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Tag: religion

  • Young Warriors / Real Prison

    A candle light vigil is held Tuesday night, Aug. 7, in Oak Creek, Wis., for the victims three days after a mass shooting at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin. The vigil was held during the national night out event at the Oak Creek Civic Center. Tom Lynn/AP

    Every day in every region I meet young warriors who know not what they do, and aging warriors who regret everything they have done. I can do nothing before their folly except bear witness to humanity.

     

    The stoics, the Epicureans, Taoists, the Sufis, the Buddhists, all feel that the real prison is the human mind. I am still thinking.

    (Photo: Tom Lynn/AP)…

  • “Baghdadi Denial Syndrome” -Now Media

     

    Very important essay. The only people hurt by conspiracy theories are those that hide behind them. There is much more to reveal about IS over time, but like Bin Laden and those sad conspiracy theories, the truth will be even harder for the Arab world to bear. Honest self examination is the only path forward. It is amazing to me how many people expect the Jews to self examine about Israel yet when it comes to this horrific stage of the Arab Muslim history these folks need to invent Hitler like insanity to avoid hard realities. But change is coming to this region and it will be horrific until the blaming of others becomes less important than the reconciliation of warring Muslims.

    NOW, Baghdadi Denial Syndrome by Hussein Ibish

    One of the most alarming features of Arab responses to the rise of the Islamic State (IS) in Syria and

    …

  • Midnight Reflections on Ancient Words

    Sarkoy Moon rs

    Midnight Reflections on the ancient words of the prophets of these Abrahamic lands:

    Not impressed by the blood of your sacrifices. But a good struggle for the human rights of the children, the orphans, the widows, the hungry, the oppressed, whatever their religion, language or ethnicity? Now that would impress the hell out of me.

     

    (Photo: Life in the Middle East)…

  • Ideology and Tyranny / Mourning the Past

     

    candles

    IDEOLOGY AND TYRANNY 

    Ideology is always in the service of a power that becomes tyranny. Followers do not see it coming, as they are too busy defeating the first tyranny.

    Political Islam and Military Islam are dying a rapid death on the streets of Mosul that is reverberating everywhere, but they will revive in each and every place where tyranny and oppression reign. That includes the West Bank and Gaza.

    MOURNING THE PAST

    It is better to deny the past in fear and embrace the present with courage than it is to embrace the past with courage and deny the present in fear. Better than both is embracing the past and the present with courage and generosity.

     

    (Photo source: Wallcoo.net)…

  • 3 Short Reflections

    Darkness Cannot Drive Out Darkness- MLK

    THE POETRY OF NONVIOLENCE

    Religion is poetry. But some mistake it for photography, and then proceed to smash all the other pictures.

    DEFIANCE

    In war in an age of war the act of ultimate defiance is to make another human being feel wonderful.

    TESTOSTERONE, OR ALTERNATIVES TO WAR

    Gestures of kindness are semen seeds. Men get busy, it will make you inherently happy and bear you many children.

     

    (Photo: Words of Martin Luther King Jr.)

     …

  • Berlin in Gaza / Men at War / Mother of Life

     

    BERLIN IN GAZA
    At a certain point in every Israeli war fighting the Holocaust, there is a moment when the superior fire power merely rearranges the rubble of Berlin. Then depression sets in, reality sets in. You can’t bomb your way to safety, Hitler is still dead, there is still no peace, for this enemy can only be beaten with reconciliation not obliteration. Then they turn to us again, too proud to ask, we impoverished, bloodied, no resources, except our wounded open hearts.

    MEN AT WAR
    Men at war above all cannot abide their own impotence, and so they smash everything and everyone insight as a distraction.

    MOTHER OF LIFE
    Most important person in Jewish history? Not Abraham, not Moses. Beruriah. Hate the sin, not the sinner, hate the ideology not the ideologue, wish that crimes cease from this earth, not criminals. 
    The only path to life from Jewish …

  • Mother/Father in a Time of War

     

    Fear pervades, 
    Terror strikes the land, 
    We need our mother/fathers. 
    Earth is been struck by a few Father/Mothers of Death, 
    Marching their Children into murder/suicide.
    So we become Father/Mothers of Life, 
    We become Hava, 
    Em Kol Chai, Mother of all of Life. 
    The Secret of Creation is not an original Mother/Father of all Humans,
    though that too science claims.
    The Secret is that only Mother/Fathers of every human,
    Save as all humans from each other.

     

    mother-father-son(Photo source: Nutrition and Beyond)…

  • Reflections in My Middle Eastern Mirror

     

    Compassion fatigue.
    Strange expression.
    What is the fatigue?
    Too much suffering, 
    Too many people crying,
    Too many dead bodies, 
    Too many people 
    Demanding that I love them,
    But only them,
    That I see only their tears,
    As they fall upon the bloodied bodies
    That once laughed
    and danced
    and cheered.
    Ask me for compassion
    And I will refuse.
    Ask me who are you?
    Ask a peacemaker,
    Who
    the
    fuck
    are
    you?
    Look at that goddam mirror,
    Do you know any more?
    Or does everything bleed red,
    In the cracked mirror,
    Which you broke,
    In a fit of rage?
    …

  • Short Reflections on the Gains and Losses of War

     

    ENEMIES

    When you stay with a family that thrives on hatred of everyone else, 99.9% of humanity fears you, and certainly dislikes you. When you grow into your original family of humanity, your enemies are only a small percent of your old family that thrived on fear and hatred of the rest. 

    LOVE

    If you want the joy of loving humanity, you must endure the sorrow of losing many loved ones. The more you love, the more you lose. If you are not prepared, bitterness will swallow you.

    If you prepare yourself for loss, then the light of love will endure and even conquer the darkness dividing you from enemies, when the men with guns slink into the shadows exhausted and defeated.

    CALCULATIONS

    Miscalculations cause much human violence. Each side thinks its escalation of inflicted pain will cause the other to back down, and then it does the …

  • Harsh Observation and Revenge

     

    Harsh observation

    When you give peanuts to peacemakers and billions to weapons industries expect your children to die.

     

    Revenge

    When you burn someone to death, the lungs breathe the fire. But this is as true of a bomb from the sky as it is from a torch. 

    Most innocents are not killed in conflict by savage murder. Most die from ‘you hit me, so I hit you harder’. 

    It is the savage in all of us that is the real killer to be chained. We dismiss the terrorist and waltz back into war.

    The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them. Ezekiel 18:20. (6th Century BCE) Enough said on house demolitions, carpet bombing.

    Both …

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