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...

Doomsday Revisited

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Back in the dim, dark past of this blog ( Jan. 18th in non-cyber-time), I had a post called Doomsday.
My cyber-friend (real friend not met in person), Jeanne, took up a challenge and asked some people what they thought about the ideas I'd expressed (check out the extensive comments with that post...).

Yesterday, she surprised me again and won herself the bestowal of the title Honorary E-Mail Reporter!

She sent the following (which I reproduce exactly as I received it...):

"This is a comment I got from a friend...

"The end of the world as we know it could be anytime considering the "as we know it" part. Think of the fact of how strange or foreign our everyday world would be to a person who traveled through time from the 1500's and saw what we have in the year 2007. Our radios, phones, and cars, not to mention other modern inventions would be mind baffling to a person of the 16th century.

"Now, let's think of 50 or even 100 years in the future. Modern science and advances will have leaped again. Who knows what we will possibly see in our lifetimes or what will become of our world after we are gone. But I can tell you this... The world of the future will probably be nothing like it is today. We live in the world 'as we know it', but that world is ever changing so one day it might be the end of the world as WE know it, but it will be the world as our great great great great grandchildren know it.

"Speaking about the 'end of the world' is a whole statement in itself. Religiously, I'm not sure if I know enough to answer this question. Spiritually, I think a person is screwed if they have not found God and it's the end of the world. You do want your golden ticket into heaven when it all goes down. There's that movie and book that focuses in on the worshipers of God being taken to heaven and spared of all harm or evil when the end comes. Personally, I don't think that will happen, but I do think that I want to be on God's good side and be one of his followers when the 'end' comes. I want to know that when I die I can go to heaven and face it... If a large asteroid comes hurling at the Earth and wipes out all life on Earth, we will all die. I think it's good to know you will be with all your loved ones in heaven with God.

"Also, I have heard some religious people push that the end of the world has to do with religious stuff. I am not so sure about that. God is all powerful. He can control a lot. But he can't control us from blowing each other up in a nuclear war. He puts so much faith in mankind, but it's mankind that I sometimes don't trust. Will we kill ourselves in the end and be our own doom?

"There are so many science fiction and horror movies and books focused on the 'end of the world.' I do believe that the images and ideals sometimes portrayed in our movies and books are sometimes a reflection of our own fears. Who knows, the end of the world may come out of an alien attack or a final world war or our destruction of the ozone layer or radiation exposure, pollution, or an asteroid destroying Earth, or melting of polar ice caps. Heck, I don't know... The 'end' may come from a natural event, our own undoing, or something unimaginable like contact with an alien race. I do believe if the end comes, it will have to be be because something happened that made it come. It won't just come. Did Y2K kill us all? No, but some things in life can happen. It would have to be something so powerful that it kills us all or kills many leaving survival near to impossible for the living. For instance, I would be screwed if we were suddenly stripped of modern electricity and put back into a time
of no outlets because I take medicine from a machine that plugs into a wall. In the 'end', it may become survival of the fittest or maybe... we'll just be all wiped out at once. But something will have to happen to cause the 'end' to come.

"Or maybe the end will never come and humans will continue to advance with our world changing with us. No one knows and time can only tell, but the end of the world will be a debate till the world does end. As it's ending, people will probably be discussing this question and debating it's answer.

"It kind of reminds me of that song, 'It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.'

"My question is what would you be doing if you knew that the end was coming?

"What would you want to be doing if you knew it would come and you could die?

"What would you want to be doing that last few minutes before the 'end?'

"That's my food for thought. You don't have to answer. Just curious...."


"...and here is her husband's comment:

"our world can end in a multitude of ways...it depends on what you mean by world...world as in our earth...earth will be here a long time, until of course the sun goes to red giant and sometime years after that nova...our world as in reality...it could be infinite because our new reality would be heaven if we die and heaven is infinite...while this reality here is finite in space and time..."

Poems Like Warm Wine

Many people are like me--we have some very good friends who we've never met in person. Something happens and the conventionally abnormal distancing that the Internet can instill is warmed way up and a true friendship blossoms.

This is what happened with Anna...

I'm a poet and she's a poet. She's young and I'm old. We're both religious (in "different" Faiths). And, we're both "weird"...

Not so long ago, I was blessed by technology. There, in my e-mail, was a link to an audio file of Anna Saying one of her poems!

I get nice chills just remembering the sound of her voice mingling with the meaning of the words...

So, prepare to be positively Enchanted...

Turn up your volume and relax into the magic of Anna's poetry...

strange



i

dusting for prints

Here's a link to Anna's blog...

Blogger Interview One with Nneka

I met this woman through my use of GoogleReader (it collects feeds from news sites, blogs, etc.). I immediately sensed a sincerity about her spiritual commitment so I posted a few comments to her blog. After the second or third comment, she asked me if I'd do a GuestPost (which was an honor...). Then, I asked her for an e-mail interview. But, before that brief exchange, here's some info about her from her site:

" Hi, I’m Nneka (pronounced en-nay-kah), the daughter of a musician and a closet fashionista. That’s me singing. I was born and raised in the southern-most island in the Caribbean, Trinidad. At 8, I was taught to meditate and I’ve been experimenting with it since (present commitment to daily meditation). I was exposed and acculturalized to diverse creeds and cultures.

"I’m passionate about expressing Spirit in my life and helping you do the same. For me, right now, that means writing about spirituality and how to apply it to life on Balanced Life Center. For you it may mean composing a symphony, being a conscious entrepreneur, a magnetic salesperson, or a patient, loving stay-at-home mom....

"I believe that God is everywhere present all the time. I write this here because a lot of the ideas that are discussed here will come from that premise. When I speak of God, I speak of the Spirit/Consciousness, the essence of all that is. It courses through our lives, our being, our world. It abides everywhere.

"I believe that within everyone lies their Divinity. Since God is everywhere present, He must be within each and everyone of us. Whether or not we choose to act out of that Divinity is up to us. Whether we are aware of it or not is a matter of our consciousness. Part of my purpose is to help everyone discover this Divinity within themselves and to help them uniquely express it."

The Interview (short and sweet):

Alex: Nneka, what led you to your current Internet activities?

Nneka: My husband started an online business in 2002. In 2003 when I wanted to start writing, he suggested I start a blog. I had no idea what a blog was at the time, or what a content management site was about. I was used to old school html. Anyway, I got the domain for Balanced Life Center and intended to start an online magazine about building a balanced life. That lasted for about 4 months before I got involved in the business side of his business. I ended up having to learn a lot about online marketing, pay per click, search engine optimization, and this new thing about building community around a business online.

I left the business in early 2006 to re-focus on what I consider my purpose. I resurrected Balanced Life Center, and here we are.

Alex: Is the Balanced Life Center Site a "shell" surrounding your blog or is the blog the "heart" of the Site or neither?

Nneka: At this moment, Balanced Life Center - the blog, is the heart of the site.

Alex: Are you able to sum up your "Sense of Spirituality" in 25 words or less? How about 10 words or less?

Nneka: In 10 words or less: God is All there is.

By that I mean that God is the essence of all things seen and unseen and that we are expressions of God. We may witness God to varying degrees and see "illness" in the world because of how much of our Divinity we allow to express through us and as us.

Alex: What might you say to the oft expressed "issue" where "Spirituality" and "Religion" are discussed, sometimes as antagonists, sometimes as parts of a whole?

Nneka: I think that religion is your chosen path to know the God of your being or the way that you choose to experience and express God. Most religions come with a set customs and rules that help frame the moral and social code of a community. It also sets up a framework to learn about spirituality from a given perspective.

Spirituality, on the other hand, is about your relationship with the Divine and your experience of it. Religion can help you find what works for you, but only you will know what that is.

Alex: What would be your "best advice" for healing the Illnesses of our World? (If you need to "define" those Illnesses first, please, go right ahead.)

Nneka: "Physician heal thyself."

We cannot heal the world until we heal ourselves. Then we can take up the yoke to heal our families, our schools, our churches, our communities, and the world. Ironically, we will find that once we heal ourselves, the world around us will take on a different hue. Much of the heavy lifting that we do to "make" things happen in our world today either won't be needed or will be done with different intentions.

Dangerous Blogging

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Blogging can be dangerous ( Check out two and three posts before this one...) .

Just this morning, on the way to a religious party with my best friend, the topic of blogging and controversy came up--the tact necessary, especially when one steps into the arena of Spiritual Commentary On Current Events...

The other day, as I responded to a discussion post on a spiritually-oriented site (mentioning my Faith), I was met with extreme prejudice--"How in the world can you believe that?!" I responded with as much tact and gentleness as I could muster and will lay low for a bit in that particular discussion thread...

I want to mention our B.I.D.E. Global Blog Feed again (down the sidebar on the left).
I found the meat for this post there: Free Kareem: Egyptian Bloggers Speak Out.

A blogger being jailed (if the appeal doesn't work) for speaking his mind. . .

Here's a snippet of a very interesting blog post:

"Once again a religious institution is confusing itself with God: instead of seeing that they are part of the problem, they interpret any criticism of the institution as criticism of Allah, whereas Karim only did what Allah has told every Muslim to do: [Qur'an 4:135]: “O you who believe! be maintainers of justice, bearers of witness of Allah’s sake, though it may be against your own selves or (your) parents or near relatives; if he be rich or poor, Allah is nearer to them both in compassion; therefore do not follow (your) low desires, lest you deviate; and if you swerve or turn aside, then surely Allah is aware of what you do.”

Reprise

Tomorrow's my guest post on the Balanced Life Center's Blog. The title will be The Great Spirit and the content's about my personal experiences with Native American Spirituality.

Even though I was raised by two Christian ministers (Mom and Dad), my Indian experiences were much more "spiritual" then what our family did...

Now that I'm in my 60's I can see the value in all Spiritual Traditions.

~~~~~~~~~

Since I wrote that guest post for Balanced Life Center, I've begun reading Black Elk Speaks
--had to; couldn't help it even though I had other, more "important" things to read...

So, here I am in a rather contemplative mood--a Caucasian with a love for Indians, a blogger who's actually a poet, a man who has his feminine side well-honed, a Baha'i who loves all religions, an American who's striving to be a Global Citizen...

And that Global Perspective brings me back to a focus in this blog's recent past:

Please check out the post, Be The Change.... It's only a couple days old but, in the Blogosphere, that's ancient.

I really want to shift from the Personal Commentaries to a more Global Perspective but I'd really rather have some of You steer me in the direction of the stories or topics or issues You'd like Spiritual Commentary on...

Blogospheric Response To Egypt's Action

Amazing speed of supportive action for the blogger arrested by the Egyptian Government!

He's being nominated for the 2007 Index Awards Ceremony.

Plus, the folks who created FreeKareem.org had this to say:

"This campaign is our way of fighting to further the cause of brave people who continue to practice their right to freedom of expression even when such rights are not recognized.

"Kareem is a writer who always found the courage within him to keep speaking his mind freely in the name of not only freedom of speech, but the freedom to think in an otherwise sheltered society. Because of that, he was interrogated and arrested this morning, but apparently not for the first time. We stand by and fully support Kareem through these difficult times and will continue working on this campaign until he is freed."

They also created a Forum to discuss his case.

Independent Investigation of Truth is sorely lacking in our world-at-large. Without this important principle in place, censorship and blind imitation of the past can unleash rank oppression:

"One of the main sources of conflict in the world today is the fact that many people blindly and uncritically follow various traditions, movements, and opinions. God has given each human being a mind and the capacity to differentiate truth from falsehood. If individuals fail to use their reasoning capacities and choose instead to accept without question certain opinions and ideas, either out of admiration for or fear of those who hold them, then they are neglecting their basic moral responsibility as human beings. Moreover, when people act in this way, they often become attached to some particular opinion or tradition and thus intolerant of those who do not share it. Such attachments can, in turn, lead to conflict. History has witnessed conflict and even bloodshed over slight alterations in religious practice, or a minor change in the interpretation of doctrine. Personal search for truth enables the individual to know why he or she adheres to a given ideology or doctrine."

Bahá'í International Community

The Truth Shall Set You Free..

Dave Lucas published "Egyptian Blogger Sentenced to Prison" today.

I haven't checked out the facts to assertain the guilt or innocence of the blogger in question, but the posting made me remember a link off the site I've recommended here a few times, GlobalVoices ( Dave likes it, too!) .

The link takes you to a "Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents" which helps those under governmental oppression get their words out to the world.

After this foray into the story's context, I went to GlobalVoices itself and found Much More Coverage...

This in turn reminded me of the oppression of a religious group in Egypt. Here's that story...

"Be The Change..."

"Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace, to be real, must be unaffected by outside circumstances."

Mohandas Gandhi

I'm sure you can see the connection between the quote from Gandhi and the picture of the children...

Three posts ago, our E-Mail Reporter, Sandy, had some provocative questions about "starving" children. Those kids over there sure aren't starving; at least not physically (and their spirits look pretty bright...)

The post just before this one concerned our Vision and how it shapes our action.

Here's Sandy once more with her take on that post:

Alex,
This, what you say here, is to me, an extremely important thing to be said!!! I think it's also one reason why Abdu'l-Baha exhorts us to BE HAPPY!! BE HAPPY!!! I mean, not to be of such good cheer and so giddy that all good sense goes out the window, but to be on a level of happiness, because of detachment from this material world, that our wings don't become helplessly and hopelessly stuck in the mess on the ground! God's guidance has always been here with us and always will be. The quote below that came in yesterday on quote-a-day says it perfectly, I think.
~ Sandy

"It behooveth him who is a wayfarer in the path of God and a wanderer in
His way to detach himself from all who are in the heavens and on the earth.
He must renounce all save God, that perchance the portals of mercy may be
unlocked before his face and the breezes of providence may waft over him.
And when he hath inscribed upon his soul that which We have vouchsafed unto
him of the quintessence of inner meaning and explanation, he will fathom all
the secrets of these allusions, and God shall bestow upon his heart a divine
tranquillity and cause him to be of them that are at peace with themselves."

Baha'u'llah, Gems of Divine Mysteries--Javahiru'l-Asrar, pp. 25-26, para 33

"...be of them that are at peace with themselves."

Starting with this post, I'm going to veer in the direction of Spiritual Commentary on Global Events; and, I certainly pray you'll help me out...

The posts recently have dealt with our personal spiritual perspective, which is crucial for any attainment in the global arena!

So...

I'll begin by pointing to GlobalVoices once again: the site that pulls together blogs from all over the world (sort of a global perspective on many individuals' spiritual quests). If you scroll down the sidebar aways, you'll see the B.I.D.E. Global Blog Feed. It's from GlobalVoices.

Next, I want to bring your attention to a global "news" site that stresses reporting on the areas of maximum activity that aim at making our World a better place to live on: getting it back to a self-sustaining state (which includes a whole lot of inner spiritual strength...). The site is called OneWorld. This site is extremely dense with ripe information!

Yes! Magazine is the publication of Positive Futures Network: "an independent, nonprofit organization supporting people’s active engagement in creating a just, sustainable, and compassionate world." Here we have the awareness of personal tools we need in our global striving.

Next is OneCountry, a publication that stresses the deeper spiritual weapons we need to Wage Peace!

Finally, I present WorldPress.Org, the most "HardNews" site of the bunch. And, right here is where I need Your help...

Just below is a string of recent articles from WorldPress. I want to bring some Spiritual Commentary to one of those articles.

Will You Help?

Leave a comment (or, e-mail me: amzolt {at} gmail {dot} com) with your pick, O.K.?

In the Spotlight

'Shia Democracy': Myth or Reality? (Part I) Shiism is another Islam, with its own identity and at least 200 million worldwide adherents. Perhaps the concept of "Shia democracy" holds a ray of hope for furthering democracy in the Muslim world. By Sreeram Chaulia.

Chile Surpasses One Million Broadband Connections Leading Latin America in Internet access and use, Chile also boasts the highest broadband penetration rate and is beginning to emerge as a regional leader in information technology. By Nathan Crooks.

Congo: Prisoners Endure Appalling Conditions As they dug a grave for one of their fellow inmates, detainees in Bunia Central Prison decided to use the occasion to protest against appalling conditions in the jail. From IRIN.

Paris Journal: Hype Happens Unlike hell, the Jeu de Paume contemporary art museum is not paved with good intentions. But it is hung with them at the moment. By Brent Gregston.

Congo: Rights Groups Call for Marie Therese Nlandu's Release Nlandu was arrested on Nov. 21, three weeks before President Kabila's inauguration, when she went to Kin-Maziere Police Station to visit and bring food to six of her associates. By Ambrose Musiyiwa.

NATO: Quo Vadis? Recently as part of the on going "war on terror," however, NATO has been active well beyond its traditional area of operations—in Afghanistan, the horn of Africa, and Lebanon. By Michael Werbowski.

Return of Somalia's Warlords The Islamic regime, which had progressively taken control of much of Somalia, was overthrown in December by an Ethiopian invasion force backed—financially and militarily—by the United States. From Green Left Weekly.

North Korea Offers to Halt Nuclear Program Senior North Korean negotiators have expressed Pyongyang's willingness to reach an agreement in return for economic and financial concessions. By Rich Bowden.