The quote from Holocaust survivor Eva Kor comes from an article on the WISH TV website, about Kor’s experience when she came face to face with former Nazi guard Oskar Groening. Kor lives in Indiana and runs the Candles Holocaust Museum. Forgiveness is sometimes the biggest victory that a person can win over someone who did them harm, because hatred punishes and inflicts pain on oneself more than them. Forgiveness means not letting the person who hurt you go on hurting you. Read more
Rewatching LOST from the beginning has been an interesting experience. We have to go back – to the island, to stories that we knew. They are never the same on a second experience. Reaching the end, part of me wants to find a way to watch the stories in chronological order – to start with “Across the Sea” and see how that would be. The very last episode of LOST is a two-hour one. It begins with the side of... Read more
I love this clever sign that the Modern Foreign Languages department at Butler University came up with. A bulldog saying “Meow” – now that’s a foreign language! Read more
A cartoon by Mike Luckovich. It seems to me absolutely inappropriate for people who have done nothing at all to try to change a status quo resulting from years of slavery, segregation, and discrimination (much less anything committed on principle to non-violent means), to criticize others when frustration with the status quo bursts forth in rioting. When I see riots, I do not feel it appropriate to offer blame, except above all against myself, for not having found a way... Read more
There have been a couple of interesting articles online lately about religion and Star Wars. First, the Washington Post explained how Star Wars answers our deepest religious questions. Then IO9 took it further, offering a response article about religion and morality in Star Wars. In the former, Joel Hodge views the story in what at times seems to me to be too simplistic terms, as a story of good vs. evil with Christian typology that is at times inverted. But by the end, he seems... Read more
The quote comes from Annalee Flower Horne on Twitter. See also this bit of satire, showing what it would sound like if the news reported about whites the way it reports about blacks: Read more
The Supreme Court of the United States heard a case today about marriage equality, on which it will issue a decision in June. The New York Times has been following the discussions and news live, has shared audio recordings of excerpts, and reports that the justices are divided on the issue, also providing background to the case. Amy Howe on the SCOTUS Blog has a translation of the issues and discussion from lawyer-speak into plain English. Now, we wait… Read more
CBS News has a recording of the speech by Martin Luther King Jr. from which the quote is taken. Morgan Guyton also shared another thought which seemed to me to be worth quoting and sharing: What is coming into focus for me is the difference between law and order and justice. Law and order describes a world where boundaries remain predictable and inviolable. Windows aren’t broken, traffic isn’t stopped, business as usual hums along. Law and order works for the people... Read more
Simon Joseph blogged about the myth of the dying Messiah. He writes: The myth of the Dying Messiah originated in and was generated by the suffering and death of a messianic Jesus… Jesus’ first followers suffered from cognitive dissonance. The predominant model of early Jewish messianism was the militaristic Davidic warrior-king. The fact that Jesus did not “fulfill” the role of the conquering war-hero – and was murdered by those he was supposed to oppose – could have destroyed the movement. Their teacher had just been... Read more
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