New Year Letter
By W. H. Auden
Scribd.com
December 31, 2013
Great masters who have shown mankind,
An order it has yet to find.
What if all pedants say of you,
As personalities be true?
All the more honour to you then,
If weaker than some other men.
You had the courage that survives,
Soiled, shabby, egotistic lives.
If poverty or social unsuccess,
Hunted you out of life to play,
It living in another way;
Yet the live quarry all the same,
Were changed to huntsmen in the game.
And the wild furies of the past,
Tracked to their origins at last.
Trapped in a medium’s artifice,
To charity, delight increase.
Now large, magnificent, and calm,
Your changeless presences disarm.
The sullen generations still,
The fright and fidget of the will.
And to the growing and the weak,
Your final transformations speak.
Saying to dreaming, I am deed.
To striving, Courage, I am deed.
To mourning, I remain, Forgive.
And to becoming, I am live.
Wystan Hugh Auden (February 21, 1907 - September 29, 1973)
was an American poet who is regarded by many critics as one
of the greatest writers of the 20th century.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/17929453/wh-AudenNew-Year-
Letter
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Monday, December 30, 2013
Ten Predictions For 2014
Ten Predictions For 2014
By Activist Post
December 30, 2013
As this year comes to a close it is once again time to reflect,
learn from events, and plan for a new year with some
predictions.
Without question, 2013 was not the best year for freedom,
economic prosperity or peace.
The police state has gotten more militarized, intrusive and
violent.
More laws against protesting and press freedoms infested the
Western world.
More money was funneled from the poor to the rich.
And more war was waged with a careless joystick trigger finger.
It is often difficult to see the bright side amid such a maelstrom
of injustice, until one realizes that the greater the oppression
grows, the closer we are to reversing the trend.
2013 also gave us many reasons to be optimistic about the
future for peace, love, and liberty.
In 2013, we witnessed a global uprising to halt unprovoked
military action in Syria.
The powers-that-be demanded war and the people said no.
For those keeping track, it's the first time in history that's
ever happened on a global scale.
Also in 2013, we saw the rise of a global peer-to-peer barter
economy and Bitcoin, which level the economic playing field
much like the Internet did for information dissemination.
The media this year was clearly dominated by the independent
media with the help of whistleblowers like Edward Snowden.
In dictatorial fashion the US government blocked millions of
computers from viewing NSA abuse articles and it was still by
far the biggest story of the year.
There's tremendous momentum for the alternative media going
into 2014.
Finally, the militarized police state is being opposed just as fast
as it is being built.
Its unjustified presence is accelerating the support for ending the
war on drugs and calling into question the role of police in society,
as well as the need for further runaway prison expansion.
We have nearly reached the zenith of the ability for the few
to control the many.
This is evidenced by their great desperation manifesting in
overtly insane and despotic behavior.
2014 will be pivotal. But this is mostly cause for optimism.
That said, there is no question who still currently holds the keys
to unleashing truly devastating weapons, both virtual and real.
2014 certainly could see the realization of something horrible
as the cornered beast lashes out.
Their options to maintain control are becoming scarce, however.
Short of a total Internet take down, full-scale banking collapse,
or the use of a large-scale and devastating false flag event (EMP,
nuclear, "alien"), the elite controllers will almost surely continue
to lose their grip on humanity.
The victories we have experienced in previous years by pressuring
the ruling elite out into the open for all to see is irreversible.
Nearly all establishment institutions are now held in wide disregard
and condemnation for their corruption, dishonesty, manipulation,
ineptitude, and subversion of universal human rights.
2014 very well could mark the critical battle between the dinosaur
system of the feudal elite milking the "commoners", and the
evolution of a new open-source, peer-to-peer model of prosperity
that trusts the power of individual creativity, reputation, and
planet-wide cooperation toward solutions that begin from the
bottom up.
The pyramid of power has been wobbled by pressure from the
bottom in 2013.
We believe that 2014 is the year when that structure begins to
fall.
Here are 10 predictions for 2014:
1. Obamacare Nightmare
The implementation and enforcement of Obamacare will be a
catastrophic failure in 2014.
It will lead to a political awakening on the Left who in large numbers
will lose faith in the ruling class to solve this and other problems.
Some will attempt to offer a solution of a single-payer option like
Medicare for all, which will seem to temporarily calm the storm.
That is until everyone realizes they'll be required by law to accept
"mandated" treatments and untreatments (death panels).
We must, as individuals, become healthier in order to weather
the coming healthcare storm.
2. Growth of Independent Media
2013 saw record traffic to independent media outlets.
Also, big names like Ben Swann and Amber Lyon became
independents.
David Icke's non-profit, uncensored media project The People's
Voice raised over $400K in crowdfunding and launched in 2013.
Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill announced plans for a new
media platform in 2014.
Are these biased, activist reporters? Yes, and thank goodness.
The very fact that there is a growing market for peace and liberty
information is a bellwether for where we're heading as a society.
3. Wide Adoption of Cryptocurrencies
The wild volatility of Bitcoin and its competing cryptocurrencies
has overshadowed the ideological and technological revolution
that has been unleashed.
While many have focused merely on the monetary value of Bitcoin,
we predict that a new wave of understanding will mark the wide
adoption and perhaps the stabilization of the cryptocurrency economy.
Central banks have been exposed all across the planet for the
thieves they are.
People are realizing who the true enemy really is, and they are
beginning to feel empowered by the ability to disrupt that predatory
system.
All they needed was a choice to opt out, and now they have it.
4. The Awakened Take Action
It seems like the whole world is in a state of civil unrest.
It is precisely what arch-globalist Zbigniew Brzezinski warned
his cohorts of.
People are tired of talking and they have lost too much.
Violated, hungry people have nothing to lose by directly
confronting their oppressors.
This does not have to mean physical violence, but it does mean
physical demonstrations of power and a refusal to remain quiet.
We also believe that people will become clearer about making
specific demands, rather than merely being satisfied to show
their outrage.
5. More Whistleblowers Come Forward
2013 may very well go down as the year of the whistleblower;
Edward Snowden being the most prominent among them.
As more people view Snowden as a hero for giving a face
and voice to the human right to privacy, we expect more
whistleblowers to put their lives on the line to expose
hidden truths.
Consequently, we will shift closer to more transparency for
the top and more privacy for citizens; the way a free society
is supposed to function.
6. Expansion of Open-Source Technology
2013 was an incredible year in the area of 3D printing.
We saw the rise and subsequent stifling of 3D printed weapons,
but the technology is still out there and is increasingly open and
falling in cost.
Inventors are launching open-source vehicles, alternative energy
generators, and so much more.
2014 will be a truly breakout year for 3D printing especially, as
well as open-source technologies for everything from farming
to governance.
7. Manufactured Tension With China
We have heard the rhetoric of wars, economic and military,
with China beginning to escalate toward the end of 2013.
We happen to believe that an outright war with China is
very unlikely.
China is part of the very same centralized control system
as the West.
In other words, Coca Cola who just invested $4 billion in China
doesn't want to lose that market and vice versa, so there will
be no war.
Therefore any aggression with China should be viewed as complete
theater to maintain control of domestic populations on both sides.
Rather, we will probably continue to see a series of calculated
economic moves on both sides that tip the balance of "super"
power away from America and toward China.
Nothing new here.
8. Economic Crisis
Some form of great economic crisis is probable in 2014.
Perhaps it will be many small dominoes that lead to something
bigger, but it will no doubt manifest as centralized theft and
more controls.
The kickoff could be the Fed's tapering of quantitative easing
which could crush the momentum in stock markets around the
world.
Or it could be the next battle to raise the US debt ceiling
in February.
As mentioned above, it could be an extension of moves
already made by China.
Whatever the trigger, expect and plan accordingly for more bank
bailouts and bailings, higher food and energy prices, less jobs and
more capital controls, all while fiat currencies continue their steady
or abrupt decline.
9. Attempted Crackdown On Internet Freedom
Warnings of imminent cyber attack and other infrastructure
weakness herald an attempt at a full-scale military takeover
of the Internet.
However, such an extreme measure is probably unlikely in
the short term.
More likely, what will come first is an extension of the attempt to
criminalize whistleblowers, as well as imposing Dianne Feinstein's
suggestion that there be government-approved journalists.
Coupled with the severe penalties for copyright infringement
and other methods of backdoor censorship contained in the
Trans-Pacific Partnership, and 2014 could see a new level of
information warfare.
10. False Flag Watch
As alluded to above, warnings of imminent cyber attacks or a
so-called Pearl Harbor for the Internet have been broadcast by
US security officials for some time.
In our opinion, an attack on the Internet is the most probable
false flag event for 2014.
If it happens, it won't be long before world leaders demand
ending online anonymity.
Also, small, FBI-orchestrated bombers and shooters may make
an appearance as well, but it worked so poorly for them in 2013
to move policy that we think there'll be less of those types of
false flags in 2014.
Finally, the biggest false flag could be whatever economic crisis
manifests in 2014 (see #8).
At minimum, expect desperate manipulation by Wall Street and
Central Banks.
As fragile and interconnected as things are, one spark can set
off the powder keg.
Many of these predictions might seem like wishful thinking,
but to admit that we are powerless to affect change is only
to embrace our own destruction.
We have enough evidence of that already.
And to ignore our victories, no matter how small, is to consign
ourselves to fear, defeatism and worthlessness.
We would do well to identify positive developments and trends,
shifting our focus to the areas we can improve upon, while having
the courage to ignore the increasingly irrelevant concept of power
coming only from the top.
The elite mindset and the top-down philosophy will never disappear
entirely, but it is up to us to build something better and render that
outdated form of control powerless.
http://www.activistpost.com/2013/12/10-predictions-for-2014.html
By Activist Post
December 30, 2013
As this year comes to a close it is once again time to reflect,
learn from events, and plan for a new year with some
predictions.
Without question, 2013 was not the best year for freedom,
economic prosperity or peace.
The police state has gotten more militarized, intrusive and
violent.
More laws against protesting and press freedoms infested the
Western world.
More money was funneled from the poor to the rich.
And more war was waged with a careless joystick trigger finger.
It is often difficult to see the bright side amid such a maelstrom
of injustice, until one realizes that the greater the oppression
grows, the closer we are to reversing the trend.
2013 also gave us many reasons to be optimistic about the
future for peace, love, and liberty.
In 2013, we witnessed a global uprising to halt unprovoked
military action in Syria.
The powers-that-be demanded war and the people said no.
For those keeping track, it's the first time in history that's
ever happened on a global scale.
Also in 2013, we saw the rise of a global peer-to-peer barter
economy and Bitcoin, which level the economic playing field
much like the Internet did for information dissemination.
The media this year was clearly dominated by the independent
media with the help of whistleblowers like Edward Snowden.
In dictatorial fashion the US government blocked millions of
computers from viewing NSA abuse articles and it was still by
far the biggest story of the year.
There's tremendous momentum for the alternative media going
into 2014.
Finally, the militarized police state is being opposed just as fast
as it is being built.
Its unjustified presence is accelerating the support for ending the
war on drugs and calling into question the role of police in society,
as well as the need for further runaway prison expansion.
We have nearly reached the zenith of the ability for the few
to control the many.
This is evidenced by their great desperation manifesting in
overtly insane and despotic behavior.
2014 will be pivotal. But this is mostly cause for optimism.
That said, there is no question who still currently holds the keys
to unleashing truly devastating weapons, both virtual and real.
2014 certainly could see the realization of something horrible
as the cornered beast lashes out.
Their options to maintain control are becoming scarce, however.
Short of a total Internet take down, full-scale banking collapse,
or the use of a large-scale and devastating false flag event (EMP,
nuclear, "alien"), the elite controllers will almost surely continue
to lose their grip on humanity.
The victories we have experienced in previous years by pressuring
the ruling elite out into the open for all to see is irreversible.
Nearly all establishment institutions are now held in wide disregard
and condemnation for their corruption, dishonesty, manipulation,
ineptitude, and subversion of universal human rights.
2014 very well could mark the critical battle between the dinosaur
system of the feudal elite milking the "commoners", and the
evolution of a new open-source, peer-to-peer model of prosperity
that trusts the power of individual creativity, reputation, and
planet-wide cooperation toward solutions that begin from the
bottom up.
The pyramid of power has been wobbled by pressure from the
bottom in 2013.
We believe that 2014 is the year when that structure begins to
fall.
Here are 10 predictions for 2014:
1. Obamacare Nightmare
The implementation and enforcement of Obamacare will be a
catastrophic failure in 2014.
It will lead to a political awakening on the Left who in large numbers
will lose faith in the ruling class to solve this and other problems.
Some will attempt to offer a solution of a single-payer option like
Medicare for all, which will seem to temporarily calm the storm.
That is until everyone realizes they'll be required by law to accept
"mandated" treatments and untreatments (death panels).
We must, as individuals, become healthier in order to weather
the coming healthcare storm.
2. Growth of Independent Media
2013 saw record traffic to independent media outlets.
Also, big names like Ben Swann and Amber Lyon became
independents.
David Icke's non-profit, uncensored media project The People's
Voice raised over $400K in crowdfunding and launched in 2013.
Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill announced plans for a new
media platform in 2014.
Are these biased, activist reporters? Yes, and thank goodness.
The very fact that there is a growing market for peace and liberty
information is a bellwether for where we're heading as a society.
3. Wide Adoption of Cryptocurrencies
The wild volatility of Bitcoin and its competing cryptocurrencies
has overshadowed the ideological and technological revolution
that has been unleashed.
While many have focused merely on the monetary value of Bitcoin,
we predict that a new wave of understanding will mark the wide
adoption and perhaps the stabilization of the cryptocurrency economy.
Central banks have been exposed all across the planet for the
thieves they are.
People are realizing who the true enemy really is, and they are
beginning to feel empowered by the ability to disrupt that predatory
system.
All they needed was a choice to opt out, and now they have it.
4. The Awakened Take Action
It seems like the whole world is in a state of civil unrest.
It is precisely what arch-globalist Zbigniew Brzezinski warned
his cohorts of.
People are tired of talking and they have lost too much.
Violated, hungry people have nothing to lose by directly
confronting their oppressors.
This does not have to mean physical violence, but it does mean
physical demonstrations of power and a refusal to remain quiet.
We also believe that people will become clearer about making
specific demands, rather than merely being satisfied to show
their outrage.
5. More Whistleblowers Come Forward
2013 may very well go down as the year of the whistleblower;
Edward Snowden being the most prominent among them.
As more people view Snowden as a hero for giving a face
and voice to the human right to privacy, we expect more
whistleblowers to put their lives on the line to expose
hidden truths.
Consequently, we will shift closer to more transparency for
the top and more privacy for citizens; the way a free society
is supposed to function.
6. Expansion of Open-Source Technology
2013 was an incredible year in the area of 3D printing.
We saw the rise and subsequent stifling of 3D printed weapons,
but the technology is still out there and is increasingly open and
falling in cost.
Inventors are launching open-source vehicles, alternative energy
generators, and so much more.
2014 will be a truly breakout year for 3D printing especially, as
well as open-source technologies for everything from farming
to governance.
7. Manufactured Tension With China
We have heard the rhetoric of wars, economic and military,
with China beginning to escalate toward the end of 2013.
We happen to believe that an outright war with China is
very unlikely.
China is part of the very same centralized control system
as the West.
In other words, Coca Cola who just invested $4 billion in China
doesn't want to lose that market and vice versa, so there will
be no war.
Therefore any aggression with China should be viewed as complete
theater to maintain control of domestic populations on both sides.
Rather, we will probably continue to see a series of calculated
economic moves on both sides that tip the balance of "super"
power away from America and toward China.
Nothing new here.
8. Economic Crisis
Some form of great economic crisis is probable in 2014.
Perhaps it will be many small dominoes that lead to something
bigger, but it will no doubt manifest as centralized theft and
more controls.
The kickoff could be the Fed's tapering of quantitative easing
which could crush the momentum in stock markets around the
world.
Or it could be the next battle to raise the US debt ceiling
in February.
As mentioned above, it could be an extension of moves
already made by China.
Whatever the trigger, expect and plan accordingly for more bank
bailouts and bailings, higher food and energy prices, less jobs and
more capital controls, all while fiat currencies continue their steady
or abrupt decline.
9. Attempted Crackdown On Internet Freedom
Warnings of imminent cyber attack and other infrastructure
weakness herald an attempt at a full-scale military takeover
of the Internet.
However, such an extreme measure is probably unlikely in
the short term.
More likely, what will come first is an extension of the attempt to
criminalize whistleblowers, as well as imposing Dianne Feinstein's
suggestion that there be government-approved journalists.
Coupled with the severe penalties for copyright infringement
and other methods of backdoor censorship contained in the
Trans-Pacific Partnership, and 2014 could see a new level of
information warfare.
10. False Flag Watch
As alluded to above, warnings of imminent cyber attacks or a
so-called Pearl Harbor for the Internet have been broadcast by
US security officials for some time.
In our opinion, an attack on the Internet is the most probable
false flag event for 2014.
If it happens, it won't be long before world leaders demand
ending online anonymity.
Also, small, FBI-orchestrated bombers and shooters may make
an appearance as well, but it worked so poorly for them in 2013
to move policy that we think there'll be less of those types of
false flags in 2014.
Finally, the biggest false flag could be whatever economic crisis
manifests in 2014 (see #8).
At minimum, expect desperate manipulation by Wall Street and
Central Banks.
As fragile and interconnected as things are, one spark can set
off the powder keg.
Many of these predictions might seem like wishful thinking,
but to admit that we are powerless to affect change is only
to embrace our own destruction.
We have enough evidence of that already.
And to ignore our victories, no matter how small, is to consign
ourselves to fear, defeatism and worthlessness.
We would do well to identify positive developments and trends,
shifting our focus to the areas we can improve upon, while having
the courage to ignore the increasingly irrelevant concept of power
coming only from the top.
The elite mindset and the top-down philosophy will never disappear
entirely, but it is up to us to build something better and render that
outdated form of control powerless.
http://www.activistpost.com/2013/12/10-predictions-for-2014.html
Saturday, December 28, 2013
Mandela, MLK and Jesus
Mandela, MLK and Jesus
By Rev. Howard Bess
Consortiumnews.com
December 28, 2013
We are being reminded that Nelson Mandela was a man of protest,
a protest fueled by his horror of injustice, leading him to spend
many years in jail and to live one of the truly great lives of the
20th Century.
Mandela himself was a privileged man, an educated and
successful lawyer.
His call for justice was not as much for himself as for the millions
of his black brothers and sisters who were held in economic and
political bondage.
The very same description fits Martin Luther King Jr., who was
college and seminary educated and who had earned his PhD at
a prestigious university.
A black Baptist minister with those credentials could have been
an elite American minister recognized for his preaching skills,
if he never uttered a word of protest.
But King protested injustice and became the protest leader
who changed America.
He paid the price of assassination.
Jesus of Nazareth was the great protester of his time, and
he was crucified by Roman soldiers as a result.
The protests of Mandela and King were very public and well
documented by reporters covering the anti-apartheid and
civil rights movements, respectively.
Mandela and King had the advantage of living in an age of radio,
television, newspapers, magazines and books.
Jesus carried on his protest work with the illiterate poor of a
backwater section of Palestine called Galilee.
In Jesus’s culture women were the carriers of the oral traditions
of their clans.
Yet, these recorders of his stories and sayings were illiterate
women who listened, remembered and retold the stories (parables)
and sayings (aphorisms).
Jesus did all of his teaching in Aramaic, the common
language of his area.
His parables and aphorisms were finally written down
two generations later in Greek by literate men.
The Apostle Paul was the first writing Christian leader.
He began writing 15 to 20 years after the death of Jesus,
but he never mentions any of Jesus’s parables or aphorisms.
Paul did not understand Jesus as a man of protest but as a
theological messiah who was sent to the cross by God as a
sacrifice for sin.
For Paul, the cross was an altar of sacrifice rather than a
Roman tool of execution.
The earliest written records of Jesus’s parables, aphorisms
and other stories reflecting his concern for the poor and his
opposition to injustice also were put down in Greek, but two
and three generations after his death in a very different
political and religious context.
The Jesus, as recounted by these writers, was a theological
Jesus, too, a man with a miraculous birth whose life on Earth
ended with his resurrection from the dead.
But their inclusion of his sermons and other teachings left
behind clues of the historical Jesus.
For 2,000 years, with few exceptions, Christian churches
have pursued the theological Jesus and have said little
about his ministry of protest.
Yet, with the help of persistent Bible scholarship, we are now
able to consider the unadorned parables of Jesus and place
them in the economic, religious and political context in which
the stories were told.
When the teachings of Jesus are liberated from the theologies
of Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, a very different Jesus
appears on our screen, a master teacher whose primary tools
were the stories that he told.
His stories were discussion starters.
They were vivid and often carried a high level of exaggeration.
They were colorful.
Typically they were stories without a stated conclusion.
They were memorable.
Whenever a parable of Jesus is read, the reader rightfully
asks who might have been in his listening audiences.
They were rural, illiterate Jews who lived in Galilee in
incredible poverty and under the cruelties of Roman rule.
The crowds that listened to Jesus were the expendables.
The unadorned parables of Jesus cover a broad range of topics.
They cover worker/employer relationships, wage rates, the obscene
living style of the rich, the utter poverty of working people, the
arrogance of religious leaders, the wealth gap between the rich and
the poor, the social segregation of the rich from the poor, and the
absurdity of ritual practices demanded by the ruling hierarchy that
controlled the Jerusalem temple.
Today most every Christian minister who is a seminary graduate
will or should know these glaring facts about the life and teachings
of Jesus.
Yet people in the pews often are ignorant of the things that the
minister knows about the historical Jesus.
A typical minister hides safely behind moral niceties and comforting
clichés.
If American ministers took the Jesus messages seriously, they
would be preaching about the urgent need to increase the
minimum wage to a livable wage; they would be leading a
fight to empty our prisons; they would be walking picket
lines for immigration reform so that immigrants would again
be welcomed rather than despised; they would join the call
for equal rights for all minorities including gay and lesbian
Americans; they would work for an education system that is
free and open to all; and they would be urging their congregants
to recruit and motivate people to vote for candidates who are
committed to the common good rather than special interests.
Jesus was a protester against the social, economic and religious
inequities of his day.
He showed us a better way.
Every disciple/follower of Jesus should do no less.
Christians should be protesting injustice in every form.
We should be protesting, knowing there are better ways.
The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister,
who lives in Palmer, Alaska.
http://consortiumnews.com/2013/12/22/mandela-mlk-and-
jesus
By Rev. Howard Bess
Consortiumnews.com
December 28, 2013
We are being reminded that Nelson Mandela was a man of protest,
a protest fueled by his horror of injustice, leading him to spend
many years in jail and to live one of the truly great lives of the
20th Century.
Mandela himself was a privileged man, an educated and
successful lawyer.
His call for justice was not as much for himself as for the millions
of his black brothers and sisters who were held in economic and
political bondage.
The very same description fits Martin Luther King Jr., who was
college and seminary educated and who had earned his PhD at
a prestigious university.
A black Baptist minister with those credentials could have been
an elite American minister recognized for his preaching skills,
if he never uttered a word of protest.
But King protested injustice and became the protest leader
who changed America.
He paid the price of assassination.
Jesus of Nazareth was the great protester of his time, and
he was crucified by Roman soldiers as a result.
The protests of Mandela and King were very public and well
documented by reporters covering the anti-apartheid and
civil rights movements, respectively.
Mandela and King had the advantage of living in an age of radio,
television, newspapers, magazines and books.
Jesus carried on his protest work with the illiterate poor of a
backwater section of Palestine called Galilee.
In Jesus’s culture women were the carriers of the oral traditions
of their clans.
Yet, these recorders of his stories and sayings were illiterate
women who listened, remembered and retold the stories (parables)
and sayings (aphorisms).
Jesus did all of his teaching in Aramaic, the common
language of his area.
His parables and aphorisms were finally written down
two generations later in Greek by literate men.
The Apostle Paul was the first writing Christian leader.
He began writing 15 to 20 years after the death of Jesus,
but he never mentions any of Jesus’s parables or aphorisms.
Paul did not understand Jesus as a man of protest but as a
theological messiah who was sent to the cross by God as a
sacrifice for sin.
For Paul, the cross was an altar of sacrifice rather than a
Roman tool of execution.
The earliest written records of Jesus’s parables, aphorisms
and other stories reflecting his concern for the poor and his
opposition to injustice also were put down in Greek, but two
and three generations after his death in a very different
political and religious context.
The Jesus, as recounted by these writers, was a theological
Jesus, too, a man with a miraculous birth whose life on Earth
ended with his resurrection from the dead.
But their inclusion of his sermons and other teachings left
behind clues of the historical Jesus.
For 2,000 years, with few exceptions, Christian churches
have pursued the theological Jesus and have said little
about his ministry of protest.
Yet, with the help of persistent Bible scholarship, we are now
able to consider the unadorned parables of Jesus and place
them in the economic, religious and political context in which
the stories were told.
When the teachings of Jesus are liberated from the theologies
of Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, a very different Jesus
appears on our screen, a master teacher whose primary tools
were the stories that he told.
His stories were discussion starters.
They were vivid and often carried a high level of exaggeration.
They were colorful.
Typically they were stories without a stated conclusion.
They were memorable.
Whenever a parable of Jesus is read, the reader rightfully
asks who might have been in his listening audiences.
They were rural, illiterate Jews who lived in Galilee in
incredible poverty and under the cruelties of Roman rule.
The crowds that listened to Jesus were the expendables.
The unadorned parables of Jesus cover a broad range of topics.
They cover worker/employer relationships, wage rates, the obscene
living style of the rich, the utter poverty of working people, the
arrogance of religious leaders, the wealth gap between the rich and
the poor, the social segregation of the rich from the poor, and the
absurdity of ritual practices demanded by the ruling hierarchy that
controlled the Jerusalem temple.
Today most every Christian minister who is a seminary graduate
will or should know these glaring facts about the life and teachings
of Jesus.
Yet people in the pews often are ignorant of the things that the
minister knows about the historical Jesus.
A typical minister hides safely behind moral niceties and comforting
clichés.
If American ministers took the Jesus messages seriously, they
would be preaching about the urgent need to increase the
minimum wage to a livable wage; they would be leading a
fight to empty our prisons; they would be walking picket
lines for immigration reform so that immigrants would again
be welcomed rather than despised; they would join the call
for equal rights for all minorities including gay and lesbian
Americans; they would work for an education system that is
free and open to all; and they would be urging their congregants
to recruit and motivate people to vote for candidates who are
committed to the common good rather than special interests.
Jesus was a protester against the social, economic and religious
inequities of his day.
He showed us a better way.
Every disciple/follower of Jesus should do no less.
Christians should be protesting injustice in every form.
We should be protesting, knowing there are better ways.
The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister,
who lives in Palmer, Alaska.
http://consortiumnews.com/2013/12/22/mandela-mlk-and-
jesus
Monday, December 23, 2013
Wishing Upon A Star
Wishing Upon A Star
On December 18th I was blessed to reach the age of 48.
For my birthday this year, I bought myself a telescope.
I did this because for five years I was homeless.
And during the course of this time I would sometimes at night
look up into the sky to try to find a star to make a wish upon.
Even though I was homeless, I never would use my one nightly
wish to wish for money, to wish for a job, or to even wish for
a place to live for that matter.
No, instead I would use my one nightly wish to wish for,
"Understanding."
You see, I really want the people to understand why I had to spend
the last three plus years of my life, living as a homeless man.
You see, I really want the people to understand what, "Expotera" is.
You see, I really want the people to understand why I decided to
stand up to Bill Gates, and to his company Microsoft, when he and
they, tried to openly steal Expotera completely away from me back
in April of 2008.
You see, I want the people to truly understand what,
"Crony Capitalism" really is.
You see, I want the people to truly understand what,
"Social Justice" really is.
You see, I want the people to truly understand what,
"Exponential Growth" really is.
You see, I want the people to truly understand what,
"Monthly Residual Income" really is.
You see, I want the people to truly understand what,
"Inter Networking" really is.
You see, I want the people to understand that now is the time for,
"The Meek To Inherit The Earth."
You see, I want the people to understand that now is the time to start, "Demanding The Manifestation Of That Which We Have Already Received."
You see, I want the people to understand that my fifteen year old
teenaged Mother abandon me at birth.
You see, I want the people to understand that people have been
crossing me off their lists, and leaving me for dead, for my entire
life.
You see, I want the people to understand that I am nothing
more than a sinner, who is now trying to become a saint.
You see, I want the people to understand that I am a man
who knows about extremes.
You see, I want the people to understand that I know what it
takes and I know how to put together complex multi-million
dollar business deals.
Yet, I want the people to understand that I know what it is like
to have to stand in line to accept handouts, and I know what it
is like to sleep under a bridge with nothing but my backpack for
a pillow, and my jacket as a blanket.
You see, I want the world to understand that, "God Has A History
Of Using The Insignificant, To Accomplish The Impossible."
You see, I want the world to understand that some of us have
now been sent here to bring, "Plenty Out Of Lack And Justice
Out Of Injustice."
You see I want the world to understand that, "That The Tallest And
The Mightiest Oak In The Forest, Was Once Only A Little Nut, Who
Simply Held It's Ground."
You see, I want my daughter to fully understand that I will always,
always, always, love her, no matter the time, no matter the place,
no matter the distance, and no matter the space.
You see, I want my ex-wife to simply understand, that I will never,
ever, understand the past fifteen plus years since our divorce, but
I completely understand why our marriage needed to come to an
end.
You see, I want everyone to understand just how deeply and how
eternally grateful I am to each and everyone of you who has now
personally helped me in one way or another over these past three
very challenging years.
You see, I want everyone to understand, that sometimes bad
things happen to good people, but no one should ever have to
be, "Homeless" in a world full of empty houses, abandon buildings,
empty apartments, and brand new multi-billion dollar sports
facilities.
You see, I just want everyone to understand, that I now understand
how the game at the top of the economic pyramid is really played,
as well as how the game at the bottom of the economic pyramid
can now be saved.
You see, this is my simple wish upon a star, "Understanding" for
everyone, no matter who or where you are.
You see, I have now been blessed with a warm place to live, but
this is still my very simple, yet quite complex wish upon a star,
"Understanding" for everyone, no matter who, or no matter where
you are.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
On December 18th I was blessed to reach the age of 48.
For my birthday this year, I bought myself a telescope.
I did this because for five years I was homeless.
And during the course of this time I would sometimes at night
look up into the sky to try to find a star to make a wish upon.
Even though I was homeless, I never would use my one nightly
wish to wish for money, to wish for a job, or to even wish for
a place to live for that matter.
No, instead I would use my one nightly wish to wish for,
"Understanding."
You see, I really want the people to understand why I had to spend
the last three plus years of my life, living as a homeless man.
You see, I really want the people to understand what, "Expotera" is.
You see, I really want the people to understand why I decided to
stand up to Bill Gates, and to his company Microsoft, when he and
they, tried to openly steal Expotera completely away from me back
in April of 2008.
You see, I want the people to truly understand what,
"Crony Capitalism" really is.
You see, I want the people to truly understand what,
"Social Justice" really is.
You see, I want the people to truly understand what,
"Exponential Growth" really is.
You see, I want the people to truly understand what,
"Monthly Residual Income" really is.
You see, I want the people to truly understand what,
"Inter Networking" really is.
You see, I want the people to understand that now is the time for,
"The Meek To Inherit The Earth."
You see, I want the people to understand that now is the time to start, "Demanding The Manifestation Of That Which We Have Already Received."
You see, I want the people to understand that my fifteen year old
teenaged Mother abandon me at birth.
You see, I want the people to understand that people have been
crossing me off their lists, and leaving me for dead, for my entire
life.
You see, I want the people to understand that I am nothing
more than a sinner, who is now trying to become a saint.
You see, I want the people to understand that I am a man
who knows about extremes.
You see, I want the people to understand that I know what it
takes and I know how to put together complex multi-million
dollar business deals.
Yet, I want the people to understand that I know what it is like
to have to stand in line to accept handouts, and I know what it
is like to sleep under a bridge with nothing but my backpack for
a pillow, and my jacket as a blanket.
You see, I want the world to understand that, "God Has A History
Of Using The Insignificant, To Accomplish The Impossible."
You see, I want the world to understand that some of us have
now been sent here to bring, "Plenty Out Of Lack And Justice
Out Of Injustice."
You see I want the world to understand that, "That The Tallest And
The Mightiest Oak In The Forest, Was Once Only A Little Nut, Who
Simply Held It's Ground."
You see, I want my daughter to fully understand that I will always,
always, always, love her, no matter the time, no matter the place,
no matter the distance, and no matter the space.
You see, I want my ex-wife to simply understand, that I will never,
ever, understand the past fifteen plus years since our divorce, but
I completely understand why our marriage needed to come to an
end.
You see, I want everyone to understand just how deeply and how
eternally grateful I am to each and everyone of you who has now
personally helped me in one way or another over these past three
very challenging years.
You see, I want everyone to understand, that sometimes bad
things happen to good people, but no one should ever have to
be, "Homeless" in a world full of empty houses, abandon buildings,
empty apartments, and brand new multi-billion dollar sports
facilities.
You see, I just want everyone to understand, that I now understand
how the game at the top of the economic pyramid is really played,
as well as how the game at the bottom of the economic pyramid
can now be saved.
You see, this is my simple wish upon a star, "Understanding" for
everyone, no matter who or where you are.
You see, I have now been blessed with a warm place to live, but
this is still my very simple, yet quite complex wish upon a star,
"Understanding" for everyone, no matter who, or no matter where
you are.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Sunday, December 22, 2013
The House of Christmas
The House of Christmas
By G.K. Chesterton
December 22, 2013
There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.
For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay on their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honor and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.
A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost - how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky's dome.
This world is wild as an old wives' tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.
To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton, (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) was an
English writer. He wrote on philosophy, ontology, poetry, plays, journalism, public lectures and debates, literary and art criticism,
biography, Christian apologetics, and fiction, including fantasy
and detective fiction.
By G.K. Chesterton
December 22, 2013
There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.
For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay on their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honor and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.
A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost - how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky's dome.
This world is wild as an old wives' tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.
To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton, (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) was an
English writer. He wrote on philosophy, ontology, poetry, plays, journalism, public lectures and debates, literary and art criticism,
biography, Christian apologetics, and fiction, including fantasy
and detective fiction.
Friday, December 20, 2013
Work For Peace
Work For Peace
By Gil Scott-Herron
Information Clearing House
December 20, 2013
Back when Eisenhower was the President,
Golf courses was where most of his time was spent.
So I never really listened to what the President said,
Because in general I believed that the General was
politically dead.
But he always seemed to know when the muscles were about to
be flexed, Because I remember him saying something, mumbling
something about a Military Industrial Complex.
Americans no longer fight to keep their shores safe,
Just to keep the jobs going in the arms making workplace.
Then they pretend to be gripped by some sort of political reflex,
But all they're doing is paying dues to the Military Industrial Complex.
The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary.
The Military and the Monetary,
Get together whenever they think its necessary,
They turn our brothers and sisters into mercenaries,
They are turning the planet into a cemetery.
The Military and the Monetary,
Use the media as intermediaries,
They are determined to keep the citizens secondary,
They make so many decisions that are arbitrary.
We're marching behind a commander in chief,
Who is standing under a spotlight shaking like a leaf.
But the ship of state had landed on an economic reef,
So we knew he was going to bring us messages of grief.
The Military and the Monetary,
Were shielded by January and went storming into February,
Brought us pot bellied generals as luminaries,
Two weeks ago I hadn't heard of the son of a bitch,
Now all of a sudden he's legendary.
They took the honor from the honorary,
They took the dignity from the dignitaries,
They took the secrets from the secretary,
But they left the bitch in obituary.
The Military and the Monetary,
From thousands of miles away in a Saudi Arabian sanctuary,
Had us all scrambling for our dictionaries,
Cause we couldn't understand the fucking vocabulary.
Yeah, there was some smart bombs,
But there was some dumb ones as well,
Scared the hell out of CNN in that Baghdad hotel.
The Military and the Monetary,
They get together whenever they think its necessary,
War in the desert sometimes sure is scary,
But they beamed out the war to all their subsidiaries.
Tried to make So Damn Insane a worthy adversary,
Keeping the citizens secondary,
Scaring old folks into coronaries.
The Military and the Monetary,
From thousands of miles in a Saudi Arabian sanctuary,
Kept us all wondering if all of this was really truly, necessary.
We've got to work for Peace,
Peace ain't coming this way.
If we only work for Peace,
If everyone believed in Peace the way they say they do,
We'd have Peace.
The only thing wrong with Peace,
Is that you can't make no money from it.
The Military and the Monetary,
They get together whenever they think its necessary,
They've turned our brothers and sisters into mercenaries,
They are turning the planet, into a cemetery.
Got to work for Peace,
Peace ain't coming this way.
We should not allow ourselves to be mislead,
By talk of entering a time of Peace,
Peace is not the absence of war,
It is the absence of the rules of war and the threats of war
and the preparation for war.
Peace is not the absence of war,
It is the time when we will all bring ourselves closer to each other,
Closer to building a structure that is unique within ourselves
Because we have finally come to Peace within ourselves.
The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary.
Get together whenever they think its necessary,
They've turned our brothers and sisters into mercenaries,
They are turning parts of the planet, into a cemetery.
The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary,
We hounded the Ayatollah religiously,
Bombed Libya and killed Quadafi's son hideously.
We turned our back on our allies the Panamanians,
And saw Ollie North selling guns to the Iranians.
Watched Gorbachev slaughtering Lithuanians,
We better warn the Amish,
They may bomb the Pennsylvanians.
The Military and the Monetary,
Get together whenever they think its necessary,
They have turned our brothers and sisters into mercenaries,
They are turning the planet, into a cemetery.
I don't want to sound like no late night commercial,
But its a matter of fact that there are thousands of children all over
the world in Asia and Africa and in South America who need our help.
When they start talking about 55 cents a day and 70 cents a day,
I know a lot of folks feel as though,
That's not really any kind of contribution to make,
But we had to give up a dollar and a half just to get in the
subway nowadays.
So this is a song about tomorrow and about how tomorrow
can be better.
If we all, Each one reach one, Each one try to teach one.
Nobody can do everything,
But everybody can do something,
Everyone must play a part,
Everyone got to go to work, Work for Peace.
Spirit Say Work, Work for Peace
If you believe the things you say, go to work.
If you believe in Peace, time to go to work.
Can't be wavin your head no more, go to work.
Gilbert "Gil" Scott-Heron (April 1, 1949 – May 27, 2011) was an
American soul and jazz poet,musician, and author, known primarily
for his work as a spoken word performer in the 1970s and '80s.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33379.htm
By Gil Scott-Herron
Information Clearing House
December 20, 2013
Back when Eisenhower was the President,
Golf courses was where most of his time was spent.
So I never really listened to what the President said,
Because in general I believed that the General was
politically dead.
But he always seemed to know when the muscles were about to
be flexed, Because I remember him saying something, mumbling
something about a Military Industrial Complex.
Americans no longer fight to keep their shores safe,
Just to keep the jobs going in the arms making workplace.
Then they pretend to be gripped by some sort of political reflex,
But all they're doing is paying dues to the Military Industrial Complex.
The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary.
The Military and the Monetary,
Get together whenever they think its necessary,
They turn our brothers and sisters into mercenaries,
They are turning the planet into a cemetery.
The Military and the Monetary,
Use the media as intermediaries,
They are determined to keep the citizens secondary,
They make so many decisions that are arbitrary.
We're marching behind a commander in chief,
Who is standing under a spotlight shaking like a leaf.
But the ship of state had landed on an economic reef,
So we knew he was going to bring us messages of grief.
The Military and the Monetary,
Were shielded by January and went storming into February,
Brought us pot bellied generals as luminaries,
Two weeks ago I hadn't heard of the son of a bitch,
Now all of a sudden he's legendary.
They took the honor from the honorary,
They took the dignity from the dignitaries,
They took the secrets from the secretary,
But they left the bitch in obituary.
The Military and the Monetary,
From thousands of miles away in a Saudi Arabian sanctuary,
Had us all scrambling for our dictionaries,
Cause we couldn't understand the fucking vocabulary.
Yeah, there was some smart bombs,
But there was some dumb ones as well,
Scared the hell out of CNN in that Baghdad hotel.
The Military and the Monetary,
They get together whenever they think its necessary,
War in the desert sometimes sure is scary,
But they beamed out the war to all their subsidiaries.
Tried to make So Damn Insane a worthy adversary,
Keeping the citizens secondary,
Scaring old folks into coronaries.
The Military and the Monetary,
From thousands of miles in a Saudi Arabian sanctuary,
Kept us all wondering if all of this was really truly, necessary.
We've got to work for Peace,
Peace ain't coming this way.
If we only work for Peace,
If everyone believed in Peace the way they say they do,
We'd have Peace.
The only thing wrong with Peace,
Is that you can't make no money from it.
The Military and the Monetary,
They get together whenever they think its necessary,
They've turned our brothers and sisters into mercenaries,
They are turning the planet, into a cemetery.
Got to work for Peace,
Peace ain't coming this way.
We should not allow ourselves to be mislead,
By talk of entering a time of Peace,
Peace is not the absence of war,
It is the absence of the rules of war and the threats of war
and the preparation for war.
Peace is not the absence of war,
It is the time when we will all bring ourselves closer to each other,
Closer to building a structure that is unique within ourselves
Because we have finally come to Peace within ourselves.
The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary.
Get together whenever they think its necessary,
They've turned our brothers and sisters into mercenaries,
They are turning parts of the planet, into a cemetery.
The Military and the Monetary,
The Military and the Monetary,
We hounded the Ayatollah religiously,
Bombed Libya and killed Quadafi's son hideously.
We turned our back on our allies the Panamanians,
And saw Ollie North selling guns to the Iranians.
Watched Gorbachev slaughtering Lithuanians,
We better warn the Amish,
They may bomb the Pennsylvanians.
The Military and the Monetary,
Get together whenever they think its necessary,
They have turned our brothers and sisters into mercenaries,
They are turning the planet, into a cemetery.
I don't want to sound like no late night commercial,
But its a matter of fact that there are thousands of children all over
the world in Asia and Africa and in South America who need our help.
When they start talking about 55 cents a day and 70 cents a day,
I know a lot of folks feel as though,
That's not really any kind of contribution to make,
But we had to give up a dollar and a half just to get in the
subway nowadays.
So this is a song about tomorrow and about how tomorrow
can be better.
If we all, Each one reach one, Each one try to teach one.
Nobody can do everything,
But everybody can do something,
Everyone must play a part,
Everyone got to go to work, Work for Peace.
Spirit Say Work, Work for Peace
If you believe the things you say, go to work.
If you believe in Peace, time to go to work.
Can't be wavin your head no more, go to work.
Gilbert "Gil" Scott-Heron (April 1, 1949 – May 27, 2011) was an
American soul and jazz poet,musician, and author, known primarily
for his work as a spoken word performer in the 1970s and '80s.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33379.htm
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
The Sagittarius Man
Love, Sex, Friendship, Style
By Cafe Astrology.com
December 17, 2013
Sagittarius Men - Personality
When dealing with the Sagittarius man, remember that not all
who wander are lost.
He is a vagabond and an eternal traveler. It's not all fun and
games, though.
He seeks Truth, Beauty, and Wisdom, and the only way he can
find these ideals is to travel, meet others, and ask some soul-
searching questions.
Knowledge is important to the Sagittarius man as it drives his
attitude to life.
He is interested in philosophy, religion, and the meaning of
everything.
Sagittarius is represented by an Archer-Centaur.
In Roman mythology of the past, centaurs were wise intellectuals,
and the same parallel can be drawn for the intellectual Sagittarius
man of the present.
He is a clear, logical thinker, with a big picture approach to any
situation.
He is also an enthusiastic listener, who will absorb what you have
to say, before processing the information and coming to his own
conclusions and decisions.
However, he does this so quickly that he can miss important
details.
Ruled by Jupiter, ruler of the Gods, the Sagittarius man has
a certain noble bearing.
He demonstrates the flair and confidence of a born leader and
is both generous and just.
Seeking knowledge incessantly, a Sagittarian man has a thirst
for everything that is new and unknown.
This need to continue exploring means that if you don't give
him enough space, he will start to feel closed in and become
high strung.
Lady Luck shines on the Sagittarius man. He is charming
and outgoing, with a gambler's rakishness.
A Sagittarius will usually have a wide social circle.
He can be easily distracted, as absolutely everything is
fascinating to the Sagittarius man – he is an equal
opportunity truth seeker and will flit from one idea
to another, never looking back.
An eternal optimistic, he enjoys his explorations of life,
wherever his path may take him.
This is the adventurer of the zodiac.
Love, Sex, Romance, and Relationships with Sagittarius Men
When it comes to the game of love, the Archer never misses
his target.
He is playful, flirtatious, and always in control.
His open mind and eternally curious nature means that a
Sagittarius man's love affairs are never the same from one
to the other.
He has to understand what love is, before he can fall in love.
The Sagittarius man can sometimes demonstrate a duality
of personality, one minute a flirtatious, irresistible player,
the other a sedate, old married man.
Which one is the real Sagittarian?
He's just trying to reflect the reality of love itself, both the
heady, butterflies-in-your-tummy feeling of new love, and
the steady, banked, and burning flame of a love that has
stayed the test of time.
The Sagittarius man seeks a partner who shares his lust for
everything that is new and different.
He wants a companion to travel with him to diverse places
both metaphoric and physical.
Just remember that with your impulsive Sagittarian, anything
is possible, from a coffee table discussion on the impact of
global warming and what it means to the coral reefs of the
oceans, to booking a flight departing tomorrow morning, to
actually going to monitor dead fish at reefs halfway across
the world.
His own independence must not be curtailed, and he will
expect his mate to be equally secure and independent.
He is neither jealous nor possessive.
Fun, spontaneous, and fiery in bed, a Sagittarius man
is an accomplished lover.
His own straightforward nature appreciates a partner
with the bravery to make the first move.
Physicality is very important to him, and he will have
a few conquests notched on his bedpost.
He is self-assured and open-minded, which means that there
is very little in terms of venue, position, or accessories that
your Archer will not be willing to try out.
Sex is every Sagittarius man's favorite sport, and this half man,
half centaur sign won't mind relinquishing control in between
the sheets to the right horsepartner.
Dressage, anyone?
He is generally considered most compatible with Aries, Leo,
Libra, and Aquarius.
Understanding Sagittarius Men
Always the optimist, the Sagittarius man looks forward
to each new day and the adventure it holds for him.
Whether it is travel, work, or play, this guy tries to increase
his knowledge with everything he does.
The Sagittarius man is a seeker of truth and wants to
discover what life is really all about.
Fascinated by everything around him, this open-minded man
is quick to explore new and controversial subjects, especially
in the areas of religion, morality, and philosophy.
Once you get the Sagittarius man started you will find yourself
deeply involved in an intellectually stimulating conversation
about whatever subject you choose.
The Sagittarius man doesn't work off a schedule, so there's
no sense handing him one.
Timetables are too restricting and he needs the flexibility to
change his plans to suit him, not someone else.
Money & The Sagittarius Man
The Sagittarius man's life is not dominated by money.
He needs it, but not as much as he needs his independence, and
this gentleman may feel that any long term, locked-in investments
could deprive him of that autonomy.
Sometimes too optimistic, the Sagittarius man may overlook any
negative aspects of his financial decisions, so caution must always
play a significant part in this man's fiscal planning.
Fashion & The Sagittarius Man
The color purple represents artistic creativity, so this hue will be
found in the imaginative Sagittarius man's life.
Turquoise is another color associated with the sign of the Archer.
Being a free-spirited intellectual, the Sagittarius man would have
embraced the ‘hippie' culture.
Even today, this man shows signs of being a bit restless and
irresponsible, and while some might have a cutting edge wardrobe,
many Sagittarian men are slapdash in their dress.
Check out this man's workshop and you'll find all the modern tools,
you just won't find them put away in a neat and tidy order.
Relationships & The Sagittarius Man
Cheerful and trustworthy with a lot of friends, that's the
Sagittarius man.
He's generous and always willing to help friends and family
when they need it, but his sometimes reckless character
causes him to make commitments he's unable to fulfill.
Ask the Sagittarius man for advice and he'll give it without
hesitation, but his straightforward and honest response may
not always be what you want to hear.
Don't ask this man a question unless you're ready for his answer!
Romance & The Sagittarius Man
Partners may want this man to express his affection and dedication
more than he does, but the Sagittarius man's freestyle nature often
prevents him from making these emotional commitments.
An imaginative lover, the Sagittarius man shows no inhibition
when it comes to bedroom antics and will enthusiastically explore
new areas of romance with his partner.
Health & The Sagittarius Man
It's easy to understand why the Sagittarius man is always active
once you realize that his Zodiac sign rules the hip and thigh
sections of the body, areas characterizing motion in the human
anatomy.
Aches, fractures, and bruising are common in the hip and thigh
regions of the Sagittarius man's body.
Controlling his weight by staying active is good, but he must be
careful and not put excess strain on his legs.
He may put on some extra weight in his later years, but the
Sagittarius man doesn't worry about this, he's still physically
attractive and accepts it as part of maturing.
Career & The Sagittarius Man
The Sagittarius man needs to be challenged with new and thought-
provoking tasks.
If you don't keep him intellectually motivated, this gentleman will
quickly move on.
Entrepreneur, market researcher, forester, academic, travel guide,
consultant, philosopher, teacher, or publisher, these are all
occupations that the Sagittarius man should consider.
Highly idealistic, the Sagittarius man is a humanitarian who would
flourish in any vocation where he could see himself as a defender
of the right, and supporter of the underdog.
http://www.cafeastrology.com/articles/sagittariusmanlove.html
By Cafe Astrology.com
December 17, 2013
Sagittarius Men - Personality
When dealing with the Sagittarius man, remember that not all
who wander are lost.
He is a vagabond and an eternal traveler. It's not all fun and
games, though.
He seeks Truth, Beauty, and Wisdom, and the only way he can
find these ideals is to travel, meet others, and ask some soul-
searching questions.
Knowledge is important to the Sagittarius man as it drives his
attitude to life.
He is interested in philosophy, religion, and the meaning of
everything.
Sagittarius is represented by an Archer-Centaur.
In Roman mythology of the past, centaurs were wise intellectuals,
and the same parallel can be drawn for the intellectual Sagittarius
man of the present.
He is a clear, logical thinker, with a big picture approach to any
situation.
He is also an enthusiastic listener, who will absorb what you have
to say, before processing the information and coming to his own
conclusions and decisions.
However, he does this so quickly that he can miss important
details.
Ruled by Jupiter, ruler of the Gods, the Sagittarius man has
a certain noble bearing.
He demonstrates the flair and confidence of a born leader and
is both generous and just.
Seeking knowledge incessantly, a Sagittarian man has a thirst
for everything that is new and unknown.
This need to continue exploring means that if you don't give
him enough space, he will start to feel closed in and become
high strung.
Lady Luck shines on the Sagittarius man. He is charming
and outgoing, with a gambler's rakishness.
A Sagittarius will usually have a wide social circle.
He can be easily distracted, as absolutely everything is
fascinating to the Sagittarius man – he is an equal
opportunity truth seeker and will flit from one idea
to another, never looking back.
An eternal optimistic, he enjoys his explorations of life,
wherever his path may take him.
This is the adventurer of the zodiac.
Love, Sex, Romance, and Relationships with Sagittarius Men
When it comes to the game of love, the Archer never misses
his target.
He is playful, flirtatious, and always in control.
His open mind and eternally curious nature means that a
Sagittarius man's love affairs are never the same from one
to the other.
He has to understand what love is, before he can fall in love.
The Sagittarius man can sometimes demonstrate a duality
of personality, one minute a flirtatious, irresistible player,
the other a sedate, old married man.
Which one is the real Sagittarian?
He's just trying to reflect the reality of love itself, both the
heady, butterflies-in-your-tummy feeling of new love, and
the steady, banked, and burning flame of a love that has
stayed the test of time.
The Sagittarius man seeks a partner who shares his lust for
everything that is new and different.
He wants a companion to travel with him to diverse places
both metaphoric and physical.
Just remember that with your impulsive Sagittarian, anything
is possible, from a coffee table discussion on the impact of
global warming and what it means to the coral reefs of the
oceans, to booking a flight departing tomorrow morning, to
actually going to monitor dead fish at reefs halfway across
the world.
His own independence must not be curtailed, and he will
expect his mate to be equally secure and independent.
He is neither jealous nor possessive.
Fun, spontaneous, and fiery in bed, a Sagittarius man
is an accomplished lover.
His own straightforward nature appreciates a partner
with the bravery to make the first move.
Physicality is very important to him, and he will have
a few conquests notched on his bedpost.
He is self-assured and open-minded, which means that there
is very little in terms of venue, position, or accessories that
your Archer will not be willing to try out.
Sex is every Sagittarius man's favorite sport, and this half man,
half centaur sign won't mind relinquishing control in between
the sheets to the right horsepartner.
Dressage, anyone?
He is generally considered most compatible with Aries, Leo,
Libra, and Aquarius.
Understanding Sagittarius Men
Always the optimist, the Sagittarius man looks forward
to each new day and the adventure it holds for him.
Whether it is travel, work, or play, this guy tries to increase
his knowledge with everything he does.
The Sagittarius man is a seeker of truth and wants to
discover what life is really all about.
Fascinated by everything around him, this open-minded man
is quick to explore new and controversial subjects, especially
in the areas of religion, morality, and philosophy.
Once you get the Sagittarius man started you will find yourself
deeply involved in an intellectually stimulating conversation
about whatever subject you choose.
The Sagittarius man doesn't work off a schedule, so there's
no sense handing him one.
Timetables are too restricting and he needs the flexibility to
change his plans to suit him, not someone else.
Money & The Sagittarius Man
The Sagittarius man's life is not dominated by money.
He needs it, but not as much as he needs his independence, and
this gentleman may feel that any long term, locked-in investments
could deprive him of that autonomy.
Sometimes too optimistic, the Sagittarius man may overlook any
negative aspects of his financial decisions, so caution must always
play a significant part in this man's fiscal planning.
Fashion & The Sagittarius Man
The color purple represents artistic creativity, so this hue will be
found in the imaginative Sagittarius man's life.
Turquoise is another color associated with the sign of the Archer.
Being a free-spirited intellectual, the Sagittarius man would have
embraced the ‘hippie' culture.
Even today, this man shows signs of being a bit restless and
irresponsible, and while some might have a cutting edge wardrobe,
many Sagittarian men are slapdash in their dress.
Check out this man's workshop and you'll find all the modern tools,
you just won't find them put away in a neat and tidy order.
Relationships & The Sagittarius Man
Cheerful and trustworthy with a lot of friends, that's the
Sagittarius man.
He's generous and always willing to help friends and family
when they need it, but his sometimes reckless character
causes him to make commitments he's unable to fulfill.
Ask the Sagittarius man for advice and he'll give it without
hesitation, but his straightforward and honest response may
not always be what you want to hear.
Don't ask this man a question unless you're ready for his answer!
Romance & The Sagittarius Man
Partners may want this man to express his affection and dedication
more than he does, but the Sagittarius man's freestyle nature often
prevents him from making these emotional commitments.
An imaginative lover, the Sagittarius man shows no inhibition
when it comes to bedroom antics and will enthusiastically explore
new areas of romance with his partner.
Health & The Sagittarius Man
It's easy to understand why the Sagittarius man is always active
once you realize that his Zodiac sign rules the hip and thigh
sections of the body, areas characterizing motion in the human
anatomy.
Aches, fractures, and bruising are common in the hip and thigh
regions of the Sagittarius man's body.
Controlling his weight by staying active is good, but he must be
careful and not put excess strain on his legs.
He may put on some extra weight in his later years, but the
Sagittarius man doesn't worry about this, he's still physically
attractive and accepts it as part of maturing.
Career & The Sagittarius Man
The Sagittarius man needs to be challenged with new and thought-
provoking tasks.
If you don't keep him intellectually motivated, this gentleman will
quickly move on.
Entrepreneur, market researcher, forester, academic, travel guide,
consultant, philosopher, teacher, or publisher, these are all
occupations that the Sagittarius man should consider.
Highly idealistic, the Sagittarius man is a humanitarian who would
flourish in any vocation where he could see himself as a defender
of the right, and supporter of the underdog.
http://www.cafeastrology.com/articles/sagittariusmanlove.html
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Human Farms
Global Leadership – It’s Broke and It Needs Fixing
By Anthony Evans
Information Clearing House
December 14, 2013
After reading a large number of well expressed and passionately
motivated comments relating to the subject of war and the
injustices and atrocities happening on a daily bases, an analogy
I once heard of a sick and dying tree always comes to mind.
The people in the village where the tree was located adored
the tree, it was a holy tree and they couldn’t understand why
the leaves were starting to turn yellow and fall to the ground.
As the villagers knew very little about trees they worked with
what little knowledge they had and they diagnosed the tree’s
problem as coming from the yellow turning leaves.
So following this reasoning they started to treat the sick leaves
and the braches they were connected to in hope of stopping the
disease from spreading, and this practice went on until nearly
all the leaves had fallen to the ground.
Fortunately, a wise traveller was passing through the village that
knew something about trees and assessed that the problem was
not coming from the individual leave and branches but from the
root of the tree, which he proceeded to treat.
In a short time the tree recovered and the villagers were wiser
for the experience.
Sometimes when I hear or read well educated and articulate people
publicly analyzing issues relating to the collapse of society, the
struggling economy, and the perpetuation of war, I can’t help but
think of the villagers diagnosing the tree’s problem by looking at
the individual leaves for the cause.
One of the more powerful commentaries on war in our society,
which presents a convincing argument on how war is used by
our world leaders, comes from one of the most controversial
books of the last millennium, The Report from Iron Mountain:
On the Possibility and Desirability of Peace, where it states
“Although war is "used" as an instrument of national and social
policy, the fact that a society is organized for any degree of
readiness for war supersedes its political and economic structure.
War itself is the basic social system, within which other
secondary modes of social organization conflict or conspire.
It is the system which has governed most human societies
of record, as it is today.
Once this is correctly understood, the true magnitude
of the problems entailed in a transition to peace, itself
a social system, but without precedent except in a few
simple pre-industrial societies, becomes apparent”.
The report goes onto say;
“It must be emphasized that the precedence of a society's
war-making potential over its other characteristics is not
the result of the "threat" presumed to exist at any one time
from other societies.
This is the reverse of the basic situation; "threat" against
the "national interest" are usually created or accelerated
to meet the changing needs of the war system.
Regardless of the controversy surrounding the report’s
authenticity, I believe the document has accomplished
what the wise old traveller had archived in our analogy,
diagnosed the root cause of the problem.
The above quoted report uncovers one of the most obvious,
and most sinister facts of our time; the global war system
dominates our social and economic systems, not the other
way around, and that none of our world leaders with any
weight to their status, are trying to change this situation.
Leadership establishes the culture of an organisation or
enterprise, and as I had found out when I consulted for
companies implementing risk management systems into
their general management structure.
If the most senior person at the top of a company had a big
appetite for risk and a low regard for safety, then that is
the culture that would prevail throughout all levels of the
organisation, regardless of the systems or training they had
in place.
If Government leaders, as with corporate leaders establishes
and maintains the culture of a country, it raises the question,
why do our leaders continue to promote a global system based
on war?
If we accept the concept that we live in a world dictated by the
system of war, and that leadership decisions made on a daily
bases have their foundations in securing dominance within this
system, then what we see and hear on a daily bases with regards
to the war machine makes perfect sense.
If this situation is to change we need to stop focusing on the
symptoms of this global military disease and go to the root of
the problem, LEADERSHIP.
However, to change from a war culture to a peace culture would
require a radical shift in the attitude of our present global oligarchy
and the economic powers that support, and often dictate global
activities to our elected leaders.
The only other alternative in securing support from our global
commanders for a shift away from a dominant war system to
a peace system would be major global leadership change, which
at this stage seems highly unlikely.
If our current leaders use the constant pretense of a threat
to our nation’s boarders for staging war, we really need to
start questioning this concept we have towards ‘Defense’
and ‘Boarders’, and have a good look at what boarders
truly represent.
Putting it simply; boarders represent the enclosure of land,
and securing ownership/control over anything inside these
enclosures.
Inside these boarders we have a lot of other smaller enclosures
that are surrounded with fences and other boundary markers.
The British monarchy has a long history of Enclosure dating back
to the early 11th century, and is also the policy they enforced in
most countries they colonized.
We are constantly brainwashed by our trusted leaders with the
illusions of freedom.
This illusion is fed to us every day by corporate media, and we
lap it up, knowing full well that the managers of these enclosures,
our governments, can take our freedom and possessions away
from us anytime they want.
Their ability to exercise this executive power is increased
tenfold during times of boarder disputes and conflicts.
If you look at Google Earth and look down on a country like the
USA, and then zoom in past the country’s boarders, and past the
state and city boarders, right down to the suburban white picket
fence.....
Now remove the illusion of freedom, ownership, human rights,
freedom of speech from the picture and it starts to look very
much like any other cattle or a sheep farm, where the human
cattle, the "sheeple" occupants are being fed and fattened on
an unnatural diet of lies and proper gander.
The question should not be why we are fighting wars to protect
our boarders and this illusion of freedom, but why we have
these boarders at all, and why do the majority of our worlds
most powerful political and economic leaders wish to maintain
these boundaries, military institutions, and these human farms
they call countries?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37122.htm
By Anthony Evans
Information Clearing House
December 14, 2013
After reading a large number of well expressed and passionately
motivated comments relating to the subject of war and the
injustices and atrocities happening on a daily bases, an analogy
I once heard of a sick and dying tree always comes to mind.
The people in the village where the tree was located adored
the tree, it was a holy tree and they couldn’t understand why
the leaves were starting to turn yellow and fall to the ground.
As the villagers knew very little about trees they worked with
what little knowledge they had and they diagnosed the tree’s
problem as coming from the yellow turning leaves.
So following this reasoning they started to treat the sick leaves
and the braches they were connected to in hope of stopping the
disease from spreading, and this practice went on until nearly
all the leaves had fallen to the ground.
Fortunately, a wise traveller was passing through the village that
knew something about trees and assessed that the problem was
not coming from the individual leave and branches but from the
root of the tree, which he proceeded to treat.
In a short time the tree recovered and the villagers were wiser
for the experience.
Sometimes when I hear or read well educated and articulate people
publicly analyzing issues relating to the collapse of society, the
struggling economy, and the perpetuation of war, I can’t help but
think of the villagers diagnosing the tree’s problem by looking at
the individual leaves for the cause.
One of the more powerful commentaries on war in our society,
which presents a convincing argument on how war is used by
our world leaders, comes from one of the most controversial
books of the last millennium, The Report from Iron Mountain:
On the Possibility and Desirability of Peace, where it states
“Although war is "used" as an instrument of national and social
policy, the fact that a society is organized for any degree of
readiness for war supersedes its political and economic structure.
War itself is the basic social system, within which other
secondary modes of social organization conflict or conspire.
It is the system which has governed most human societies
of record, as it is today.
Once this is correctly understood, the true magnitude
of the problems entailed in a transition to peace, itself
a social system, but without precedent except in a few
simple pre-industrial societies, becomes apparent”.
The report goes onto say;
“It must be emphasized that the precedence of a society's
war-making potential over its other characteristics is not
the result of the "threat" presumed to exist at any one time
from other societies.
This is the reverse of the basic situation; "threat" against
the "national interest" are usually created or accelerated
to meet the changing needs of the war system.
Regardless of the controversy surrounding the report’s
authenticity, I believe the document has accomplished
what the wise old traveller had archived in our analogy,
diagnosed the root cause of the problem.
The above quoted report uncovers one of the most obvious,
and most sinister facts of our time; the global war system
dominates our social and economic systems, not the other
way around, and that none of our world leaders with any
weight to their status, are trying to change this situation.
Leadership establishes the culture of an organisation or
enterprise, and as I had found out when I consulted for
companies implementing risk management systems into
their general management structure.
If the most senior person at the top of a company had a big
appetite for risk and a low regard for safety, then that is
the culture that would prevail throughout all levels of the
organisation, regardless of the systems or training they had
in place.
If Government leaders, as with corporate leaders establishes
and maintains the culture of a country, it raises the question,
why do our leaders continue to promote a global system based
on war?
If we accept the concept that we live in a world dictated by the
system of war, and that leadership decisions made on a daily
bases have their foundations in securing dominance within this
system, then what we see and hear on a daily bases with regards
to the war machine makes perfect sense.
If this situation is to change we need to stop focusing on the
symptoms of this global military disease and go to the root of
the problem, LEADERSHIP.
However, to change from a war culture to a peace culture would
require a radical shift in the attitude of our present global oligarchy
and the economic powers that support, and often dictate global
activities to our elected leaders.
The only other alternative in securing support from our global
commanders for a shift away from a dominant war system to
a peace system would be major global leadership change, which
at this stage seems highly unlikely.
If our current leaders use the constant pretense of a threat
to our nation’s boarders for staging war, we really need to
start questioning this concept we have towards ‘Defense’
and ‘Boarders’, and have a good look at what boarders
truly represent.
Putting it simply; boarders represent the enclosure of land,
and securing ownership/control over anything inside these
enclosures.
Inside these boarders we have a lot of other smaller enclosures
that are surrounded with fences and other boundary markers.
The British monarchy has a long history of Enclosure dating back
to the early 11th century, and is also the policy they enforced in
most countries they colonized.
We are constantly brainwashed by our trusted leaders with the
illusions of freedom.
This illusion is fed to us every day by corporate media, and we
lap it up, knowing full well that the managers of these enclosures,
our governments, can take our freedom and possessions away
from us anytime they want.
Their ability to exercise this executive power is increased
tenfold during times of boarder disputes and conflicts.
If you look at Google Earth and look down on a country like the
USA, and then zoom in past the country’s boarders, and past the
state and city boarders, right down to the suburban white picket
fence.....
Now remove the illusion of freedom, ownership, human rights,
freedom of speech from the picture and it starts to look very
much like any other cattle or a sheep farm, where the human
cattle, the "sheeple" occupants are being fed and fattened on
an unnatural diet of lies and proper gander.
The question should not be why we are fighting wars to protect
our boarders and this illusion of freedom, but why we have
these boarders at all, and why do the majority of our worlds
most powerful political and economic leaders wish to maintain
these boundaries, military institutions, and these human farms
they call countries?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37122.htm
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Does Christmas Obscure Jesus?
Does Christmas Obscure Jesus?
By Rev. Howard Bess
Consortiumnews.com
December 12, 2013
The emergence of Jesus as a Jewish prophet of note was
something that no contemporary would have predicted.
After all, he lived in a world where leaders were determined
by the prominence of their birth or by their effective use of
violence.
Jesus possessed neither. He came from humble origins and
taught nonviolence.
Jesus gained a following among the poor as a reputational rabbi,
meaning that he lacked a formal education and religious training.
He also lived in the small town of Nazareth, nearly 100 miles
north of Jerusalem, the area’s primary seat of religious and
political power.
The earliest written record of the life of Jesus was the gospel
written by an unknown author called Mark, who says nothing
about a miraculous birth or about royal lineage.
The fiction of his miraculous birth to a woman with royal ties
was fabricated decades later.
Instead, Jesus represented a very small tradition within Judaism
that arose occasionally from the ranks of the poor to critique
and challenge the dominant religious, political, social and
economic powers which dominated the society and offered little
to the people.
Jesus gained his reputational status as a rabbi by telling stories
and presenting aphorisms that stirred the minds of his audiences
and incited their understanding.
Completely committed to living the Israelite Torah (law and will
of God) on earth, Jesus was devout in his faith and radical in his
application of Torah to everyday life.
According to Mark’s account, Jesus began his public ministry
with a great announcement:
“The time has come. The reign of God has arrived.”
For Jesus to make this pronouncement in remote Galilee added
to the seeming absurdity of what he was setting out to do.
Not only did Jesus live and teach in a rural area far from the
centers of power, there is no record in any of the four
gospels that he ever entered the two major cities in his
vicinity, Tiberius and Sepphoris.
His heart, mind and soul were with the rural poor trapped in
cycles of ignorance and desperate need.
Despite his lack of formal education and his distance from urban
sophistication, Jesus was an astute observer of the religious,
economic, political and social hierarchies that raped the land and
terrorized the common people of his area.
A careful reading of his stories and his aphorisms reveal how
radical he was.
At the time, few alternatives were available to people seeking
change.
Roman rulers and their retainers held all the power and wiped
out protesters without hesitancy.
Yet, collaboration with the political and economic elites was
viewed as treason amid the misery of the common people in
Galilee.
Any cooperation with the oppressors could set brother against
brother and kinsman against kinsman.
As a rabbi of the poor, Jesus made people aware of the injustice
inflicted by the rich and powerful, but he also sought to teach
them a new way to set the wrong right.
He taught them that the reign of God was more than a hope
for the future but a way to achieve justice in the here-and-
now through actions taken by faithful believers.
Mark’s gospel lays out Jesus’s path for establishing the reign
of God on earth (and Matthew and Luke repeat the message).
Fundamentally, Jesus redefined the meaning of what it was to
be great, declaring that greatness did not belong to the rich and
powerful.
“If anyone wants to be great, let him be the servant of all,”
Jesus said.
It was a restatement of the great command to love your neighbor.
When Jesus first laid out his simple plan to establish the reign of
God on earth, he spoke to poor, disenfranchised, frustrated, angry
and powerless rural peasants.
He challenged them to bring Israelite society into line with the
noblest ideals of Torah by creating a society based on service
to others.
Yet, even two millennia later, the greatest disagreement among
followers of Jesus remains his vision of this path to greatness
through service to others.
Today’s worldly, like the royalty and rich of Jesus’s time, still
assert that greatness comes from wealth and power.
But the servant message still echoes through the halls of history.
I am hopeful for the future because many people grasp Jesus’s
message, that the reign of God can be a reality on earth.
In recent years, there has been a rise in “emergent” Christian
churches, marked by an interest in the historical Jesus and the
practice of what he taught.
I am hopeful also because a kindred spirit has appeared at the
Vatican with the election of Pope Francis, who has invoked the
spirit of St. Francis of Assisi, who has criticized income
inequality, and who has made establishing the service model a
priority.
The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who
lives in Palmer, Alaska.
http://consortiumnews.com/2013/12/08/does-christmas-obscure-
jesus
By Rev. Howard Bess
Consortiumnews.com
December 12, 2013
The emergence of Jesus as a Jewish prophet of note was
something that no contemporary would have predicted.
After all, he lived in a world where leaders were determined
by the prominence of their birth or by their effective use of
violence.
Jesus possessed neither. He came from humble origins and
taught nonviolence.
Jesus gained a following among the poor as a reputational rabbi,
meaning that he lacked a formal education and religious training.
He also lived in the small town of Nazareth, nearly 100 miles
north of Jerusalem, the area’s primary seat of religious and
political power.
The earliest written record of the life of Jesus was the gospel
written by an unknown author called Mark, who says nothing
about a miraculous birth or about royal lineage.
The fiction of his miraculous birth to a woman with royal ties
was fabricated decades later.
Instead, Jesus represented a very small tradition within Judaism
that arose occasionally from the ranks of the poor to critique
and challenge the dominant religious, political, social and
economic powers which dominated the society and offered little
to the people.
Jesus gained his reputational status as a rabbi by telling stories
and presenting aphorisms that stirred the minds of his audiences
and incited their understanding.
Completely committed to living the Israelite Torah (law and will
of God) on earth, Jesus was devout in his faith and radical in his
application of Torah to everyday life.
According to Mark’s account, Jesus began his public ministry
with a great announcement:
“The time has come. The reign of God has arrived.”
For Jesus to make this pronouncement in remote Galilee added
to the seeming absurdity of what he was setting out to do.
Not only did Jesus live and teach in a rural area far from the
centers of power, there is no record in any of the four
gospels that he ever entered the two major cities in his
vicinity, Tiberius and Sepphoris.
His heart, mind and soul were with the rural poor trapped in
cycles of ignorance and desperate need.
Despite his lack of formal education and his distance from urban
sophistication, Jesus was an astute observer of the religious,
economic, political and social hierarchies that raped the land and
terrorized the common people of his area.
A careful reading of his stories and his aphorisms reveal how
radical he was.
At the time, few alternatives were available to people seeking
change.
Roman rulers and their retainers held all the power and wiped
out protesters without hesitancy.
Yet, collaboration with the political and economic elites was
viewed as treason amid the misery of the common people in
Galilee.
Any cooperation with the oppressors could set brother against
brother and kinsman against kinsman.
As a rabbi of the poor, Jesus made people aware of the injustice
inflicted by the rich and powerful, but he also sought to teach
them a new way to set the wrong right.
He taught them that the reign of God was more than a hope
for the future but a way to achieve justice in the here-and-
now through actions taken by faithful believers.
Mark’s gospel lays out Jesus’s path for establishing the reign
of God on earth (and Matthew and Luke repeat the message).
Fundamentally, Jesus redefined the meaning of what it was to
be great, declaring that greatness did not belong to the rich and
powerful.
“If anyone wants to be great, let him be the servant of all,”
Jesus said.
It was a restatement of the great command to love your neighbor.
When Jesus first laid out his simple plan to establish the reign of
God on earth, he spoke to poor, disenfranchised, frustrated, angry
and powerless rural peasants.
He challenged them to bring Israelite society into line with the
noblest ideals of Torah by creating a society based on service
to others.
Yet, even two millennia later, the greatest disagreement among
followers of Jesus remains his vision of this path to greatness
through service to others.
Today’s worldly, like the royalty and rich of Jesus’s time, still
assert that greatness comes from wealth and power.
But the servant message still echoes through the halls of history.
I am hopeful for the future because many people grasp Jesus’s
message, that the reign of God can be a reality on earth.
In recent years, there has been a rise in “emergent” Christian
churches, marked by an interest in the historical Jesus and the
practice of what he taught.
I am hopeful also because a kindred spirit has appeared at the
Vatican with the election of Pope Francis, who has invoked the
spirit of St. Francis of Assisi, who has criticized income
inequality, and who has made establishing the service model a
priority.
The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who
lives in Palmer, Alaska.
http://consortiumnews.com/2013/12/08/does-christmas-obscure-
jesus
Friday, December 6, 2013
Invictus
Invictus
By William Earnest Henley
Poetry Foundation.org
December 06, 2013
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud,
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/182194
By William Earnest Henley
Poetry Foundation.org
December 06, 2013
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud,
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/182194
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
Welcome Back, Jesus
Welcome Back, Jesus
By Robert Scheer
TruthDig.com
December 4, 2013
Forget, for the moment, that he is the pope, and that Holy Father
Francis’ apostolic exhortation last week was addressed “to the
bishops, clergy, consecrated persons and the lay faithful.”
Even if, like me, you don’t fall into one of those categories
and also take issue with the Catholic Church’s teachings on
a number of contested social issues, it is difficult to deny
the inherent wisdom and clarity of the pontiff’s critique of
the modern capitalist economy.
No one else has put it as powerfully and succinctly.
It is an appraisal based not on “just pure Marxism coming
out of the mouth of the pope,” as Rush Limbaugh sneered,
but rather the words of Jesus telling the tale of the
Good Samaritan found in Luke, not in “Das Kapital.”
As opposed to Karl Marx’s emphasis on the growing misery of
a much needed but exploited working class, Francis condemns
today’s economy of “exclusion” leaving the “other” as the
roadkill of modern capitalism:
“Today everything comes under the laws of competition and
the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the
powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves
excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities,
without any means of escape.”
It is a message that applies to disrupted worldwide markets in
which massive unemployment is now common, as well as to
the underemployed and working poor who are the new “normal”
even in still wealthy America.
They make up the bulk of those ejected from a once largely
unionized industrial workforce, who are now left to compete
for low paying Wal-Mart style jobs that require government
handouts to avoid the extremes of poverty.
They are the victims of what the pope refers to as “trickle-down
theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a
free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater
justice and inclusiveness in the world.” It doesn’t, and instead
“a globalization of indifference has developed.”
That is an obvious truth, whether divinely inspired or not.
So too is Francis’ excoriation of “the new idolatry of money,”
although here one can find evidence in Scripture that this
idolatry is not so new given the description in Matthew 21:12
when Jesus “overthrew the tables of the moneychangers” in
the temple.
But the pope is clearly right when he links our recent economic
crisis to the modern worship of the gods of finance capitalism:
“One cause of this situation is found in our relationship with
money, since we calmly accept its dominion over ourselves and
our societies. ... The worship of the ancient golden calf has
returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money
and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly
human purpose. The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the
economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack
of real concern for human beings. ..."
This is a pope who in his native Argentina bothered to witness
and tend to the needs of those who suffered most, and he
comes to us now as a singular voice to remind us of the Occupy
movement, which mostly secular liberal mayors in U.S. cities
brutally silenced to suit the convenience of the superrich who
own our politics.
The pontiff writes:
“While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially,
so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity
enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of
ideologies, which defend the absolute autonomy of the
marketplace and financial speculation. ... A new tyranny is
thus born. ... The thirst for power and possessions know no
limits. In this system, which tends to devour everything which
stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile,
like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a
deified market, which become the only rule.”
The deification of the market rests on denying that ethical
considerations trump the goal of profit maximization.
The market itself becomes the higher power no matter the
consequence for the exploited, the poor and the defenseless.
“Behind this attitude,” Francis writes, “lurks a rejection
of ethics and a rejection of God.” That is because ethics
inevitably represents a judgment that “makes money and
power relative.”
Finally there is a stern warning by this leader of a church with
many followers in economically desperate areas that a status
quo based on the extremes of exploitation contains the seeds
of its own destruction.
“No to the inequality that spawns violence,” the pope
writes with words that apply to the poverty ghettos of
the most affluent nations, words that echo those used by
the Rev. Martin Luther King in organizing anti-poverty
marches at the time of his assassination.
“The poor and the poorer peoples are accused of violence,”
Francis warns, “yet without equal opportunities the different
forms of aggression and conflict will find a fertile terrain for
growth and eventually explode.
When a society, whether local, national, or global, is willing
to leave a part of itself on the fringes, no political programs
or resources spent on law enforcement or surveillance systems
can indefinitely guarantee tranquility.”
Amen.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/welcome_back_jesus_
20131203
By Robert Scheer
TruthDig.com
December 4, 2013
Forget, for the moment, that he is the pope, and that Holy Father
Francis’ apostolic exhortation last week was addressed “to the
bishops, clergy, consecrated persons and the lay faithful.”
Even if, like me, you don’t fall into one of those categories
and also take issue with the Catholic Church’s teachings on
a number of contested social issues, it is difficult to deny
the inherent wisdom and clarity of the pontiff’s critique of
the modern capitalist economy.
No one else has put it as powerfully and succinctly.
It is an appraisal based not on “just pure Marxism coming
out of the mouth of the pope,” as Rush Limbaugh sneered,
but rather the words of Jesus telling the tale of the
Good Samaritan found in Luke, not in “Das Kapital.”
As opposed to Karl Marx’s emphasis on the growing misery of
a much needed but exploited working class, Francis condemns
today’s economy of “exclusion” leaving the “other” as the
roadkill of modern capitalism:
“Today everything comes under the laws of competition and
the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the
powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves
excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities,
without any means of escape.”
It is a message that applies to disrupted worldwide markets in
which massive unemployment is now common, as well as to
the underemployed and working poor who are the new “normal”
even in still wealthy America.
They make up the bulk of those ejected from a once largely
unionized industrial workforce, who are now left to compete
for low paying Wal-Mart style jobs that require government
handouts to avoid the extremes of poverty.
They are the victims of what the pope refers to as “trickle-down
theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a
free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater
justice and inclusiveness in the world.” It doesn’t, and instead
“a globalization of indifference has developed.”
That is an obvious truth, whether divinely inspired or not.
So too is Francis’ excoriation of “the new idolatry of money,”
although here one can find evidence in Scripture that this
idolatry is not so new given the description in Matthew 21:12
when Jesus “overthrew the tables of the moneychangers” in
the temple.
But the pope is clearly right when he links our recent economic
crisis to the modern worship of the gods of finance capitalism:
“One cause of this situation is found in our relationship with
money, since we calmly accept its dominion over ourselves and
our societies. ... The worship of the ancient golden calf has
returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money
and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly
human purpose. The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the
economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack
of real concern for human beings. ..."
This is a pope who in his native Argentina bothered to witness
and tend to the needs of those who suffered most, and he
comes to us now as a singular voice to remind us of the Occupy
movement, which mostly secular liberal mayors in U.S. cities
brutally silenced to suit the convenience of the superrich who
own our politics.
The pontiff writes:
“While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially,
so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity
enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of
ideologies, which defend the absolute autonomy of the
marketplace and financial speculation. ... A new tyranny is
thus born. ... The thirst for power and possessions know no
limits. In this system, which tends to devour everything which
stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile,
like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a
deified market, which become the only rule.”
The deification of the market rests on denying that ethical
considerations trump the goal of profit maximization.
The market itself becomes the higher power no matter the
consequence for the exploited, the poor and the defenseless.
“Behind this attitude,” Francis writes, “lurks a rejection
of ethics and a rejection of God.” That is because ethics
inevitably represents a judgment that “makes money and
power relative.”
Finally there is a stern warning by this leader of a church with
many followers in economically desperate areas that a status
quo based on the extremes of exploitation contains the seeds
of its own destruction.
“No to the inequality that spawns violence,” the pope
writes with words that apply to the poverty ghettos of
the most affluent nations, words that echo those used by
the Rev. Martin Luther King in organizing anti-poverty
marches at the time of his assassination.
“The poor and the poorer peoples are accused of violence,”
Francis warns, “yet without equal opportunities the different
forms of aggression and conflict will find a fertile terrain for
growth and eventually explode.
When a society, whether local, national, or global, is willing
to leave a part of itself on the fringes, no political programs
or resources spent on law enforcement or surveillance systems
can indefinitely guarantee tranquility.”
Amen.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/welcome_back_jesus_
20131203