From Light her Lamp again

About The Greeks Again:

The Greek origin of the word peacemaker is "Eirenopois." This time, it comes from two words: Eirene ("peace") and Poieo ("to make" or "to do"). Eirene (or Irene) is the Greek word for "peace," such that the Greeks made her a goddess. She was the daughter of Zeus and Themis and was often depicted as holding a cornucopia, scepter, and a torch. I imagine that wherever she showed up there was a sudden calmness in the room, and let's not forget she carried a torch for light. In the midst of quarrels her presence must have caused Greek men to stop and re-think their anger (mythology).

To Make It Happen:

Now, the word "Poieo" has really blown me away already. It means "to make [something]" or "do [something]." In fact, let's just say it means, "to make it happen." What's the use of talking about something if you can't make it happen? We all have dreams about our future, but if we don't stand up and make them happen they will only be like shrunken trees refusing to produce fruits. Peacemakers are the ones who make peace happen. They see conflicts and they intervene. They see trouble and they provide the way out. The best thing is, they can do this in subtle ways- doesn't have to be through a big speech or iron scepter.

To Exhibit True Genes:

I know why "peacemakers" will be called the sons of God. God's name is love. Many of us have asked this question at some point in our lives, "why do bad things happen to good people?" We forget that the prince of this world has only one mission: to "steal, kill, and destroy." This is why bad things happen to good people. But if we can be like our Father, we will propagate His goodness in the world. To propagate His goodness, we must have His "peace-making" genes, worthy of a Nobel-peace prize.

Suffering

...nihilistic emptiness...before meaningless suffering...is what makes people...suffer.

Love Again

"Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within."

~James Arthur Baldwin

Ye Olde Double Binde

                                Double Bind::Incredible Fracture

¨       “Do not rejoice over me, O my enemy. Though I fall, I will rise. Though I dwell in darkness, the LORD is a light for me.” (Micah 7:8)

Voices, voices, voices…..

‘Accept yo’self, accept yo’self, accept yo’self

       No one else does tho’’

“Come on now, everyone falls down, everyone crawls now and then…”

Then they get up again….you cry if you want to….that’s what we all do…

If you think you’ll never move on…

you’re wrong, baby, wrong, you’re wrong, baby, wrong

We can fly, share a bottle of wine….Why, baby,

“Come on now, everyone falls down, everyone crawls now

and then…”

If you think you’ll never move on…

you’re wrong, baby, wrong, you’re wrong, baby, wrong”

Like a Butterfly:  “ She’s a Butterfly”

like a purest light in a darkened world

almost magical

makes you wanna cry---she’s so beautiful

everywhere she goes

everybody knows---she’s so glad to be alive

God bless the butterfly….never let her wings touch the ground.

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“Somewhere along the way my faith got smaller. I thought this was part of growing up. But I started to lose my way. “Where there is no vision, the people perish,” as the scriptures say. I was wasting my life on pointless self- indulgence and hurting those I loved.”---Mark

Voice of Truth:  “This is for My Glory…”

The shock of ending job and relationships ……adjusting to life in a new country at the same time, right on the heels of …such devastation, has really changed me in a number of ways. After terrible languishing, I have begun to think more about what it all meant.

A faith that can still have doubts. God is a god of the lost sheep, the prodigal sons and daughters, the father and mother of us all. And we're all God's children. I started this blog because I want to share this good news with the world.

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In other words, ‘What are you goin’ to do with it…about it?’ 

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After the Rain: "I have not lost faith in God. I have moments of anger and protest. Sometimes I've been closer to Him for that reason."---Elie Wiesel

She's A Butterfly

God bless the butterfly

Give her the strength to fly

Never let her wings touch the ground

(God bless the butterfly)

You opened doors I closed
You gave me strength 
So I stand tall
You treat me like a rose

"I want reassurance that His desires are better than mine. Even as I try to be more like Jesus, I don't want an assignment such as He had, it was a difficult one and He suffered. Which part in God's Word does He say that our lives on earth will bring joy not suffering?"

Friend::Such an Epitaph

That is an important statement.  To call one 'friend.'  How integrally and longingly needed but oh, so rare.  Chesed belongs here by its intrinsic nature.

Chesed

Appropriately, 'chesed' is discussed on this day of all days:  Holocaust Rememberance Day.

                                     A Moment of Silence.

                I promised to remember.  I have remembered, Margaret.

Beersheba, the place of the covenant

--> The Oath at the Well

And Abraham reproved Abimelech because of a well of water, which Abimelech's servants had violently taken away.  Gen 21.25

There is always reason in my madness.  Even David feigned madness before Abimelech.  It is absolutely imperative to never throw our 'pearls' before the swinedom of ignorance which always will devour us.

Desert Fathers

http://wordfromthedesert.squarespace.com/meditations/2010/1/15/life-of-st-anthony.html

We Must Love

Rachmana Liba Baee,Rachmana Liba Baee, meaning "G*d wants our hearts."

G*d wants us to have a heart connection with Him. And if we are to have a heart connection with G*d, how much more so are we to try to achieve such a connection with G*d's creatures, our fellow creatures! It's hard enough to love a stranger, but does that extend to our enemy as well?

“We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” (1 John 3:16)

In Leviticus 19:18 the Torah says that we should "love our neighbor as (we love) ourselves." The Hebrew reads ve'ahavta le're'acha kamocha. Reah, meaning "neighbor," has also the same spelling as ra'ah, meaning "bad" or "evil." So it could also be understood as teaching that we should try to love our bad or evil neighbor as ourself. This makes sense, because through the act of trying we could ignite a change and turn him around. We may fail in the end, but we need to try just the same. To give up trying is to abandon hope for a better world.
Many people react instinctively and mimic our actions or emotional states. Some people may respond to a loving gesture with love. The answer to darkness is light. The answer to hate is love. But hard core evil is oblivious to such gestures. Such evil is beyond the pale. But only through showing love can we learn to tell the difference between redeemable evil and unredeemable hard core evil,

The Torah thus is teaching us that there is a special value in comforting the sad, even those who intend us harm. Perhaps the act of kindness will awaken them to do teshuvah and repent of their ways.

Bo; the Heavy Heart

Missin' You

Shemot

Shemot; Love and Surrender
There are two kinds of surrendering. There is the surrendering out of love and there is the surrendering out of fear. This mirrors the two ways to serve G*d.

Wherefore Freedom?

(Ex 8:16 among others," ...ko amar Hashem shalach ami veya'avduni-ko amar Hashem shalach ami veya'avduni-...thus saith the L*rd, let my people go (so that/and) they shall serve me."
In other words, the proper question we might ask ourselves is "wherefore freedom?"
Freedom without properly understood Divine ends necessarily devolves into a dark nihilistic morass. 
(Ex 8:10) "vayitzberu otam chamarim chamarim vativash ha'aretz." ["vayitzberu otam chamarim chamarim vativash ha'aretz"]
How often G*d Himself is missing from synagogues. There is no room left for Him for He is crowded out by the massive ego heaps and materialism run amok. So what this is really teaching us, is that when the spiritual is missing, from out of a heightened and disproportionate focus on the material, a foul temper then rules the day.

Sefer Chabibi Deepest Torah

MISHPATIM: from six to eternity

Eved Ivri

"Because Israel did not abandon me in the sixth year when he could have, even as the door was left open, I will be there for Israel for all eternity - and beyond."

Following on the heels of the Decalogue and immediately we read about the Eved Ivri [Eved Ivri] (Hebrew slave/servant). ..Why?.  Because the deepest understanding of the Hebrew Slave (eved ivri), is that he really is each and every one of us who chooses to remain with his ultimate Master, Hashem, and more poignantly, that Hashem reciprocates by choosing to remain with us...Sinai was the pledging of Eternal Love. Now we see that love being tested..
Upon insisting he remain with his Master, the eved (servant/slave) makes a declaration saying, AHAVTI ET ADONI VE'ET ISHTI VE'ET BANAI LO ETZEI CHOFSHI. (Ex 21:5)
[AHAVTI ET ADONI VE'ET ISHTI VE'ET BANAI LO ETZEI CHOFSHI]
This is usually translated as "I LOVE my master and my wife and My children - I will not go out free." But it is not "I love" in the present. It reads Ahavti "I loveD"- PAST TENSE! "In the PAST I loved ..." This is not to say that he doesn't love them in the present. Of course he does.

Note: This is the second time in five days that this has come before me. 
The certainty of keeping the Torah that was so clear at the smoking mountain becomes less clear down the long road of time's journeys. Hashem is saying, "You can go free if you really want to. You can be free of your obligations to me, and vice versa." But the eved says "NO." "And although the intensity of the romantic love may have faded, I still want to stay with you forever."  LOVE Because the root of love in Hebrew Is HAV, which means to give, know that all we have given to each other counts for something."
cf. Blog

Sefer Chabibi Deepest Torah

MISHPATIM: from six to eternity         by Rabbi Baruch Binyamin Hakohen Melman

Gentle Strength

How can strength be gentle? What do the Greeks mean by that? The ancient Greeks were very particular about horses. They said that a "meek" horse is one which responds well to control and slowly becomes one with its rider ("strength under control"). A "meek" horse is not timid. It is useless to ride a timid horse that hides in its own shadows.  Instead a "meek" horse is a willing, considerate team-player.   This is what I call "gentle strength." It is not that Lucy was not strong enough to resist, but after a while she knew who the master was and she 'decided' in the fullness of her strength to submit.

In the fullness of our strength, we can choose to submit. Submission is not stupidity, it is wisdom. In the quietness of humility we can learn the best secrets. In learning secrets we can obtain the key...the key that leads to the doors of leadership, substance, and wisdom. A quiet submissive apprentice learns more from his master than a noise-making one who constantly chatters about proving his worth. That's the skill of a "meek" horse. If it is submissive and humble it will learn its rider's secrets- the way the rider bends or the way he stays afloat...and it will undeniably be the best horse out there in the race.
This is how the meek will inherit the earth, by being submissive and humble to God first, to those in places of authority, to our peers, and even to those who we think know less than we do.

He served others, helped the sick and downtrodden, forgave sinners and brought new hope to the poor.

Can't Fix It

Still moving on and I can't fix it.  Being misunderstood by those whom you love is the absolute pits in suffering.  Christ knows that one, too.  The double bind is an awful dilemma--our cross.

Risk more than others think is safe
Care more than others think is wise

Dream more than others think is practical

Expect more than others think is possible
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Temptation

“All temptation is primarily to look within; to take our eyes off the Lord and to take account of appearances. Faith is always a mountain, a mountain of apparent contradiction in the realm of tangible fact–of failures in deed, as well as in the realm of feeling and suggestion—and either faith or the mountain must go. They cannot both stand. ...The trouble is that many a time the mountain stays and faith goes. This must not be. If we resort to our senses to discover the truth, we shall find Satan’s lies are often enough true in our experience; but if we refuse to accept as binding anything that contradicts God’s Word and maintain an attitude of faith in Him alone, we shall find that Satan’s lies begin to dissolve and that our experience is coming progressively to tally with that Word.” [The Normal Christian Life, (Fort Washington, PA: Christian Literature Crusade, 1961), p. 56]