Grace Available

I don't know how long this post will be, but I had a couple of thoughts that I wanted to get out before I move on and they get lost. This morning I was doing some reading in 1 Enoch chapter 7 and I was struck by the description of the great giants.

It can be easy to get stuck on literal descriptions of their attributes, but I think that would be a fine way to miss the point. What I saw today was a situation that played out in three acts.

Act I

In chapter 6 we see the giants originate from the angels who were the children of heaven lusting after the comely daughters of the children of men. These angels conspire to choose wives and produce children who are the giants. During this time secrets from the place of the most high are being shared, but because it is fornication and not proper communion the knowledge is misused in ways that have harmful side effects.

Act II

The giants escalate through a series of stages of consumption, each less sustainable than the last.

1. Consuming all the acquisitions of men until they could no longer sustain them
2. Turn against men and start consuming mankind
3. Start destroying all life, birds, beasts, reptiles, fish, and each other

The text refers the 3rd step as "sin" against the animals. I suspect this is sin in the sense of doing something against the natural order of how things are supposed to be which may not be exactly the same as how most church people talk about sin today.

After the destruction by the giants it is the earth that begins to accuse the "lawless ones". The language in chapters 7 and 9 that talk about the earth accusing them and the cries of men perishing going up to heaven is reminiscent of the language found in the Book of Mormon. As an example, 2 Nephi 26:3 says "Wherefore the cry of the blood of the saints shall ascend up to God from the ground against them".

In chapter 9 verse 2 we see the final accusation against the giants: 2. And they said one to another: "The earth made without inhabitant cries the voice of their crying up to the gates of heaven.
3. And now to you, the holy ones of heaven, the souls of men make their suit, saying, 'Bring our cause before the Most High.'"

Act III

The giants having caused much grief have run afoul of the demands of justice. The solution we see in chapter 10 is quite extreme when we see the instructions of the Most High:

"Go to Noah and tell him in My name 'Hide thyself!' And reveal to him the end that is approaching: that the whole earth will be destroyed, and a deluge is about to come upon the whole earth, and will destroy all that is on it. And now instruct him that he may escape and his seed may be preserved for all the generations of the world."

After this Azazel is bound and cast into an opening in the desert and buried in rocks to be held until the day of judgement when he will be cast into fire.

What does it all mean?

There's a lot to unpack here, I'm sure I could have done better at laying out the context for my thoughts, but hopefully this is sufficient.

When I think of devouring giants I can't help but think of the world we have built where our incentives have led us to support corporate and governmental institutions that have taken on a life of their own. What I see when I see stories of about corporate misbehavior, or governmental shenanigans I see patterns that sound a lot like what the giants do in Act II.

We have created these structures and we hope that they will serve us, but what tends to happen is that the desire to keep them alive and growing turns into a burden. We get businesses that are too big to fail and governments that justify expanding into more and more superfluous activities until they consume all of the excess resources of the people.

As we watch our economy slide further we can see examples where these institutions begin to destroy the very things they need for continued support. Our governments support policies that are destructive to families and our corporations cut themselves off at the knees in the name of making sure their quarterly numbers look right. So often decisions are made to solve this week's problem at the expense of what is coming in the next 5-10 years.

What was really striking was when it described sinning against birds, beasts, and other animals. For all of our environmentalist protestations there is little real policy or corporate incentive to be in harmony with the living things we share this world with.

So what's the answer?

It's hard to say. The best thing we could do is repent, stop going to war, and stop making short sighted decisions. Those are all the options that are easy on paper, but hard once you get to people following the incentives of what is essentially the game they have placed before them.

This is where Act III gets to be a little uncomfortable. Don't assume we need to look forward to a literal flood, but don't discount the possibility of collapse being the only viable way out.

I know what you're thinking, "Oh, here goes another prepper ranting about the end of the world". It sure sounds like that's where I'm going with this, but I think that too much preparedness can be a real problem. The most useful thing anyone can do to prepare for the end of an age that is brought about by short term incentives leading to the cannibalization of the fabric of society is to form meaningful relationships deal justly with everyone.

Don't get me wrong, it never hurts to have some extra supplies hanging around, but real relationships with people, and being practiced at having conflict and then working through it is the best thing you can do to be ready.

How do we build these relationships and get practice with working through conflict? I can't think of a better place to do that than a church. Just think of it, a community where you can participate in loving and being loved while at the same time having plenty of people that you are definitely not going to get along with sometimes. Church people have been accused for years of being insufferable and you could be just the thorn to help some of them mellow out.

I know that some people want to discourage church participation, but I suspect that's just a scam to spread alienation so the giants of this world can continue devouring us. It's kind of like how philosophies that disintegrate families have made everyone too weak and spread too thin to challenge the dysfunctions in our civil society. If we don't find ways to rebuild our local social fabric then we won't be able to regain the social power needed to survive the ending of the giant's world when the deluge comes.