Because I am done with hate

First, let me give credit for inspiring this post to my Mom who wrote a very nice lesson about the Commandment "You shall not kill". My mother has been writing a number of lessons for our Church's "upper-level" Sunday-school program, which also go out to various people who are family, friends, or interested in the materials (a group which includes me).

This lesson in particular struck a cord in me. When I was little "You shall not kill" seemed like the Commandment least useful for daily living. But as my mother noted, Jesus taught that "You shall not kill" also applies to anger and hatred. After all, murder comes from such feelings.

But sometimes it feels like that as long as you don't act on the anger and hatred, it's fine to store it up inside you. At least, I used to think that way. When I was in middle school in particular, every grade there would be one or two kids who I hated, who made me constantly angry. I thought I was justified in my anger because they didn't seem to care about the effect of their jokes and teasing, and because they hit on topics that very sensitive for me at the time, but thinking back on it perhaps I just didn't understand them, or perhaps they had too much on their mind from other matters that made them careless, as my Mom pointed out, God asks us not to judge.

In any case, my anger, my hatred got me nothing. There were a few cases where I tried telling them off, but those were always ineffective (I've found that telling someone to stop a hurtful behavior works if that person was your friend to begin with, but is much more difficult when there isn't that bond). The anger also never gave me any sense of release for my frustrations, I had many of them in middle school and I thought perhaps if I could focus my irritations on a few people I could release it. Instead, I found my frustrations intensified as my thoughts circled around my anger. I found that when I was angry or caught up in hate, my enjoyment of life lessened, my relationships with those I cared about suffered, and my spiritual life faltered.

I'm not sure if there was a special moment when I decided to stop hating people. In fact, even now there are moments when I slip into that state of mind, but nowadays I take care to pull myself out of it. Sometime around my freshman year of high school a change happened in my way of thought. Whether there was a moment or not, I do believe this was a gift from God. I began to notice that I had no objects of hate, and though I tried to pick out historical figures or concepts to hate, I realized there was no need to hate. Anger and hate simply kept me from growing closer to God.

Later in high school, as I became more convinced that hate was harmful to the soul, I found to my surprise, without intending it, I had befriended most of those classmates I had once considered my enemies. Thinking about my later friendships, my previous anger seems silly.

I get angry at times, but I've been making the effort to catch myself and stop myself from being caught up in anger. Anger, hatred, even if they don't lead to actions like murder, the person who bears them I believe suffers, the mind, body, and spirit become corrupted, and the sin of hate pollutes the person's relationship with God. And it is so unnecessary. At least in my life, I have found that if I seek to embrace love and reject hate, I am much happier for it, I am much more successful in life for it, and I feel closer to God.

After all, if we love God, shouldn't we love his children, who are created in his image?

Those are just some thoughts I had about this Commandment, and I thought I'd share them.

Anywho, take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

Christ is risen, indeed

It was the pastor of St.Paul's, Monsignor Nolan, who taught me the traditional Easter greeting and response:

Christ is risen!

Christ is risen, indeed.

I'm not sure who's tradition that was, but it's a nice one. Now lest you think I'm in some bizarre time warp and/or zone, it is in fact the day after Easter where I currently am. Still that does not change the fact that Christ rose from the dead, nor that his death and resurrection saved us all.

Sometimes when I think about that, everything else pales in comparison. Jesus' death and resurrection is a testament to God's eternal love and His sovereignty over the universe.

Historically there was a brand of thought that concluded since Jesus took away sin that all moral responsibility was abolished by Christ's resurrection. Historically most theologians laughed and giggled at such logic. After all, Christ gave us freedom, and if sin is our distance from God, we then have an option to cling to our sin. God then does not condemn us as punishment, but simply restrains Himself from stopping us when we ourselves choose the path to Hell. Least that's how I figure it

Moreover, if we love God, (and when you accept that God is eternally loving and supremely good, I think that you cannot reconcile anything less than a love for God with an acceptance of this reality), then to not try do good would be to deny our love. Christ's resurrection has freed us from sin, enabling us to love him and draw close to him with all of our hearts, minds, and souls, but in order to love God, and because of our love for God, we are compelled to strive to do His will. And this means we must take care of each other and indeed ourselves, as God loves us all.

But reflecting on the enormity of Christ's resurrection, of the culmination of the supreme miracle of Jesus' life, Passion, and death, a concept encompassing humanity, divinity, and the triumphant cross which bridged the two...it's more than the mind can wrap itself around (but there's good reason to believe that any real system of reasoning cannot fully encompass reality, after all the universe is infinite, and our minds are not).

Thinking about the miracle of Easter, which is not a task simply confined to one day or one week or one season... but though the compulsion to do good remains because of our love of God, the compulsion to fear evil seems a bit silly. It is a silliness that we all fall victim to on occasion, but even the fears and anxieties surrounding that failure seem insignificant compared to God's love, which bears all the burdens of our sins and redeems us, which forgives any slight and turns all things to good, which raises us from the dead and grants eternal life.

Jesus Christ, who is God, came down from Heaven and became man. He bore the cross, for the sake of our sins and not his, and was crucified and three days later He rose from the dead. He conquered death and gave life eternal to all. If we trust in Him then what can this world do to us? How can even our baser instincts and frailties prevail if He is with us, now and until the end of time. (and beyond maybe, if that concept makes any sense. I'll admit, when I go off into the realms of theology, mysticism and metaphysics, I often am in unfamiliar territory. But if I can draw upon the guidance and advice of those I trust, love and believe in, it seems like a good gamble. After all, what is life but an experience of mystery and is not Love the answer to all things?)

Let me not pretend that I am some special wise man, let me not pretend that I am the bearer of some secret. I have suffered in my life, but others have suffered more. I have faith, but I know others with far more. I am certainly nothing compared to God, and compared to man... how should I know? and fortunately it is not my place to judge such rankings.

Yet I believe God loves me with a unique, perfect Love, which I cannot match but will spend my life trying to further experience and return. And I believe that God loves each of you, uniquely, passionately, and infinitely. And I believe if I just trust in that love, everything will be alright and when I fail to trust sufficiently, when I despair or harden my heart, I believe that God will still be reaching out to me and I trust that He will save me.

That I could have more faith, that I could have more understanding, that I could have more compassion or more strength of will... but it's okay. God remains and will take care of us all. Christ is triumphant and will redeem us. We don't need to fear. God is with us, always, and forever.

May God Bless you all, and happy day after Easter

The wizard will wait

What does that mean?

I dunno, something.

And if that aimless beginning implies a certain aimless-ness of my life of late, then it may very well be true. But then again, all aims have their seasons.

In actuality little of my ambition has been lost, perhaps just buried for a moment here and there, covered over by some disappointment and miscalculation.

Ah, miscalculation, and that perhaps is the rub, for so much easier and indeed more successful would my ventures be without calculation, but the requirements of pushing myself beyond my comfort zone, the limits of which are my death, does require a bit of skill and cleverness.

And a bit of a gamble. So I calculate. So I lie. So I pretend and dabble and fail and fumble, but then again... As a priest pointed out at my last Confession, I am too hard on myself. Yes I do need motivation, but I'm trying, I'm striving, and if I don't always succeed...

Ah well, all of this rumbling does not solve my problems, of which there aren't any... well not really, nothing urgent, nothing pressing, hence the aimless-ness. In this sort of uncomfortable haze of a life, relying not on the thrill (because life does go on without it) of life but rather the inertia... it's easy... and that I'm trying to get free (perhaps the solution is that I need to get out of California, except I'm in New Jersey), well that's something.

Still, I'd like something more to come from my life, and in response to that I think I ought have faith in He who I love above all else, and in Him is the hope of all possibilities, of striving toward all goodness, and finding it in His Infinite Love.

God's Love, it's just so beautiful.

So what am I complaining about... really I mean come on! I have God with me, always, forever, what more can I ask for, what more do I need? And if the road is tough, perhaps it is just tough to bring me closer to He who shouldered the Cross on a very tough road, and if I fall sometimes, perhaps it is just so I have the honor of Him picking me up. And the Lord remains always.

And so, even in the cold midnight, it's still a beautiful day.

So take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

Our Father who art in Heaven

I always wanted to do an exposition on the Lord's Prayer, but I'll bow to a more esteemed expert. Thanks to Binu Abraham for pointing this out to me.

From a letter to Proba by Saint Augustine, bishop

(Ep. 130, 11, 21—12, 22: CSEL 44, 63-64)

---

On the Lord’s Prayer

We need to use words so that we may remind ourselves to consider
carefully what we are asking, not so that we may think we can
instruct the Lord or prevail on him.

Thus, when we say: Hallowed be your name, we are reminding
ourselves to desire that his name, which in fact is always holy, should
also be considered holy among men. I mean that it should not be
held in contempt. But this is a help for men, not for God.

And as for our saying: Your kingdom come, it will surely come
whether we will it or not. But we are stirring up our desires for the
kingdom so that it can come to us and we can deserve to reign there.

When we say: Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, we are
asking him to make us obedient so that his will may be done in us as
it is done in heaven by his angels.
When we say: Give us this day our daily bread, in saying this day we
mean “in this world.” Here we ask for a sufficiency by specifying
the most important part of it; that is, we use the word “bread” to
stand for everything. Or else we are asking for the sacrament of
the faithful, which is necessary in this world, not to gain temporal
happiness but to gain the happiness that is everlasting.

When we say: Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass
against us, we are reminding ourselves of what we must ask and what
we must do in order to be worthy in turn to receive.

When we say: Lead us not into temptation, we are reminding
ourselves to ask that his help may not depart from us; otherwise we
could be seduced and consent to some temptation, or despair and
yield to it.

When we say: Deliver us from evil, we are reminding ourselves to
reflect on the fact that we do not yet enjoy the state of blessedness in
which we shall suffer no evil. This is the final petition contained in
the Lord’s Prayer, and it has a wide application. In this petition the
Christian can utter his cries of sorrow, in it he can shed his tears, and
through it he can begin, continue and conclude his prayer, whatever
the distress in which he finds himself. Yes, it was very appropriate
that all these truths should be entrusted to us to remember in these
very words.

Whatever be the other words we may prefer to say (words which
the one praying chooses so that his disposition may become clearer
to himself or which he simply adopts so that his disposition may
be intensified), we say nothing that is not contained in the Lord’s
Prayer, provided of course we are praying in a correct and proper
way. But if anyone says something which is incompatible with this
prayer of the Gospel, he is praying in the flesh, even if he is not
praying sinfully. And yet I do not know how this could be termed
anything but sinful, since those who are born again through the
Spirit ought to pray only in the Spirit.

---

One is never disappointed with St.Augustine (though he did have some odd opinions about babies and plays among other things).

May God Bless you all.

Happy Reunion Day!

For this post I have plenty of possible material. I could whine, I could apologize, I could shout in fury, but that would ignore the fact that today is Reunion Day.

Honestly, I was planning a post on half-a-dozen other topics this morning when I found out it was Reunion Day.

And by now, the hair-scratching over what I'm talking about should surely be boring into...

Anywho, what I'm talking about is that today is a celebration of the Reunion of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church and the universal Catholic Church (the capitalizations here are... well, broad and random guesses of what should be capitalized, I'm Christian, that's just how we roll).

A little history.

To summarize (immensely), is because of intolerance, stubbornness, and various other factors, the Malankara Church broke from the Catholic Church in the 16th C., and then through dedicated hard-work, especially by the Servant of God Archbishop Geevarghese Mar Ivanios, this breech in the Christian family was in part healed. But there is so many of these breeches.

It really is a shame, the divisions in Christianity, because, when it comes down to it, Christians got to show the love, and to have these walls between us, that's blocking up the love.

I jest, but in all seriousness, I do believe in the Love of God, and it is that Love which redeems souls, the only real part of humanity that is of any importance. How then can anything be placed above that Love to justify its divisions?

Love rules. You gotta accept it, swallow your pride, bandage the wounds, apologize, beg, do what it takes, to spread the love. That's why we're here. And that's the only real way to measure the worth of life when push comes to shove, the love you bear and the love you share.

And it isn't always easy, but if God's with you, can even your own weaknesses stand against you?

In then end, all I can say is I will try to love everyone, the best I can, and in doing so love God the best that I can, and in doing so...

I could go on into endless Christian mysticism rants, but let me just say Happy Reunion Day!

And may God Bless you allS.

I'm back, not quite in black

If any noticed, I had a bit of an unexcused absence for a long weekend, but hah!

Not that I need any excuses from you bums!
BUMS!

I'm just kiddin' I love all you folks out there in Internet-land!

Indeed, I'm bringing quite a bit of love with me now, because I just came back from the 2009 Malankara Catholic Association Convention, Woooo!!!!

Woooo!!!!!!!!

Malankara Catholics rule!

So I got a lot of thoughts and feelings coming out of there. Unfortunately I lost my exact notes (a similar situation happened to me at a certain Rutgersfest some time ago), but still I'm feeling good, and feeling post-y-ish. Although a full account of things will have to wait. Till then peace I'm out a'right?

Just kidding folks, I'm too awesome to exit with that sort of remark. Because I'm just that cool.

So take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

Christ has Risen!

He has Risen, indeed.

Working in a Gold Mine, but all the shimmers must fade away

So I'm liking my job. It's a good job, the people are nice, they respect me, it's interesting, yada, yada, yada...

So on a moment to moment basis, I'm feeling a good deal better about my job situation. But there is still something bugging me. Well not something...

It is a small world, my job. I mean it actually deals with variables and items coming from all over the globe, and impacting people all over the, etc., etc., etc.

But the world of the office, it is very small. And just the world of web development just for this company, that's a very small canvas.

And yet, this job takes up time. I was half-debating whether or not to skip this and just get some sleep, but I knew had I done that I would wake up under the weather. (Ke-He-He-Hekel)

But this is actually a good deal greater of a canvas than I had previously, that is without a job. And as I learn to manager my time better, adjusting to things and not taking trains in the wrong direction (as I did today), I imagine I'll have more time for writing, and reading, and painting in all the colors of the rainbow! (because rainbows are cool)

But more importantly, this is not only a step up, it is a step toward more steps up, since it gives me some income, some experience and some nice skills. It might not be the ideal place to get those, but it's a pretty good place for that.

Yet I must be careful I imagine, it's easy to get drawn into things, daily tasks, responsibilities, and beyond any decision of ambition or non-ambition, choice of life paths, canvas sizes big, small, or javascript, there is a far more important choice one risks loosing.

The choice of whether or not to do the right thing. The choice of whether or not to follow the ways of the Lord. To get trapped in the trappings of well, the world, life I suppose, well, it can trap you, and cost you that most precious freedom of deciding for yourself whether or not to give your soul to the Lord. If that sounds like not a choice at all, it is because the right choice is so obvious, but we have that terrible and wondrous gift to make the wrong choice, but if we forget all about the choices we choose, and instead think only of that which we do, then our choice has already been made. And then our sentence is just, not handed down by a cruel God, but by our own foolishness which lets us fall away from God, who is in all the best parts of ourselves, who is all Goodness, and that my friends is Hell.

Well, I think I've just about covered the gambit from Gold Mines to Hell, so I think, dear readers, it is time for me to get some sleep.

So take it to your head, take it to your heart, and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

These things I do believe

By circumstance of thought, if nothing else, I find myself thinking and developing manifestos and expositions of what I believe in, partially or fully, to a degree or at the core of my being, incidentally or crucially, and I think as part of the Rand Show, me, being Rand the great and glorious, my beliefs would fit well to posting.

However, as I wrestled with which belief to start with, the answer became clear.

Have I not always insisted of the centrality of my faith to me? And what does a Catholic believe?

And thus I have reproduced below the Nicene Creed. It is also attached to the side, but I thought I might draw a little attention to it, because as I said, this is something quite dear to me, quite more so than life itself:

The Nicene Creed

We believe in God, the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
and all that is seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.

For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he was born of the Virgin Mary,
and became man.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered, died, and was buried.

On the third day he rose again
in fulfilment of the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead,
and His kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

With the Father and the Son
he is worshiped and glorified.

He has spoken through the Prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come.

Amen

Happy St. Thomas' Day

Courtesy of my mother I'd like to give a quick rundown of the history of Christianity in that little SW corner of India called Kerala.

In brief, the St. Thomas Christians remained pretty much as one group until 1599 (Diampur Synod), when Portugese Bishop did a hostile takeover of Syrian Christians. But Portugese power waned and in 1653, some of the new Christians could not take the loss of traditional worship. They revolted and had a pledge to go back to Orthodox worship and tradition.Thus the Syrian Orthodox Church was formed. My family part of the church remained in Roman Catholicism and revived little bit of old tradition. They are Syro-Malabar church. Portugese missionaries also converted lot of Hindus from 1498 onwards and this group is called Latin Catholics.

The Syrian Orthodox church split into several factions. One faction under the Bishop Mar Evanios re-joined Catholic church in 1930. Achacha' family and our New Jersey church belongs to this group. This is called Malankara Syrian Catholic Church

So remember Roman Catholic Church in Kerala has three groups or independent 'rites' or form of worship. The The Latin rite, Syro-Malabar rite and Malankara Syrian catholic rite. I should say four, if I include the Kananya Church.

The Syrian Orthodox Church that remained away from the catholic church has three other famous factions: One is called the Othodox Church to which belongs Shaji Achacha's family. They have large congregations in the US and Achacha's friend Thankanchan uncle's family also belongs to this one.

Now there are 17 million Catholics in India, 7 million are Syrian Christians, about 500,000 are Malankara Syrian Catholic.

I was for years trying to figure out where these different factions arise and how they are connected. Now it is all easy to find out from Wikipedia.

And that's my mother (Thresia Thomas)!

Poets or mullets, or can you have both

Yes you can. It's actually getting harder and harder for me to think of good post titles, but I'm pretty good with that one, even if it has only highly tangential relation to my actual post.

Anywho, for a while I've debated back and forth between putting poems up on my site. Ultimately I think it's a good thing. If a poetry magazine what's exclusive publishing, I can take it down, but honestly, I'm not spending that much time (if any) sending work out to magazines, so might as well put it up on the web. Hopefully that will keep me writing.

Because honestly, I haven't been writing that much. Now I've been doing some posting, and some decent posts have come out, but even though I insist that blogging is a creative work, and sometimes I get a nice thunderstrike and make something totally awesome for my blog, fiction and poetry... now they too often come from reality, but still need more work for the ideas to be teased out to something concrete. Taking away my distress at not spending that much time writing (even the posts are in between stuff and without that much discipline), I've also got a good deal of distress that my creativity's leaking a little. Now that might just be stress, that might just be overreaction, that might just be busy-ness, but there might be a gem of truth there, even if it just means I have writer's block. And that's, that's a bit scary for me.

I actually have a poem for that, but I have another poem that I'm pretty damn proud of. I always think of my writing as working for the Lord through making something high-quality. But this is more direct. However, let me withdraw the pretty damn proud, at least tentatively, because I'm a little unsure of the quality here. I've worked on this, but I can never be sure of quality immediately after something's written. And yet... and yet this is something important to me, and ah, aren't you here to understand the inner-workings of the Rand-ish mind?

Or something like that.

Anyways, I'm going to post up a nice little poem I call, "The Lord remains"

Christ has risen!

He has risen, indeed.

Amen.

Just to start some controversy

I think overall I've been relatively uncontroversial in my ideas. So I thought I'd throw something out there, and leave it out there for people to look at and maybe get angry at and I'll explain it later.

While I believe that embracing the ideal of love is probably the most important guide to salvation, I believe different churches rank as different value in their ability to guide people to salvation.

Here's my ranking of religions (this says nothing about the people who belong to these religions, or the fact that all these religions are valid belief systems, but rather it's a matter of my philosophical and religious agreement with the religions):

Christianity > Judaism > Islam > Sikhism > Hinduism > Buddhism > Agnosticism > Atheism > White power churches

Within Christianity, I have another ranking system:

Catholicism > Eastern Orthodox/Oriental Orthodox > Protestants > Mormonism/Jehovah's Witnesses

Now there are a lot of other religions out there, they tend to fit somewhere on my scale but almost all are above Atheism except those that are explicitly based on hate like the White power churches.

I'm a devout Roman Catholic, but I'm not one casually. I believe that while you should take in your parents' religion and the religion of those you look up to as a kid, at a certain age (probably starting around 7 (the age of reason by Roman Catholic standards when you start understanding the rituals that you do) and intensifying around 13 (when a lot of kids get Confirmed)) you have to really start looking at your religion. Now I don't mean throwing away your previous beliefs with no reason. After all, since you have motivations to do things in life you always have some beliefs, even if they're implicit, so why not start out with some explicit beliefs that you can actually examine and mold. What I'm really trying to say is you look at your beliefs, find contradictions, see if you can resolve them, if you can't discard one of the beliefs that caused the contradictions. Then you extend the beliefs to create new conclusions, again this will generate contradictions. Then you look at the beliefs that form the core of your beliefs, again this process will generate contradictions: resolve them. Finally you take the sum of that whole matter and decide what is the best course for you religiously.

I say this not with the idea that everyone should develop a complete religious philosophy all by themselves. Look, when you're having trouble with a math problem, what do you do? You consult a math textbook. But what if there are different schools of thought about that mathematics problem? You find an expert in math who you trust and respect. Math actually has a lot to do with religion since they're both based on axioms (basic beliefs) extended by logic (for those of you who scoff, I'd like to point out nearly all of modern logic is based on the work of the Catholic Church (CATHOLICS RULE! WOOOOOO!), and at this moment theologians are pouring over religious texts and applying the logic to explicate them). A lot of religious topics are hard to understand, don't be afraid to take guidance from people you respect and trust. Still you have to see if the commitment you make to a religion agrees with your basic beliefs and the ideas that you were able to work out. Moreover, if you have the time, look through and analyze the beliefs of the religion you adopt, and also others if you have more time. Of course, it could be you can't find any organized religion that agrees with your basic beliefs, I'd probably argue that's a flaw in your basic beliefs, but that's a philosophical matter in which I acknowledge that many rational, thoughtful people can come to different conclusions, and then you would have to take no organized religion.

Well, I sort of went back on my I'm not going to explain this rule. And to go back on it even further, I'd like to throw in a session I did earlier explaining some of my religious thoughts (most notably my problems with reincarnation and Buddhism). But I'm not going to explain everything (although you might have noticed that the religions I hold in higher esteem are those that are closer to Christianity, and the denominations of Christianity I hold in greater esteem are those that are closer to Roman Catholicism, but still there are additional reasons for my rankingology). Still I think this is enough to start some controversy.

Get mad or get Catholic! Come on!

Happy All Saint's Day

I am actually kind of sad that I didn't attend Church today, I actually didn't remember that it was All Saint's Day until a few minutes ago. I said a prayer but I really wished I had celebrated things more properly. But while I like attending Church on All Saint's Day, it never had the same significance to me as say Good Friday or even Ash Wednesday.

Still, let be on your mind that this is a holy day, well all days are holy days really, but this more so than normal, as it is scheduled to concentrate all of our minds on God.

I've never been terribly sure of the significance of All Saint's Day, but in my mind it is a call to our own possibilities with God's help. It is a call to recognize, honor and venerate the saints who have gone before us, but it is also a call to recognize that with God's help even the lowest of us can become saints. I've never been to big on the role of saint's as intermediaries between us and God, I recognize it, and occasionally I'll say saint's prayers (of course I say often the Hail Mary, the prayer of the Queen of Saints, Mary, the Mother of God), but I've never had the degree of personal connection with a saint that made me concentrate on him or her as my special intercessor. Yet I take great significance to the role of saints as role models. Although, we might not be able to replicate exactly the circumstances they lived in (especially given the number of saints living way back in history), but we can imitate their spiritual lessons. I recently gave a speech about this sort of in Church, basically it was St. Francis' day and St. Francis is the patron saint of the MCYM (Malankara Catholic Youth Movement), and basically I said that we should imitate St. Francis' devotion to God and his devotion to doing God's will despite the other plans his father had for him. Another point to remember that St. Francis measured his success by his following God's will and not the money or success he achieved, something else to imitate.

To be honest I can't remember exactly what I said since I didn't write anything down, I was in a bit of a breakdown when I gave the speech and so I just remembered a couple main points in my head and I just let it flow out. That it came out pretty decent and conveying some good points about religion is perhaps a little bit of a miracle (I'll talk more about my personal take on miracles later). But the point is that we can imitate the spiritual lives of saints by taking the lessons of their relationships with God. Now saints weren't always right in their opinions (St. Augustine had some really weird views on plays (although he shared this with Plato)), nor did they necessarily live spotless lives (St. Augustine here is another good example, since he lived as basically a hedonist during his early years (I'm using St. Augustine for both examples since I read the first 9 or 10 books of Confessions by St. Augustine (I left off around the start of the exgenesis of Genesis, but that was sort of because I was busy writing a book report on Confessions)), but what all saints have in common (or at least all true saints), is a deep relationship with God and a deep devotion to pursuing that relationship and pursuing God's will.

This also means that if we want to achieve sainthood or something comparable, we don't need to be personally spotless, nor do we need to be right all the time. We just need to try to always get closer to God and to love God with all of our hearts, minds and souls. And part of loving God is loving his people, which is to say loving all of the world. And it's tough sometimes, but if we keep trying, yes, we can become saints. And if we don't have enough time in this world to achieve that goal, well, Jesus granted us forgiveness of sins, and since sins are what keeps us from God, if we keep trying to follow Jesus' path, then He will take away all that keeps us from it.

And I think even if you don't believe directly in God, it is still possible to achieve this. The Bible says, "He who loves everyone except God, loves everyone" or something to the like (I'd put up a link but my computer's failing right now, I believe the passage is in 1 Corinthians 13 (St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 13), and so if we pursue the principle of love (and not say just the happy feeling love gives us, or our desire to possess one thing or relationship), even if we might not be directly setting out to try to follow God, in our hearts we are searching for that path. And I think that in the end, for those souls who are searching for the paths of love, God will show them the way to His kingdom. Least that's my take on it (where does this leave the importance of the Church? In my book, the Church is the best guide in pursuing those paths of love, but I'll elaborate on that in a later session).

So we can all look to the saints, and their relationship with God and the strength of their love for inspiration, and we can all learn from them. And maybe, if we find the right lessons in their ways, we too can be saints one day.

Quotable, boatable, John

I think perhaps it has come time to if not lighten up the atmosphere a little bit, at least I should tangentilize the atmosphere a little bit, because I am a wild tangent, ready to rock your world, etc., etc. (you know etc. usually means and all else in the same manner but I'm not sure you really know what else follows the same manner as I am a wild tangent, ready to rock your world, well too bad, you BUMMMMMMMS!!!!!)

Anywho, or any moo for that matter, I thought in that spirit I'd give you some quotes of various peoples and peoplenesses for a little break in the flow of things as it were (so much of what I have just said is absolute nonsense, so very, very much nonsense, anyways, here's some quotes):

Freedom is a possession of inestimable value. - Cicero, a great sentiment, but I think I could probably find sometime a better quote

"History drives her lovers mad,"-Rand

"And so does your face,"-Rand

"No—Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men."

"Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known."

"I'm... too old to lie to myself and call it honor."

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther … And one fine morning -

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

"One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, 'Of all the commandments, which is the most important?'

'The most important one,' answered Jesus, 'is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these.'" - The Gospel according to Mark, Chapter 12

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."- 1 Corinthians 13, St. Paul

"If you were x, I would be x squared over 2, because I want to be the area beneath your curves."-TE

"I shall rule the world!"-Rand

"I like to quote myself, because I'm just that awesome."-Rand

"I am Rand the mighty and glorious, and I am also might and glorious in a very mightly and gloriousily fashion. I AM RAND!" - Rand

Rutgers Rules!

"Rutgers University is inarguably America's cockiest, smartest party school. The only school in history who rejected their Ivy League invitation"
-The Star Ledger
So yeah Rutgers rules, anyways, I'm back from Texas and I have the Robot devil's hands to prove it. Had a great time down there, among the buffulo, or well, maybe not among the buffulo, but among the Malankara youth (basically the type of Catholic I am (well, sort of, since my mother is of the Syro-Malabar rite and I attend Latin rite masses often, I could also be placed into one of those, maybe, possibly, eh, I'll deal with that matter in another session), it has to do with Eastern-rite Catholicism, I'll get into it later). Lot of fun time, a lot better than what I expected from a Christian youth conference. Lots of fun people, some interesting speechs (a couple less interesting ones), a nice basketball tourtament (to prove how fun it was, I'd like to point out that it led to two hospitalizations), some dancing lessons and some nice socializing. To be honest I was a little afraid that the conference would be 1-dimensional and the people there would be 1-dimensional, I suppose this was just me playing into stereotypes, after all I'm a deeply religious person who does deeply religious people and I've got so many dimensions that they're slowly collapsing in on themselves in one of those infinite black hole things. So met some nice people, did some cool stuff, all awesome.

Let me explain Malankara a little before I move on (see I told you I'd get back to it, and I'm sure you thought, oh he's never going to get back to it or he's only going to get back to it months down the line, but here it's coming and you know what that makes you, a bum, yeah that's right, I called you a bum, bet you didn't expect that). See the Catholic world actually consists of several rites, the one that has the most people and which most people know of is the Latin rite, led by the Pope (hence Roman Catholics), but there are other rites. There are a couple very small other Western rites, like the Mozarabic rite practiced historically throughout Spain and Portugal and still in a couple churches in Spain, but most other non-Latin rites are Eastern rites, ie, east of Rome and Latin speaking Europe. These rites came into and out of communion with the rest of the Catholic world through a variety of reasons and ways, a couple actually never fell out of communion. Most Eastern-rite churches, however, find their origin in the split between the Catholic and Orthodox worlds, over several issues including some theological and cultural points, but mostly over the pre-eminance of the Pope over the other leaders of the Christian world, especially over the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Bzyantine Emperor. This created many Orthodox churches, most in communion with each other but some in a seperate group called the Oriental Orthodox. Over time parts of many of those churches came back into the Catholic fold through reunion movements sponsered (occassionally forcefully so) by various religious and political leaders.

This might explain how the Malankara Catholic Church (sometimes called the Syro-Malankara) was formed but that's not the case (probably, the history is a little hazy and confusing). For the Malankara Church, the initial split from Rome reached back further to the contraversies over Jesus Christ's exact, percise nature (I use this in the general sense, not in the theological sense), this prompted what was called the Nestorian Church (the current descendents of this church dispute this name, I'm kind of hazy on the matter myself, but the proper name for them is the Ancient Church of the East for those still outside the Catholic Church, and the Assyrian Church of the East and the Chaldean Catholic Church who rejoined the Catholic Church) (let's call them Assyrian Churches since their patriarches were Assyrian) to split off, this being largely the church in Iraq and east of Iraq including India and what would later be the Malankara Catholic Church.

Little confusing, yeah, I'm a little confused by it too at times. Ok, but the situation was that the Indian churches (yes there were Indian churches, started by Saint Thomas, found in the Kerala region of India) was that they were mostly in communion with the churches in Iraq, accept some might have been in communion with churches in Syria, and some might have still been in communion with the Pope and just isolated (my father who knows the matter better than I would probably scold me for not knowing this better if he read this session, but hopefully I'll revisit this sometime when I know matters more certainly).

That was the situation in the 15th century, then the Portugese came. They found the local Christians practicing their own rite and tried to enforce communion with Rome. Some joined willingly, some joined unwillingly, but an Indian-rite denomination (although influenced by Portugese practice (to what degree I'm not exactly sure, it's generally said that the Portugese were not very respectful of the local Indian Christians, on the other hand, the rite that emerged from this was still very much Indian)) was formed in communion with Rome, this was the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church. Also at the same time the Portugese baptized some new Christians, these became the Latin-rite Cahtolic Church in India. But some of the local, older Christians were defiant about Portuguese domination and impositions and the force the Portugese used, and these stayed part of the Orthodox Churches or part of the Assyrian Churches or on their own, and some were later influenced by Protestantism and their were other splits and such, it's all very, very confusing.

Anyways, what is more clear, is that Bishop Mar Ivanios, then of the Malankara Syriac Orthodox Church, in 1930 led his church and others to reunite with Rome and form the Malankara Catholic Church, of which my father is a member of. I attend the Malankara masses and consider myself a member although I also attend Latin rite masses and like I said my mother is Syro-Malabar. And this church had a North American Youth Conference (Youth being 15-35, with a good number in their 20s) in Houston and that was where I was.

Anyways the important thing is is that the Malankara Catholic Church rocks the house, Catholic rule in general and I had a lot of fun.

So I got ot go to sleep soon, so take it to your head, take it to your heart, and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

My dogma ran over your karma or I ain't got no reincarnation

I always loved that quote "my karma ran over your dogma," although I don't think it actually means anything (if interpreted it could, but whoever wrote it or said it first probably just liked the car in karma and the dog in dogma). But anyways I switched it around so that it would better fit what I think. I believe in Christian dogma but not in karma. In this world where people are constantly saying there's no real difference in religions I'd like to point out the difference between my beliefs and others and I'd like to explain why and explore this.
I'm a Christian, and while some maintain Christians are not inherintly different from Buddhists/Hindus who believe in karma, I'd say there is a big difference between karma and forgiveness, especially since karma involves reincarnation and the Christian ideal of forgiveness involves Purgatory, Heaven and Hell (some might say that Buddhism isn't really about reincarnation, but you should be careful about the word "really," it implies that those who don't believe that are not truly Buddhist, it's fine if you say your belief in Buddhism doesn't include reincarnation or even that the correct interpretation of Buddhism is no reincarnation, but people shouldn't deny that those who believe in reincarnation don't belong to schools within the Buddhist range of thought (it's like the fact that I'm Catholic, but I recognize Protestants are also Catholic, even though I think Catholics are the best branch of Christianity). Those people tend to be Westerners (and I'm not refering to my friends who may have embraced some form of Buddhism, most of them understand that they simply believe in one variant and that there are others) whose exposure to Buddhism is highly limited (very few have actually read the Buddhist texts (and yes there are Buddhist texts, the basic ones are called the Tripitaka), I'm not saying I'm an expert, but I'm saying most of the people who claim to "really" understand Buddhism are not experts either). More importantly karma is sort of an exchange, you exchange a good act for a bad one, you balance your sins with your good deeds, what you do good comes back to you and what you do bad comes back to you so you have to do more good than bad with your life or in your next life. Forgiveness doesn't work like that. Forgiveness operates instantaneously, it means suddenly your sins are gone. It means that your evil deeds are washed away by the love of God. Yes there is often an obligation to do some act because of your sins but such acts are to improve one spiritually not to balance the scales. And while there is a Purgatory open for cleansing of the soul, there are no extra life times in Christianity, at least in most of the varients I'm familiar with.
Is this an important difference? Yes. Because it determines whether you value yourself based on your actions or based on your soul, it determines whether you try to make up for past deeds or simply try to live well in the future. It also makes a difference in focus between focusing on how you treat the external world instead of focusing on how you treat your soul. I'm not necessarily saying that Buddhists/Hindus are bad and although I think they are wrong they have a right to their views and honestly their views are pretty well developed and well thought through. Of the different belief systems out there Buddhism and Hinduism are pretty good ones, at least most variants are. All religions tend to have some bad variants out there and some bad, sometimes horrificly bad interpretations.
There is also another element to the karma versus forgiveness debate. This is more in the case in Buddhism and some less formalized religious beliefs than in Hinduism, but even Hinduism has it to some degree, especially in some sects, but karma does not require a deity to make it work. It can function in a purely mechanical universe. A certain mixture of good and bad deeds cause this or that to happen. On the other hand, divine forgiveness usually requires someone to forgive, and thus requires a God or gods. Of course, you can forgive yourself and leave it at that as well, but if you feel that good and bad have to do with something greater than humanity, you're probably going to need something greater than humanity to forgive. Of course, there are other reasons for belief in a higher spiritual power, but I won't get too much into that now.
My point is that there is a fundemental difference between karma and forgiveness as a means to dealing with sins and bad deeds. That difference guides our lives and because of that we should understand that difference. I think forgiveness is the superior school of thought and that's why I believe in it, but even if you believe in karma you must understand in what karma means. Of course, then again, people themselves often mix and match religious concepts, even ones so different as karma and forgiveness (even though sometimes their mixes don't quite make sense, but sometimes they create some pretty fancy systems of belief), but then you're creating a third way, which is neither one or the other. Yes, Virginia, there is a difference between religions, and you should understand where you stand, because where you stand should be how you understand your morality, which should be how you deal with your life.

That's enough for now. So take it to your head, take it to your heart, and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

Bush and the reorientation of the world

So this is not the long poem promised in my last session, but that will come, probably later tonight. But George W. Bush is a big figure in international politics and I thought I'd give him a little analysis, because I do think of international politics a lot. Let me start out by saying, I'm not going to demonize Bush and I don't think he's an idiot, but I do think he's made some serious and sometimes catastropic mistakes (as well as a few good moves) and he has in many ways led to a collossal change in the world of international politics, but on the other hand I think a lot of the changes in international politics he has made are in many ways accelerations of already beginning trends.

Let's start with what his foreign policy intended to do. I think when he was first elected Bush was honestly an isolationist. He ran on an isolationist platform and his party was highly isolaitonist except for the neo-cons who were background at most. Granted he did appoint neo-cons, but he also had a lot of old-fashioned conservatives like Dick Cheney, who really only became a neo-con after 9/11. The neo-cons I think at the time were loved by the intellectuals in some circles of the conservative movement and I think that prompted this move. But we should also remember before 9/11 the focus of the neo-cons was not on Iraq but on China. Our first big foreign policy squabble was not in the Middle East but with China. Yes, I've heard that the neo-cons prepared battle senarios with Iraq before 9/11, but remember when Bush was elected it was 2 years since we had given Iraq a bombing (under Clinton in 1998 for not allowing UN inspectors in and for suspected WMDs, when I first heard Bush's WMD claims were bogus I wondered about the 1998 claims given no evidence of the disposal of the previous supposedly huge stockpiles of WMDs, but then I started hearing that Clinton's intelligence men (led by George "slam-dunk" Tenet) were just as prone to pressure to tell Iraq had WMDs as Bush's) and heck, I'd prepare contingency plans for potential wars even if the actual chances were pretty low.

That said, all the plans for his foreign policy that he had before 9/11 completely changed after 9/11. Afghanistan was a move that anyone would have made. Gore would have made it, Kerry would have made it, McCain would have made it. It was sheltering and helping to train a global organization that was actively at war with us, it had in short declared an alliance with someone we were at war with, this made them a fair target for invasion. I know that sounds very glib and does not perhaps treat war with the gravity it deserves. War is hell, and should only be declared in cases where we are attacked or perhaps when another country is attacked (depends on the identity of the country being invaded and the country invading, for example it would be ridiculous to defend the Khemer Rouge when it was invaded by Vietnam, yes Vietnam was a bad regime but the Khemer Rouge was one of the most monsterous governments in history, on the other hand when Iraq invaded Kuwait we were justified in defending it, Kuwait's king might have been a dictator, but he was a decent one (he has since become a relatively good dictator and has been leading important democratizing intiatives although his government is far from a democracy) while what Iraq was doing to the Kuwatis was absolutely horrible), but in this case we were attacked and thus we were justified in attacking a vital ally of our attacker. Some might link this to Iraq and say Bush only attacks countries with oil, but in addition to my point above I'd like to say 2 cases is not enough to draw conclusions.

And then Iraq was attacked. I don't think most powerful politicians are directly greedy (this is more of a case with smaller case politicians) (especially since most politicians could get far more better paying jobs with lobbyists or as corporation heads). But I think the influence of greedy friends, of old memories (like remembering your father being threatened), and of old rivalries tends to exert a big influence. I also think a lot of corruption stems from the idea to the victor belongs the spoils philosophy (government posts are distributed according how useful you were poltically and to old friends (this is how I think the FEMA director got his job)) and I think idealism can blind us. I think all of this played a role in Iraq, coupled with faulty intelligence (led by the idea that what the president wants in his intelligence he should get). (I'd like to point out although I do not think that politicians are immune to greed, I rather think their greed comes in the form of power hunger and legacy craving, after all they have taken positions of power, it makes sense that that is what they want, a lot their corruption isn't because their primary motivation is money (although occassionally in history and around the world and country and in certain offices it is different) but because they feel a certain something belongs to them because of their position of power (and occassionally because they feel that they're serving the public and not getting enough payment for it)). The current situation I think was not inevitable though even after the invasion if better steps had been taken and I think that if we had overthrown Saddam after 1991 the situation would be better but I'll save that for other sessions.

This is about international politics. The Iraq War badly polarized international politics (in addition to domestic politics), it provided a rally point for anti-Americanism. But too all those who blame Bush alone for anti-Americanism forget that anti-Americanism has been going on for a long, long, long time. Anti-Americanism in the Islamic world itself has been going on for a long, long time, remember that Bid Laden declared Jihad against the US in 1991, not in response to Palestine or in regards to George W. Bush but because US troops were on Saudi Arabian soil, which in his view tainted it. And why? Because the United States is a special sort of symbol. In many ways it is a symbol of liberalism, and by liberalism I mean it in the classical sense, free trade, capitalism and large amounts of civil rights. It doesn't matter if you consider the United States the leader in those fields, it is a symbol of those things and all the good and bad things that are associated it with those (like more sex, less religion, looser ethnic ties, etc.). To Islamic extremism liberalism is a deadly virus that is spreading throughout the world, like Communism to us it seems like something that is threatening to completely destroy all their ways of life. However, that is not to say US foreign policy hasn't played a role. But we should understand that traditionally US foreign policy has not been promoting liberalism but rather undermining it, under the belief that Muslims are too violent, fanatical and ignorant to handle freedom, and so if they want any progress they must be dragged forward by authoritarian regimes. And the Muslim world hates us for supporting these authoritarian regimes. If there's one thing that can unite Islamists (not necessarily extremists, I think it's valuable to make a distinction between moderate Islamists and extremists, an Islamist just being someone who wants Islam to play a large role in government) and liberals it is their hatred for authoritarianism. So don't think that supporting the Muslim tyrants of the world is going to win us points with Muslims, it won't.

So I didn't get to my grand thesis that I was planning to, well not yet, but I need to do other stuff (part of my problem before with posting regularly is I always wanted to complete incredibly lengthy trains of thought before ending my sessions), but I'll revisit the topic later. I think I still covered a lot of ground about Bush, and so this isn't quite a waste. Anyways, I plan to start posting stuff from my epic poem later, but for now, take it to your head, take it to your heart, and remember Rand rocks!