My dear, Strength (true strength), is hardly ever noticed.
That’s because true strength asks for no attention. True strength puts on no show of strength. It does not ask that you recognize that it’s strong. It just is. In silence.
There is no “look at me” factor to true strength.
Rudeness on the other hand…
Rudeness is the weak person’s imitation of strength.
Rudeness is an attention seeking little runt and I ask of you not to follow it’s path.
Be not rude, be strong.
Falsely yours,
Eric Hoffer
new first person shooter event coming live soon.......apathy is the root cause. we too quick to label our kids and send them down the road......most parents and schools these daze depend on video screens to socialize our children. the pressures on a elementary and jr. school teachers have increased 10 fold.....parents are working, if fortunate. the bus leaves after school and if you aint on it you get left.........not at school? at life? we will leave you a big tip this next round...........go be you for yourself
getti'n ahead of this one, gonna save some more~kos
Education-Fail
archive 2006 kosmicdebris please ok to share it's mine, namaste
Most people grow old within a small circle of ideas, which they have not discovered for themselves.
There are perhaps less wrong-minded people than thoughtless…Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
I thought I would follow up yesterday’s post and offer up a few more of my social observations and personal insights. Some may call me a social critic and that’s ok. But the one thing you will find out about me is my pragmatism bleeds into everything. I try not to offer an opinion or render a criticism without also stating what I believe is to be the root cause and why I hold those ideas.
First, I attempt to identify what I think the problem is and second, support my position, either from personal experience or from objective observation, only then will try to look at possible solutions. As a parent, teacher or a human, whatever the role, I am not going to tell Johnny not to do this or that, unless I can find out some reason for what and why Johnny is doing that to begin with, and what and why I think another way is better. Second if I don’t know I will admit I don’t know, if I am wrong I will be the first to say so. Third what I will do is try to find someone that does know, but here is the kicker, if I do find the truth I will not dismiss it just because truth goes against my original opinion.
Sometimes it takes awhile to soak in before I can accept something new. And as I rethink my position I usually find the error in my own thinking. My pride is not so great that I am unable to admit my mistakes, my convictions to my conscience let new ideas replace old thinking with humility. I try to give away a part of me every time I post…..
Lets look in on Mrs. Weaver‘s class, my third grade teacher, my eliminatory educator, the art critic: Good morning, boys and girls. Today we are going to draw tree, with Leo.
Cool, we’re going to draw a tree!
And she would get up there with a green crayola and she’d draw this great big green thing. And then she put a brown base on it and a few blades of grass. Then she’d say, there is the tree. And all of us would look at it and someone, likely me, would say……That isn’t a tree. That’s a tootsie-pop. But she said that was a tree and pass out these papers and say, now draw a tree. She didn’t really say, draw a tree: the said, ‘Draw my tree.’ And the sooner you figured out that what she meant and could reproduce this lollipop and hand it to her, the sooner you would get an A on her art papers.
But here was little larry who knew that wasn’t a tree because I’d seen a tree such as this art teacher never experienced! I had fallen out of tree and broke my collarbone, chewed a tree, smelled a tree, sat in branches of a tree, listened to the wind blow through the leaves of a tree, and I knew her tree was a lollipop. So I got magenta, and orange, and blue, and purple and green , and scribbled it all over my page and happily brought it up and gave it to her. She looked at it and she said, “oh my God, brain damaged…..special class.”
How long does it take somebody to realize that what they are really saying is, I want you to reproduce my tree. And so it goes through the first, second, third, forth fifth, and right on into seminars in grad school. I have sat in on seminars in grad school, and it is amazing how many future teachers and enlightened educators do nothing but parrot, reinforce each other until this practice becomes engrained and embedded. Think? don’t be ridiculous. They (students) can give you the facts, verbatim, just as they have been given to them. And we blame those students because that’s what they’ve been taught. We say to them, “be creative,” and they’re fearful. “Teachers don’t really mean that, do they?’ And so what happens to our uniqueness, what happens to my tree?” All this beautiful uniqueness has gone right down the drain. Everybody is like everybody else and everybody else is happy. R. D. Lang says, “we are satisfied when we’ve made people like ourselves out of our children: frustrated, sick, blind, deaf, but with high I. Q.’s.”
Continue on and ignore reality, troubled children are not dumb. Stupid youth do not take the time to plan a successful assault on malls and schools, the smart one with no channel for self expression will find a way to make a statement, that is creativity, albeit negative. These ultimate acts of violence are not a spur of the moment idea. He does not get up one morning and think to himself, “today I am going to die and I am going to take as many as I can with me.” Or does he only commit, after month or years of thinking about it owing video screens for inspiration? Today I am going to die. How many others are now thinking about doing it tomorrow? I don’t have an answer, but we as a society had better find an answer quick or get used to the reality of what apathy breeds.
My answers are spiritual and with the publics approval society has legislated God out of the equation and has filled the vacuum with fantasies, a virtual life played out in the idealism of a make believe world found in the entertainment industry. The heroes never die, they always win, and sometimes the heroes are not even the good guys, but all the stories have happy endings. We want to shield from reality, from truth.
At least when I was young movies used to mirror life and reality on some level. There was value in them by learning to deal with, grief, disappointment, injustice and consequences for behavior, in this artificial environment I had the opportunity to deal with these feelings. Sometimes the hero died. Maybe I had the opportunity to learn some internal conflict resolution and deal with these feeling before life starts playing for keeps. While I didn’t cry old yeller died, I did cry when the pirate Lafayette was deported after helping the united states whip England during the struggle to keep our independence. I am very fortunate to have been born into a loving family that drug me, sometimes kicking and screaming, to church. I may have thought I was stupid in public school but I knew Jesus love me and would help me anyway.
Secularism is Americas official state religion today, it may be true, morality can‘t be legislated, but can and is being punished through irrational and irresponsible laws and education failures. Apathy and the narrow-minded are wining the hypocrisy for democracy wars today.
Ronald David Laing had some brilliant insights on human potential and the development of human potential. He also nailed the root causes of mental illness that still stand today. His ideas are not in the best interest of the drug companies or the psychiatrists that prescribe cures in little bottles, or the pharmacists that count out the little pills that dispense hope monthly. But hey, they work, little junior sits still and doesn’t want to kill himself…..today.
…. “We think much less than what we know. We know much less than what we love. We love much less than what there is. And to this precise extent, we are so much less than what we are.”…… R.D. Laing.
This push back cannot be temporary........sure the gov will pander to the masses to them quiet, for a period but after the thrill, the circus and bread, the stimuli dries up as these thing seem to, just evaps dwindles throughout history.........then what. Our children will have less...till the the next social upheaval and they will be fed a mind full of state.............and never know a free state of mind.
"If this be treason then let us make the most of it"
These words come back to hunt some.......only those with a compassionate soul though, to the rest they haunt.
"I still cannot believe, to this day, i waz willing to bleed and die for the rich white phoneys and now they appear to be jewish zionst racist whom had no intent to fight for their own right to exist; if they can get amerikan poor urban ghetto to be the enforcers with the taxpayer to fund this exercise in extra-judicial stupidity....and death, saw some, smelt more. Maybe lighting a few up like caligula did christians might wake a few more elites up about how serious we are...and prolly the neighbors. Just look at what my Ukrainian comrades are sacrificing for freedom? Roasting a few bad guys on a spit here would do wonders for morale."
~ kosmicdebris
There is only one God and He is God to all;
therefore it is important that everyone is seen as equal before God.
I've always said we should help a Hindu become a better Hindu,
a Muslim become a better Muslim, a Catholic become a better Catholic
…Mother Teresa
More of my thoughts on religion and God: For as far back as we can remember, religion has been a source of contention, being the cause of many wars and countless deaths and sufferings in the name of God. Most religions say that they are the only true religion and that all others are wrong. This is a result of the false belief of separateness - separate from God and separate from each other and nature. We are all a part of God because we exist. God can be interpreted in many different ways. Religions tend to teach that God is a separate entity, whilst other belief systems speak only of a 'Creative Force'.
We are of the same 'stuff' that God is made from. Each a spark of the Divine Creative force (Love). We are here to experience life in the form of matter. We are all spiritual beings having an adventure, and we will all eventually return to the same place. It is time now to have respect for each and every different religion or belief system, and allow each person his/her right to follow the path or belief system of their choice - without preaching at them or trying to convert them, or even killing those of a different belief system.
A friend of mine wrote this next piece. My faith is secure enough that even though I may not agree with everything she says, I know she speaks her truth and for that I respect and have no right to reject, because we are both more alike than different. I am willing to find the common ground for us both to stand together as one……. "I believe in nonviolence. As such, I cannot support American troops on their mission of mayhem in the Middle East. I shall never accept killing in the name of God. This is a duality, a double standard absolutely.
You cannot say "I love God" with your mouth while your hands are busy holding AK-47s. It doesn't wash. Christ said, "Don't serve two masters. Love God with your whole being." This also means one's hands.
Why would anyone swallow the puerile propaganda put out by the leaders of the land? Mental laziness. Spiritual brainwashing. Oh, I used to believe as you. I waved Old Glory and sang "America the Beautiful" at every governmental prompting.
That was before I was in the Ambassador Hotel the night Bobby Kennedy was slain by a puppet of the government. That was before I saw a man, an unarmed Vietnam protester, bludgeoned to death in San Francisco by a keeper of the peace, a policeman. His brains and blood were splattered everywhere as he clung mercilessly to a pole, the life force ebbing from him.
I dropped the flag, quit hearing the official line and started thinking for myself. Questioning authority.
The concept of ahimsa, nonviolence, washes across the globe like a balm, transcending all faiths. I speak of God and Christ because that is my heritage, but I have read the Hindu Gita and the Koran, holy books. I adore the Sermon on the Mount, but I sing to the inspiring Buddhist "Heart Sutra."
The words of Gandhi fill my soul. Of violence, he said, "It appears to do good, but the good is only temporary. The evil it does is permanent."
I believe in nonviolence because of much higher teachings. I believe in Christ's love and peace. One member of JustPeace….I could have written this with only a few alterations, her ideas and mine are not all that far apart and more the same than different.
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I recently read Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn's commencement address to Harvard's 1978 class that struck me hard with his observations…here is the jest…… "On the way from the Renaissance to our days we have enriched our experience, but we have lost the concept of a Supreme Complete Entity which used to restrain our passions and our irresponsibility. We have placed too much hope in political and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived of our most precious possession: our spiritual life." .…."If humanism were right in declaring that man is born to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to die, his task on earth evidently must be of a more spiritual nature. It cannot be unrestrained enjoyment of everyday life. It cannot be the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then cheerfully get the most out of them. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one's life journey may become an experience of moral growth, so that one may leave life a better human being than one started it. It is imperative to review the table of widespread human values. Its present incorrectness is astounding. It is not possible that assessment of the President's performance be reduced to the question of how much money one makes or of unlimited availability of gasoline. Only voluntary, inspired self-restraint can raise man above the world stream of materialism."
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I do not do labels, I prefer to be called a follower of Jesus Christ's teachings. No more no less. I have had the emerging need of late to separate myself from so-called Christians. (I feel if I have to stop and inform someone I am a "Christian," if they can't see Christ in me by my actions then it is probably best they don't know, they might think I am a hypocrite and all Christians act this or that way. Now, if someone happens to ask, that's different, that is my opportunity to witness for Him.) Student of Christ, that is what I am, I strive to embrace all faiths with Christ as my spiritual Shepard, I am one of his sheep, he knows me and I know him, his voice, I can recognize his voice. He also said, "I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen." I try to love everyone because I want to, never because I have to. Jesus, through his word said, God can only be in worshiped spirit and in truth, Jesus left me all the tools I need to communicate with the unknowable through the holy spirit which dwells within my soul. This connection is my DIvine instant messenger through prayer, I talk to God and meditation is how I receive His response, his wisdom, knowledge of his will, and the power to carry out my purpose for which he sent me.
Much has been written about prayer in the Christian faith but there is little focus on meditation. Christians seem to want to refer to this mediation as contemplation, ponder, think, consider, deliberate, reflect, ruminate, muse, mull, perhaps to separate this behavior from other belief systems. Meditate may sound too mystical. Call what whatever you want, the verbal symbols used to represent the action does not change what meditation is. This blog post is my attempt to give testament of why this activity is so important to my spiritual being. Learning to receive God's Word. Intuition, that knowing without proof.
Learning to sit quietly alone by ones self is a silent room with your mind clear of any of thoughts is difficult, well, it was for me anyway. We become conditioned to always be thinking about something. I would never developed to the level I am today if I was not in solitude. I will openly admit that I don't know everything, as much as I would like to, that's never going to happen, but I can tap into the One that does through meditation and prayer. Today, if I am not writing or reading, most of my idle brain time is spent either praying or meditating. I don't leave much room for the world to clog my reception, I am learning to master this gate keeping more and more each day. The results of tapping into this unlimited source has been overwhelming for me at times. I know in my heart the practice has made me a better human being and has moved me closer to God by becoming a productive spiritual being. There does not seem to be one best way to meditate, some methods work better than others, it is a highly individualized process. "Before you speak, it is necessary for you to listen for God speaks in the silence of the heart"…. Mother Teresa
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In music, it is the amount of space, the silence, between the notes that makes the noise joyful. I mean for perspective, a song is not all the notes played all at once. The same with written word, it is the space between the individual letters and the space length between words that make written thought possible, space gives the meaning to understand, meditation is that spiritual space in between my soul and God. Meditation is one of the best ways to learn how to know the unknowable, to improve conscience contact with my higher self. Practiced often enough it becomes automatic and instant, This silent space during meditation is where you can hear or sense that quiet still voice called intuition, some call this feeling the holey spirit. The native Americans relates that God is in the space between the inhale and the exhale of a breath.
This binary thought is everywhere if you pay attention to the contrasts. This light and dark make letters visible on paper, art possible. Nature too is a series of dualisms. The world can be viewed in terms of absolutes. Light and dark, good, evil. There is no gray area, you are either giving or receiving, we contribute to the light or the dark, one or the other at any given time. Half truths are whole lies…..
"It is not enough for us to say: "I love God," but I also have to love my neighbor. St. John says that you are a liar if you say you love God and you don't love your neighbor. How can you love God whom you do not see, if you do not love your neighbor whom you see, whom you touch, with whom you live?"…. Mother Teresa
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The Hindus have a greeting 'namaste' that roughly translates: the divine spark in me says SUP to the special sparkle in you dawg. All of nature, of which we are part of, not separate from, as we have been conditioned to believe by religion, has this capacity to communicate through intuition. This unseen force that moves through everything is what tells a school of millions of like fish to instantaneously move and cut in unison one way or another to avoid danger. When one senses danger they all sense it together and move together as cohesive unit at the same time in one fluid graceful motion, making the sum behavior greater than individual separate actions. Human beings are born with this capacity, our thoughts, through meditation, move in the same manor. Science is only now beginning to study this phenomena of social convergence with earnest, this universal consciousness is real. Believers since the beginning of time have known of the power of this collective consciousness, know there is strength in numbers, have witnessed the power of the holy spirit move through a body of believers as one mighty force.
Emerson said, "the ancestor to every action is a thought." What we think about expands and this initial thought is the first step toward any action. God told us, my word does not come back void. With every thought we produce, we cast a ripple through the collective of all of humanity, good or bad. Like Jesus said, you commit adultery with your mind first before any act. He used adultery only as an example of the behavior. All of the spiritual teachers through the ages has expounded on this principle, basically saying "Guard your thoughts." "be careful what you wish or pray for." even praying for patience is risky if you really think about it. Just because our temporal bodies haven't developed, or lost the ability to use these spiritual tools to see, to realize, to interpret where these thoughts and prayers go, does not mean these prayers and thoughts are not received, not heard, not being answered. World peace is the thought I want to put out, if that is what we really want, we must think it and the actions will follow. Just remember, when Jesus Christ was born, he was called, "Emmanuel — God with us." Now, he is God in us!" I not only believe I can fly from the inside, I know I can, I do it everyday, and so can anyone and everyone.
You and I, we are the Church, no?
We have to share with our people.
Suffering today is because people are hoarding, not giving, not sharing.
Jesus made it very clear.....
Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do it to me. Mother Teresa
keep fighting the good fight, with your minds as weapons!!
“Rudeness Is The Weak Person’s Imitation Of Strength.”
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