Breathe

Breathe out, breathe in, out with the old, in with the new, breathe out, breathe in, out with the old, in with the new, breathe out the death, breathe in the life, breathe out, breathe in...out with the past, in with the future, breathe out, breathe in, slowly, surely, slowly, surely, breathe out, breathe in, out with the old, in with the new, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out the death, breathe in the life, breathe out, breathe in...slowly, surely, slowly, surely...

(Referred via Jason Evan's blog)

The struggle for independance of the Hebrew slaves in Egypt has inspired many contemporary leaders. Today, confronted with those who wish to separate religion and politic, we must ask : who are today's slaves ? Where are today's Pharaohs ? And, where are today's Moses ?

--from here

On that note:

Now it's time for suffering
To shed the skin to which you cling
A relic of my everything
Is all you've left to hold...

---from Skin Shed by Argyle Park on the album Misguided

(From Jason Evan's blog)

Let me say, with the risk of appearing ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by strong feelings of love. It is impossible to think of an authentic revolutionary without this quality... One must have a large dose of humanity, a large dose of a sense of justice and truth, to avoid falling into extremes, into cold intellectualism, into isolation from the masses. Every day we must struggle so that this love of living humanity is transformed into concrete facts, into acts that will serve as an example...
- Che Guevara

The temptation to disassociate the divine from material reality marks the beginnings of kitsch. For, once unhitched from the divine, the complexity of the world can be too easily by-passed and ignored.

(from here)

From the fake Santa Claus to the real one!

The Burden of Gifts

It may look as though “identity” only justifies its continued existence by underwriting commerical exchanges. Plenty of people came back from their “identity-finding” expeditions in Tibet to devote sustained attention to the question of just which bottled tap water best fits their lifestyles. But that appearance to the contrary notwithstanding, “identities” attract such deep and persistent attention in public discussion partly because the debaters sense that the outcome of this debate will shape who we may be in the future. Once the notion of “identity” takes a single, transmittable, reliable pattern online, we’ll begin to think of ourselves as instantiations of that pattern, in the same way we think of ourselves as our job descriptions (“I’m a freelance consultant,” “I’m a writer,” “I’m a software engineer”).

(From AKMA Random Thoughts )

(Originally by "Norm" in The Door Magazine Chat Closet)

Imagine the planet below you is not the Earth, but some planet you are given to govern in the new Kingdom. Imagine what people live there. Are they humans like us? Will they be able to see you, or will you be at an accelerated speed like that episode of Star Trek so that you are invisible to them. What will you do for them? Will you impart to them laws to live by? Will you take part in their redemption? Will you be a prophet like Elijah or John the Baptist pointing the way to God? Will the planet you rule be something from your imagination - like an idyllic scene from your most beautiful dream? Will you whisper in the ears of the philosophers on your planet; tidbits of the secrets of the universe like perhaps an Augustine or Luther?

(Referred by Alan Creech)

The problem of the individual and the community cannot be solved at all if the height is not achieved where the sovereign source and end of both individual and communal existence are discerned; and where the limits are set against the idolatrous selfworship of both individuals and communities.

--Richard Niebuhr

"Silence is frightening because it strips us as nothing else does, throwing us upon the stark realities of our life."

-Dallas Willard

(Originally found here via John Campea)