Spirituality Survey

Take the ExploreFaith Quiz and Find Your Place on the Spiritual Spectrum:

This little survey (I don't think "quiz" is quite the right word...) gave me an extremely worthwhile picture of where I'm at on my Spiritual Path. Ten questions and quite a bit of insight gained!

I'm reproducing the introductory explanation and the ten questions below.

The intro. because, even if you read it again when you go to the site, it can't hurt to be clear about the parameters of the experience...

The questions because I think it's a good idea to briefly ponder the issues before you actually take the survey:

"Think of the questions below as the first marks on a canvas. Like many quizzes pertaining to faith, this one traces the edges of your spiritual life and how you relate to the sacred. Yet this quiz also reminds us that we are all works in progress, that portraits begun in black and white come alive when we add color. We need space to change and grow, and ways to help us fill out our lives and move ever closer to the Holy.

"Thus, your responses are not simply conclusions, they are beginning points for new discoveries, brilliant adventures and fruitful growth. In answering these 10 questions, you can both discern more clearly who you are, and discover new avenues for God's creative spirit to work within you. "

* I try to feel close to God through _________.

* When I have an extraordinary experience of God's presence, I _________.

* When I am questioned about my faith, I _________.

* If someone threatened to harm me unless I renounced my faith, I would _________.

* If I felt that God was calling me to perform an extraordinary feat, I would _________.

* When I feel disconnected to the Holy One and wonder about God’s presence, I _________.

* When others around me are trying to find God, I _________.

* If I were going through a period of doubt in my life, I would _________.

* If a story were written about my spiritual life, I’d want it to say that I _________.

* When I think of being a person of faith in my everyday life, I want to _________.

Go here >>> explorefaith.org and do the survey!

Art as Non-Violent Response to Violence

This painting is called: Dante and Virgil Contemplate the Inferno and it was created by Sandow Birk.

As a partial explanation of the theme of the painting, I'll quote his biography:

"Most recently, he has completed an enormous project involving the rewriting and illustrating of the entire 'Divine Comedy' [written by Dante] into contemporary American English."

Here's a listing of some of the themes appearing in his work:

* inner city violence
* graffiti
* various political issues
* travel
* prisons
* surfing
* skateboarding

I first became aware of his work because of the appearance of this painting, The Liberation of Baghdad, in the popular blog Boing Boing:

Here's what they had to say:

"...Birk has made a number of paintings, including The Liberation of Baghdad, seen here. The paintings are more satirical and ironic, and many are based on paintings of the glories of war in Napoleon’s time and from Russian socialist images of battlefield glories.

"The Liberation of Baghdad, says Birk, is about 'what we were told would happen -- happy, joyfully liberated Iraqis welcoming American troops as we free them from the shackles of oppression.'"

Along with basing the way he expresses his feelings on historical styles of painting, he adds the Spiritual Commentary of satire and irony.

For instance, rather than just painting The Liberation of Baghdad in an ancient style and letting the serious viewer go away thinking he approves of the "liberation", Birk added the dog fight in the lower left corner.

Every detail of a created work is important to the meaning of the whole. Birk didn't have to put any dogs in the picture and he didn't have to make them fight ferociously. But he did and by putting them there he told the careful viewer, "This situation may just not be what it first appears to be".

And American troops are still dealing with that deadly dog fight...

Love: A Casualty of War...

A while back, we had a post called, True Love, that gave some insight into the fate of a relationship in a war zone.

This post continues the theme with, When Love Is a Casualty of War.

From the Blog:

"'My Lebanese girlfriend does not want to listen to The Cure’s song “Killing an Arab.'

“'Turn it off,' she demands.

"This is odd. Helen is a huge Cure fan; in fact, I never really listened to The Cure until we started dating. I turn around to face her, my mind racing to produce some witty remark that will make her laugh and defuse the sudden tension, but our eyes meet and I am utterly disarmed. I hear her sigh as she walks away.

"It’s not that Helen doesn’t like this particular song, it’s that she doesn’t like songs about killing Arabs, especially when in real life, our peoples are killing each other day after day. We cannot enjoy the song’s catchy rhythm or ironic lyrics when bombs fall and Katyushas fly. What used to be a harmless song has become an unwanted reminder of the gulf that exists between us.

"Together, Helen and I had tried to create a tidy little universe with a population of two. In this universe, it didn’t matter that I was a Jew and Helen was an Arab. We were beyond the politics.

"On our first date, we set a precedent by skipping out on a proposed tour of the Lincoln memorial, preferring to tour each other’s contours rather than those of a lifeless statue. As the months passed, we discovered that Helen’s attempts to teach me French were as doomed as my own throat-clearing lessons in the correct pronunciation of challah, her favorite new food. We could even laugh at the irony when Helen peeled off my sweater to reveal a T-shirt emblazoned with “Don’t Worry America, Israel Is Behind You.”

"Politics slumbered alongside us. Sometimes it spoke in its sleep, sometimes it rolled over, but it did not wake up.

"And then, the war..."

This post is absolutely worth reading to the end; so, here's that link again:

When Love Is a Casualty of War.

Women: From Bad to Better . . .

From Cruelty beyond the call of duty: How must it feel to have lost access to someone you care about? To worry, knowing they are in the hands of vindictive, vicious, unaccountable policemen and women who are hell bent on making sure you can’t find them.

How must you feel when reports finally start to reach you that they are badly injured - bearing injuries they didn’t have before they entered the walls of one of the many police stations dotted around the city - and they are being prevented from receiving medical treatment and legal assistance?

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From Iraqi Women - four years later:
Every-day survival is a priority in a context where lack of security goes side by side with incredibly difficult living conditions. The Iraqi infrastructure which was already severely debilitated as a result of economic sanctions and a series of wars has deteriorated even further since 2003. Electricity shortages, lack of access to potable water, malfunctioning sanitation systems and a deteriorating health system are part of every-day lives in post-2003 Iraq. Intisar K., who works as a doctor in a teaching hospital in Baghdad, summed up what has also been documented in several UN-related documents: “We only have electricity for three to a maximum of five hours a day. There is not enough clean drinking water. Lack of sanitation is a big problem and continues to be one of the main causes of malnutrition, dysentery and death amongst young children.”



From the Bahá'í International Community:

UNITED NATIONS, 18 March 2007 (BWNS) -- Last autumn, Anisa Fadaei started a discussion group on women's issues at her high school. Meeting every two weeks at lunch, about a dozen girls discuss issues like domestic violence, unequal pay rates, and trafficking in girls.

The topics were unfamiliar to most of the participants, which is the point.

"Before we started, most of the others didn't have a clue about gender equality issues or violence against women," said Anisa, who is 17 and lives in the town of Stroud, in Gloucestershire, United Kingdom. "We live in quite a nice area and so most of my friends didn't realize that such problems with inequality were going on around the world."

Though young, Anisa is committed to raising awareness about gender issues. She is involved in the youth caucus of the UK National Alliance of Women's Organizations, and she has been the featured speaker at several school-wide assemblies on women's topics. She was recently profiled in a UNICEF newsletter that focuses on how young people can get involved with global issues.

Our Second E-mail Reporter Talks About Depression

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Depression can be a killer at worst and a bummer at the very least. It's also rampant in the world.

We recently had a post concerning that called, World-Wide Depression.

A woman named Dar left a comment to that post then said it could be used as its own post. I'm glad she decided to share it because she relates valuable information about depression; and, we need all the information we can get because depression is a most potent Spiritual Killer. Even if you don't suffer from it, I can bet someone you know does...

Dar not only decided to share about depression, she also agreed to be our Second E-Mail Reporter !

Just before her first report I want to give you two links:

* A Depression Screening Site

* A Depression Forum Site

Now, here's Dar:

"Below is an e-mail that I wrote to my family and friends back in November.

"My story is basically an attempt to relate to you the 'awakening' that has happened to me very recently. It's my way, I guess, of trying to share the incredible journey that I have just taken, and continue to take.
I have always considered myself to be a self-confident, competent woman. But for as long as I can remember I have harbored a feeling of emptiness, like something was missing somehow...I assumed that something was the 'right' relationship, more money etc...I have come to believe that this is the predominant human condition. Time went on, I set various goals and excelled at things that I set my sights on. I was constantly being told that I would make an excellent nurse. I even enrolled in school in Denver, but didn't see it through. I was dragging my feet because, I thought, that I wasn't supposed to be a nurse and if not that, then what?? I knew I had other passions but my whole work experience was nursing-my technical skills were top notch, so what was my problem???

"In 2003 I began to feel a pull to Maine. No idea why-never been to Maine, actually never been east of Ohio, but there has always been a 'fondness' for New England..it seemed like 'home' to me somehow....So after a 10 day vacation to Maine in the summer of 2003, I started planing. June of 2004 found me on a plane with my cat, headed for a new life.

"After arriving here my fall was immediate and complete. Everything that I had defined myself by was gone. I couldn't start IV's, drop NG tubes, hell I couldn't even put on oxygen here, people actually doubted I had the skills! All the nursing skills that I was so highly valued for in Denver meant nothing out here. Somehow that translated to 'I am nothing'. I sank into a dark , deep pit of depression, mentally flogging myself for every past error, every misstep in judgement, my intellect 'knew' things, but my soul was a void. I don't believe in taking meds for depression. It took me almost 2 years to pull myself out of that pit, but what I learned about myself were lessons that made it worthwhile.

"Finally I was able to let go--to forgive myself completely for every thing that I had spent so much energy beating myself up for. I learned the power of self-love and I realized that I never actually thought I COULD be a nurse. It was always some far-off dream...I carried with me, every day of my life, crippling self-doubt and damaging internal dialogue that I was never even aware of. All my life, I realized, I searched for something, some place or someone to fill that emptiness in myself. And I always thought that I was honest with myself, and I was, to the best of my knowledge at that time. But our minds are clever jailers, and keep us in self-imposed bondage until we are finally able to rise above it.

"Winston Churchill said 'If you are going through hell, keep going'. As I look back on my former self, I am surprised in a way. My old self would ridicule the waste of so many years being always afraid. Now I am so grateful that I have so much time left! The timing was perfect, it happened when I was ready for it. There are many examples of miraculous things happening as a result of emotional trauma. I would say this has been my miracle.

"I am no longer plagued with self-doubt! The power of that is unbelievable! I don't bemoan the past or live only for some future..'Ill be happy when......'

"I've known these truths always...intellectually. It took this experience for these things to blossom fully and for me to truly see clearly-finally and once and for all. This is not an 'attitude'...it's a knowing....an absolute clarity of what is...and who I am!!

"What I have learned through this experience is simple, yet it isn't something that can be realized intellectually. I identified my self with what I did--all external things. When those external things were gone, so was 'I'....now if I were asked to 'define' myself, I would speak of internal things, things that are the essence of who I am.

"I no longer dwell in the past or worry about the future. I enjoy each step that I take today, and as a result I see things and appreciate things on a much deeper level.

"Our minds are so active, running our lives that we have little room for our spirits to do the guiding. 'Meditation' is one path to that, but those voices are so hard to silence. A simple exercise-Close your eyes and think to yourself 'I wonder what my next thought will be'. While you are waiting for that next thought, it's the absence of thought that is the peace--the quiet that we seek!! Pretty damn cool!!! And practice makes those silences ever longer.

"There have been many spiritual teachers, Buddha, Jesus, various Zen masters who have tried to convey basic truths about conscientiousness. But we 'think' and 'reason' the lessons away, instead of developing our spirits to know what is already inside us.

"Wow, well I'm sure this sounds very 'new age-y', but it is what it is, whatever label is applied. As I have said, these things are not new--none of this is new information. I was just never able to 'depose the dictator' that was my egoic mind.

"Anyway, I also wanted to tell those of you who wrote me letters of recommendation that during my darkest days, those letters were my lifeline to any feelings of self worth, and I am ever grateful. I still cherish them, but for entirely different reasons.

"I hope this isn't too vague, as I read this over I realize that I fall very short of what I wish to express, like a painter who is so moved by the sunset but the final painting does not convey the emotion that he felt while viewing it. But I hope this is adequate, just the same!

Sincerely,
Dar

Abused and Tortured Women - Mass Murder #2

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This post exists because of a response to the post just before it.

Ihoha, who's blog carried the story I covered in the last post, made a brilliant comment on it.

The comment's right there under the post but I felt it deserved being a post in it's own right.

You may want to back up and read that last post first...

~~~~~~~~~

My Dear Alexander,

Thank you for posting this information in your blog. It is horrifying to know that this kind of behavior continues as we move on in this new millenium. However, this may be one evidence that we have not gone far at all in our hearts and minds as a species. As we think we are the only thinking and feeling beings, those that believe that we are made -- in whose image are we so made that we kill those that bring life into the world?

I have often wondered if we truly believe any of our scriptures or are we simply carrying books out of some force of habit?

May the men of the world truly let go of fear and trust in life and love. How can love not be known to and by them? Women give birth to male children and care for them until they are able to care for themselves. That is an example and position of power.

We are okay -- male and female -- and though the power of the female lies in the time even before birth, there is a power that she does not control during the hosting process and that is the structuring of the being into human. This knowledge and power is beyond her reach. A woman is never closer to death than at the point of birth. Men will never know the pain of it nor the shift in consciousness required to accept something separate from yourself growing inside your very body.

As a female and a mother, I offer this: power lies in knowing who and what you are and that no part of you is missing.

Loving Blessings,
Ihoha Sophia

Mass Murder of Women

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I'm bringing a horrible story to this blog today...

A story about how "Every two to four years the world looks away from a victim count on the scale of Hitler's Holocaust."

A story I first saw in the excellent blog, Would Your Mother Be Ashamed?, then followed into The Christian Science Monitor.

Here are some of the facts:

• "In countries where the birth of a boy is preferred, selective abortion and infanticide eliminate female babies.

• "Young girls die disproportionately from neglect because food and medical attention is given first to males.

• "In countries where women are considered the property of men, their fathers and brothers can murder them for choosing their own sexual partners.

• "The brutal international sex trade kills uncounted numbers of girls.

• "Domestic violence is a major reason for the deaths of women in every country.

• "Six thousand girls undergo genital mutilation every day, according to the World Health Organization. Many die, and others live the rest of their lives in crippling pain."

This sickens me. It's been going on for millennia and it's intolerable!

There have been many efforts to get at the roots of the problem and explore methods to eliminate this pernicious "gendercide". One of the best I've found was: A summary report of a Symposium on Strategies for Creating Violence-Free Families, initiated by the Bahá'í International Community and co-sponsored by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).

In that document, it's said:

"The links between violence in the family and social, structural and political violence are inescapable."

Feeling helpless about social injustice brings me to my best human refuge and first means of defense against hopelessness--Prayer...

World-Wide Depression

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"Mysteriously and in ways that are totally remote from normal experience, the gray drizzle of horror induced by depression takes on the quality of physical pain ... it is entirely natural that the victim begins to think ceaselessly of oblivion."

WILLIAM STYRON, Darkness Visible

From Wikipedia:

"Styron's influence deepened and his readership expanded with the publication of Darkness Visible. This memoir was a description of the author's devastating descent into depression, the 'despair beyond despair'. By examining an illness that affects millions but is still widely misunderstood, Styron offered an intimate and very personal portrait of the agony of this ordeal, revealing the anguish of a mind 'desperate unto death'."

I'm writing this post (from the most personal perspective) because I had a rough time getting along with a good friend today and it's got me pondering myself into a depressive state...

I'm writing this post ( from the most global perspective ) because our World is caught-up in a downward spiral of Depression that has sporadic bouts of Mania thrown in to keep things from getting downright deathly boring.

I'm being slightly tongue-in-cheek right now but I'd rather be that way than stick my tongue out (at what's happening in our poor, sick World) and risk having it bitten off (by me or another fellow traveller...).

Check out this list of stages of Depression and think about our World:

• low mood
• low self-esteem
• pessimism
• fatigue, reduced energy
• disturbances of sleep (insomnia or hypersomnia)
• disturbances of appetite (anorexia or hyperphagia)
• agitation or retardation
• guilt
• sense of worthlessness
• hopelessness
• helplessness
• poor motivation
• poor concentration
• indecision
• loss of interest or pleasure in normal activities
• low libido
• recurrent thoughts of death

Far too many people ( and Organizations!) are expressing far too many of these traits...

What's the Spiritual Commentary on this "Current Event"?

We're very far from God . . .

Waging Peace

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Social Networks are all the rage.

MySpace, FaceBook, Orkut, Gather, etc. Spaces where people of "like-mind" can meet and share.

So...

Up steps Ning, a site that lets you create your own Social Network.

So...

I created one: Waging Peace !

In the blog on that site, I posed an issue and got a surprising and slightly mind-blowing response:

Where Is Everyone?

Started by Alexander M Zoltai on Mar 9, 2007, 7:12am –

Peace is a good thing...
So, why do you think more people aren't supporting it?

Posted by Dar Mar 10, 2007, 8:26am –

That is a very good question but the answer is as complex as people themselves. History is rife with war, many seemingly justifiable. Who among us would stand by, in the name of peace, and watch our livlihoods stripped from us, our homes taken from us and our families murdered? Who among us didn't feel we were watching honor and courage incarnate when we watched Mel Gibson in "The Patriot" or "The Lord of the Rings"? While the line between good and evil may seem black and white to some of us, that is only because we are comfortable and not living in war. Innumerable smaller situations innundate every day in chaos, making that line between black and white blur to gray. This is what has happened to so many of our soldiers in Iraq.It is the nature of all beings to survive. Humans have an extra piece to that; they want to survive and conquer- greed is inherent in human nature. If a war for greed can be disguised as a war for honor or homeland, more is the support for it. Attaching people's emotions to a cause is vital. It has always been those very qualities that we admired in William Wallace and Aragorn that, when combined with any number of personal belief systems can wreak havoc on the world. Some of the most heinous mass murderers in history went to their graves feeling much as William Wallace did-like they died fighting for a cause they knew to be true. The suffering and the glory are but 2 sides of the same coin. People are expert at rationalizing their beliefs--to the greater good or the greater peril--of us all. SO why don't people support peace? That is a question that will garner a billion individual answers.

Posted by Alexander M Zoltai Mar 10, 2007, 8:37am –

Dar!!!!
Extremely insightful and poignant analysis!
Nearly poetic in its power!!
Worthy of prominent display!!!
~ Alex
P.S. Can I put it in my blog?

Reply by Dar Mar 10, 2007, 8:58am –

Alex! You are so very kind! Of course--feel free to put it in your blog--I would be honored!!

A Gathering of Eagles

I've tried to be "global" in my approach to posts in this blog. Yet, I did define the theme as Spiritual Commentary on Current Events - from the Personal to the Global. This post is quite personal.

I'm a Veteran of the U.S. Navy.

I don't like the current war the U.S. is engaged in...

I respect the men and women who are "doing their duty", many of whom do it under duress, since to not do their "duty" would mean being locked up and the key getting misplaced...

If you look down two posts ago, you'll also see that I'm getting quite involved in non-violent solutions to world problems.

So...

I'm posting information from the Gathering of Eagles site. I don't agree with #9 in their mission statement but I really like the event they're currently promoting:

What: Gathering of Eagles

When: March 17th, 2007
0700-1600 (7 AM to 4 PM)

Where: The Vietnam Veteran's Memorial Wall, Washington D.C.

Why: To stand silent guard over our nation's memorials, in honor of our fallen, and in solidarity with our armed forces in harm's way today. Read our mission statement.

Head Count:

Petition 1: Sign if you are attending on March 17th

Petition 2: Sign if you cannot attend but will be with us in spirit.

A Spiritual Mystery . . .

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O.K., help me out here:

Egypt has recently been suspected of persecuting Shi‘ite Muslims.

Egypt has recently been accused of persecuting Baha'is.

Iran has a predominantly Shi‘ite population.

Iran has been persecuting Baha'is.

The Baha'i Faith arose from a transformation of "...a heterodox and seemingly negligible offshoot of the Shaykhi school of the Ithna-'Ashariyyih sect of Shi'ah Islam...".

Is this some kind of Spiritual Merry-Go-Round?

Are certain humans just profoundly perverse?

Are all religions from One God?

Are we really just One Human Family . . . that's horribly dysfunctional?

Is there any end in sight for such madness?

Will prayer and meditation really calm me in the midst of this storm and help me carry on?

I think I'll only answer the last question:

Yes!

A Force More Powerful

I've Recently Fallen DEEPLY Into This Non-Violent SPACE . . .

clipped from www.aforcemorepowerful.org

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Our World's "Situation" - #1

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I've put out a call for folks' opinions about the current "Situation of Our World". From time to time, as people send me their responses, I'll post them here.

The first response quotes the man pictured here, Jiddu Krishnamurti. I went to Wikipedia and found: "For nearly sixty years he travelled all over the world, pointing out to people the need to transform themselves through self knowledge..." which made me aware of the constant synchronicity in the universe, since the second response stresses education. And, even though education from the news isn't necessarily real close to self-knowledge, my second respondent links to CommonDreams.org which is a news site that respects and encourages self-knowledge...
This universe can be very friendly!

1st Response:

The following has been excerpted:

==========
1. SPR

Nothing can change a thing dynamically regarding the situation of The World if that thing must enter human beings through the mind and not exclusively the Heart. Nothing. The World (specifically, its “situation”) is the collective product of what is wrong with our individual hearts.

— from _Even More Graffiti_

© 26 February 2007, Sugarpie Rabbit

SPR | In the Face of Love

2. J. Krishnamurti

Questioner: What is the work of man?

Krishnamurti: What do you think it is? Is it to study, pass examinations, get a job, and do it for the rest of your life? Is it to go to the temple, join groups, launch various reforms? Is it man's work to kill animals for his own food? Is it man's work to build a bridge for the train to cross, dig wells in a dry land, to find oil, to climb mountains, to conquer the earth and the air, to write poems, to paint, to love, to hate? Is all this the work of man? Building civilisations [sic/British] that come toppling down in a few centuries, bringing about wars, creating God in one's own image, killing people in the name of religion or the State, talking of peace and brotherhood while usurping power and being ruthless to others — this is what man is doing all around you, is it not? And is this the true work of man?

You can see that all this work leads to destruction and misery, to chaos and despair. Great luxuries exist side by side with extreme poverty; disease and starvation, with refrigerators and jet planes. All this is the work of man; and when you see it don't you ask yourself, 'Is that all? Is there not something else which is the true work of man?' If we can find out what is the true work of man, then jet planes, washing machines, bridges, houses will all have an entirely different meaning; but without finding out what is the true work of man, merely to indulge in reforms, in reshaping what man has already done, will lead nowhere.

So, what is the true work of man? Surely the true work of man is to discover truth, God; it is to love and not to be caught in his own self-enclosing activities. In the very discovery of what is true there is love, and that love in man's relationship with man will create a different civilisation [sic], a new world.

— from _This Matter of Culture_, Chapter 17 Reproduced in _On Right Livelihood_, pp.39-40

© 1992, Krishnamurti Foundation Trust

2nd Response:

To begin with, I think political education is important for people who wish to more fully grasp the situation of the world. In the age of the Internet, self-education is easier, but still requires a lot of work. I read about an hour or more of news each day from different resources. I've found the most educational resource to be www.commondreams.org. I also check up on CNN, and I've started reading Le Monde so that I can get news from an alternative perspective.

I've read about the advent of the citizen blogger as a new source for news items, but as of yet I haven't integrated checking blog sites out into my news gathering routine.

Cheers,

Kathy
[ Kathy's Space on the Web...]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So...

Two responses to "What's the Current World Situation?"

Would You like to weigh in with Your opinion?

A Journalist In Darfur

This is Awatif Ahmed Isshag.

She's been a journalist for the last ten years.

She lives in Darfur.

When events like the ongoing crisis in Darfur come to the attention of relatively secure people like me (resident of the USA, not starving, and not seeing death and destruction every day), we feel particularly helpless.

It's going to take more than the combined efforts of all the aid organizations there are to help people in that country [not to mention the horrible happenings in other countries].

It's going to take a massive change of heart--massive change for each individual who could help in any way and massive change for every government and political person who has any influence on secular happenings--a thorough spiritual transformation.

Can you hear it?

The world is crying, screaming for change...

The Dynamist Blog carried a short article about Awatif Ahmed Isshag. Here's just a taste:

"Nearly a decade ago, at 14, Isshag started publishing a handwritten community newsletter about local events, arts and religion. Once a month she'd paste decorated pages to a large piece of wood and hang it from a tree outside her family's home for passersby to read.

"Her grass-roots periodical has become the closest thing that El Fasher, capital of North Darfur state, has to a hometown newspaper. More than 100 people a day stop to check out her latest installments, some walking several miles from nearby displacement camps....

"Isshag complained that despite international attention, the suffering of Darfur remained vastly underreported inside Sudan. There are no television stations in the area, and most newspapers operate under government control or are based hundreds of miles away in Khartoum.

"'The local media don't cover the issue of Darfur,' she said. 'We hear about it when one child dies in Iraq, but we hear nothing when 50 children die' in Darfur."

She is, in a way, blogging without a computer.

If you need some background on the bigger picture, the BBC News has Q&A: Sudan's Darfur conflict and Wikipedia has Darfur Conflict.


A more complete story on Awatif Ahmed Isshag can be had at the Los Angeles Times. Here's a telling detail from that article:

"An advocate for women's education, Isshag credits her parents for allowing her to avoid being tied down by housework and pursue her interest in writing.

"But she occasionally uses her columns to lecture other women on pet peeves. A recent 'For Women Only' article lambasted those who took off their shoes on the bus. 'It's wrong,' she said with a laugh."

True Love

Not sure what year that picture was taken (early 1900s to be sure) and I sure wish I could have found a different one...

I'll go with what I've got [seems like a possible attribute of "True Love", eh?].

Check out the two people in the extreme upper right. It's a white woman and a black man and they're married.

Louis George Gregory and Louisa Mathew showed true love in spite of the fact that their "marriage was a challenge to the social convention of that time, and was even a criminal offense in some states."

Now, let's move rapidly ahead in time (though we surely won't out run prejudice...).

This picture is from a BBC News article, Star-crossed lovers quit West Bank.

This is Jasmine Avissar and Osama Zaatar. She's a Jewish Israeli and he's a Palestinian Muslim.

I'll share just a few quotes from this heart-wrenching True Love Story:

"First they tried to live in Israel, but the Israeli authorities would not allow Osama to join his wife there.

"Then they tried living in the occupied West Bank, but some Palestinians made life difficult for them.

"Now they've given up and are moving to Europe....

"Jasmine already has permission to go. Osama hopes to follow her soon....

"Neither Israeli nor Palestinian society has accepted their marriage....

"They turn and walk the short distance to the checkpoint that leads out of the West Bank and into Israel....

"Osama cannot go through the checkpoint with Jasmine. They don't know when he will be able to join her in Europe.

"They are still a couple caught in the middle of the Israeli Palestinian conflict."

I want to leave this post on True Love with a quote from the Greatest Human Lover I've ever known:

"Know thou of a certainty that Love is the secret of God's holy Dispensation, the manifestation of the All-Merciful, the fountain of spiritual outpourings. Love is heaven's kindly light, the Holy Spirit's eternal breath that vivifieth the human soul. Love is the cause of God's revelation unto man, the vital bond inherent, in accordance with the divine creation, in the realities of things. Love is the one means that ensureth true felicity both in this world and the next. Love is the light that guideth in darkness, the living link that uniteth God with man, that assureth the progress of every illumined soul. Love is the most great law that ruleth this mighty and heavenly cycle, the unique power that bindeth together the divers elements of this material world, the supreme magnetic force that directeth the movements of the spheres in the celestial realms. Love revealeth with unfailing and limitless power the mysteries latent in the universe. Love is the spirit of life unto the adorned body of mankind, the establisher of true civilization in this mortal world, and the shedder of imperishable glory upon every high-aiming race and nation."

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1. Selections from the Writings of `Abdu'l-Bahá (Haifa: Bahá'í World Centre, 1982), p. 27.

The god of War

"The god of War" is the title of this post. I had to write the word "god" with a lower case "g" because it's my firm belief that God wants All of Us to stop making war.

Strange that God is so Forgiving and Merciful.

He's also completely Just:

If we make war, He'll forgive us; but, His Justice gives us massive suffering during and after the war...

How does one explain the Creator of All That Is?

Best way I know of (that won't drive one plum crazy) is to look at what He created (and, even looking at these creations can make one Wonder...)...

Still, these days, we must look Very Deeply into what He's created to see HIM...

The { image credit } is a site with sights you may not want to see, like:
"She Survived Iraq — Then Shot Herself at Home"

Other Spaces you might look into, to give you more to ponder about what God may be up to with us humans, are the related studies listed after this explanation on scienceblogs.com:

"A few recent psychological studies about religious beliefs presented seemingly contradictory results: One found that reading violent biblical passages made readers more aggressive; two others concluded that mentioning "God concepts" made people behave less selfishly. ScienceBloggers dig into the nitty gritty of these experiments, and discuss how the results might apply to phenomena like terrorism."

Here are the study links:

In smite of my own thoughts on religion...

Psychology and Religion

Does Religion Make You Meaner or Nicer? Inquiring Minds, Etc.

Obey God — Kill!

Two Americas: Past, Present and Future

Happy Pondering...