"Do no harm" is the motto of many. I hope that I live up to such a motto, I know that I have to be so careful in how I participate in life. I am blessed with faith, and know that the Almighty has blessed me in so many ways. Ways that I do not fully understand at present. I know the human condition, and that so much is mystery, a painful mystery, a lonely mystery and yet there is a peace that surpasses understanding. Hurrah for life!

Michael Collins has An Exclusive Interview with Bush Political Prisoner Susan Lindauer.
background from 2004 here

Democracy is alive, just, whew...

Social Networking for WYD2008.

I just love the moments of serendipity and synchronicity in every day.
Personally reflecting on understanding and compassion during the morning, a lunch time customer tells me unsolicited that "forgiveness leads to understanding or is it understanding leads to forgiveness." Sounds like thich to me... :)

I have spent some time gazing at the latest infrared imagery of the galaxy, and contemplating that the latest data would indicate over 135 billion galaxys in the known universe.

Such ponderings, naturally make one feel more than small, and raise the eternal questions of who am I, why am I here, what's it all about...

Descarte solved it philosophically for a while: cogito ergo sum, but modernity probably says it better: I believe, therefore I am human. Belief in ones identity enables one to survive.

Too often ones identity is seen as black or white. But Ratzinger in Introduction to Christianity reflects that

The beautiful black and white into which one is accustomed to divide men changes into the grey of a universal twilight. It becomes clear that with men there is no such thing as black and white, and that in spite of all possible gradations, which do in fact span a wide range, nevertheless all men stand somewhere in the twilight.

To really live in the twilight is to fully appreciate our brutishness to others, and our loving to others, to really appreciate the brutality of others, and to accept the loving of others.

I find peace in knowing that I am loved by some who have seen my imperfections, impatience, insecurities, resentments and frustrations. When we know others accept us unconditionally ones restlessness is sated, and even more so when one comes to realise that God's love and mercy is even greater, beyond the universe.

Dendy does it again, earlier in the year the projection bulb kept blowing, now this time the projectionist puts some foreign flick on, ten minutes later Then She Found Me begins, but the projectionist has the wrong soundtrack playing... aaarrghhhh....



fortunately the trailer explains the movie fairly well.

the angst ridden colin single betrayed Dad works for me, and my long time love affair with bette continues... the woes of relationship are well explained but the last three minutes of the movie seemed to lack continuity... a deep and meaningful dialogue between Helen and Colin, then quick cut to Helens adoptive bros apartment, then a lingering interaction between Helen and her chinese child..

Could it be that Dendy skipped some scenes as the movie was over time and the long snake of young things waiting to watch sex in the city were getting impatient?

hattip Raja
As for lasting happiness, divorce happens in all kinds of unions – in marriages to the man of your dreams and to Mr. Okay. It can be as mysterious as love in some ways.
..... nothing is perfect: not men, not marriage and not life.

streams of consciousness from The Way of the DreamCatcher - my man Robert Lax, a m8 of my m8 Merton ;)

on the state of calmness
important for good living
when you are relaxed
you can listen more,
hear all the voices,
dream more too,
that way you make the right choices
and can form a better plan for living.

"What should I do?" asked the wind.
And the voice said, Blow, blow, blow."
"What should I do?" asked the river.
And the voice said, Flow, flow, flow.

What I really need, what is essential:
Simply the grace and peace of heaven, anything more just seems to get in the way.

Bob lived out his final days on Patmos - AWESOME!

light bearer lyrics

Try not to get worried, try not to turn on to
Problems that upset you, oh.
Don't you know
Everything's alright, yes, everything's fine.
And we want you to sleep well tonight.
Let the world turn without you tonight.
If we try, we'll get by, so forget all about us tonight

APOSTLES' WIVES

Everything's alright, yes, everything's alright, yes.

MARY MAGDALENE

Sleep and I shall soothe you, calm you, and anoint you.
Myrrh for your hot forehead, oh.
Then you'll feel
Everything's alright, yes, everything's fine.
And it's cool, and the ointment's sweet
For the fire in your head and feet.
Close your eyes, close your eyes
And relax, think of nothing tonight.

APOSTLES' WIVES

Everything's alright, yes, everything's alright, yes.

JUDAS

Woman your fine ointment, brand new and expensive
Should have been saved for the poor.
Why has it been wasted? We could have raised maybe
Three hundred silver pieces or more.
People who are hungry, people who are starving
They matter more than your feet and hair!

MARY MAGDALENE

Try not to get worried, try not to turn on to
Problems that upset you, oh.
Don't you know

APOSTLES' WIVES and MARY

Everything's alright, yes, everything's alright, yes.

JESUS

Surely you're not saying we have the resources
To save the poor from their lot?
There will be poor always, pathetically struggling.
Look at the good things you've got.
Think while you still have me!
Move while you still see me!
You'll be lost, and you'll be sorry when I'm gone.

MARY MAGDALENE

Sleep and I shall soothe you, calm you and anoint you.
Myrrh for your hot forehead/
Then you'll feel
Everything's alright, yes, everything's fine.
And it's cool and the ointment's sweet
For the fire in your head and feet.
Close your eyes, close your eyes, and relax
Think of nothing tonight.

APOSTLES' WIVES

Everything's alright, yes, everything's alright, yes.

MARY MAGDALENE

Close your eyes, close your eyes, and relax

This dialogue from 2006, still makes me smile, especially now that places are selling

. I
Queanbeyan tees around Canberra

tfisb said...
Ah Queanbeyan

tfisb said...
I remember it well. The oil stained concrete, the smell of poorly maintained gas lines, the roar of engines being tuned by a thousand motorheads on a Sunday afternoon. I bought my first Nirvana tape in a near-empty mall by the creek downtown. The one with the baby grasping for a dollar note hung on a fish hook.

mdw said...
Nevermind I do believe it is titled.
mdw

Show Your Spirit WYD 2008
World Youth Day in Canberra 2008

Stories of Inspiration, humour, life and cleanliness #6891

Voided Warranty--How Roomba Treated Me

Tweety summarises Ron Rolheiser well:

There is a popular theme within Christian apologetics that goes something like this: Christianity is the most hated of all religions and that is a certain proof of its truth. The logic works this way: If we are so unfairly hated, we must be doing something right. Truth and innocence draw hatred. Jesus was hated, and so are we!

We need to be careful with that because, among other things, today, thanks to certain radical fundamentalists claiming to be Muslim, Islam is probably the most hated of all religions, and hated not because of what is true and best inside of it. Not only innocence and truth draw hatred. Being hated is not always a good sign or an indication that you (alone among the unfaithful) are holding to the real truth. It may be that you have made a vow of alienation rather than of love. Both eventually make you hated.

Being hated is only a criterion of carrying the truth if you have made a vow of love. Jesus wasn’t trying to be divisive and unpopular, he was trying to speak his truth in ways that precisely didn’t alienate and didn’t provoke hatred. But that isn’t always possible. He was trying to love others, purely and in the truth, but it eventually made him an object of hatred.

That isn’t surprising.

There is a certain proclivity within human nature to hate innocence and goodness. We see this illustrated in many books and movies. Notice how in so many stories that depict the struggle between good and evil, invariably, the bad will eventually train its sights on and fixate on what is its opposite, innocence and goodness. In most every dramatic epic, eventually the guns of the bad guys will end up trained upon the most innocent and loving person in town. It’s the saint who invariably bears the brunt of wound and hurt inside of a community. It is the saint who eventually is the scapegoat. It happened to Jesus. It happens to all goodness; by its stripes we are healed.

Why?

Because such is the anatomy of hatred. Hatred is a perverse form of love, love’s grief. It’s what love becomes when, because of wound and circumstance, it cannot be warm and reciprocal. Rollo May once famously stated that hatred is not the opposite of love. Indifference is. Hatred might instead be described as cold, wounded, frustrated, and grieving love, love gone sour. You can’t conjure-up a powerful hatred for someone unless at some level you first love him or her. When love is wounded and frustrated, the tears it provokes can be warm and cleansing, but they can also be bitter and cold. Cold grief. Hatred with its children, jealousy, bitterness, murderous feelings.

That’s part of the anatomy of love and that’s why love can so quickly turn into hatred and why most murders are domestic. When love breaks down what follows is rarely indifference (a parting in good friendship). What follows is often hatred, bitterness, coldness. Affairs mostly grow sour, not indifferent, and the same is, sadly, true of love in almost all its aspects.

What’s to be learned from this?

That hatred needs to be understood, whether it’s at a personal level or at the level of whole civilizations hating each other. Hatred is not the opposite of love. It is a perverse form of love, cold grief, bitter disaffection, that needs not to be met in kind, with a reciprocal form of coldness, but with warmth and forgiveness, tough as these are in the face of their opposite.

One of the great moral struggles of our lives lies precisely in this. When people hate us what spontaneous feeling rise within us? Feelings of coldness and anger, along with the wish, secret and not-so-secret, that their lives will go badly and that, in the ensuing misery, they will be forced to see their error and have to swallow against their will the fact that they are wrong, particularly about us. Hatred wants the other to choke on his or her own error.

But none of that will be productive for those who hate us, or for ourselves. Only if good things begin to happen in the lives of those who hate us, only if they feel the warmth of love and blessing, can their hearts let go of the bitterness, jealousy, and hatred that’s there. Hearts don’t thaw out inside of bitterness and jealousy. They break. It’s not when people are bitter that they admit the error of their ways and the unfairness of their hatred. Hearts begin to see how wrong their hatred is only when the very object of their jealousy and hatred is itself strong enough to not give back in kind, but instead to absorb the hatred for what it is, wounded love, love gone cold when it would want to be warm.

Leo Tolstoy once said: "There is only one way to put an end to evil, and that is to do good for evil."

RONROLHEISER

from back in the day _{Pastor Wright at the opening of the Kansas City House of Reps. (hattip LS)} A prayer that should be mandatory:

Heavenly Father, we come before you to ask your forgiveness. We seek your direction and your guidance. We know your word says, "Woe to those who call evil good." But that's what we've done.

We've lost our spiritual equilibrium. We have inverted our values. We have ridiculed the absolute truth of your word in the name of moral pluralism. We have worshiped other gods and called it multiculturalism.

We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle.

We've exploited the poor and called it a lottery. We've neglected the needy and called it self-preservation. We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare. In the name of choice, we have killed our unborn. In the name of right to life, we have killed abortionists.

We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self-esteem. We have abused power and called it political savvy. We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it taxes. We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression. We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us, oh, God, and know our hearts today. Try us. Show us any wickedness within us. Cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Guide and bless these men and women who have been sent here by the people of the State of Kansas, and that they have been ordained by you to govern this great state.

Grant them your wisdom to rule. May their decisions direct us to the center of your will. And, as we continue our prayer and as we come in out of the fog, give us clear minds to accomplish our goals as we begin this Legislature. For we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

IT'S NICE how synchronicity and serendipity and interconnectedness happen.

Currently reading Robert Lax, and listening to Thomas Mertons' seeds of contemplation, both with links to Hanh, whom a customer came in waxing lyrical about today, customers favorite quote:

"I vow to look at all beings through eyes of compassion"
Thich Nhat Hanh

_{Sometimes we go on a search and we don't know what we are looking for, until we come again to our beginning} Robert Lax

when I grow old i may beard up again in honour of bob!

ANother day, another chain email....

_{I am sending this to you to see how many actually read their messages. Your response will be interesting. Pay attention to what you read. After you have finished reading it, you will know the reason it was sent to you. Here goes: People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. When you know which one it is, you will know what to do for that person. When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed. They have come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually. They may seem like a godsend and they are. They are there for the reason you need them to be. Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end. Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away. Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand. What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled, their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered and now it is time to move on. Some people come into your life for a SEASON, because your turn has come to share, grow or learn. They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it, it is real. But only for a season. LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons, things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life. It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant. Thank you for being a part of my life, whether you were a reason, a season or a lifetime}

What do you think, gentle readers? Reasonable thoughts or email manipulations?

Random brain dump
_{a memory stirs} sandyd writing about seal:
Here is the thing....you can blame others for a break up but if it really was meant to be, then no matter what others said to her, she would have stayed with ya. It's something you did/or didn't do, that made her choose to leave.

Anyone who leaves cuz of what others say or do about you, does not deserve your love.

Get it?

_{Paul plays the youtube of monty python philosophers song}
John Stewart (sic) Mill, of his own free will, the most eloquent explainer of utilarianism maintained that our actions are right in the proportion to which they facilitate happiness.

and so it begins....

utilarianism is concerned with the evil or good an action produces, throw into the mix altered perception and we discover a moral mindfield, where aliens can be blamed or we can choose to analyse behaviour without taking a moral position.

gentle reader, I am trying to change my thinking and attitudes to the die that have been dealt.

My moral certitude has been dealt a huge blow, and now I am adrift upon the waves of
an uncertain future.

Awareness is a brilliant light, and burns brightly.

There is both a redux and a return to the future... No half pint of shandy to make me feel particularly ill...

Plato they say, could stick it away but down through the centuries hear Aristotle scream: We become ethical by practicing being ethical. He defined virtue as the excellence of the soul, and happiness as the virtuous activity of the soul. In the moderate, self-controlled and courageous, everything is in harmony with the voice of reason.

But when the crazies scream, who screams for thee?

Don't panic gentle reader, trying to re-situate myself to recommence some philosophical meanderings...

If it grabs you, great, if not, watch some you-tubes! Heh, life is wonderful.

Yep, been there done that, but time mellows the pain, and acceptance comes ever more easily.