Profoundly Beautiful...

This is written by Masterwordsmith and I took the liberty of lifting it from her blog. It jibes with my usual theme about our hurried lives. The essay is very touching, I am sure you will like reading it. Have a nice day.


Too many people put off something that brings them joy just because they haven't thought about it, don't have it on their schedule, didn't know it was coming or are too rigid to depart from their routine.


I got to thinking one day about all those people on the Titanic who passed up dessert at dinner that fateful night in an effort to cut back. From then on, I've tried to be a little more flexible. 


How many women out there will eat at home because their husband didn't suggest going out to dinner until after something had been thawed? Does the word 'refrigeration' mean nothing to you? 


How often have your kids dropped in to talk and sat in silence while you watched 'Jeopardy' on television? 


I cannot count the times I called my sister and said , 'How about going to lunch in a half hour?' She would gas up and stammer, 'I can't. I have clothes on the line. My hair is dirty. I wish I had known yesterday, I had a late breakfast, It looks like rain' And my personal favorite: 'It's Monday.' She died a few years ago. We never did have lunch together. 


Because people cram so much into their lives, we tend to schedule our headaches.. We live on a sparse diet of promises we make to ourselves when all the conditions are perfect! 


We'll go back and visit the grandparents when we get Steve toilet-trained. We'll entertain when we replace the living-room carpet. We'll go on a second honeymoon when we get two more kids out of college. 


Life has a way of accelerating as we get older. The days get shorter, and the list of promises to ourselves gets longer. One morning, we awaken, and all we have to show for our lives is a litany of 'I'm going to,' 'I plan on,' and 'Someday, when things are settled down a bit.' 


When anyone calls my 'seize the moment' friend, she is open to adventure and available for trips. She keeps an open mind on new ideas. Her enthusiasm for life is contagious. You talk with her for five minutes, and you're ready to trade your bad feet for a pair of Rollerblades and skip an elevator for a bungee cord. 


My lips have not touched ice cream in 10 years. I love ice cream.. It's just that I might as well apply it directly to my stomach with a spatula and eliminate the digestive process. The other day, I stopped the car and bought a triple-decker. If my car had hit an iceberg on the way home, I would have died happy. 


Now... go on and have a nice day. Do something you WANT to... not something on your SHOULD DO list. If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting? 


Make sure you read this to the end; you will understand why I sent this to you. 


Have you ever watched kids playing on a merry go round
or listened to the rain lapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight
or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
Do you run through each day on the fly?
When you ask 'How are you?' Do you hear the reply?
When the day is done, do you lie in your bed
with the next hundred chores running through your head?
Ever told your child, 'We'll do it tomorrow.'
And in your haste, not see his sorrow?
Ever lost touch? Let a good friendship die?
Just call to say 'Hi'?


When you worry and hurry through your day,
it is like an unopened gift thrown away.
Life is not a race. Take it slower.
Hear the music before the song is over.


'Life may not be the party we hoped for... but while we are here we might as well dance.' 


-Author Unknown-












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Be thankful in life

Heavy rains remind us of challenges in life. Do not ask for a lighter rain. Pray for a good umbrella. That is attitude.


When flood comes, fish eat ants and when flood recedes, ants eat fish. Only time matters. Just hold on, God gives opportunity to everyone!


Life is not about finding the right person, but creating the right relationship, it's not how we care in the beginning, but how much we care till the end.


Some people may throw stones in your path. It depends on what you make with them. A wall or a bridge? Remember you are the architect of your life.


Search for a beautiful heart, not for a beautiful face. Beautiful things are not always good, but good things are always beautiful.


It’s not important to hold all the good cards in life. But it’s important how well you play with the cards you hold.


Often when we lose  hope and think this is the end, God smiles and says, "relax dear it’s just a bend, not the end." Have faith.


One of the basic differences between God and humans is, God gives, gives and forgives. But human gets, gets, gets and forgets.


Be thankful in life....


Adopted from the blog of Masterwordsmithm

The blade of grass

There will never be a Newton for the blade of grass.

I came across that line while reading two weeks ago an article, "Why am I a Naturalist" by Alex Rosenberg, in The New York Times. Rosenberg, the R. Taylor Cole professor and chair of the philosophy department at Duke University, attributed that line to German philosopher Emmanuel Kant.

That line attracted me because I like metaphysics, a branch of philosophy that is simply defined as "beyond physics". Ever a student of life, I like reading philosophy, a passion that I cannot come up with a good reason.

Going back to Kant's blade of grass, Rosenberg explained that what Kant meant was that "physical science could never explain anything with a purpose, whether it be human thought or a flower's bending toward the sun." That suits my way of thinking.

I find science inadequate to explain so many things in life. For instance, we believe that there is gravity, which we know was discovered by Newton, but there is no explanation why there is gravity. That question begs for a series of questions "why" which will lead us to the door of life's many mysteries for which science has no answers.

Passion itself has no explanation. As I have always said, passion is doing what we like to do but don't know why. Asking why I like reading is like asking a poet why he writes poetry or a gourmet why he likes the taste of particular food. Our passion belongs to the realm of the senses and not the domain of physical science.

So I always disagree when scientists use the "physicalist" or materialist approach to any study of anything that involves life - and shut out metaphysics altogether - because that often reduces us to mere atoms. I digress when neuroscience explains emotions in terms of mere neural firings in the brain. It may explain which parts of the brain are activated when we fall in love but it does not explain why we fall in love.

In fact, there is no explanation for life itself, or why most - if not all - living things have the instinct to live. Science says that we have evolved from simple organisms but has no adequate explanation why simple organisms should evolve into complex organisms that we are. The best explanation that I have heard is, like the big bang, we are an accident of time, which is more of a deductive conjecture than a solid scientific explanation.

I follow the blog of Sam Harris, an erstwhile-unknown neuroscientist who shot to fame with his bestselling books "The End of Faith" and "Letter to a Christian Nation". Harris, like many other atheists, advocates reason as life's guiding light. His last posts that I have read was about human consciousness, which he admits is a mystery, without conceding any possibility that it is - or could be - divinely ordained.

Several months ago, Harris challenged another neuroscientist David Eagleman, author of the book "Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain" who was featured by The New Yorker, to a debate for his comment that some scientists like Richard Dawkins, an Oxford professor who authored "God Delusion" among other books, are peddling "false certainty".

Harris was riled by Aegleman's advocacy of a movement called "possibilianism", a middle-of-road position between atheism and religion, because it undermines the atheist's cocky attitude against Faith.

Here's Aegleman: "Our ignorance of the cosmos is too vast to commit to atheism, and yet we know too much to commit to a particular religion ... With possibilianism I'm hoping to define a new position - one that emphasizes the exploration of new, unconsidered possibilities. Possibilianism is comfortable holding multiple ideas in mind."

I subscribe to that idea. Although a Catholic, I entertain other ideas that are not in keeping with the mainstream religious beliefs. I believe in many aspects of evolution, although I take the position of the Intelligent Design movement that it is part of creation and guided by divine hand. I believe in the afterlife but I also entertain ideas that heaven might not be as the Bible says it is.

That goes to say that I don't believe that the Bible is a chronicle of the exact words of God but I believe it is divinely inspired to give us a window through which we can peek into God's mind or nature. I have learned to appreciate reading the Bible by themes on love, charity, honesty, pride, repentance, forgiveness and so on and so forth, instead of taking it literally.

I subscribe to the idea that God is so immense and cannot be defined. That makes me understand some other people's complaint that organized religion has given God human attributes like He is a jealous God or He can get angry. To paraphrase one blasphemous cliche, man has the tendency to create God in his own image. I can imagine God watching us and smiling over our follies.

I believe that there are realities not accessible to the human mind, and entertain the possibility that science could be wrong for using the physicalist methods in its studies. I do not shut out the idea that atoms could a weak link to study cosmic realities. That makes me believe that debates on whether God exist or not have no meaningful purpose, but an egoistic human exercise to showcase each one's intelligence. It falls under the biblical theme of pride.

So why I do believe in God? The answer is that my experience makes me feel God's presence in my life. It is as deductive as Dawkin's belief on evolution sans God, as deductive as Harris's belief on the reality of consciousness, despite neuroscience's belief that consciousness could be a mere illusion created in our cranium. I don't have full faith in reason.

Reason is not unlike faith. To believe in reason, you must have some basis to support it. Atheists believe in reason as a reliable guiding light in life because they have faith in science and human logic, for which I don't have much. In life, which is no less than a gamble, I hedge my bet between reason and faith. In life's journey I use reason as my rudder but faith as my compass.

Science and reason have their own limitations. I cannot use reason or science to explain why Kerima Polotan Tuvera, the editor-in-chief of The Evening Post in Manila where I started my career as a journalist, did not fire me when she learned from my x-ray that I had tuberculosis a month or so after the company hired me as a proofreader.

Instead of firing me, which was the most logical thing to do for a newly-hired employee under probation, Mrs. Tuvera, the spouse of the company owner Juan Tuvera, asked me to get treatment and let the company take the tab. I have no explanation why it happened shortly after I challenged God, during my years of atheism, to strengthen my life when I drifted from one odd job to another because my illness kept me from finding a permanent job.

I cannot find the reason why, when I got burned out and had to resign from Reuters in 1987 because I could no longer compose coherent stories, the Manila bureau of the Japanese newspaper The Tokyo Shimbun looked for a reporter who was not necessarily skilled in composing stories but was only capable of getting good facts for the resident Japanese journalist.

Coincidences have helped me strengthen my faith in God. Atheists may sneer at this but I am sure that coincidences are a universal phenomenon that almost all - if not all - people experience from time to time. There is no need for science to prove this. Any scientist who will make a study to find out if coincidences do happen is as cranky as a Christian who believes that faith will make him survive a headlong dive from a 100-story sky crapper.

Science and religion have similarities. Both have their own dogmas. Both rely on faith in much of what they believe in and both use human logic to justify their own beliefs. To say that all believers are fanatics - if fanaticism means not using reason at all - is a gross generalization. Many believers use reason or logic, usually deductive, to cling to faith.

Many believers don't rely much on science knowing that scientists are just as they are - students of life trying to unravel the mysteries of our existence. Science has its own limits. Despite its ballyhooed successes, science has remained an infant dazzled by the marvels of God's infinite wisdom.  Every discovery it makes is always followed by myriads of unanswered questions.

The limits of science provide the reasons why, like Kant, I believe that there will never be a Newton for the blade of grass. Faith begins where science ends. Any scientist who would say that science can unravel all the mysteries in this world sooner or later is not using logic properly but, as Eagleman would say, peddling "false certainty".

.




Please read my previous postings "The boundaries of reason", "When God closes doors", "Love in the age of neuroscience" and "Lessons to learn from the passion of Christ".

I also invite you to visit my other blogs Miscellaneous at http://www.miscellaneous-oddnews.blogspot.com, Viajero at http://www.viajero-funtravel.blogspot.com and Fun in Life
at http://salt-funstories.blogspot.com.

Gaddafi: Chasing the wind

I did not restrain myself from getting whatever I wanted;
I did not deny myself anything that would bring me pleasure.
So all my accomplishments gave me joy;
this was my reward for all my efforts.

Yet when I reflected on everything I had accomplished
and on all the efforts that I had expended to accomplish it,
I concluded: “All these achievements and possessions are ultimately profitless – like chasing the wind!

                                                              — Ecclesiastes 2:10-11 


The death of Muammar Gaddafi a few days ago reminded me of this theme in the Bible - that our life is just like chasing the wind. For 42 years after he seized power in a military coup that overthrew King Idris Senussi on September 1, 1969, Gaddafi enjoyed the pleasures that material wealth could bring but died an ignoble death.

After all those years of living in opulence while ruling Libya with absolute power, Gaddafi spent his last days on the run until he was captured hiding like a rat - his own description of the rebels who chased him after the fall of Tripoli - in a drainage. The man, who tortured his foes during his rule, was himself lynched before he was shot to death.

His life story was not the stuff that would inspire people who abhor violence. Although he did not lack admirers for standing up to the United States and its allies, he was despised by most people across the world for his own brand of terrorism and for sponsoring rebellion in Western countries and their allies.

Although Gaddafi and several other military officers launched the 1969 coup with a lofty cause to rid Libya of a despot, the son of peasant parents gradually installed himself as a tyrant who jailed and tortured those who opposed his regime. His iron-fist rule sent millions of Libyans to flee to other countries. It's a realization of the dictum that power begets power.

One of the bizarre stories I read about the eccentric Gaddafi was his attempt to seduce women reporters whom he had invited to Libya for an alleged interview. When the reporters went there, he invited them one of a time to his tent and tried to preposition each of them. After failing to seduce the first three women, he gave up.

At the height of the Libya rebellion that started in Bengahazi, Gaddafi struck a pathetic figure of a leader desperately hanging on to power. Newspaper accounts after his death portrayed Gaddafi spending his last days hovering between defiance and delusion, surviving on rice and pasta scourged by his guards from empty civilian houses.

Nobody could have missed the irony that the body of the man who entertained a delusion of grandeur throughout his life was kept in a meat freezer, along with that of his son who reportedly spent $2 million a month in lavish living, naked from the waist up. News reports said that before he was shot dead, a terrified Gaddafi begged for his life.

Gaddafi's ignoble death reminds me of the biblical admonition not to love the world, the mundane things that we are always tempted to amass, but to pile up heavenly treasures that do not rust, cannot be stolen by thieves or eaten by moths.

We must bear the fruits of the Spirit.




Related Biblical Quotes:

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Matthew 6:19

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." Galatians 5:22-23\






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A question for us Christians

How can it be fair to say I can't be saved by God if I'm gay?

By Laura Brosnan
The Guardian

October 5, 2011
•

From as early as the playground games of kiss chase at nursery school, I have always known that I preferred the same sex. I grew up in a household where science was a constant point of discussion. Religion was never a part of my life.
The turning point was when my mother passed away in my mid-teens. I had a major reality check. Life was too short and I shouldn't be wasting days wishing I lived the life I want to lead. There was no escaping the pink elephant in my closet any longer. It was, however, the same moment that made me doubt my atheism.
This couldn't just be the end, could it? The most important and kindhearted person in my life had just vanished? Strange experiences that I never had before started to shake my life; for instance, I'd wake up in the middle of the night at least once a week, and still do, feeling a warm presence in my room. Spooky? Could it have been an angel? I was unsure, but I needed to learn more.
I took salvation with a friend of mine, who was a gospel singer, and her family embraced me with open arms. They were a strong Christian family, so after a while they would invite me to their church performances, their Sunday schools and prayer meetings. It was like a beautiful, insightful, hidden world that boasted of love and acceptance, where everyone took strength from each other's faith, together using God's word, to not only enlighten the world but also to sustain morals within such a crumbling society.
The strength that Jesus gave me made me feel confident enough to surpass my fears and tell the world who I was. I was told my choice in lifestyle was from the devil and they didn't want to be a part of it. I attempted to question their anger, as I was still a child of God and I had accepted that he was my saviour. There were no answers.
They pointed to Leviticus 18:22: "Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable," and they went on to cease the friendship. I felt as if everything they had shown me, the commandments and the Lord's love, was just for show. Faith at that time seemed like a selected lottery for Jesus's love.
As I have grown, so has my love for God. Even though people who preached his word fled and walked away from me, he never did. Do I punish Jesus after all he has done for me through ignoring his love completely? (That surely is the biggest blasphemy of all.) Because others are too busy judging my life to concentrate on their own struggles and sins: "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" – John 8:7.
Can I find a mutual ground between my beliefs? Can I still attend Thursday night's Gay Girlz at Heaven and then head to church on Sunday, fit and ready to sing my prayers for my Lord Jesus?
I have tried and prayed to change, but end up feeling lost. Argument after argument, I still find myself being persecuted by both the gay and Christian community. Every Sunday I walk into church to pray and receive disgusted looks from brothers and sisters. The main reasons are for the clear verses in the Bible referring to homosexuality as sin. I know, I've studied the Bible.
It's an uncomfortable and confusing position many of us are in. I don't think it's fair to claim that I can't be an LGBT individual and be saved. God made it clear that there is no sin that can separate us from him apart from the rejection of Jesus Christ. Is the Bible just down to interpretation? Are the 12 mentions of homosexuality in the holy book due to cultural and historical mistranslations and misinterpretations? Many do argue that "sexual immorality" refers to rape and prostitution, not those in a loving relationship.
As a Christian, I've felt God and his presence and know what it feels like to feel the holy spirit. The gospel wasn't part of my life from an early age; I asked God to come into my life. No one who is saved can explain that sudden rush of understanding, that feeling of total awareness that God is there. For this I live my life with respect, understanding and love for others just the way God taught me. Nothing in the world is ever black and white, and no single person is perfect. If I know love, then I know God, and to share a consistent relationship with him through the struggles and tests of my journey is what I shall do.







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Judging other people

I was assigned to give a reflection on today's gospel before a small group of Catholic Christians who meet on Wednesdays. While searching the Internet for a guide, I stumbled upon this reflection which I want to share with those who may care to read.


Romans 2:1-11
Psalm 62:2-3, 6-7, 9
Luke 11:42-46

Today's gospel:

Luke 11: 42-46

A curse is on you, Pharisees; for the Temple you give a tenth of all, including mint and rue and the other herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. This ought to be practiced, without neglecting the other. A curse is on you Pharisees, for you love the best seats in the synagogues and to be greeted in the marketplace. A curse is on you for you are like tombstones of the dead which can hardly be seen; people don't notice them and make themselves unclean by stepping on them.
Then the teachers of the law spoke up and said, "Master when speak like that you insult us too." And Jesus snswered, "A curse on you also, teachers of the Law, for you prepare unbearable burdens and load them on the people, while you yourselves don't move to lift a finger to help them.


Reflections by Roc O' Connor S. J.
Rector
Creighton University

If there is one thing I have learned over the years, it’s that hypocrisy is THE key temptation for all good, religious people. It’s the line you and I walk every day… How often do we say more than we do? How often do we intend the good and fall short again and again.

So, when Jesus addressed the Pharisees, they functioned as a foil for his disciples. They “love the seat of honor in the synagogues…” What did the disciples fight about at the Last Supper? “Who is the greatest?” What do we fight over in our own time? Yep, you got it.

Paul spoke strongly to the Romans, saying, “You, O man, are without excuse, every one of you who passes judgment. For by the standard by which you judge another you condemn yourself, since you, the judge, do the very same things…”

Essentially, he’s calling them hypocrites because of the way they judge others. And by extension, he’s calling us… Yep, you got it.

Paul insists that we do the very things we judge others for.

[Now if you want a surprise, go back to chapter one in Romans to see what they/we judge others about. I suggest this because the division of books of the bible into chapters and verses didn’t begin until the 13th century. In fact it wasn’t until the publication of the Geneva Bible in 1560 that a generally accepted system was put in place.]

Even though it’s not Lent, I do find that I wonder about what sort of grace, what sort of event, what nudge will God send me to change me? And why does it take so darn long? What don’t I get?

More and more, I believe that the BIG grace and purification I hope for comes only in purgatory. Which leaves me standing always in need of the graces of challenge and comfort from the Lord. Even though it hurts my pride to be situated with the Pharisees, it does seem more realistic and truthful. Ouch!

Daily Reflection
of Creighton University's Online Ministries
-----
October 12th, 2011
by
Roc O'Connor, S.J.
Rector

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Some random musings

It's an hour before high noon and today is Monday, my day off from work. I marked the time to send across my usual message - or is it a complaint? - that life has become too fast and complicated. Even in my days off, I don't seem to have much time in my hands. Or probably, I just don't know how to manage my time.

Usually, I wake up at 5 am - an hour before my wife and child do - to squeeze in a little time to write a few lines for this blog, Salt of Life, my favorite among my four blogs. I am not a prolific writer and usually write a full-length article in two to three days, writing for an hour a day. When my wife and child wake up, I have to stop writing.

When I fail to wake up early, as it happened today and the past few days, I start my day driving my child to school and then my wife to the hospital where she works as a nurse before I go to my own work. On Mondays, my days off, I am supposed to have much time. But, sad to say, It's a luxury that I am not privileged to enjoy.

Today, I am supposed to write an article for any of my four blogs but again I cannot find a full time to do that. After driving my child to school and my wife to her work, I went to a computer shop to have our second laptop loaded with the needed programs. We have to buy a new laptop because there are times when my wife and our child have overlapping needs to use the first laptop.

That happens when my wife, who is a head nurse, has to prepare the schedule of her staff and our child has to do her homework that needed researching in the Internet. Our child has a notebook, a small laptop, but its small screen is not ideal for writing. Our child uses it for playing games when she is not busy with her school work.

Playing computer games is her therapy for her busy school schedule as blogging is mine. Despite my busy days, I always try to find time to write for my blogs. Writing is a passion that started when I was in high school. Passion doesn't need reason. It is something we love to do but don't know why.

I have written about this subject - about our hurried life - in a previous article "Our complicated Lives", but have decided to write about it once again after a high school classmate, Jim Marquez, sent me two emails from the United States where he now lives. I responded promptly to his first email, which came about four or five days ago.

I was supposed to write an article for this blog when I saw his first email. Luckily, I had waken up early that day before my wife and our child did. So instead writing for my blog, I spent the time writing a response to his email. But I missed responding to his second email immediately because I failed to wake up early the succeeding days. So today, I did a brief response before I took the laptop to the computer shop.

Jim's emails brought me back to our high school days in Romblon when much of our concerns were dominated by our dreams of the future. I remember him as a guy with a flat-top haircut. He came from a well-to-do family in town. I did not know what he wanted to be then but he became an architect, and I learned from some of our classmates I had met in Manila that he became a very successful architect.

Many of our classmates became successful and several have migrated to the US. But, I don't know if everyone will agree with me that when we grow old we do not bask anymore in whatever degree of success we have achieved. In my case, I become more concerned about our day-to-day living, how to cope with it, especially at this time when life has become too complicated - and yes, hurried.







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