as they have to smell, the garbage buying while the redeemed sit stop the hill of the Golden City the New Jerusalem inside the gates of pearls and the streets of Gold, while the wicked and homeless rich, build thier shelters out of discarted and dry rotting lumber and plastic trash and rats for their only company and food and like Hitler, wi be spending his time and dying daily, just to be woke up again, to do then same and also in this valley, on the opposite side of the walked city of Jerusalem is a monastery in the remembering of Judas Iscaroits betrayal and the field of Alcadama or which translated is called the field of blood of which was purchased by hippcritical Priests of the time to buy a field to bury paupers and also called the Potter's Field and a wall around it to and a Monestary in remembrance of the betrayal and a tree of which is claimed, to be the one, that Judas hung himself on in plain view, if I recall or imagined, in my mind, as I had no desire, to climb the side of the valley hill, to visit or see and nearby is a cave that tradition says that the Apostles fled too and hid after Jesus' arrest and illegal midnight court trial and out of the view, of the public and Ken Hopkins and I my travelling companion fought ancient and broken pottery such as pot sherds and oil lamp spouts and broken pottery everywhere, where it was dumped and around the bend too the left is the Valley of Kidron,where the beautiful Garden of Getsemenie is on the foot and side of of the Mount of Olives and the most quite and beautiful and respectful place, in Jerusalem outside the walls, where the Golden Gate is located where the Scriptures day the the Messiah will enter and feast in the great chamber of the gate after touching down, upon the Mount of Olives, where Jesus acended into Heaven,in front of five hundred witnesses and Angels present said that this same Jesus will return, as he ascended into the Heavens and there is even a traditional footprint like hollow in a stone that is traditionally called Jesus', footstep and the then there is the beautiful Inter Continental Hotel with a view where if one has the money, can stay and there is an Arab hotel on the top also of whom I was told was for sale for a mliin dollars, at the time I was there and a song of a price and but firbiddon, to be sold to any Israeli and there was a small Municiple Garden, in a scant hilltop village with a large Marijuana bush growing of the male plant, of which is not potent, as the female plant is and no one has cut it down and smoked it of used it as medicine and is quite impressive as a shade of garden bush and but one can smell Marijuana bring smoked on a Arab bus so to speak and because the Israilies don't bother much but do prosecute or did at the time I was there if an Israilie was caught smoking weed and front top of the Mount of Olives one can see the dead sea and on the back side of the mountain is a village where Lazarus' house is reputed to be and his tomb of which I'd open to the public, can be entered where tradition says raised him from the dead and further on down the mountain is the road to Jerico and the Dead Sea and the ancient ruins of the Jewish Monestary of Qumram where the Dead Seas Scrolls were found and a Jewish resort or Israelie maintained resort where on can float I.the dead Sea and I remember and Israelie jet flying low over the water patrolling and if I recall waving or at least close enough to wave and see the pilot and what a serial scene and then I tried to explore on of the Dead Sea Scrolls caves and an Owel came flying out blinded by the light and hit a wall of the cave and then safely flew out and the cave had been thoroughly excavated down to the floor in order to look for and scrap of Scrolls and the scenery from that point looking across the Sea too Jordan was quite a sight and to be in the Holy Land and then I explored the ruines of the Queram Monestey and saw the original caves where the first Scrolls were found and all was so sereal to be there and had to proverbially pinch myself over and over where ever I went and I remember staying a night in the Old City of Jerico's ruins atop a bluff as guests of what appeared to be a Bedouin family after I first entered the New City or village of Jerico and was almost pulled into a taxi cab by some youths saying that they wanted to show me around or a hotel and Israeli military police station was there and armed and looking lie an occupied zone with military presence and I found my way after avoiding an abduction, as I look back that I may ha e been taken hostage for there were no tourist around and military zone and the feeling that this ace was under strong occupation as the military police station was right in the middle of the town and creepy hostil and after having a nice carrot juice drink in an outside juice bar I was told by a local youth where I could check into a hotel and I checked I to a roo.occupied by two Palastinian looking Arab youths of military age and looking very suspicious and seemed out of place there with thier atmosphere and grinning smiles and darling but handsome complexions and we began talking and they said that they were Syrians and I was wondering what military age Syrians were doing in Jerico and was told by one of thier good memories visiting California and we were getting along a d bit still felt uneasy sleeping in the same room as them and decided to leave my back pack there and take my sleeping bag and trekked too the Old City and ancient ruins of Jericho planning on spending the night in one of the many caves on a Mount called the Mount of Temptation where there was a. Ancient and occupied Monestary of Orthodox vintage with Monks of one I passed through the street earlier and wasn't friendly or responsive from thier long Isolations I suppose and the general feeling of tension in Jerico and then there was the evidence of an abandoned Palestinian refugee camp fully intact and really creepy looking give a ghost town next too the Old City ruins or not far away and I also drank from Elijah's fountain where he prayed the bitter waters to be sweet and the water was the sweetest that I remember and coming out of the barren mountains of the Wilderness of Judea and as I was making my way through the ruins of Jericho heading up to the Mount of Temptation an Arab boy appeared riding on a donkey and greeted me and began saying in broken English that there were lions in those caves where I told him that I was going and he insisted that I not go there to sleep or camp and later found that what he meant was that there were solitary cave dwelling Hienias there and could have been eaten and so I got on his donkey or that he put me on his donkey and took me through the ruins too a bluff over looking the Old City and too his one room House built out of mud brick with some kind of make shift roof as though that he was a squatter and had the most beautiful spot overlooking the Old City Ruins and was greeted by his extremely friendly father and his mother in the background of the one room hand made buying out of sight somewhat in the doorway as to be polite and let the man do the talking of which was roughly translated by his young school age son who was studying English and spoke in broken form and with the help of hand gestures we were able to communicate and was served tea and vegetables and ethnic Midfle East modest supper with my hostes wife back in the doorwat watching in Middle East respectivel way in the background making the supper and watching shyly and I noticed her face tatooed like a Bedouin women respectively and but very curiously and also during prayer time my host unrolled a prayer mat and prayed and bowed down too Mecca and then come evening he put me in bed with his son on a double bed on four fifty gallon oil drums and we lay together outside looking up at the stars and watching the search lights at night from the top of the Mount of Temptation the entrance too the Wilderness of Judia search the Jordin River where Jesus was baptized before his forty day fast and temptations by the Devil in the wilderness and looking and looking for anyone crossing the the Jordan at night from the Country of Jordon and somewhere I visited the home and met a Palastinian women who had swam back over Jordon to her home in Jericho after first fleeing and it was all so searel and all of a sudden a terrorist looking Arab came out of the dark to shake hands with me and greeting me with a big unsaved smile and teeth and was so friendly for going back too the time of Abraham Arabs pride themselves with hospitality too strangers of which Abraham was famous for and I got to experience and evening and a night with real Beoudins even though they built a temporary shelter instead of a tent and what an experience and in the morning my host and hostess prepaid a modest Middle East breakfast and with again tea and a little tree they had planted in front of thier little one room brick mud hut or shelter was used to pour out used water as a sink and being the only green thing on the bluff over looking the ancient city and when and or before leaving I left some money under a small plate and we said our goodbyes and I walked back through the mud ruins of the Ol City too the hotel room that I had left my back pack to find my two room guests looking wiered out and kind appeared to have been up looking or staring at my back pack as if maybe it was a bomb or the temptation to look inside and wondering where have I been and in my personal opinion they were military age militants that just looked or seemed out of place there and I moved on in that particular time that I was in Israel and moved on to Galilee by bus through the heart of the Jordon Valley and I had become ill and had flue like symptoms and was feeling anxious about staying overnight in the Old City ruins due to a fact that there was a Biblical curse upon the city that it should never be built again or lived in and was tempted to think that I was being cursed with this sickness due to spending the night there and Satan was working overtime on my mind with anxiety and I threw away a Porcupine work of art that my child host gave me as a gift of which I regret today and realized eventually the at my flue like systomes may have been related to the boiled and cuddled soar goats milk that I had drunk or just caught the common flue from someone else and during the bus ride on an Arab bus some strange looking and total Arab looking in thier rough dress clothes and unshaved demiener and looking at me in surprise that I was on an Arab bus if which the tourists never ride not the Israelies for that matter I an occupied and Arab war zone and then realized that I must have been simply a backpacker from the west and a Christian and also an Israelie jet flew over the bus at one point and everyone seemed to be looking out the windows anxiously as if about to be bombed and looking back the Isralies back in Jericho may have tipped off the pilot that a possible Israeli was on the bus meaning me and the bus was buzzed so to speak and well anything could have happened and it was all dramatic anyway for a jet to come so close to a moving bus and the excitement in the bus as something either unusual or common to happen in a technically a war zone and too be continued in the next unedited chaper twenty one my arrival in Tiberious on the Sea of Galilee....
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