Friday, 31 August 2007
Tomb of Jesus: where is it?
I find this interesting data from net….
Kashmiries will fight with Japanese…for sure..hahahah
My general search tag:
http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=tomb+of+jesus
‘Titanic’ Director has his own discovery:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6397373.stm
Kashmir friends want to have Jesus tomb amidst them at any cost:
http://www.tombofjesus.com/2007/home.html
But Japan is not to be left behind, they too have Jesus’ tomb:
http://thiaoouba.com/tomb.htm
Now read a theological study by Dr. William Lane Craig:
http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/tomb2.html
My dear Jesus, It never matters me to locate and struggle for your empty tomb so much more than experiencing you….
Thursday, 30 August 2007
The art of loving: Erich Fromm
Is love an art? Then it requires knowledge and effort. Or is love a pleasant sensation, which to experience is a matter of chance, something one "falls into" if one is lucky? This little book is based on the former premise, while undoubtedly the majority of people today believe in the latter.
Not that people think that love is not important. They are starved for it; they watch endless numbers of films about happy and unhappy love stories, they listen to hundreds of trashy songs about love -- yet hardly anyone thinks that there is anything that needs to be learned about love.
This peculiar attitude is based on several premises which either singly or combined tend to uphold it. Most people see the problem of love primarily as that of being loved rather than that of loving, of one's capacity to love. Hence the problem to them is how to be loved, how to be lovable. In pursuit of this aim they follow several paths. One, which is especially used by men, is to be successful, to be as powerful and rich as the social margin of one's position permits. An-other, used especially by women, is to make oneself attractive, by cultivating one's body, dress, etc. Other ways of making, oneself attractive, used both by men and women, are to develop pleasant manners, interesting conversation, to be helpful, modest, inoffensive. Many of the ways to make oneself lovable are the same as those used to make oneself successful, "to win friends and influence people." As a matter of fact, what most people in our culture mean by being lovable is essentially a mixture between being popular and having sex appeal.
A second premise behind the attitude that there is nothing to be learned about love is the assumption that the problem of love is the problem of an object, not the problem of a faculty. People think that to love is simple, but that to find the right object to love--or to be loved by--is difficult. This attitude has several reasons rooted in the development of modem society. One reason is the great change which occurred in the twentieth century with respect to the choice of a "love object."
(from the book "the art of loving")
Risking it for a Stigmatist:Fr. Zlatko Sudac
But I post this.
I am sure 50% of my friends will be interested in this…
40% will be annoyed…
and 10% will not be affected at all…
pls follow the link below:
http://www.stjeromecroatian.org/eng/frsudac.html to read about Fr. Zlatko Sudac,
( what is Hype and happening?)
I do not advocate or promote… I just point at..
Tuesday, 28 August 2007
Thank You readers
Sunday, 26 August 2007
Gregory Colbert: Ashes and Snow
—Gregory Colbert
Canadian-born artist Gregory Colbert began his career in Paris making documentary films about social issues. Filmmaking led to his work as a fine arts photographer, and the first public exhibition of his work was held in 1992 at the Musée de l’Elysée in Switzerland.
For the next ten years, Colbert showed no films and exhibited none of his art. Instead, he travelled to such places as India, Burma, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Dominica, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tonga, Namibia, and Antarctica to film and photograph wondrous interactions between human beings and animals.
In 2002, he launched the Ashes and Snow exhibition in Italy at the Venice Arsenale, a 125,000-square-foot shipyard owned by the Italian navy.Built in 1104, the Arsenale was originally used to construct and launch boats to sea via the Venetian canals. Ashes and Snow was the largest solo exhibition ever mounted in Italy. The interior architecture of the Arsenale provided an ideal setting for the exhibition, and served as the model for the Nomadic Museum, which debuted with the opening of Ashes and Snow in New York City in March 2005. The museum then travelled to Santa Monica in January 2006, and Tokyo in March 2007.
More than 1.5 million people have attended the show since its debut in Venice, Italy. The project has been embraced by both the general public and a critical audience. Gregory Colbert received the 2005 Lucie Award for Curator of the Year for the Ashes and Snow installation at the Nomadic Museum in New York and the 2007 THEA Award for Outstanding Achievement in a Museum or Touring Attraction.
Colbert continues his expeditions and the development of Ashes and Snow.
Narrow gates
In Some places narrow gates are a must.
“ Enter through the narrow Gate” exhorts the bible.
We live in a world which never believes in doors…
It always asks us to ‘Open Up’
But Have you ever noticed that all the important places are well protected with ‘narrow entries’
Yes! Entry to the places that contain valuables, are always restricted.
You enter through a narrow door that helps Scrutiny
It helps us to know and regulate who enters in and goes out…
Your life is a precious thing before God.
Protect it by keeping some narrow doors of gifted discernment.
Ask the Holy Spirit for it…
He will enlighten you.
Through the eye of a needle: part-2
The birth of nations from Father Abraham was such…
The journey of Israel from Egypt to canan was such…
The birth of Lord Jesus was such…
But miracles never limits themselves in the pages of bible.
It happens in our lives too.
Be open minded, in complete hope and faith.
Trust that things can happening your lives too.
Then, believe me, camels will begins to walk through the needle eyes…..
Through the eye of a needle:
I thought that I will write about this here too.
But I searched the net…and found this interesting poem with the same title
By Stephen Mitchell in April 1991 issue of ‘Theology today’
So pls read it first….I can write later…
Through the Eye of the Needle
By Stephen Mitchell
The camel catches his breath, wipes the sweat from his brow. It was a tight squeeze, but he made it.
Lying back on the unbelievably lush grass, he remembers: all those years (how excruciating they were!) of fasting and one-pointed concentration, until finally he was thin enough: thaumaturgically thin, thread-thin, almost unrecognizable in his camelness: until the moment in front of the unblinking eye, when he put his front hooves together. Took one long last breath. Aimed. Dived.
The exception may prove the rule, but what proves the exception? "It is not that such things are possible," the camel thinks, smiling. "But such things are possible for me."
Read more at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Through_the_Needle's_Eye
Wednesday, 22 August 2007
I am the dawn; and the new day Begun;
I am the dawn; and the new day Begun;
I bring you the morning; I bring you the sun;
I hold back the night and I open the skies;
I give light to the world; I give sight to your eyes;
From the first of all time, until Time is undone,
Forever and ever and ever and ever,
And i am the Dawn and the Sky and the Sun -
I am one with the One, and i am the Dawn.
I am the dawn; and the new day Begun;
I am the dawn; and the new day Begun;
I bring you the morning; I bring you the sun;
I hold back the night and I open the skies;
I give light to the world; I give sight to your eyes;
From the first of all time, until Time is undone,
Forever and ever and ever and ever,
And i am the Dawn and the Sky and the Sun -
I am one with the One, and i am the Dawn.
Sunday, 19 August 2007
Only God can make a tree
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree”
Joyce Kilmer (American Writer, 1886-1918)
Papal trees to be chopped down
By WILLIAM J. KOLE, Associated Press Writer
Tue Aug 14, 11:11 AM ET
VIENNA, Austria - They were planted to honor one pope. Now they're being purged for another.
Four stately lime trees ceremoniously planted near a popular Roman Catholic shrine in 1983 for a visit to Austria by the late Pope John Paul II are being uprooted to make way for a large grandstand for next month's pilgrimage by Pope Benedict XVI.
Environmentalists have criticized the action, but church and municipal officials are playing down the trees' significance.
"This shows the hypocrisy of the church," said Lambert Schoenleitner, a regional spokesman for the environmentalist Green Party in the southern province of Styria.
Schoenleitner believes nature should be revered as much as faith and doesn't think trees should be sacrificed for an event that will last just a few hours.
Organizers say the trees must go to make room for a 52 1/2-foot-high steel grandstand to accommodate some of the thousands of pilgrims who will flock to the shrine town of Mariazell, 60 miles southwest of Vienna.
During his Sept. 7-9 visit, the seventh foreign trip in his two-year papacy, Benedict will make a stop in Mariazell to mark the 850th anniversary of its founding.
Officials conceded that a few more trees might have to be felled for the pope's stop in Mariazell, which the Archdiocese of Vienna considers the highlight of his visit. Up to 30,000 faithful are expected to converge on the shrine to the Virgin Mary.
"Environmentalists have already been calling" to express their displeasure, hotelier Klaus Kloepfer told the Austria Press Agency on Tuesday.
Kloepfer, who owns the Schwarzer Adler Hotel, said local businessmen are unhappy that the trees are coming down — and are just peeved in general over all the preparations.
The four limes were planted to decorate Mariazell's main square for John Paul's first visit to the alpine country. John Paul made two other trips to overwhelmingly Catholic Austria in 1988 and 1998. He died in 2005.
Municipal and diocesan officials in Mariazell played down the controversy over the trees, insisting they are not being cut down solely for the pope's stop but as part of a general makeover of the plaza.
"The church does not sacrifice trees," Paul Wuthe, a spokesman for the papal visit, told the Catholic news agency Kathpress.
Benedict's visit will be his first to Austria as pope, though the German-born pontiff was a frequent visitor as a cardinal.
The pope also will meet with diplomats accredited to U.N. and other international organizations in Vienna, stop by a monument to Jewish victims of the Holocaust, celebrate a Mass at Vienna's St. Stephen's Cathedral and visit the Heiligenkreuz abbey outside the capital.
Mariazell Mayor Helmut Pertl told the Kleine Zeitung daily he thinks the fuss is completely overblown.
"If this was my biggest worry, I'd be pretty happy," he said.
Thursday, 16 August 2007
Genius and Madness
By:Hara Estroff Marano
There may be a link between creativity and mental disorders, but it is probably not in the way that you think. There is a widespread highly romanticized belief that madness somehow heightens creative genius among artists, writers, and musicians. And that may be because we romanticize the idea of artistic inspiration.
As with mental disorders, there is something mysterious and unexplainable about the creative process. But all significant creative leaps have two very important components—talent and technique. By far the most universal and necessary aspect of technique is dogged persistence, which is anything but romantic.
Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, best known for his work on flow, has spent four decades studying the creative process. He recounts the experience of sculptor Nina Holton. "Tell anybody you're a sculptor and they'll say, 'Oh, how exciting, how wonderful,'" Holton told him. Her response to such comments: "What's so wonderful?" Then she explains that being a sculptor is "like being a mason or a carpenter half the time." She finds that "they don't wish to hear that because they really only imagine the first part, the exciting part. But, as Khruschev once said, that doesn't fry pancakes, you see. That germ of an idea does not make a sculpture that stands up. So the next stage is the hard work. Can you really translate it into a piece of sculpture?"
Even acknowledged creative geniuses find that endurance must follow intuition. Einstein's ideas were not worked out in a day. It takes a great deal of discipline, and often many bouts of trial and error, to work out an idea. Follow-through is critical to the realization of an idea. Discipline is not a hallmark of minds in the throes of emotional distress. "Despite the carefree air that many creative people effect," says Csikszentmihalyi, "most of them work late into the night and persist when less driven individuals would not."
Even having ideas can take a great deal of discipline. Robert Root-Bernstein is another long-time observer of the creative process. "If the writer doesn't sit at the computer every day," he points out. "The muse is not going to visit."
Nevertheless, some forms of emotional distress are more common among writers, artists and musicians. Serious depression strikes artists ten times more often than it does the general population. The link, however, is not creativity. Artists are more likely to be self-reflective and to ruminate, to mull things over. And that thinking style—as opposed to creativity itself—is a hallmark of depression and commonly leads to it.
Evidence that madness does nothing to heighten creative genius comes from a study done by psychologist Robert Weisberg. He studied in detail the creative output, along with the letters and medical records, of composer Robert Schumann, who was known to endure bouts of manic depression that drove him to attempt suicide.
Indeed, Schumann wrote a great deal of music during his manic intervals. But quantity is one thing and quality is another. Truly creative people are not just capable of producing novelty; they must have the ability to tell a good idea from a bad idea. Weisberg found that Schumann's compositional output indeed swelled during his manic years, but the average quality of his efforts did not change. To judge compositional caliber, Weisberg relied on an objective measure: the number of recordings available of a given work.
When mania struck, Schumann wrote more great pieces—but he also turned out more ordinary ones, too. Mania "jacks up the energy level," Weisberg points out, "but it doesn't give the person access to ideas that he or she wouldn't have had otherwise."
It's entirely possible, Weisberg notes, that the elevated rates of mental disorders among artistic geniuses comes about as a result of the creative lifestyle, which hardly provides emotional stability. Many artists struggle against poverty and public indifference in their lifetime. And if they do indeed produce works that are acclaimed, they could succumb to the overwhelming pressure to live up to their earlier successes.
What's more, says Csikszentmihalyi, the openness and sensitivity of creative people can expose them to suffering and pain. As electrical engineer Jacob Rabinow told him, "Inventors have a low threshold of pain. Things bother them." And yet, few things in life bring more satisfaction and fulfillment than the process of creation.
Tuesday, 14 August 2007
Via Crucis: A must-watch video
special thanks to Deacon Greg Kandra
Sunday, 12 August 2007
:::::world's greatest photograph and camera:::::
Image size: 28 feet x 108 feet, 3,024 square feet in a single, seamless piece of fabric
Photograph type: black and white negative image with a gelatin sizing and a hand-coated silver gelatin emulsion
Subjects depicted in the photograph: the MCAS El Toro control tower, twin runways, and heart of the future Orange County Great Park, with a backdrop of the San Joaquin Hills and the Laguna Wilderness
Location: former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, Irvine, CA
Camera location: Bldg: #115, a former fighter plane hangar that served as a helicopter hangar for the Seaelk squadron during its final days.
Camera size: 44'-2" feet high by 79'-6" feet deep by 161'-6" feet wide.
Materials used to darken the airplane hangar to make it into a camera:
24,000 square feet of six mil black viscuine
1,300 gallons foam gap filler
1.52 miles of two-inch wide black gorilla tape
40 cans of black spray paint
Fabric base of the photograph: single seamless piece of unbleached muslin specially ordered from Germany
Total weight of fabric and rigging: 1,200 pounds
Aperture size: one-quarter inch (6mm) pinhole—no lens or optics were used
Aperture height: 15 feet
Date of emulsion coating: July 7, 2006
Emulsion: 80 liters of Rockland Liquid Light—a gelatin silver black and white sensitizer hand-painted onto the fabric under safelight illumination. Emulsion applied on July 7, 2006.
Date of exposure: July 8, 2006 at 11am
Exposure time: 35 minutes beginning at 11:30 a.m. July 8, 2006
Developing materials: 600 gallons traditional B&W developer, 1,200 gallons fixer
Developing “tray”: Eight mil vinyl pool liner contained by a wooden sidewall-114 feet X 35 feet X 6 inches deep
Print Wash: Twin 4.5 inch fire hoses connected to a pair of hydrants tested at 750 gallons-per-minute
Sanctioned by the Guinness Book of Records as the World’s Largest Camera
Sanctioned by the Guinness Book of Records as the World’s Largest Photograph
http://www.legacyphotoproject.com/
Aye_Mere_Watan_Ke_Logo
O! the people of my motherland!
Raise all the slogans you desire,
This is a great day for us all,
Hoist your beloved tricolor,
But don't forget on the border,
The brave did lose their lives,
And remember each great soldier,
Who did not return home ever,
O! the people of my motherland!
Shed a few tears,
For those who martyred on ice,
Remember their great sacrifice!
When injured was the Himalayan might,
Our freedom was in jeopardy,
Till their last breath did they fight,
And then laid their dead body,
Resting their head on the soil,
Sacrificed and slept immortal,
For those who martyred on ice,
Remember their great sacrifice!
When the country celebrated Diwali,
They played the bloody game of Holi,
When we were sitting safe at our homes,
They dealt with deadly bullets and bombs.
Blessed they were those soldiers,
Blessed were their youths,
For those who martyred on ice,
Remember their great sacrifice!
Some Sikh, some Jaat and Maratha,
Some were Gurkha or Madrasi,
But each soldier who died on the border,
Was a brave Hindustani.
The blood that stained the mountain,
That blood was that of an Indian,
For those who martyred on ice,
Remember their great sacrifice!
With blood their body was drenched,
Yet they lifted their rifle and aimed,
One killed tens of the enemy,
Then fell down unconsciously.
When the final moment came on,
They said they will die now,
Be happy! O beloved of the nation,
We embark on eternal journey now,
How great were those patriots,
How great was their pride,
For those who martyred on ice,
Remember their great sacrifice!
Don't you ever forget their glory,
So I narrate this noble story,
For those who martyred on ice,
Remember their great sacrifice!
Victory to India!, Victory to her army!
Victory to India!
Victory to India!
Victory to India
Saturday, 11 August 2007
Crossing the Tiber: (republished material)
This morning, I stumbled across this good piece from a Tyler, Texas newspaper, about the conversion phenomenon commonly known as "Crossing the Tiber" -- when Protestants become Catholic. With some prominent Americans -- including a presidential candidate -- among those who have crossed that river to Rome (symbolically, if not literally), the paper decided to investigate what it means.
They uncovered some rich conversion stories:
When Lori Harris, 49, tried to express what it meant to become a Catholic after being raised in the Church of God of Prophecy, she got tears in her eyes. The buoyant former missionary and home-school teacher was momentarily and uncharacteristically speechless.
"I can't explain it," she finally said in a high, squeaky voice as tears appeared. "I started taking communion as a kid. We even made the flat bread at home for use in our church."
But something was missing from her years as a Protestant Christian, she said. She turned to the Catholic Church and said she found "a deeper expression."
"I saw that through the Eucharist, the (Catholic) church was holding a form and holiness that Protestants simply do not," she said. "There was a deeper understanding of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross."
Mrs. Harris was the daughter of a nonbeliever who was "called to preach" upon conversion in his mid-20s. She was 5 years old.
"Daddy preached in Argo at a small church of about 50, and momma played the Gibson guitar at worship time," she said. "We had the gifts of the spirit, of course, at the church. We prayed for healing for everyone who came to us. We had a jar of (anointing) oil by the door at home for anybody who walked in with a need. We had no medicines at home. We believed in God to heal us. We believed in miracles. I still do. We kids sat in the pews until we fell asleep during late-night revival meetings. Church was our life."
After studying Catholicism for "about three years," she came to Catholicism in 2007. The "Tiber" was popularized by (R.R.) Reno in his book, "In The Ruins of the Church," explained Mrs. Harris.
"The Tiber River is in Rome, but it really means to the crossing over from Protestantism to Catholicism," she said. "I crossed the Tiber on Good Friday of 2007."
There's more, much more, so wander back to the link and continue. We who have grown up in the faith tend to forget just how meaningful it can be to those who are newly arrived. It's good to be reminded of that.
Posted by Deacon Greg Kandra
Friday, 10 August 2007
St.Clare of Assisi is not a shadow of Francis
"Place your mind before the mirror of eternity!
Place your soul in the brilliance of glory!
Place your heart in the figure of the divine substance!
And transform your entire being into the image
of the Godhead Itself through contemplation.
So that you too may feel what His friends feel
as they taste the hidden sweetness
that God Himself has reserved from the beginning
for those who love Him" (3LAg 12-14 ).
Sometimes we are forced to think of Mother Clare as if completely overshadowed by the person and vision of St.francis of Assisi. But this is not to be counted that way. Reading through the sources, there is a strong sense of independence of Clair’s vocation. Francis never wanted her to be a shadow of his. She was such an elegant woman, whom God blessed with pristine discretion to be own her own on the path to Jesus. We cannot for the great regard and inspiration that was between Francis and Clair. But we should not make them dependent in any way. They both had their own ways, though those were almost identical. But we should never oversee the distinctness of graces. Together they complemented and completed the Franciscan ideal.
Remember Clair in no way a shadow of Francis, she had her own light, inspired and guided by Francis.
Wednesday, 8 August 2007
All the king's horses and all the king's men
“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again”.
In our brotherhood, we had the discretion to keep many words below the breath level. Even when forced to utter those, we all knew in all the frankness of the truth and charity that they really discredited our integrity, tranquility and credibility. But yet we had those terms in our gleeful secret talks wherein we talked much and reduced ourselves to mean persons. ‘Small people talk about people...’, as Tobias S. Gibson observes and we know it out of experience. But we always knew how and where to limit ourselves. But recently the things turn the other way, I am afraid.
The talk is about the’ kings’ and ‘kingmakers’, put in black and white with a request for a display on the boards. I do appreciate all the people of character who dared not to place ‘those’ on exhibit, solely because they could recognize that such scraps do not belong to our notice boards, which is indeed a part of tradition ( I know how much value and respect a piece of paper commends, when mounted on our common board, from not so long past experiences….), but to the Paper Shredder machine, so that not even a naughty servant boy should peep into it when he takes it to the burning place.
For heaven’s sake, please don’t transfer personal problems into the entire community. Do not transfer your problems to us, dividing the serenity of the people with whom you share your life in commitment to those three graces. Everybody has their own angels to struggle with, just as Jacob of the Old Testament had. It is such a demanding struggle, that one to come through as a victor. Please do not rob us of our angels and replace devils to wrestle with. Please be charitable enough not to overburden us.
We may be able to term some as ‘kings’ due to their service responsibilities or childish fancies. We all wanted to be the ‘prime players’ all the time during our childhood games. Some people ever refuse to grow up from those infantile obstinacies, due to their wronged notions of self worth. But they are all excellent people, except that they can see others only in pro or con categories. We should all be sensible enough to save those people of their blinded visions, by not joining party to them, in all the charity and space that suits the gospel we believe and preach.
Please remember and be sure that there are no “kingmakers” or “people induced by geographical location of birth”, clamoring for ‘local’ justice. All such ‘local’ dreams shatter the universality of our vocation ideal. But as to be expected in any society, there are a few ‘person-turned-puppets’ dancing to the tunes they themselves so unfamiliar with. They are all wonderful people, except they are so insecure and dependent. We should be charitable enough to extent our understanding and try to bring them back to the knowledge of self-worth. They just need to feel secure.
Someone is there, forcing his insecurities upon us…
Someone is there, making us serve his selfish designs…
Someone is there, telling a lie, in guise of truth…
Someone is there, hiding amidst us, dividing us with all false promises…
Be brave and believe, there is nothing that cannot be solved, if you really want it.
If you want a solution you can have it in all the grandeur and dignity of peacefulness.
If not, you will stay forever as a problem…
Remember nobody really appreciates a problem, though they may tolerate it for some time…
Sunday, 5 August 2007
To touch the face of God
John M.Scott, S.J writes elaborately about this in “Touching the Face of God”. He writes beautifully about the Yosemite “ is a ballet of mountains standing on tiptoe. It is a symphony in stone with sentinel peaks rising like exclamation points in surprise over their own agility. It is a rhapsody of delight in granite monoliths that soar into the zenith as though they never heard of the law of gravity.”( ‘To God on skis’).
It all need the courage to leave the plains and to ascend in pursuit of visions and experiences higher… yes it is time to say good bye to the valleys… do dare to move up….closer to the heavens as near as possible….
Wednesday, 1 August 2007
My Jotting board: Alfred Adler in a breath…
Break away from Freudian notion of Sexual motivation and instincts as determining human nature
Stress on the Dynamics of the whole Family (sibling position. Sibling rivalry, Family constellation)
“STYLE OF LIFE”
Basic helplessness of all the children
Feelings of inadequacy
So the act of compensation or/and of over-compensation
Boy-feminine nature as sister gets more attention,
Shouting nature as father/mother who shouts more wins often the situation,
Delicate child: more care when sick.
The development of “MISTAKEN STYLE OF LIFE”: so they never learn from mistakes
Fear of failure, and the more fear of his/her test of adequacy
link for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Adler
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Are you going to Scarborough fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
He once was a true love of mine
History of this song: http://www.geocities.com/paris/villa/3895/
watch 'celtic woman' perform it: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_45W-Lq7ftw