Tsunami: Where was God?
June 22, 2007
The powerful tsunami that on Dec. 26, 2004, hit the lands in and surrounding the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal, and the South China Sea caused terrible devastation and immediate loss of thousands of lives, followed by an aftermath in which tens of thousands more perished. The earthquake-triggered tsunami has prompted people all over the world to ask themselves and others, “Where was God when this happened? Did He fall asleep? Is He even real?”
Sometimes, what we call disasters is just a part of God’s organization of nature; humans are merely in the wrong place at the wrong time. In Ecclesiastes 9:11?12, wise King Solomon observes:
I have seen something else under the sun: the race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.
Moreover, no man knows when his hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so men are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them.
How Many Chinese Characters Are There?
June 21, 2007
Let’s trace the number of Chinese characters from Han Dynasty 汉朝 (206 B.C. to 220 A.D.)
说文解字 (Shuwenjiezhi) - The first complete dictionary that listed all Chinese character was published in Han Dynasty 汉朝 at around 100 A.D. It was regarded as the the origin of Chinese characters. It included 9,353 characters.
康熙字典(Kangxi) - the well known classic of Chinese dictionary was published in 1716 of Qing Dynasty 清朝. The Kangxi dictionary included about 46,964 characters compiled in 42 booklets. Most of the characters were unused and rare variant accumulated over the centuries. Those characters were regrouped under 214 radicals still in use today in many dictionaries to classified characters in traditional form.
The first official simplified form characters were published in 1956 by the People’s Republic of China. Many additions and modifications to the original list were adopted since. The list included 6,500 simplified characters.
Nowadays the simplified form characters are used in China and Singapore, the traditional form characters are still used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and most of the overseas Chinese communities.
In 1952, literacy for peasants was defined as knowledge of 1,500 characters and literacy for labour workers as knowledge of 2,000 characters.
A Surefire Way To Manage Your Fears While Leading A Happier, Healthier Life
June 20, 2007
Imagine discovering a way to get rid of your fears in a quick and painless manner. In fact it can even become fun!
Did you know only two of all the fears you have are innate: The fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. Most of your fears were learned in early childhood and then in later life under stressful conditions.
Traditional therapeutic approaches would probably have you trying to figure out where your fear originally came from. Maybe they’d have you digging around in your childhood memories, recalling times you ate the next-door neighbours purple Tulips. This type of approach tends to associate the client into reliving unpleasantness and can take a long time to achieve useful results. Personally I think this style is way out of date and bordering on torture.
You’ll probably be glad to know we’re not going to be doing anything like that. The truth is you can easily and quickly undo the learnings that created specific fears and change your responses to something much more useful.
The Purpose of Creation: the Kabbalah of Transformation
June 19, 2007
"I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details". ? Albert Einstein
"?I would ask, ‘Why was the universe created?’ Because then I would know the meaning of my own life." — Albert Einstein
G-d is infinite and ungraspable. By definition, the more we understand, the more there is to understand.
But to know how G-d created this world, His intent and purpose, not only is possible, but part of our mission on this earth.
Kabbalah is the key.
Some traditions describe our world as a school; a place where souls come and go in order to learn important lessons. But, even though incarnation in a physical body is the vehicle through which the soul expresses itself and its potential, this is far from the whole story.
Life in a body does more than usher the soul through a series of developmental stages. The ultimate aim of life in a body is to provide us with the chance to become intimate with G-d, to ‘know His thoughts’.
Shadows Boxing
June 19, 2007
Towards the end of Million Dollar Baby the character Scraps, ex boxing great turned gym porter, says of a character who has been away from the gym for a while, “And then a ghost walked in.” This is an inadvertant commentary on almost all the principal characters in the film, and thier relationships to each other.
Scraps (Morgan Freeman) is a ghost for Frankie (Clint Eastwood), as is Maggie (Hillary Swank) - the former because he lost sight in one eye in a match, many years ago, partly due to Frankie, and the latter because as time goes on she becomes a surrogate for his long gone daughter who refuses to reconcile with him (we are not told exactly what went wrong between Frankie and his daughter, though we see that he has a shoebox full of letters he sent her marked RETURN TO SENDER).
Frankie goes to Mass every day; the priest tells him, “Write to your daughter.” Scraps and Maggie bond because both have been trained by Frankie. Scraps and Maggie, without knowing it, become mirrors of each other, each having been gravely hurt in boxing matches with Frankie as their manager. Yet, at the same time, they mirror each other in another way - boxing is their whole life (Maggie tells Frankie at one point, “If I don’t have this, I have nothing”; Scraps literally lives in the gym, in a small space in a corner with a curtain.
What That 70s Show Taught Me About Christianity
June 18, 2007
What in the world could I have possibly learned about Christianity from “That 70’s Show”? I’m sure that’s what everyone is thinking right about now.
Well today I was watching it and the episode was about the family going to church and generally their take on religion.
The kids didn’t want to go and the mom wanted them to because she kept having these dreams about how if she wasn’t a “Good Christian” and taking her kids to church God wasn’t going to let her into heaven.
The dad didn’t like going to church because it was boring and he didn’t see any point to it. The daughter kept hitting on the youth pastor and overall it was a pretty funny show…but I digress.
What it taught me was that people need to know what being a Christian really means to us and to God!
What do you think would have been the kids reaction to going to church if they realized that they didn’t have to go? Do you think they would of wanted to go because they wanted to get to know the God that sent his son Jesus to die on the Cross for their sins?
Happiness Fleeting
June 17, 2007
"You cannot capture happiness no matter how hard you may chase after it. Happiness is something that follows you." The words of the old sage echoed in the young man’s heart, sounding a constant beat like the song that plays over and over without reprieve. "What does that mean?" he asked himself. "Time to walk," he continued, trapped in his own inner dialogue.
He thought about how many ways he tried to find lasting joy-from the cheap thrills to the bigger emotional investments that still left him bankrupt, at square one, with no more to show than a few scars and wrinkles and perhaps a tiny glimpse of what to avoid-far from any solution, more like a the-pain-will-stop-when-you-stop-smacking-yourself-with-the-baseball-bat approach that moved nothing forward.
At least it didn’t move back.
Or did it?
"The pursuit of pain avoidance will never lead to happiness," he mused inside his aching head, an ache that scratched his soul, dug deep into his bowels to trouble and torment him, turned his stomach green, a sickly, hungover nausea that clung like ivy smothering a chimney. "I’ve gotta’ figure this out," he demanded, "I wanna’ be happy."
Do We Really Need God?
June 16, 2007
The human being is endowed with ability. We have the capacity to do things. However, our ability is inherently limited. The human being is not almighty and so cannot accomplish all things. Because human capability is finite we find that a person cannot by his own powers alone ensure the success of all his pursuits and undertakings in life. A human being is not able to ensure his good health and the safety of his life at all times. A human being is not able to ensure his welfare throughout life. The fact that we experience anxiety, worry, fear and doubt is clear indication that our ability is not always sufficient to handle life’s hazards, difficulties and challenges.
We all desire happiness, good health and success in life. Yet on our own we cannot guarantee the attainment or maintenance of this state of things we desire. What this means is that for us to satisfy these cravings we need help from a power much greater than ourselves. This almighty power we need is God.
The human being, obviously, needs the help of God in order to live a completely happy and successful life.
Can You Hear My Secret Calling
June 15, 2007
A true love story
"So, was it an eyes-meet-across-the-room-thing and you knew you were destined for each other instantly?" I asked my Mom. "No," she laughed, "it was a swinging-door-thing and once we met, then we knew it was destiny."
It was 1946 when my parents met in postwar Oldenburg, Germany while working for British Intelligence. Dad (a.k.a. Peter Russell) had survived WW II after being in many challenging battles. He was a "frightfully English chap" who grew up in the south of England. Mom (Blanche Moore - a.k.a. Pat Russell) had experienced the war in a different way. One of the many bombing raids on Belfast, Northern Ireland had demolished her family home.
It only took Dad one week after he saw Mom going through the now infamous swinging door into the Intelligence Offices, to make sure he was introduced to her. Once they met, they were inseparable and spent many hours dancing at the Officers Club in Oldenburg. Mom and Dad were known for being fabulous ballroom dancers and other dance participants would frequently stand aside and watch them together as they swirled around the dance floor, eyes locked on one another.. Dad was a lean, good-looking man of 6′ and he was handsome in his British Intelligence Uniform. Mom was and still is a petite 5′ 2″ pretty Irish woman with twinkly eyes and a penchant for laughing a lot.
Do Not Believe All You Read In The Holy Books
June 14, 2007
Observation shows that human creative activity has a physical, a social and a spiritual aspect. (By human creative activity I mean useful and constructive activity by human beings). The physical aspect of our creative activity concerns our activity in relation to the physical universe. The social aspect relates mainly to human behaviour and interaction amongst humans. The spiritual aspect of our creative activity primarily concerns our activity in relation to God. Over time, mankind has acquired considerable knowledge of the physical universe. This knowledge has been classified as the physical and natural sciences. Knowledge we have acquired of human behaviour and interaction amongst humans has been classified as social science. This has not been the case with knowledge we have of the spiritual aspect of life. Such knowledge has not been classified as spiritual science. This is so because much of what at present constitute spiritual facts and beliefs cannot be considered as science. A lot of such facts are not backed by proof and many of the beliefs are not founded on reason. Unverifiable conjectures about phenomena and existence beyond this life are professed as truths. The situation at present is such that spiritual works available to us contain fiction, misconceptions, superstition and falsehood in addition to actual facts. I will use some examples from the Christian teaching and Holy Bible to illustrate this point.
