226. Help Stop The Stoning of Sakineh in Iran Now!

Last Saturday I read a post on Randy Elrod’s Blog regarding a protest on a worldwide scale against the stoning of this Muslim woman by officials in Iran.  Randy set to paint this watercolour which he has given permission to use when we blog in support against Iran’s execution of Sakineth.  

There’s not much I can say against this barbarity except that Sakineth was sentenced to death for having committed adultery, for which there is no proof; but if you were to execute every woman on this planet who committed adultery, there would be far and few women left to beget children and have the human race continue.  Besides, Iran seems to have forgotten to ask, what are the men doing? I don’t think they are just innocently standing by: doesn’t it take two to tango? 

And something else people in general have forgotten and that is Jesus’ response to those stoning the woman found in adultery 2000 years ago... those without sin throw the first stone.

Read Randy Elrod’s blog here.  

Read Sakineh’s story by CNN here. 

225. Reflection on Holiday Distractions

The sun blazing down on this our fragile humanity enticing us to the cooling waters of the sea or the breezy shade of mountain trees. 

It is time for ball games on beaches, hide and seek on mountain slopes: laughter, friendship, care-freeness.  It is time for distraction, the distraction that once saturated must eventually lead to reflection.

It is when the mind is no longer lumbered with the quotidian struggle for existence that it is induced to reflection.  Then aghast, stunned, for the voraciousness of emptiness is vast; nullified we ask, “On what shall I reflect?”

We whiz past this world in a whirlwind, or if inactive, wearisome boredom.  If in full activity, we have no time, if bored, we have no inclination- either way, we don’t reflect and at best remain a clanging gong or a sounding symbol, devoid of significance and meaning.

So let us pick up an old black and white photo to recall a shadow of what we have been; read that musty note left under the pillow for Santa to restore a sense of magic, dust away the covers of a mouldy book, listen to the crackle of an old disk to see if per chance faded memories re-flower...

What we were has made us what we are, that is the power of the passing of time.  That is why we need reflection because it is inherent, in it we find the basis of our being and only from such can we give birth to new blooms in yet another Spring.