Ash Wednesday
Let it be forever remembered that the 2004 Ash Wednesday was a good hair day for yours truly.
The "Passion of The Christ" came out today. I'm looking forward to seeing it. I'm very very curious. I know little to nothing about it, other than it's potentially "the most anti-semitic film since Nazi propaganda reels." Which strikes me as a little extreem. And that it's gory. Really gory.
I don't know. Well, here are some thoughts I've been thinking about it. Ultimately, I think it misses the fundamental point of the whole incident. Proof of hate as being a non-entity. Jesus said, "Forgive them for they know not what they do." I think that not knowing came out of thinking they were doing anything. Everything material is a manifestation of the spiritual. An expression. A reflection. So, ultimately, the horrific torture of Jesus' body is unimportant. "For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." (It's somewhere in Romans I think. Anyway, Paul said it.) Jesus was so spiritually minded, he conquered hate and death. Not only that, but his message was so clear, it uplifted mankind.
I remember a bunch of years ago, this Palestinian guy was arrested by the Israeli government for blowing up a, Israeli school. He hadn't blown up anything, but he was arrested anyway. He was held up-side-down in a cell with a burlap sack full of cow dung tied over his head. He wasn't allowed to sleep or days. After a while, he confessed to blowing up the school. And then he was killed.
When I heard about it, I was furious. Absolutely furious. How do you forgive them? I suppose the same is true for both sides. How do the parents of the Israeli children forgive, and how does that Palestinian's family forgive? "...to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." Brotherly love. Love is a law of God, and that law points out hate's ineffectuality. It's powerlessness. It's non-existence. And the guy is probably a big leap closer to understanding the actuality of spiritual existence.
Just a few months after thinking kind of along those latter lines, the UN started cracking down on Israel's torture methods of coercing confessions. Finally, Israel actually changed its constitution to disallow those methods. So suddenly, thousands and thousands of Palestinian terrorist confessions were no longer valid. Not that all of them weren't true, but a bunch of them probably weren't.
Also, I'd been going through a time of really being hard core picked on by this pack of kids in my school, and that fizzled out.
It's a tenuous subject, and I'm not trying to soapbox or anything. I haven't thought about that in a while. Anyway, I'm looking forward to seing the movie.
The "Passion of The Christ" came out today. I'm looking forward to seeing it. I'm very very curious. I know little to nothing about it, other than it's potentially "the most anti-semitic film since Nazi propaganda reels." Which strikes me as a little extreem. And that it's gory. Really gory.
I don't know. Well, here are some thoughts I've been thinking about it. Ultimately, I think it misses the fundamental point of the whole incident. Proof of hate as being a non-entity. Jesus said, "Forgive them for they know not what they do." I think that not knowing came out of thinking they were doing anything. Everything material is a manifestation of the spiritual. An expression. A reflection. So, ultimately, the horrific torture of Jesus' body is unimportant. "For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." (It's somewhere in Romans I think. Anyway, Paul said it.) Jesus was so spiritually minded, he conquered hate and death. Not only that, but his message was so clear, it uplifted mankind.
I remember a bunch of years ago, this Palestinian guy was arrested by the Israeli government for blowing up a, Israeli school. He hadn't blown up anything, but he was arrested anyway. He was held up-side-down in a cell with a burlap sack full of cow dung tied over his head. He wasn't allowed to sleep or days. After a while, he confessed to blowing up the school. And then he was killed.
When I heard about it, I was furious. Absolutely furious. How do you forgive them? I suppose the same is true for both sides. How do the parents of the Israeli children forgive, and how does that Palestinian's family forgive? "...to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." Brotherly love. Love is a law of God, and that law points out hate's ineffectuality. It's powerlessness. It's non-existence. And the guy is probably a big leap closer to understanding the actuality of spiritual existence.
Just a few months after thinking kind of along those latter lines, the UN started cracking down on Israel's torture methods of coercing confessions. Finally, Israel actually changed its constitution to disallow those methods. So suddenly, thousands and thousands of Palestinian terrorist confessions were no longer valid. Not that all of them weren't true, but a bunch of them probably weren't.
Also, I'd been going through a time of really being hard core picked on by this pack of kids in my school, and that fizzled out.
It's a tenuous subject, and I'm not trying to soapbox or anything. I haven't thought about that in a while. Anyway, I'm looking forward to seing the movie.