MADONNA) // (CHILD

MADONNA) // (CHILD
So Strong; yet so calm: Mary's Choice.

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Divine grace - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Divine grace - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Divine grace is a theological term present in many religions. It has been defined as the divine influence which operates in humans to regenerate and sanctify, to inspire virtuous impulses, and to impart strength to endure trial and resist temptation; and as an individual virtue or excellence of divine origin.

Grace in Christianity is the free and unmerited favour of God as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowing of blessings. It is God's gift of salvation granted to sinners for their salvation. Common Christian teaching is that grace is unmerited mercy (favor) that God gave to humanity by sending his son to die on a cross, thus delivering eternal salvation. This definition does not cover all uses of the term in scripture.

Within Christianity, there are differing concepts of grace. In particular, Catholics and Protestants use the word in substantially different ways. It has been described as "the watershed that divides Catholicism from Protestantism, Calvinism from Arminianism, modern liberalism from conservatism". Catholic doctrine teaches that God has imparted Divine Grace upon humanity, and uses the sacraments to facilitate the reception of his grace. Protestants, generally, do not share this sacramental view. In the Catholic Church a state of grace is granted by God from baptism firstly, instead of plainly by faith, and from the sacrament of reconciliation after if a mortal sin is committed. A mortal sin makes the state of grace lost even if faith is still present.

Friday, December 27, 2013

Empathy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Empathy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Empathy is the capacity to recognize emotions that are being experienced by another sentient or fictional being. One may need to have a certain amount of empathy before being able to experience accurate sympathy or compassion.

Empathy has many different definitions that encompass a broad range of emotional states, such as caring for other people and having a desire to help them; experiencing emotions that match another person's emotions; discerning what another person is thinking or feeling; and making less distinct the differences between the self and the other.

Since empathy involves understanding the emotional states of other people, the way it is characterized is derivative of the way emotions themselves are characterized. If, for example, emotions are taken to be centrally characterized by bodily feelings, then grasping the bodily feelings of another will be central to empathy. On the other hand, if emotions are more centrally characterized by a combination of beliefs and desires, then grasping these beliefs and desires will be more essential to empathy. The ability to imagine oneself as another person is a sophisticated imaginative process. However, the basic capacity to recognize emotions is probably innate and may be achieved unconsciously. Yet it can be trained and achieved with various degrees of intensity or accuracy.

Empathy necessarily has a "more or less" quality. The paradigm case of an empathic interaction, however, involves a person communicating an accurate recognition of the significance of another person's ongoing intentional actions, associated emotional states, and personal characteristics in a manner that the recognized person can tolerate. Recognitions that are both accurate and tolerable are central features of empathy.

The human capacity to recognize the bodily feelings of another is related to one's imitative capacities and seems to be grounded in an innate capacity to associate the bodily movements and facial expressions one sees in another with the proprioceptive feelings of producing those corresponding movements or expressions oneself. Humans seem to make the same immediate connection between the tone of voice and other vocal expressions and inner feeling.

Empathy can be divided into two major components:
  • Affective empathy, also called emotional empathy: the capacity to respond with an appropriate emotion to another's mental states. Our ability to empathize emotionally is supposed to be based on emotional contagion: being affected by another's emotional or arousal state.
  • Cognitive empathy: the capacity to understand another's perspective or mental state. The terms cognitive empathy and theory of mind are often used synonymously, but due to a lack of studies comparing theory of mind with types of empathy, it is unclear whether these are equivalent.
Although science has not yet agreed upon a precise definition of these constructs, there is consensus about this distinction. There is a difference in disturbance between affective and cognitive empathy in different psychiatric disorders. Psychopathy, schizophrenia, depersonalization, and narcissism are characterized by impairments in affective empathy but not in cognitive empathy, whereas bipolar disorder, borderline traits, and, by some accounts, autism are associated with deficits in cognitive empathy but not in affective empathy. Even in people without mental disorders, the balance between affective and cognitive empathy varies.

Affective empathy can be subdivided into the following scales:
  • Empathic concern: sympathy and compassion for others in response to their suffering.
  • Personal distress: self-centered feelings of discomfort and anxiety in response to another's suffering.
There is no consensus regarding whether personal distress is a basic form of empathy or instead does not constitute empathy. There may be a developmental aspect to this subdivision. Infants respond to the distress of others by getting distressed themselves; only when they are 2 years old do they start to respond in other-oriented ways, trying to help, comfort and share.

Cognitive empathy can be subdivided into the following scales:
  • Perspective taking: the tendency to spontaneously adopt others' psychological perspectives.
  • Fantasy: the tendency to identify with fictional characters.
The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) is the only published measurement tool to date that accounts for a multi-dimensional assessment of empathy. It comprises a self-report questionnaire of 28 items, divided into four 7-item scales covering the above subdivisions of affective and cognitive empathy.

Empathic anger is an emotion, a form of empathic distress. Empathic anger is felt in a situation where someone else is being hurt by another person or thing. It is possible to see this form of anger as a pro-social emotion.

Empathic anger has direct effects on both helping and punishing desires. Empathic anger can be divided into two sub-categories: trait empathic anger and state empathic anger.

The relationship between empathy and anger response towards another person has also been investigated, with two studies basically finding that the higher a person's perspective taking ability, the less angry they were in response to a provocation. Empathic concern did not, however, significantly predict anger response, and higher personal distress was associated with increased anger
.
Empathic distress is feeling the perceived pain of another person. This feeling can be transformed into empathic anger, feelings of injustice, or guilt. These emotions can be perceived as pro-social, and some say they can be seen as motives for moral behavior.

It has been shown that males are generally less empathetic than females.

Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman, in his book On Killing, suggests that military training artificially creates depersonalization in soldiers, suppressing empathy and making it easier for them to kill other human beings.

The capacity to empathize is a revered trait in society. Empathy is considered a motivating factor for unselfish, prosocial behavior, whereas a lack of empathy is related to antisocial behavior.

Proper empathic engagement helps an individual understand and anticipate the behavior of another. Apart from the automatic tendency to recognize the emotions of others, one may also deliberately engage in empathic reasoning. Two general methods have been identified here. An individual may simulate fictitious versions of the beliefs, desires, character traits and context of another individual to see what emotional feelings it provokes. Or, an individual may simulate an emotional feeling and then access the environment for a suitable reason for the emotional feeling to be appropriate for that specific environment.

Some research suggests that people are more able and willing to empathize with those most similar to themselves. In particular, empathy increases with similarities in culture and living conditions. Empathy is more likely to occur between individuals whose interaction is more frequent.

There are concerns that the empathiser's own emotional background may affect or distort what emotions they perceive in others. Empathy is not a process that is likely to deliver certain judgments about the emotional states of others. It is a skill that is gradually developed throughout life, and which improves the more contact we have with the person with whom one empathizes. Accordingly, any knowledge gained of the emotions of the other must be revisable in light of further information.

The extent to which a person's emotions are publicly observable, or mutually recognized as such has significant social consequences. Empathic recognition may or may not be welcomed or socially desirable. This is particularly the case where we recognize the emotions that someone has towards us during real time interactions. Based on a metaphorical affinity with touch, philosopher Edith Wyschogrod claims that the proximity entailed by empathy increases the potential vulnerability of either party. The appropriate role of empathy in our dealings with others is highly dependent on the circumstances. For instance,  clinicians or caregivers must take care not to be too sensitive to the emotions of others, to over-invest their own emotions, at the risk of draining away their own resourcefulness. Furthermore an awareness of the limitations of empathic accuracy is prudent in a caregiving situation.

In phenomenology, empathy describes the experience of something from the other's viewpoint, without confusion between self and other. This draws on the sense of agency. In the most basic sense, this is the experience of the other's body and, in this sense, it is an experience of "my body over there". In most other respects, however, the experience is modified so that what is experienced is experienced as being the other's experience; in experiencing empathy, what is experienced is not "my" experience, even though I experience it. Empathy is also considered to be the condition of intersubjectivity and, as such, the source of the constitution of objectivity.

The possibility of not applying the principle is granted in the cure, for instance when you must reckon with another principle, that of reality. Developing skills of empathy is often a central theme in the recovery process for drug addicts.

In evolutionary psychology, attempts at explaining pro-social behavior often mention the presence of empathy in the individual as a possible variable. Although exact motives behind complex social behaviors are difficult to distinguish, the "ability to put oneself in the shoes of another person and experience events and emotions the way that person experienced them" is the definitive factor for truly altruistic behavior according to Batson's empathy-altruism hypothesis. If empathy is not felt, social exchange (what's in it for me?) supersedes pure altruism, but if empathy is felt, an individual will help by actions or by word, regardless of whether it is in their self-interest to do so and even if the costs outweigh potential rewards.

Some philosophers (such as Martha Nussbaum) suggest that novel reading cultivates readers' empathy and leads them to exercise better world citizenship.

***


"You're not as nice as you used to be."
~(My Mother)~


Nonviolent Communication - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nonviolent Communication - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Nonviolent Communication (abbreviated NVC, also called Compassionate Communication or Collaborative Communication) is a communication process developed by Marshall Rosenberg beginning in the 1960s. NVC often functions as a conflict resolution process. It focuses on three aspects of communication: self-empathy (defined as a deep and compassionate awareness of one's own inner experience), empathy (defined as listening to another with deep compassion), and honest self-expression (defined as expressing oneself authentically in a way that is likely to inspire compassion in others).

Assumptions

NVC trainers Inbal and Miki Kashtan characterize the assumptions underlying NVC as:
  1. All human beings share the same needs
  2. Our world offers sufficient resources for meeting everyone's basic needs
  3. All actions are attempts to meet needs
  4. Feelings point to needs being met or unmet
  5. All human beings have the capacity for compassion
  6. Human beings enjoy giving
  7. Human beings meet needs through interdependent relationships
  8. Human beings change
  9. Choice is internal
  10. The most direct path to peace is through self-connection

Intentions

The Kashtan sisters further offer that practicing NVC involves holding these intentions:
  • Open-Hearted Living
  1. Self-compassion
  2. Expressing from the heart
  3. Receiving with compassion
  4. Prioritizing connection
  5. Moving beyond "right" and "wrong" to using needs-based assessments
  • Choice, Responsibility, Peace
  1. Taking responsibility for our feelings
  2. Taking responsibility for our actions
  3. Living in peace with unmet needs
  4. Increasing capacity for meeting needs
  5. Increasing capacity for meeting the present moment
  • Sharing Power (Partnership)
  1. Caring equally for everyone’s needs
  2. Using force minimally and to protect rather than to educate, punish, or get what we want without agreement

Communication that blocks compassion

NVC suggests that certain ways of communicating tend to alienate people from the experience of compassion:
  • Moralistic judgments implying wrongness or badness on the part of people who don't act in harmony with our values. Blame, insults, put-downs, labels, criticisms, comparisons, and diagnoses are all said to be forms of judgment. (Moralistic judgments are not to be confused with value judgments as to the qualities we value.) The use of moralistic judgments is characterized as an impersonal way of expressing oneself that does not require one to reveal what is going on inside of oneself. This way of speaking is said to have the result that "Our attention is focused on classifying, analyzing, and determining levels of wrongness rather than on what we and others need and are not getting."
  • Demands that implicitly or explicitly threaten listeners with blame or punishment if they fail to comply.
  • Denial of responsibility via language that obscures awareness of personal responsibility. It is said that we deny responsibility for our actions when we attribute their cause to: vague impersonal forces ("I had to"); our condition, diagnosis, personal or psychological history; the actions of others; the dictates of authority; group pressure; institutional policy, rules, and regulations; gender roles, social roles, or age roles; or uncontrollable impulses.
  • Making comparisons between people.
  • A premise of deserving, that certain actions merit reward while others merit punishment.

Four components 

NVC invites practitioners to focus attention on four components:
  • Observation: the facts (what we are seeing, hearing, or touching) as distinct from our evaluation of meaning and significance. NVC discourages static generalizations. It is said that "When we combine observation with evaluation others are apt to hear criticism and resist what we are saying." Instead, a focus on observations specific to time and context is recommended.
  • Feelings: emotions or sensations, free of thought and story. These are to be distinguished from thoughts (e.g., "I feel I didn't get a fair deal") and from words colloquially used as feelings but which convey what we think we are (e.g., "inadequate"), how we think others are evaluating us (e.g., "unimportant"), or what we think others are doing to us (e.g., "misunderstood", "ignored"). Feelings are said to reflect whether we are experiencing our needs as met or unmet. Identifying feelings is said to allow us to more easily connect with one another, and "Allowing ourselves to be vulnerable by expressing our feelings can help resolve conflicts."
  • Needs: universal human needs, as distinct from particular strategies for meeting needs. It is posited that "Everything we do is in service of our needs."
  • Request: request for a specific action, free of demand. Requests are distinguished from demands in that one is open to hearing a response of "no" without this triggering an attempt to force the matter. If one makes a request and receives a "no" it is recommended not that one give up, but that one empathize with what is preventing the other person from saying "yes," before deciding how to continue the conversation. It is recommended that requests use clear, positive, concrete action language. 

Modes

There are three primary modes of application of NVC:
  • Self-empathy involves compassionately connecting with what is going on inside us. This may involve, without blame, noticing the thoughts and judgments we are having, noticing our feelings, and most critically, connecting to the needs that are affecting us.
  • Receiving empathically, in NVC, involves "connection with what's alive in the other person and what would make life wonderful for them... It's not an understanding of the head where we just mentally understand what another person says... Empathic connection is an understanding of the heart in which we see the beauty in the other person, the divine energy in the other person, the life that's alive in them.. It doesn't mean we have to feel the same feelings as the other person. That's sympathy, when we feel sad that another person is upset. It doesn't mean we have the same feelings; it means we are with the other person... If you're mentally trying to understand the other person, you're not present with them."  Empathy involves "emptying the mind and listening with our whole being." NVC suggests that however the other person expresses themselves, we focus on listening for the underlying observations, feelings, needs, and requests. It is suggested that it can be useful to reflect a paraphrase of what another person has said, highlighting the NVC components implicit in their message, such as the feelings and needs you guess they may be expressing.
  • Expressing honestly, in NVC, is likely to involve expressing an observation, feeling, need, and request. An observation may be omitted if the context of the conversation is clear. A feeling might be omitted if there is sufficient connection already, or the context is one where naming a feeling isn’t likely to contribute to connection. It is said that naming a need in addition to a feeling makes it less likely that people will think you are making them responsible for your feeling. Similarly, it is said that making a request in addition to naming a need makes it less likely that people will infer a vague demand that they address your need. The components are thought to work together synergistically. According to NVC trainer Bob Wentworth, "an observation sets the context, feelings support connection and getting out of our heads, needs support connection and identify what is important, and a request clarifies what sort of response you might enjoy. Using these components together minimizes the chances of people getting lost in potentially disconnecting speculation about what you want from them and why."

Thursday, December 26, 2013

John the Apostle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


St. John the Evangelist on the Greek island of Patmos, with his eagle; he's called "the evangelist" to distinguish him from John the Baptist; he's the reputed author of the Gospel of  John and the Book of  Revelation; he's said to have written Revelation on Patmos, after being exiled to Patmos by the Roman authorities.


John the Apostle  (c. AD 6 – c. 100) was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus according to The Bible. He was the son of Zebedee and Salome and brother of James, son of Zebedee, another of the Twelve Apostles. Christian tradition holds that he outlived the remaining apostles—all of whom suffered martyrdom (except Judas Iscariot— who ultimately died from hanging himself for betraying Jesus).

The Church Fathers generally identify him as the author of five books in the New Testament: the Gospel of John, three Epistles of John, and the Book of RevelationThe Gospel according to John differs considerably from the synoptic gospels, likely written decades earlier than John's Gospel.   John probably knew and undoubtedly approved of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but these gospels spoke of Jesus primarily in the year following the imprisonment and death of John the Baptist.

James and John were the cousins of Jesus and their mother Salome was sister of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

James and John both held prominent positions for not only being the first of the disciples to be called but also because of their relationship to Jesus among the Apostles. Jesus referred to the pair collectively as "Boanerges" (translated "sons of thunder") being that although their nature was of a calm and gentle manner, when their patience was pushed to its limits their anger became wild, fierce and thunderous causing them to speak out like an untamed storm. At one point John and his brother James wanted to call down fire on a Samaritan town, but Jesus rebuked them. [Lk 9:51-6]  John survived longer than James by more than half a century after James became the first Apostle to die a martyr's death.




















Jesus sent only John and Peter into the city to make the preparation for the final Passover meal (the Last Supper).[Lk 22:8] At the meal itself, the "disciple whom Jesus loved" sat next to Jesus. It was customary to lie along upon couches at meals, and this disciple leaned on Jesus.  Tradition identifies this disciple as Saint John[Jn 13:23-25]. After the arrest of Jesus, Peter and the "other disciple" (according to Sacred Tradition, John) followed him into the palace of the high-priest.



John alone among the Apostles remained near Jesus at the foot of the cross on Calvary alongside myrrhbearers and numerous other women; following the instruction of Jesus from the Cross, John took Mary, the mother of Jesus, into his care as the last legacy of Jesus. After Jesus' Ascension and the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, John, together with Peter, took a prominent part in the founding and guidance of the church. He is with Peter at the healing of the lame man in the Temple. With Peter he is also thrown into prison.

Before Jesus ascended, he charged John with watching over the newly established Church. He was then established as a pillar at the Church of Jerusalem. While dying on the cross, he asked John to take care of Mary, his mother. John was the only apostle present at the crucifixion.

   
In 54 AD, Mary the mother of Jesus died and was buried and so John fulfilled his duty of caring for her until the very end. It was said that when they opened the tomb her body was gone. Catholic tradition says she rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven with both body and soul intact in what is called the Assumption of Mary, however others say her body was taken away lest it become an idol.

It is traditionally believed that John was the youngest of the apostles and survived them. He is said to have lived to an old age, dying at Ephesus sometime after AD 98.

The Qur'an also speaks of Jesus's disciples but does not mention their names, instead referring to them as "helpers to the work of God".

In art, John as the presumed author of the Gospel is often depicted with an eagle, which symbolizes the height he rose to in his gospel.

Andrew the Apostle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



(Martyrdom of Andrew)


Andrew the Apostle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Andrew the Apostle (known by some as Saint Andrew) was a Christian Apostle and the brother of Saint Peter.

The New Testament states that Andrew was the brother of Simon Peter.  Both he and his brother Peter were fishermen by trade, hence the tradition that Jesus called them to be his disciples by saying that he will make them "fishers of men".  At the beginning of Jesus' public life, they were said to have occupied the same house at Capernaum.

The Gospel of John states that Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist, whose testimony first led him, and another unnamed disciple of John the Baptist to follow Jesus. Andrew at once recognized Jesus as the Messiah, and hastened to introduce him to his brother.  Thenceforth, the two brothers were disciples of Christ. On a subsequent occasion, prior to the final call to the Apostolate, they were called to a closer companionship, and then they left all things to follow Jesus.

In the gospels, Andrew is referred to as being present on some important occasions as one of the disciples more closely attached to Jesus.  Andrew told Jesus about the boy with the loaves and fishes (John 6:8), with Philip told Jesus about the Greeks seeking Him, and was present at the Last Supper.

Andrew is said to have been martyred by crucifixion at the city of Patras  in Achaea, on the northern coast of the Peloponnese. Early texts, such as the Acts of Andrew known to Gregory of Tours, describe Andrew as bound, not nailed, to a Latin cross of the kind on which Jesus is said to have been crucified; yet a tradition developed that Andrew had been crucified on a cross of the form called Crux decussata (X-shaped cross, or "saltire"), now commonly known as a "Saint Andrew's Cross" — supposedly at his own request, as he deemed himself unworthy to be crucified on the same type of cross as Jesus had been. "The familiar iconography of his martyrdom, showing the apostle bound to an X-shaped cross, does not seem to have been standardized before the later Middle Ages," Judith Calvert concluded after re-examining the materials studied by Louis Réau.

Relics of the Apostle Andrew are kept at the Basilica of St Andrew in Patras, Greece.
 
     
In September 1964, Pope Paul VI, as a gesture of goodwill toward the Greek Orthodox Church, ordered that all of the relics of St. Andrew that were in Vatican City be sent back to Patras.  All the relics, which consist of the small finger, the skull (part of the top of the cranium of Saint Andrew), and the cross on which he was martyred, have been kept in the Church of St. Andrew at Patras in a special shrine and are revered in a special ceremony every November 30, his feast day.

   

Andrew is the patron saint of several cities and countries including: Barbados, Scotland, Ukraine, Russia, Romania, Patras in Greece, Amalfi in Italy, Luqa in Malta, and Esgueira in Portugal. He was also the patron saint of Prussia and of the Order of the Golden Fleece. The flag of Scotland (and consequently the Union Flag and that of its commonwealth countries) feature St Andrew's saltire cross.


The Confederate flag also features a saltire commonly referred to as a St Andrew's cross, although its designer, William Porcher Miles, said he changed it from an upright cross to a saltire so that it would not be a religious symbol but merely a heraldic device.

***
***



Mrs. Gary,

I apologize for the stress I've put you through; but the truth.......I was thrown for a loop the way you started concurring with Dr. Gary after that Thanksgiving visit. From my perspective, Thanksgiving was just a coincidence. Since you felt the need to justify inviting someone into your home that made you uncomfortable even before I stepped foot in your home; want to remind you it was the Puritans who burned witches at the stakes also. That was neither clever or fair.

Yes. I do have a crystal meth addiction. To buy and sell crystal meth is illegal. To have a crystal meth addiction is not illegal. Addictions are very common in the gay community, especially with the men (sex, alchohol,and....yes... recreational drugs of which cyrtal meth is just one of many). For some reason crystal meth has a different effect with me than most men. It is a speed only, which at first was not a problem, just a pick-me-up before going to work after a party weekend (Hotlanta, New Orleans Halloween, New Orleans Southern Decadence, Chicago International Men of Leather...queen in leather is still a queen/very miliary theme also......Birmingham Rites of Spring, Miami White Party, New York Black Party....leather again, San Fransico Folsom Street Fair, etc. etc. etc.). Eventually it got to where I couldn't go anywhere without it; chanced gettting caught flying back to Arkansas for my two neice's weddings. Never drugged tested at work either which would have been a felony and lost of my license to practice. I can stop doing it, but crash for 2-3 weeks; then depression sets in not because of work but because no social network inside or outside of veterinary medicine threre for me when I come off the drug. Don't let the illegal part confuse you. I've always had a colorful language within the gay community; which they didn't care much for either.

Too late fore me to try to start my own clinic staff with people of my choosing. I realized I had to do my own  intervention. I was actually waiting for Dr. Gary that day. You said he would be there in an hour and that you two were equal head of household. It was apparent to me that Dr. Gary was only being civil to me because you opened the gate to our little neighborly chat. I knew you were a Christian wife; just didn't know if Dr. Gary was a good doctor or a bad doctor........think Dorothy.....lol. That;s why I went back to get the painting and the rubber duckies......so we could have more to talk about as I was waiting for either Rev Bob or Dr. Bob or just liberal Bob.

Right now.....Dr. Gary is the one I'm pissed off at.....not you...although it may not sound that way. Bob may not have realized....he concurred also with my mother against me over the cellphone. On one of my phone calls with my mother I ask, " Am I correct in believeing you've spoken with Mrs. Gary?" My mother answered back almost excited," YES I HAVE! HIM TOO!" My mother said you had nothing but nice things to say about me; she thought Bob was a DICK. She took it like a compliment; yet she doesn't want her son to be gay still. Now I can't turn her off!

Is there a Men's Bible Study Group at Glenwood Memorial Church I could sit in on just to see what mature Methodist Men discuss. I do consider myself mature Methodist as far a Christians are concerned. I was born into a Methodist Chruch and without realizing it.....was calling myself atheist before I graduated Prescott High School. Brother Walthal didn't correct me...in fact he stumbled.... when I answered his question: "Why believe in God?" No wonder no one suggested I be baptised. Would you be upset if I attended a few Sunday sermons....I do have a suit?

Was okay with what the Baptist preacher said when he married my eldest neice to the baseball coach. Not sure what kind of preacher married the younger one to the campus policeman. Couln't hear a word he said. He was cute though; seemed in a hurry to leave the wedding with his cute girlfriend also.




I'm sorry for the pain I caused you. It was not my intention. I do not deny having personal problems. Was actually reaching out for some help.

Again, I apoligize for barging into your home and upsetting Janet. I do not own a gun or plan to.

jim ed

''The physicists say that I am a mathematician, and the mathematicians say that I am a physicist,'' he said. ''I am a completely isolated man and though everybody knows me, there are very few people who really know me.''





From: "ggary@emory.edu"


Sent: Sat, November 27, 2010 1:33:55 PM
Subject: Contact and Boundaries

Hello Jim Ed,

You must know that in the future, there will be clear boundaries for making contact with Janet and me, especially Janet. This is not to say there will be no further contacts with us, but it must be under a number of conditions.

Janet wanted to add her word before we set the conditions together. Here is her note to you:

Jim Ed,

I was more than a little disturbed by your visit on Wednesday. In the spirit of neighborliness and the Thanksgiving holiday coming up, I opened our house to you, even though I felt s bit uncomfortable doing so, especially in Bob?s absence.

We ironed out what you perceived to be a rejection on my part.

When you wanted to share the symbols that are meaningful to you, I was interested, although having a hard time ?getting it? in the way you told it to me. No input from me seemed to even get through to you, or matter at all.

I was very disturbed when you talked of your depression, thinking about getting your gun, and when you told me you are the ?Anti-Christ? and a ?crack-head? I began to be somewhat afraid of you and wished I had not opened my door to you.

When I told you I needed medications and even that didn?t stop your monologue, I said it again and began to leave the room. At that point you did thank me for listening and left, saying you would leave your stuff so you could come back. You either didn?t hear me or didn?t pay attention when I said, ?No, take them with you.?

Bob and I both feel we and our space were violated, and Bob has drawn up some conditions under which we may all co-exist as neighbors. I concur with what he has written below. 

 Janet

The Conditions:

1. There can be no further non-negotiated visits on your part with either or both of us.
2. We are not available to participte in your theological doctrines
which you presented to Janet for more than one hour and fifteen minutes. You failed to leave our house until the second time Janet indicated she needed a break for medicines. You may not know that Janet has Parkinson's and extended stressful events activate her symptoms. Furthermore, Janet needed to take her
medicines and tried to bring your theological discourse to a close,
but you continued. Furthermore, you left your basket of possessions in
our house in order that you would have assurance of returning to our
house. That is far too presumptuous for us.
3. You do not have permission to enter our property or phone our house
unless you can abide by these limits.
4. We do not listen to religious talk from anyone, let alone invite
them into our home. We do not do that with you. We share our faith
with people who ask questions of us and our religious convictions. You
had no questions for Janet, only pressing her to agree with your
doctrine.

G. Robert Gary, Sr. ThD

Francis of Assisi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Legend of Saint Francis, Sermon to the Birds)

"It is my hope that the inspiration of Saint Francis will help us to keep ever alive a sense of 'fraternity' with all those good and beautiful things which Almighty God has created."
~(Pope John Paul II)~


Francis of Assisi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: St. Francis of Assisi (Italian: 1181/1182 – October 3, 1226) was an Italian Catholic friar and preacher. He founded the men's Order of Friars Minor, the women’s Order of St. Clare, and the Third Order of Saint Francis for men and women not able to live the lives of itinerant preachers followed by the early members of the Order of Friars Minor or the monastic lives of the Poor Clares. Though he was never ordained to the Catholic priesthood, Francis is one of the most venerated religious figures in history.

Francis' father was Pietro di Bernardone, a prosperous silk merchant. Francis lived the high-spirited life typical of a wealthy young man, even fighting as a soldier for Assisi.  While going off to war in 1204, Francis had a vision that directed him back to Assisi, where he lost his taste for his worldly life.  On a pilgrimage to Rome, he joined the poor in begging at St. Peter's Basilica. The experience moved him to live in poverty. Francis returned home, began preaching on the streets, and soon amassed a following. His Order was authorized by Pope Innocent III in 1210. He then founded the Order of Poor Clares, which became an enclosed religious order for women, as well as the Order of Brothers and Sisters of Penance.

On July 16, 1228, he was proclaimed a saint by Pope Gregory IX. He is known as the patron saint of animals, the environment, and is one of the two patron saints of Italy (with Catherine of Siena). It is customary for Catholic and Anglican churches to hold ceremonies blessing animals on his feast day of October 4. He is also known for his love of the Eucharist,  his sorrow during the Stations of the Cross, and for the creation of the Christmas creche or Nativity Scene.
Francis preached the teaching of the Catholic Church, that the world was created good and beautiful by God but suffers a need for redemption because of the primordial sin of man. He preached to man and beast the universal ability and duty of all creatures to praise God (a common theme in the Psalms) and the duty of men to protect and enjoy nature as both the stewards of God's creation and as creatures ourselves. On November 29, 1979, Pope John Paul II declared St. Francis to be the Patron of Ecology.  Many of the stories that surround the life of St. Francis say that he had a great love for animals and the environment.

Perhaps the most famous incident that illustrates the Saint's humility towards nature is recounted in the "Fioretti" ("Little Flowers"), a collection of legends and folklore that sprang up after the Saint's death. It is said that, one day, while Francis was travelling with some companions, they happened upon a place in the road where birds filled the trees on either side. Francis told his companions to "wait for me while I go to preach to my sisters the birds." The birds surrounded him, intrigued by the power of his voice, and not one of them flew away. He is often portrayed with a bird, typically in his hand.

Another legend from the Fioretti tells that in the city of Gubbio, where Francis lived for some time, was a wolf "terrifying and ferocious, who devoured men as well as animals." Francis had compassion upon the townsfolk, and so he went up into the hills to find the wolf. Soon, fear of the animal had caused all his companions to flee, though the saint pressed on. When he found the wolf, he made the sign of the cross and commanded the wolf to come to him and hurt no one. Miraculously the wolf closed his jaws and lay down at the feet of St. Francis. "Brother Wolf, you do much harm in these parts and you have done great evil," said Francis. "All these people accuse you and curse you...But brother wolf, I would like to make peace between you and the people." Then Francis led the wolf into the town, and surrounded by startled citizens made a pact between them and the wolf. Because the wolf had “done evil out of hunger, the townsfolk were to feed the wolf regularly. In return, the wolf would no longer prey upon them or their flocks. In this manner Gubbio was freed from the menace of the predator. Francis even made a pact on behalf of the town dogs, that they would not bother the wolf again. Finally, to show the townspeople that they would not be harmed, Francis blessed the wolf.

Then during the World Environment Day 1982, he said that St. Francis' love and care for creation was a challenge for contemporary Catholics and a reminder "not to behave like dissident predators where nature is concerned, but to assume responsibility for it, taking all care so that everything stays healthy and integrated, so as to offer a welcoming and friendly environment even to those who succeed us." The same Pope wrote on the occasion of the World Day of Peace, January 1, 1990, the saint of Assisi "offers Christians an example of genuine and deep respect for the integrity of creation..." He went on to make the point that St Francis: "As a friend of the poor who was loved by God's creatures, Saint Francis invited all of creation – animals, plants, natural forces, even Brother Sun and Sister Moon – to give honor and praise to the Lord. The poor man of Assisi gives us striking witness that when we are at peace with God we are better able to devote ourselves to building up that peace with all creation which is inseparable from peace among all peoples."

Pope John Paul II concluded that section of the document with these words, "It is my hope that the inspiration of Saint Francis will help us to keep ever alive a sense of 'fraternity' with all those good and beautiful things which Almighty God has created."



PECKERWOOD                                                                             JINX 
                    
                                                                                       


                               DUSTY




                                                                                                                             MR. ED


"Do you still have your pet cemetery?"
~(Ex-Boyfriend)~

"Far as I know,
they are still all...
DEAD!?"
~(Simply Jim:  One Pearl, Total Pig, Anti-Christ)~

No wonder people think I'm Bipolar.

Homopolar, GOD DAMN IT! Homopolar.