Holy Water!

Prior to taking this class, my religious views were seemingly skewed.  Born and raised a Roman Catholic, my religious ideologies generally were closed off to any new ideas except Jesus.  Having attended Catholic school for 13 years, I've taken a number of religion courses that kind of told me what to believe.  Naturally, this Jerusalem class struck me as particularly interesting--I mean, after all of those references to Jerusalem in the Bible, I wanted to know where the root of all these ideologies branched from.  The first day was nothing too special, Professor Cargill cracked a few jokes, introduced the course information, introduced the TAs, and went over the monotonous logistical stuff, as in every first day of lecture.  The second day, however, we started talking about the topography of Jerusalem, focusing on the religious importance of Jerusalem's location.  Turns out, the landscape of Jerusalem resembles that one alien-esque sign that ignited me to think the words, "I come in peace."  It sits on a mountain (with Mount Moriah being a central place of worship), emphasizing that a heightened location puts the city closer to God.  There is a wall that surrounds Jerusalem, the Western Wall, for added protection.  In addition, it was compelling to learn that the whole city of Jerusalem thrives off of water; residents are continuously finding ways to retrieve a constant flow of water. In the religious sense, water is generally considered holy; Catholics believe there is Holy water that cleanses and purifies you, Muslims believe that water also acquires a cleansing power.  Thus, it is unsurprising that the locations from which the water is produced becomes a religious landmark.  These locations include: the Gihon spring, Hezekiel's Tunnel, and the Siloam Pool.  All of these landmarks are mentioned in Scripture, and it was super interesting to realize that the part of the stigma attached to water as "sacred" was correlated to Jerusalem's effort to get water.  Their location causes water to be a scarcity, and thus water is difficult to acquire, making it "sacred" and a novelty, in a sense.