Jerry Katz
photography & writings
The wind carves shapes into the beach sand
The Real News Archive (Archive Home)
February - March, 2005
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
The journey is his destination
EXETER - Like so many young children, Perrin
Hendrick had a penchant for drawing. But unlike most kids, who
pass up art for other interests as they grow, Hendrick remained
engaged by drawing. He would borrow the works of J.R.R. Tolkien
and other of his favorite writers from the library and spend
hours illustrating the fantastic tales.
He went on to major in art at the University of New Hampshire and
at Naropa University in Boulder, Colo., supporting himself as an
interior house painter along the way.
Now an adult, Hendrick, who lives in Exeter, makes his living as
a freelance muralist. In his scant spare time, he works on
illustrations for a children’s fairy tale that he wrote and
hopes to publish.
Last month Hendrick, 29, won the L. Ron Hubbard Illustrators of
the Future Contest for new and aspiring illustrators, a
prestigious award that Hendrick said he hopes will open the door
to a full-fledged career as an illustrator, the kind of art he
continues to favor.
...
Hendrick stays close to the philosophies that
evolved from the soul-searching of his youth, a search that led
him on travels from UNH to Mexico. He worked as an itinerant
house painter along the way before finally landing at Naropa
University in Colorado, an alternative school influenced by
Buddhism.
About his artwork, Hendrick said, "The piece you end up with
is just a document of the process you went through to get there.
The process is a medium to your own soul, a bridge to
spirituality, a way to know yourself." -read
more-
~ ~ ~
Research on twins supports 'God gene'
Based on an analysis of more than 500 identical
and non-identical twins, the study at Minnesota University in
America set out to discover whether spirituality was the result
of nature or nurture.
It concluded that children's religiousness was primarily the
result of whether they had been born into a religious household.
"But during the transition from adolescence to adulthood,
genetic factors increase in importance while shared environmental
factors decrease," it said.
The twins answered questions about their religious beliefs, from
the regularity of church attendance to how much they relied on
prayer. While the identical twins reported similar patterns over
time, the non-identical twins diverged as they got older, said
the study in the Journal of Personality.
However, the researchers stressed that genes were not the only
factors that determined how religious people were. Laura Koenig,
a co-author of the research, said: "There is still room for
cultural and environmental influences.''
The debate about the "God gene" was prompted last year
by Dr Dean Hamer, the director of the Gene Structure and
Regulation Unit at the National Institute in America. After
comparing more than 2,000 DNA samples, he concluded that the
greater people's ability to believe in a higher spiritual force,
the more likely that they would share the gene, VMAT2. -read
more-
~ ~ ~
Liberia is At a Brink of Irreversible Environmental/Ecological Impotency
, Liberia is at peril due to an assault on the
sacred reverence of its environment by those who have limited
knowledge on how we expressed our affinity with the environment.
And such a denial of Liberia's universal validity is nothing less
than an assault on its intrinsic values and spirituality.
Liberians must resist this assault now. Liberians must never
remain silent to the slow death of its environment. Indeed, there
are laws that cover some aspects of environmental controls. They
should be given "teeth", made stronger and clearer. For
example, Article 33 of the Health Ministry Laws of Liberia
prohibits the dumping of waste in Liberian waters. However,
during past administrations, the Minister of Planning, or
whichever ministry/department is responsible for contract
negotiation, allowed large companies like the National Ore Mining
Company at Mano River, LAMCO and Bong Mining Companies to pollute
the St. John River, the Mano River and their tributaries with
iron ore dust and other residues of the iron ore production
process. Even areas set aside by preceding governments for
conservation and or scientific inquiry like the Sarpo National
Park and Gola National Forest in Upper Cape Mount County and
Lower Lofa County are in and off of the hands of logging
companies or at the mercy of poachers, says Mr. Alexander Peal of
Conservation International/Liberia. Traditional deforestation or
small farming has become the order of the day as the result of
not having in place national programs for alternative and
systematic management.
...
The Liberian people who are spiritually, medically and
nutritionally linked to the forests, will bear a disproportionate
burden of the nation's environmental deforestation, pollution of
coastal waters from oil residue and raw sewage problems.
Thousands of acres of flora and fauna (rainforest) are ruined.
Liberia is witnessing unprecedented changes in the quality of its
environment. Forests are being lost at an unparalleled pace. In
other words, if the flora is cut and burned, the topsoil suffers
massive erosion, water supplies are polluted or destroyed, and
the wildlife is driven into shrinking areas of refuge. Potential
life-saving medicinal herbs are lost forever and natural
resources are destroyed for short-term gain. For example,
"Pygeum africanum" (http://www.wholehealthmd.com)
herbal medicine for prostate gland enlargement or urinary
disorders found around Mt. Nimba environment that can bring in
million of dollars if properly harvested, is being destroyed from
mining. In addition, Liberia's traditional universities (Poro and
Sande), which can only be built and function in such a grove
where discipline, survival, and leadership skills are taught by
the College of Elders are being destroyed. One is left to wonder,
is there anything in Liberia worth fighting for or saving with
every fiber of one's Liberian souls? -read lots
more-
~ ~ ~
Mankiller to sign books in Pryor at Book Exchange
The Book Exchange & Bible Book Store,
downtown Pryor, is proud to announce the upcoming appearance of
Wilma Mankiller, former chief of the Cherokee Nation, for a
booksigning of her newest title, Every Day is a Good Day,
Saturday April 2, from 1-3 p.m.
Author and activist Mankiller has garnered the thoughts of 19
Native women on questions such as the meaning of spirituality,
the importance of sovereignty, and what it means to be an
indigenous woman today. Mankiller chose her participants well,
for these women--a physician, an attorney, ranchers, professors
of American Indian studies, an urban planner, a cultural
anthropologist, artists, poets, musicians, and an Onondaga Clan
Mother--really do have something to say.
Spirituality, which connects all indigenous peoples, means
respect for the earth and all living things.
Land is crucial to all tribes, as shown by the Dann sisters,
Shoshone ranchers struggling to defend the sacred ceremonial
grounds of their ancestors, and Sarah James, who fights for her
Gwich'in tribal rights to protect caribou birthing grounds from
oil and gas exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Profound yet simple words from strong women working hard to
perpetuate their culture, an! d who have a lot to share, and who
need to be heard.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist,
copyright 2004, American Library Association.)
Wilma Mankiller is an author, activist, and former principal
chief of the Cherokee Nation. Her roots are planted deep in the
rural community of Mankiller Flats in Adair County, Oklahoma
where she has spent most of her life. She has been honored with
many awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and has
received honorary doctorate degrees from such esteemed
institutions as Yale University, Dartmouth College, and Smith
College. Ms. Mankiler is the author of Mankiller: A Chief and Her
People, and co-edited A Reader's Companion to the History of
Women in the U.S. Wilma Mankiller lives on the Mankiller family
allotment with her husband, Charlie Soap.
For more information please call The Book Exchange & The
Biblebookstore at 918 825 6015 or email [email protected]
- book
info
~ ~ ~
Former
TV executive uses 'power of film' on behalf of poor
As a network television producer, Gerry Straub had all the
trappings of success --- a BMW, nice homes on both coasts and
financial security. But, he left that life of privilege after a
profound conversion experience led the 58-year-old to his present
vocation as the president of The San Damiano Foundation, a
Burbank-based secular Franciscan ministry putting the power of
film at the service of the poor.
...
Suddenly, something happened while Straub was sitting in the
silence of the empty church.
"Without warning, I felt the overwhelming presence of
God," said Straub. "I didn't see any images or hear any
words. I knew experientially that God was real, that God loved
me. In that moment of revelation, I was transformed from an
atheist into a pilgrim." He felt so moved, he got up and
bowed before the altar. "I'm still living off that one
moment," declared Straub.
Following a three-hour period of prayer and reconciliation with a
Franciscan priest a few days later, Straub went to confession and
received the Eucharist at Mass for the first time in a decade.
"St. Francis of Assisi became my spiritual guide," said
Straub. He abandoned writing his novel on Vincent and Francis,
and instead, began writing about the life of St. Francis and his
faithful follower, St. Clare, intertwining the story of his own
spiritual pilgrimage.
...
Straub is in the midst of working on a sixth film, "The
Patients of a Saint," about Dr. Tony Lazzara, an American
doctor who has spent more than 20 years ministering to sick
children in the shantytowns of Lima, Peru.
...
Straub, who works 10 hours a day after attending daily Mass at
his parish (St. Charles Borromeo in North Hollywood), recently
returned from a speaking tour to Catholic and Christian colleges
in Chicago and New York. He will soon be featured in an upcoming
"Religion and Ethics News Weekly" program airing
Sundays on PBS. Locally, he gives reflection workshops on the
subject of poverty to parishes and hopes to branch out to schools
as well.
"All the money and glory I got in network TV," he said,
"could not compare with working on behalf of the poor and
having these films make a difference in their lives." -read
more-
Saturday, March 26, 2005
A
pianist's remarkable triumph over adversity
By Lawrence A. Johnson
Classical Music Writer
Posted March 16 2005
The Miami International Piano Festival always seems to have its
share of glitches, and a disastrous one nearly ensued last
weekend. Due to a flight cancellation and string of travel
mishaps, Steven Osborne arrived in South Florida mere hours
before his recital, scheduled to close the festival's Master
Series.
His remarkable performance Sunday night at the Broward Center's
Amaturo Theatre was a testament to Osborne's professionalism as
well as his prodigious talent. Despite exhaustion, little
rehearsal time, ringing cell phones and a problematic Steinway,
the 33-year-old Scottish pianist delivered one of the most
spellbinding musical events of the season.
Winner of the Clara Haskil and Naumburg competitions, Osborne
offered an individual program that showcased his considerable
keyboard gifts, with a staggering technique allied to a deep and
subtle poetic sensibility.
Osborne opened with Brahms' Rhapsody in B minor, in which the
pianist was entirely in synch with the mercurial shifts of this
music. Osborne's blazing prestidigitation in the agitated
sections was seamlessly blended with the meditative elements. His
spacious phrasing in the middle F sharp minor passage was
beautifully essayed, a calm new world beckoning beyond the
present turmoil.
Osborne showed himself an inspired Lisztian in four excerpts from
Harmonies poetiques et religieuses. Even with some sticky middle
keys, the pianist had the full measure of Liszt's blend of
derring-do and spare religiosity. He delivered the massive
sonority of the chordal attacks in the Invocation with daunting
force, as surely as he etched the unearthly delicacy of the Pater
Noster. -Read
more-
~ ~ ~
Philosopher
challenges perception of his field
Philosophical discussion spurs thought.
The perception of philosophy as a discipline solely devoted to
knowledge of the self only tells half the story, an Emory
philosopher told audiences yesterday in Wilson Hall.
In a lecture titled "Philosophy as a way of life,"
Thomas Flynn, author of "Sartre, Foucault, and Historical
Reason," spoke on the dual nature of Plato-Socratic
philosophy, not only as a means to know thyself, but also to care
for thyself. The quest for self-knowledge, what he denoted as the
Delphic form of philosophy, complements a desire to harmonize
one's life to one's beliefs, or Socratic theory, as the professor
said.
Socratic philosophy, Flynn pointed out, could be derived most
explicitly from Socrates' last plea at his trial that if his sons
should value anything above virtue, the city should rebuke them
just as he has rebuked others, that virtue should be supreme over
all other values.
"Socrates is being not so much admired for what he says as
for the harmony between what he does and what he says,"
Flynn said. -read
more-
~ ~ ~
'TOMMY:
The Amazing Journey' Opens at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and
Museum
- Rock Hall displays Pete Townshend's never-before-seen archives
of the Who's concept album Tommy
CLEVELAND, March 16 /PRNewswire/ -- The Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame and Museum is pleased to announce the new exhibit
"TOMMY: The Amazing Journey." The exhibit will open on
April 7, 2005 at the Cleveland music museum and will remain until
March 2006.
Tommy is one of the earliest and most important rock operas. The
iconic rock opera had many incarnations, including an album,
movie, soundtrack, a Broadway play as well as an orchestral
version and a ballet interpretation. Conceived and primarily
written by Pete Townshend, the Who's critically revered concept
album, Tommy, was released in 1969.
March 18, 2005 marks the 30th anniversary of the motion pictures
version of Tommy, directed by Ken Russell.
When the album Tommy was released over 35 years ago, the media
divided in two distinctive groups. On one side, critics labeled
it "shattering" and "remarkable." On the
other side, some media viewed the work as exploitative. The story
of Tommy is one of a handicapped child who is exploited and
abused by family members and others and goes on to become a
spiritual leader. This is an area that no pop album had dared to
tread before Tommy. -read more-
~ ~ ~
Gay
Native Americans Rediscover 'Two-Spirit' Identity
Editor's Note: Young, gay American Indians are rediscovering
tribal heritages that often revered "Two-Spirits,"
people who manifested both masculine and feminine traits.
SAN FRANCISCO--Gabriel Duncan, 18, sits before a table covered
with rich desserts and salmon salad sandwiches, glancing calmly
at the mostly-older faces staring back at him. A California
Paiute in a Minor Threat sweatshirt and brown beaded necklace,
Duncan is reading his poetry aloud for the first time.
"I'd like to discuss just why we're so disgusting," he
recites. "Why we can't marry, and just why the word
'equality' is rusty."
Like most of those gathered this evening at the San Francisco
LGBT Community Center, Duncan is a member of Bay Area American
Indian Two Spirits (BAAITS), a six-year-old nonprofit that offers
support and activities to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender
Native Americans. Similar groups exist in Oklahoma, Colorado and
Minnesota.
The term "Two-Spirit" refers to a belief among some
tribes that there are people who manifest both masculine and
feminine spiritual qualities. According to Native American
scholars, many tribes once revered Two-Spirits, viewing them as a
third gender with a special spiritual connectedness. In these
tribes, Two-Spirits filled important tribal roles as counselors,
storytellers and healers.
This belief, scholars have also observed, has been eroded in many
places by the imposition of Judeo-Christian views of
homosexuality as sinful. -read
more-
~ ~ ~
Caught
by the Spirit
Some artists see their work as a soul-level undertaking
By MARK BAECHTEL
Anchorage Daily News
INSPIRE. It means, literally, to breathe in. But the word also
shares Latin roots with "spirit." In Alaska's Bush, as
artists who know will tell you, the connection makes sense. This
is where art and spirit sink deep, intertwined roots into place,
into people, even the materials the artists use.
"My grandfather would tell me, 'The driftwood timbers out in
the Bering Sea already know what they are going to become,'
" says John Pingayaq, a Cup'ik composer, dancer and mask
carver who lives in Chevak. "Some will say they are to be
bowls, harpoons, bows and arrows and many other things that we
carve. Some say they are to be the dancing masks of the people.
Most would think of (these timbers) as dead, but to our people
they actually have souls."
For Pingayaq and other artists -- Native and non-Native, writers,
musicians, makers of paintings and sculptures -- art is a
response as natural as breathing. Their work is created where
borderlands and extremes -- culture and weather, civilization and
wilderness, endurance and understanding -- crash and grind
against each other like cakes of floating sea ice. And whether
one believes in an immortal soul or not, in a haunted landscape
like this, the spirit and its movements become an inevitable part
of the work. -read
more-
~ ~ ~
Psychiatrist
Speaks on Health, Faith
By Cary McMullen
Ledger Religion Editor
LAKELAND -- A noted authority in the relationship between
spirituality and health, speaking at a conference Saturday,
offered a biting critique of the idealization of modern health
care in America and cautioned against reliance on prayer simply
as a means to better health.
Dr. Keith G. Meador, a psychiatrist who holds dual professorships
at Duke University Medical Center and Duke Divinity School in
Durham, N.C., was the keynote speaker at the annual meeting of
the Florida Center for Science and Religion at Florida Southern
College. The subject of the meeting was "Spirituality and
Wellness."
...
During the past 20 years, several medical schools and
universities have studied the effect of faith on health and
healing. Meador is co-director of a center at Duke that studies
the relationship between the two. However, he seemed skeptical
Saturday of methods that reduce beliefs and spiritual practices
to tools for personal health.
"Spirituality is now a bandwagon," he said. "We
need to be more discerning. Do we want to buy into a
reductionistic definition of spirituality that locates it in a
region of the brain?
"In a therapeutic culture, you live a life of entitlement --
if I've done my part, God owes me, and health will be mine to
possess. . . . I'll own it because I've earned it."
Prayer and faith, Meador said, are not contractual bargaining
chips with God in which health is received in exchange for
devotion.
"People ask what religion is best. So spirituality is
something to be used, and religious institutions become a kind of
market for comfort and tranquility. I don't think we'd find
anyone who says a cross is good for your health, but in the
Christian tradition, it is central to our understanding of a
suffering God."
In his 90-minute lecture, Meador offered an alternative vision of
healing and health. Drawing on a quote from essayist Wendell
Berry, he said, "Health is a sense of belonging to others
and to our place. This holds rich potential for us as physicians
and as a faith community. We have lost sight of health as a sense
of community. I am convinced a substantial part of health is a
sense of belonging to others." -read
more-
~ ~ ~
Exploring
the heart and mind of an icon: Journals of Jack Kerouac reveal
the man behind the myth
By Chris Bergeron / Daily News Staff
Sunday, March 20, 2005
Douglas Brinkley reveals the man-boy behind the myth through
Kerouac's own doubts and dreams in "Windblown World:
The Journals of Jack Kerouac, 1947-1954."
His 18-page introduction to "Windblown
World" is a marvel of compressed insight.
Brinkley examines Kerouac's urge to treat his own adventures as a
paradigm for the American transit from its post-World War II
doldrums to a rediscovery of its own spiritual possibilities.
He writes, "Kerouac's modus operandi in these handwritten
journals is one of voluntary simplicity and freedom, of achieving
sainthood by being lonesome and poor with empathy for every
sentient creature."
Brinkley focuses on eight crucial years when Kerouac wrote his
first two novels fulfilling a dream, perhaps a compulsion, to
reinvent himself as a serious author.
"Windblown World" comprises two main sections written
during the composition of "The Town and the City" and
"On The Road" which turned Kerouac into a household
name and a reluctant spokesman for his age.
Brinkley helpfully includes a 12-page "Cast of
Characters," that ranges from boyhood chums to family
members, from occasional girlfriends to long-suffering editors.
It also offers pages from Kerouac's notebooks and journals,
including hand-drawn maps of a cross-country hitchhiking trip and
a saucy pinup of a nameless woman who resembled one of the
author's many crushes.
While many readers confuse Kerouac with his fictional personas,
like the jubilant Sal Paradise in "On the Road," the
journals reveal an earnest young writer struggling through the
night to fashion a distinctive style that shattered literary
conventions.
He routinely lists his production: "Wrote 2,000 words, good
ones today" or "Wrote 3,500 strange and exalted
words."
More often, Kerouac exhorts himself, treating writing as almost a
religious discipline: "I will eventually arrive at a
simplicity and a beauty that won't be denied -- morality, beauty,
a real lyricism."
Any struggling writer can identify with Kerouac's labors:
"Sometimes my effort at writing becomes so fluid and smooth
that too much is torn out of me at once and it hurts."
-read
more-
Friday, March 25, 2005
Footprints
in paint...
Fulbright scholar Nathlie Provosty's paintings capture the mystic
of Meher Baba
Nathlie Provosty.A look at Nathlie Provosty would make you think
of her as one of the thousand other tourists that visit India. In
reality, she is not quite from that category. Nathlie who
completed her Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts (BFA) from the
Maryland University is current a Fulbright scholar who has come
to India to complete the project, 'Painting the Footsteps of
Meher Baba.' Her paintings which are 21 in number focus on
landscapes and interiors which are at times joined with illusory
elements. These, in turn, create symbolic environments that are
aimed at pointing one's consciousness inward. Still, the
astounding part is yet to come. The young artist of 24 took a
little less than four months to complete the paintings, having
been in the country for six and a half months. Quite a feat to
accomplish in such little time, considering she had other things
at hand too. She is affiliated with the Government Chitrakala
Mahavidyalay at Nagpur and lives in Meherbad, the location of
Meher Baba's tomb shrine. She will continue staying there for the
remaining duration of her nine month project.
The central theme in Nathlie's work is the exploration of her
spiritual journey through simultaneous existing layers of space:
outward architectural space, inner mental space and the innermost
heart space. She describes her techinque, "The centre of my
paintings carry the reality while the outside carry
illusion."Natalie admits, "My stay in India has lead me
to an emotional awakening that I cannot express verbally."
She submits to be influenced by Baba's teachings which have aided
her in personal growth.The exhibition on the paintings opened at
the Hacienda Art Gallery yesterday. It was inaugurated by
Professor Jane Schukoske, Executive Director of the United States
Educational Foundation in India (USEFI). USEFI supports the
Fulbright academic exchange programs between India and the U.S.A
and advices Indian students about the U.S higher education
system.The painings will be on view for a week, i.e. till the
30th of March.
~ ~ ~
A
Good Friday to talk about Terri Schiavo
The lesson of this and every Good Friday is that life is changed,
not ended, by dying. All of the political and emotional turmoil
surrounding Terri Schiavo has made this Holy Week especially
poignant.
Unfortunately, my flush of piety is dulled by a fierce anger at
the despicable intrusion of Congress in this Florida woman's
tragic circumstances.
I am sorry, but I get the unmistakable whiff of American Taliban
in the swift Republican response to its core, Christian political
base.
My faith and beliefs and my family's experience tell me the
parents have to let go of their brain-damaged daughter trapped
between life and death. For her spiritual journey to be complete
in this season of life conquering death, they have to let go. -read
more-
~ ~ ~
Colcha
embroidery is a spiritual meditation
Tomé Kathleen Lerner could use the colcha embroidery stitch
— an old-fashioned technique she's spent the last decade
perfecting — to craft a tablecloth and decorate it with a
vibrant floral pattern.
But she'd really rather not.
The Peralta Elementary School third-grade teacher would much
prefer that her pieces reflect something more substantial than
roses and daisies. Lerner's favorite colcha subjects are saints
because, with every batch of yarn she hand-dyes, with every
stitch she makes, she feels something intense.
"It's spiritual to me. It makes me pray and think, and doing
just floral pieces doesn't do anything for me. It's just an art
form that doesn't have emotional attachment," says Lerner,
whose work will be featured at the Third Annual Santos Show at
Tomé Gallery this week. -read
more-
Sunday, February 27, 2005
Plumbing
the Depths Of Soul Music
BINDU CHAWLA
With industrialisation and changing values, a
world that was getting increasingly mechanised had begun to
seriously question, then undermine, the traditional spiritual
values of art. And then for centuries, the "art for art's
sake" theory was ridiculed by the rationalists who
relentlessly campaigned to give art a utilitarian purpose. Only
in the past century the moulds got broken once again, to
rediscover the abstract in art, returning to the maxim: "Art
for spirit's sake".
As a child, the presence of Ustad Amir Khan Saheb at home brought
to me my first awareness of spiritual angst, for there was always
this inward-outward dialectic to his presence. There he would
sit, on the proverbial takht by the window, looking out-side, but
with his gaze turned within, absorbed by a singing that was the
real (inner) window, to the great ocean of music churning within
him.
Often, when he sang a raga, the eyes of Khan Saheb's listeners
would fill with tears. Yet, they would not let him stop even
after hours of singing. At other times, they would plead with him
to stop, for it was too overwhelming to continue to listen to
him. One day, on one such occasion, while singing, Khan Saheb
came down a level or two for his listeners, and said: "
Naghma vahi naghma hai jo rooh sune aur rooh sunaye ". (A
piece of music is a piece of music which the soul hears and the
soul sings.) This was typical of Khan Saheb's style of
communicating. He would 'tell' through embryonic sentences. And
here, it was to share the secret that his constant mystic highs
came from the 'stimulation' of the soul when singing. -read
more-
~ ~ ~
A
spiritual and literal journey
By Joanne Hammer
A Buddhist monk with native origins in Crawfordsville will begin
a five-month pilgrimage walk next week.
Jotipalo Bhikkhu, born in Crawfordsville as Don Sperry, will
begin the walk March 1 in New Orleans, La., and end in Thunder
Bay, Ontario, Canada. Traveling with him will be layperson Austin
Stewart, Gunnison, Colo.
His hope is to practice living on faith, surviving on less and
showing peace to individuals.
Jotipalo, who has been a Buddhist for about 12 years and a monk
for five years, considers Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery in
Redwood Valley, Calif., his home monastery. The monastery is
affiliated with the Thai Forest and Theravada Buddhist
traditions. In the tradition, it is common for monks and nuns to
undertake pilgrimages, he said.
“This walk is a continuation of that practice with an
emphasis on living simply, meditation and dependence on the
kindness and generosity of those that wish to see us
succeed,” he said.
Jotipalo, 39, is a 1984 Crawfordsville High School graduate and
1988 Wabash College graduate, where he studied art and the
classics. He moved to New York to work as an artist, but began
working as a salesperson for Norcote International.
His spiritual journey began after a near-death experience in the
Himalayas in Nepal. For three days he was extremely ill and had
an out-of-body experience, which caused him to realize the
unimportance of material possessions, he said.
He began practicing yoga and meditation, gradually learning more
about Buddhism. He also read about a woman named Peace Pilgrim,
who from 1953-1981 walked more than 25,000 miles, sharing
messages of inner and world peace.
“It totally blew me away,” Jotipalo said. “It was
a spiritual awakening of how individual peace can affect the
community and keep expanding to world peace.”
Jotipalo is uncertain as to what to expect in the 1,800 mile
journey along U.S. 61.
Although he has few possessions, he will wear three robes, carry
a backpack that holds a tent shaped like a large umbrella with
netting and a 10-square-foot tarp. Since he cannot handle money,
Stewart will buy food during the trip. They hope to travel small
county roads along a river and balance public interaction with
solitude and meditation.
The two plan to walk about 20 miles a day, traveling from New
Orleans through Memphis, Tenn., St. Louis, Mo., Dubuque, Iowa,
Minneapolis, Minn., and end at Arrow River Forest Hermitage in
Thunder Bay, Ontario, by Aug. 20.
For future updates on Jotipalo’s walk, visit http://www.abhayagiri.org
~ ~ ~
Designers
embrace the postindustrial
NEW YORK Landscape architects have long felt sidelined or
devalued by their architectural brethren. But as the boundaries
between the two professions slowly dissolve, it seems that
landscape designers are advancing some of the most potent visions
of how blighted cities can be revived.
.
"Groundswell," an exhibition at the Museum of Modern
Art, showcases the results of this gradual shift.
.
Spanning nearly two decades of contemporary landscape design,
this wide-ranging show surveys 23 projects - from plazas to
waterfront parks to large-scale urban renewal efforts. The
picture that emerges is of one of the most fruitful periods in
landscape design in a century or more, with visions that range
from the hyper-real to the atavistic. (Minimalism makes an
appearance, but when it does it seems like more of a warning than
an inspiration.)
.
If the show has a subtext, in fact, it is a forthright desire to
come to terms with the postindustrial landscape, in particular
its legacy of violence and decay. Many of the projects seem to
have been plucked from a list of man-made horrors: the site of a
terrorist bombing, a war-torn city center, poisonous dumping
grounds and industrial wastelands. The show's underlying optimism
is rooted in the power of landscape design to act as a healing
agent.
.
Yet one of the show's strengths is that it never preaches. Even
the most toxic landscapes are envisioned as part of a broader
cycle of decay and renewal. And all are explorations of communal
memory - an attempt to openly engage that dark history rather
than cover it over. -read
more-
~ ~ ~
Thomas
Merton
By ROBERT PLOCHECK / Dallas Morning News
A Year With Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton
(HarperSanFrancisco, 381 pages, $19.95)
These daily meditations, taken from Father Merton's journals, are
arranged by calendar date. The entries range from 1941 when he
entered the Trappist monastery in Kentucky to 1968, the year of
his death in Bangkok, and correspond to the month of the year, if
not the actual date.
The years are scrambled, however, leaving the reader to search
out the time frame of Father Merton's own spiritual development.
Although the prolific writer pursued a hermit's life, his musings
here, as in all his many works, connect with all believers
engaged in the struggle for holiness.
Politics enter into these meditations as they did in his life,
and some seem slightly dated, with references to Reds and the
"policy of deterrence," for example. Yet, this is a
monk who struggled to stay focused on his contemplative vocation.
He wrote in 1965: "The great thing ... is to get out of all
the traffic: peace movement traffic, political traffic, Church
traffic. All of it!" Aside from the few political thoughts,
most of these short meditations are timeless and universal. In
1962, he said: "This means always seeking the right balance
between study, work, meditation, responsibility to others and
solitude."
These selections are rich with honesty and wisdom, and provoke
much soul-searching.
~ ~ ~
Purchased
Pulpits and Spiritual Exploitations
By Jasmyne Cannick
"I freed a thousand slaves I could have freed a thousand
more if only they knew they were slaves..." - Harriet
Tubman
Recently, a group of Black pastors under the name of the Hi
Impact Coalition, held a press conference and summit in Los
Angeles to announce the kick off for their "Black Contract
with America on Moral Values." Led by Bishop Harry Jackson
of Washington and white Christian evangelical Reverend Lou
Sheldon and his Traditional Values Coalition, the press
conference and summit gave new meaning to the phrase
"Sleeping with the enemy."
According to the newly formed coalition, topping the list of
issues that Black Americans need to focus on is the protection of
marriage. Never mind the war, access to healthcare, HIV/AIDS,
education, housing and social security, the number one problem
facing Black America is same-sex marriage.
Standing before the press in their Sunday best and eager to get
their fifteen minutes of fame and achievable share of President
Bush's Faith Based Initiative, these Black pastors seemingly
allowed their pulpits to be purchased by the GOP and Lou Sheldon,
who is to gay people what Strom Thurmond was to Blacks. Sheldon
at one time even went so far as to support the quarantining of
people with AIDS and accused the federal government of
"running a network of whorehouses," when the U.S.
responded to the AIDS crisis with resources.
Later that afternoon over one hundred Black pastors gathered at
Reverend Fred Price's Crenshaw Christian Center, another
prominent mega-church, where Sheldon showed his infamous
"Gay rights, special rights" video and urged the
pastors to have their congregations lobby African American
legislators who hadn't taken a position on the issue of same-sex
marriage.
Listening from the outside, one might have thought they were
listening in on a Klan meeting, but after one look around the
room, I remember thinking of Dave Chappelle's portrayal of a
blind Black white supremacist who had never been told he was
Black. -read
more-
~ ~ ~
The
Psycho-spiritual Dimension of Islam
HAZRAT ABU BABAJI
The word "sufi" literally means
woollen, although the wearing of wool does not appear to have
ever been current among the mystics of Islam. It was, however,
first used when referring to a small group of mystics who did
wear wool. In Arabic, 'sufi' comes from 'safi' which means
"pure", and Sufis are the "pure at heart".
A Sufi can be distinguished from others through his detachment
from mate-rial life and his ecstatic devotion to "The Divine
Life", free from pain and sorrow. The Sufis are people who
prefer God to everything else and God prefers them to everything
else.Sufism or tasawwuf, in Arabic, is the inner mystical or
psycho-spiritual dimension of Islam. Today, how-ever, many
believe that Sufism is outside the sphere of Islam. Despite its
many variations and expressions, the essence of Sufi practice is
that the Sufi surrenders to God in love, over and over; which
involves embracing with love at each moment the content of one's
consciousness as gifts of God or, as manifestations of God.
Allah uses many different ways of awakening people from slumber
and attracting them to Him. Once awake, people become seekers and
travel on the path or salek. As they start their journey Divine,
their thoughts and feelings shift, and they begin to behave and
live differently in varying deg-rees. Why the change?
Because it helps them distinguish between the 'reality' that they
have always known and the reality that truly is. They begin to
realise that the purpose of this life's journey has far greater
depth and meaning than they had ever imagined. The innermost part
of their self responds strongly to this realisation and the outer
mechanics of the person therefore shifts.
There are various spiri-tual paths that attract people but,
sooner or later, all these little roads lead to that one main
road and unless one travels the distance of this grand highway,
one will not get far. To travel on this highway, one must disable
and break down the self or nafs, dethroning it from its position
of King and ruler, making it the slave. While the terms used may
differ, all the mystical paths are in agreement on this
fundamental aspect. In Buddhism, they speak of suffering and
killing the ego; in Sufism, they speak of servanthood of the nafs
to Allah. This also marks the separation between the real
traveller and the pseudo traveller. The vast treasury of Sufi
teaching and writings points out this fundamental and
uncompromising stage of spiritual unfoldment. This road is marked
with many teachers and once one surrenders himself to be taught
and becomes a salek, he is well on the road to God discovery.
Guided by his teacher or murshid, the salek follows and obeys the
murshid, whose job is to prevent the salek from falling into the
trap of self. The self uses every ploy to get the traveller off
the road that will ultimately lead to the self's demise. Its tool
include man's mind, emotions and belief systems — a
dange-rous and powerful array of weaponry. One must be most aware
and equipped to defy the attempts of the nafs. The irony is that
man is in the grip of his demanding self and is a slave to the
material world, but he is not aware of it. Modern society
promotes 'individuality', which in reality is 'slavery' to
materiality, yet it ignores and/or shuns servanthood to God,
which is the true purpose of Creation. It is only through
servanthood to God that man can actually be freed from
servanthood to material life. One cannot be a servant of God and
a servant to oneself at the same time.
(Excerpted from 'Sufi Saint of Ooty' by Ramu Baba.)
Sunday, February 13, 2005
Bhutan's beauty buries message
It's not every week that Toronto sees two
Buddhist-themed movies (Travellers and Magicians and Ong-Bak)
opening on the same Friday, and that alone calls for a moment of
meditation. So inhale deeply: Who knows when it will happen
again?
The fascinating thing is, as ostensibly different as the two
movies are, they both tend to emphasize the fundamental
contradiction in the very idea of "Buddhist
entertainment." Because, as I understand it, if your
Buddhist practice is working, you shouldn't need entertainment.
Where the contradiction in the ridiculously visceral Ong-Bak is
embedded in the very concept of a pacifist martial-arts
bonecruncher, in Travellers and Magicians you find it in the
movie's setting, the startling natural splendour of Bhutan. For
here is a place one cannot look at without wishing one was there,
and yet this is a movie about learning to accept where one is.
The second feature by the monastery-raised high lama Khyentse
Norbu, Travellers and Magicians is, like the 1999 soccer-fixated
fable The Cup, a cautionary tale about earthly western
temptations. But where the earlier film depicted the invasion of
secular consumerism via electronic channels, his new film is
about someone who has heard the ruckus and wants to find it. -read
more-
~ ~ ~
Mountain
Defender
With fierce faith, Julia Bonds works to save the land and people
of West Virgina.
by Beth Newberry
Julia Bonds wears her faith and her mission as an
environmental activist on a shirt that says "‘Stop
destroying my mountains!’ - God."
As outreach coordinator of the Whitesville, West Virginia-based
Coal River Mountain Watch, a watchdog and advocacy organization
that works to end mountain top removal strip mining, Bonds, 52,
has raised the attention of her mountain neighbors as well as the
ire of the coal industry. In 2003 she catapulted into the
international spotlight when she was one of seven activists from
across the globe to win the Goldman Environmental Prize, the
largest award ($125,000) given to grassroots environmentalists,
sometimes referred to as the "Nobel Prize for the
Environment."
...
Bonds says of her awakening as an activist, "I think it was
a process that started with what was happening in Marfork Hollow.
The slap that woke me up was my grandson lying in bed at night
plotting an escape route [from a potential sludge flood]. It
broke my heart and made me wonder, why is my grandson’s life
forfeited for profit? Why are all these children’s lives
forfeited for profit?
"I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he
wouldn’t make it out of the house if the slurry dam would
break, because there wouldn’t be enough time to
escape," she says. "That smacked me in the face. It
turned my life around. I knew then that it was a spiritual
journey."
...
As Julia Bonds struggles to protect and restore the culture and
environment of Appalachia, she will continue to encourage her
neighbors and other Americans to renew their covenant with God.
"The mentality is that there is nothing you can do to fight
this evil giant," says Bonds. "They ignore the obvious:
the Bible’s David and Goliath story.
"Sometimes people ask me, ‘Why do you bang your head
against the wall? Why do you even try?’ The fact of the
matter is, I can’t hide up in a corner and take it. I think
the greatest mistake and the worst sin I could make would be to
go back to my materialistic, vain life. I would know it in my own
heart; it’s not the right thing to do. I can’t ever
give up." -read
more-
~ ~ ~
Anthology
of spiritual writings reveals Americans to themselves
Reviewed by NATHAN KOLLAR
The Best American Spiritual Writing 2004 offers us 25 essays and
10 poems that touch our emotions. Through the skillful use of
word and image, the authors allow us to tap into their thoughts
and experiences. We are once again thankful to Philip Zaleski for
providing us with the “best” of American spiritual
writing, something he has been doing since 1998.
There are many wonderful essays in this year’s compilation.
Three in particular show the diversity of content and purpose:
“A Texas Childhood” by Rick Bass; “Miss Ivory
Broom” by Robin Cody; and “Good Grief” by Thomas
Lynch. Bass describes what he calls “lightening strike
moments” where nature reveals more than any human artifact
ever could. One example of such a moment is his realization
gazing at a frozen pond one clear winter night that fish live in
a world different from ours; that other worlds exist beyond our
immediate sensations. “Miss Ivory Broom” describes the
interaction between a school bus driver and a child with spina
bifida.
Thomas Lynch has written and spoken a great deal about funerals.
In his essay, he takes up the way some spiritualities avoid the
importance of the body at death. In opposition to these modern
spiritualities, he proclaims the Christian importance of the
body:
In each case these holy people treated the bodies of the dead
neither as a bother or embarrassment, nor an idol or icon, nor
just shell. They treated the dead like one of our own …
temples of the Holy Spirit, neighbor, family -- fellow pilgrims.
They stand -- these local heroes, these saints and sinners, these
men and women of God -- in that difficult space between the
living and the dead, between faith and fear, between humanity and
Christianity and say out loud, “Behold, I show you a
mystery.”
These three are a brief taste of the “best” in America.
But why did Mr. Zaleski choose these as the best? He tells us
that for a certain piece of writing to be considered
“spiritual,” its author must always be striving to be
the best, as a writer and as a person. There can be no mediocrity
in either the writing or the person. A true spiritual writer must
also recognize that writing is a moral act. “Such
recognition inoculates the writer against the three deadly
literary vices of pandering to popular taste, creative laziness,
and didacticism.” No free grace here. -read
more-
~ ~ ~
Award-Winning
Techno-Spiritual Web Epic Comes To DVD
posted by brokensaint
'Back in Jan 2001, ex-EA videogame producer
Brooke Burgess and two young artists launched a humble Flash web
comic series that hinted at heavy social, political,
technological, and especially spiritual themes. They didn't
expect a large audience to take note of their modest venture, but
since then over 4 million Flash-heads, comic/anime fans, media
critics, and tripped-out 'soul seekers' have opened the virtual
doors to Broken Saints.
'With themes that parallel works from the graphic novel greats -
the likes of Grant Morrison (Invisibles), Neil Gaiman (Sandman),
and Alan Moore (Watchmen) - Broken Saints has garnered countless
industry kudos (including a Sundance Audience Award), and the
first inklings of mainstream attention.
'And now, with the help of a timely grant from the Canadian
government, the creative team has produced their crown jewel: a
4-DVD Special Edition Box Set that completely re-imagines the 12
hour Broken Saints saga and peers behind the curtain at a team of
rogues who just wanted to wake some folks out of The Matrix in
style.'
'Inspired by a South Pacific backpacking escape after his days in
the cubicle barnyard, Burgess cashed in his stocks, sold anything
of value, and joined his friends in using Flash to fuse text,
images, and a haunting musical score (created by respected Berlin
composer Tobias Tinker) to tell his archetypal tale. Broken
Saints follows four unique strangers - a Catholic-American
programmer, a Buddhist/Shinto priest, a Muslim Mercenary, and a
mysterious Fijian orphan - as they are gripped by a series of
Apocalyptic visions. With their individual faiths shaken and
their waking lives pulled mysteriously to the American West
Coast, the four converge and discover that their fates - and the
spiritual destiny of humankind - is somehow tied to a global
satellite network, a military implant project, and a terrifying
plot to 'herald God's return'.
'Hailed by Wired Magazine as "Philip K Dick meets the
Tibetan Book of the Dead", the mesmerizing 'cinematic
literature' style of the Broken Saints series is entirely unique,
and the DVD version builds upon the presentation with all-new
art, intense visual effects, completely immersive Dolby 5.1
Surround, and acclaimed voice narration from a Vancouver cast
that includes William B Davis (Cancer Man from The X-Files).
Sunday, February 6, 2005
Co-opted
by the Right, Dismissed by the Left
Many of us feel that our faith has been stolen, and it's time to
take it back. In particular, an enormous public misrepresentation
of Christianity has taken place. And because of an almost uniform
media misperception, many people around the world now think
Christian faith stands for political commitments that are almost
the opposite of its true meaning. How did the faith of Jesus come
to be known as pro-rich, pro-war, and only pro-American? What has
happened here? And how do we get back to a historic, biblical,
and genuinely evangelical faith rescued from its contemporary
distortions? That rescue operation is even more crucial today, in
the face of a deepening social crisis that cries out for more
prophetic religion. -read
more-
~ ~ ~
Through the curtain the daylight crept
I looked at my lover as she slept
And as I watched her face I wept
It was a wonderful disguise.
Scott recites the strangers he encounters throughout the day: a
driver turning to look at him in traffic; a blind man addressing
him outside a museum; a fat woman in a queue; a drunk on the
stairs as he returns home; and the president “on the news at
10, looking like he could use a friend.” All of them, he
decides, wearing a wonderful disguise.
Stood in front of the mirror all alone
Examined my features, skin and bone
Looked at the face I’ve always known
It was a wonderful disguise.
He explained the inspiration by email. “I was living in the
Findhorn community in the mid 1990s and started to see divinity
in peoples’ faces, in their eyes. I told a more experienced
community friend and she said ‘you are seeing God in all his
wonderful disguises’. I knew in my heart then she was right
– and now I know it in my whole being.”
“(Findhorn) changed the way I look at life and other people
forever,” he noted on the Waterboys’ official website.
“I realized everyone really is the same deep underneath,
with the same longing to love and be loved. Behind all our
appearances, as one writer says, ‘There is only one of us
here.’ ” -read
more-
Tuesday, February 1, 2005
Gere,
Deepak Chopra plan film on Buddha: Modi:
[Hollywood News]: New Delhi, Feb 1 : Hollywood star Richard Gere
plans to make an epic film about the Buddha, which is to be
scripted by new age spiritual guru Deepak Chopra.
"The film's aim is to raise global awareness about Buddhist
philosophy and the Buddha's message of love, compassion and
equanimity," said B.K. Modi, president of the Maha Bodhi
Society of India, Tuesday.
The $100 million film, to be produced by Gere, will be released
in 2006 to coincide with the 2,550th anniversary celebrations of
the Buddha, Modi said.
Although the film's cast has not been finalised, Bollywood stars
Vivek Oberoi and Aishwarya Rai have evinced interest in the
crossover project, which will involve specialists from Hollywood
and the Indian film industry.