A Lenten Thought

     I kept hearing over and over the chant "For Christ's Sorrowful Passion, For Christ's Sorrowful Passion," ad nauseum, from our TV's Comcast 229 channel. Why characterize Christ's Passion as 'sorrowful'? Shouldn't we rather sing "For CHRIST'S  VICTORIOUS  PASSION"?

Tempus Fugit, E.T.

     There was a time not long ago,
     Elizabeth, your am'thyst eyes
     Made wint'ry hearts light up and glow,
     Provoking sonnets, songs, and sighs,
     Upending stalwarts to the ground;
     So,too, I gazed and almost drowned...

     Few can forget you did a lot
     Untying -- ( with your beauty spot?)--
     Gordian knots to release a trove
     In aid - 'gainst AIDS - and all for love...
     Twinkle on, Bright Star,  up above;

     Ethereal Muse, tho' Time may fly,
     The torch you lit will never die!

                                    by Skep/vdeperalta

Jihadist

     Again at the Barnes & Noble's section on Arabic lore, I read a reference  to "jihad" completely opposite to the current meaning being attached to it by Western media. A jihadist is not supposed to be a terrorist bent on killing other people specially innocent children or civilians. To be on a jihad is to be on a path to overcome one's own weaknesses and to be a better person from the moral and spiritual standpoint. We should not even point to the cohorts or followers of Osama Bin Ladin as "terrorists", for in effect we are conceding that indeed we're afraid of them. True, there is obviously an urgent need to open the eyes and minds of our Muslim brethren. Education, modernization of living conditions, probably even more frequent contact with civilized behavior could be a quicker, better, even less expensive solution than warfare. As their own Sufi once suggested: - Change your foes to friends and you have no more enemies.

ADM (circa '50 - '57)

      At twilight, as I bid another day good-bye,
      These vivid memories of youth flood my mind's eye:-
      Ebullient freshmen ensconced in quaint quonset huts,
      Nudged, prodded Jesuit-style, we were taught to have guts.
      Eventually, we also had morning classes
      Out there at Loyola Heights - (where lovely lasses
      Distracted us, lunchtime, at the U.P. canteen).
      Each lad with the proms in mind had his secret queen...
      Mine, I still believe, was the very loveliest.
      A guidon, an aegis, this is our life-long quest--
      No true Atenean can forget-- "Mens sana
      In corpore sano."  Here's the final scena:
      Love pure and chaste (like that mad old knight)  -  from afar,
      Ad Deus, Never Falter, Go Follow Your Star!

                                                                
                                                         By Skep/vdeperalta

Who to lean on

    There is a TV show depicting the survivor man's life challenges in all sorts of wild environments and with nobody nor any sophisticated equipment to assist him. That one man alone can indeed survive in tropical jungles, in deserts, or desolate ice-covered regions for about a week or a few days is frankly no surprise to me. The human body can endure and survive extraordinary physical battles or confrontations. However,more often than not, we become entrapped or we stumble and fall not because we have a weak physique but because we preferred to rely on the Devil's "easy-way-out" solutions. We must learn to strengthen our will to resist the Enticer's tempting promises of pelf, power, and prestige. After all, Mammon is just another created being. You would be a fool to rely on him when you know there is the Almighty Creator to lean on.

                                                                                     By Skep/vdeperalta

The Middle East Phenomenon

     There appears to be an unstoppable wave of anti-establishment demonstrations in the Middle East. A tsunami of protesters rebelling against overstaying despots or autocratic rulers has captured current media headlines. Like the hills near San Francisco Bay, the minds of these rebels might have been misted over or befogged in the earlier years or decades of their ruling elite, but the bright sunlight of global communication via the internet and the ever-increasing spread of televised events have swept away the heavy curtains of illiteracy and opened the long-suffering masses' eyes to the "better life" of freedom and the vision of greener pastures that can be reached via individual aspiration, education, and initiative. This calls to mind Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's hypothesis that the cosmos, man included, is on an unstoppable evolutionary course to 'Omega Point' or to fulfillment, enlightenment, even unity with the Divine Creative Life Force/God. If our Islamic brethren were previously blinded and beclouded by misunderstandings, misinterpretations, mistranslations, even downright self-centered  quackery by their leaders, I hope this time the followers of Mahomet have now taken one more step up the ladder to the true meaning of Islam and Enlightenment. Koranic scholars apparently concede 'Islam' is derived from 'Shalom'. And both words actually mean 'PEACE'. The simple truth is that charlatans may fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but sooner or later-- MURDER WILL OUT!

Be not too proud, manthing--

    This world we live in, per latest 'best-guesses' of cosmologists, consists of three distinct parts:- 4% is composed of the entire visible universe (all of humanity, all the stars, planets, solar systems, galaxies in the sky; then 23% 'dark matter', and 73% 'dark energy'. Dark matter keeps the galaxies from dispersing into discrete stars or systems, while dark energy is supposed to be the reason why all galaxies, star clusters, etc. are speeding away at an accelerating expansion rate from each other, instead of slowing down despite the millenium time lapse after the Big Bang. Actually, we cannot even pretend to fully know all of that  4% that is supposed to be visible or perceivable by humans. We could not even see our Planet Earth half a parsec away from our Sun.  I think it was Thomas Edison who said "We don't know a millionth of 1% of anything."  Every day we learn, and we may think we know a lot.  In truth, we probably know less than a billionth of 1%  of anything.

                                                                   by Skep/vdeperalta