Likeability and Capability, Respect and Support

://www.people.com/people/mobile/article/0,,20710201,00.html

The Voice Crowns Danielle Bradbery as Winner11:30PM EDT

 

The season also stood out for the camaraderie between the judges and the contestants, who showed respect and support for one another throughout the competition – despite the friendly bickering between Shelton and fellow coach Adam Levine.

For winner Bradbery, the Texas high schooler told PEOPLE Monday night she's thinking about the next step in her burgeoning career. "I feel like I could start off making a single. I could start off really small, but then eventually get bigger."

Regarding, Chamuel, coach Usher has made it clear he wants to stay in touch with the increasingly popular rocker, who wowed audiences with her fierce performances and humble, sweet demeanor.

"Every artist would hope to possess these two things: likeability and capability," Usher told her Monday after she performed a heartfelt version of "Why" by Annie Lennox. "To me, that represents a successful artist, and that is what you possess."

As for the The Swon Brothers, Zach told PEOPLE that Shelton's wife, Miranda Lambert, gave them a piece of advice that set their minds at ease, no matter the outcome. "She said she came in third on Nashville Star and look where she ended up. She's like 'Don't worry about winning. We are going to do great.' "

 

• With reporting by JESSICA HERNDON

 

too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart

Quotes from an address by Nelson Mandela to the Irish Dáil Éireann* in July 1990, just months after his release from prison in South Africa, thanking them for their support:
(bold added by blogger)

"The outstanding Irish poet, William Butler Yeats, has written that too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart. He spoke thus because he could feel within himself the pain of the suffering that Irish men and women of conscience had had to endure in centuries of struggle against an unrelenting tyranny.
"But then he also spoke of love, of the love of those whose warm hearts the oppressors sought to turn to stone, the love of their country and people, and, in the end the love of humanity itself.

"For three quarters of a century, under the leadership of the ANC, our own people have themselves confronted a racist tyranny which grew more stubborn with each passing day. It had to be our lot that even as we refused to take up arms to save lives, we still had to bury many martyrs who were shot down or tortured to death simply because they dared to cry freedom.

"The apartheid system has killed countless numbers, not only in our country but throughout Southern Africa. It has condemned to the gallows some of the best sons of our people. It has imprisoned some and driven others into exile. Even those whose only desire was to live, have had their lives cut short because apartheid means the systematic and conscious deprivation and impoverishment of the black millions.

"It could have been that our own hearts turned to stone. It could have been that we inscribed vengeance on our banners of battle and resolved to meet brutality with brutality. But we understood that oppression dehumanises the oppressor as it hurts the oppressed. We understood that to emulate the barbarity of the tyrant would also transform us into savages. We knew that we would sully and degrade our cause if we allowed that it should, at any stage, borrow anything from the practices of the oppressor. We had to refuse that our long sacrifice should make a stone of our hearts.

"We are in struggle because we value life and love all humanity. The liberated South Africa we envision is one in which all our people, both black and white, will be one to the other, brother and sister. We see being born a united South African nation of equal compatriots, enriched by the diversity of the colour and culture of the citizens who make up the whole."

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/address-by-nelson-mandela-to-d%C3%A1il-%C3%A9ireann-1.1422034?page=2

*Note: Dáil Éireann is the lower house, but principal chamber, of the Oireachtas (Irish parliament).

God's grace is based upon what helps

"God wants all his children to enjoy the complete fullness of eternal life.
God's grace is not based upon what is fair, but rather what helps."
~ Author Unknown

Reese Witherspoon's Apology

Witherspoon apologized shortly after news of the arrests broke Sunday:

“I clearly had one drink too many and I am deeply embarrassed about the things I said,” she said in a statement.

“It was definitely a scary situation and I was frightened for my husband, but that is no excuse.

I was disrespectful to the officer who was just doing his job. The words I used that night definitely do not reflect who I am.

I have nothing but respect for the police and I’m very sorry for my behavior.”

 

http://www.accesshollywood.com/will-reese-witherspoons-ultra-clean-image-make-a-full-recovery-after-arrest_article_78422

Nihilism: profound alienation, grievance, sense of anger, desire for revenge, feelings of humiliation...

The New Zealand Herald
Unlikely religion motive behind attacks

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10878802
5:30 AM Sunday Apr 21, 2013
quotes:

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, appear to fit the biographical pattern of those involved in domestic terror plots, according to research by terrorism expert Brian Jenkins of Rand Corp - young, male, disaffected consumers of radical internet propaganda.

"These are individuals who were disenfranchised with their station in life and they decided to take action," said Rick "Ozzie" Nelson, former US counterterrorism official and a senior affiliate at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington, D.C.

"The motivation for these two would have been very different from the people on 9/11," said Akbar Ahmed, an American University professor who recently published a book about tribal Islam. "It's not an act for a political point. It is an act of nihilism, and the frame is not Islam."
...
Their median age is 27. They have come from a cross-section of ethnic backgrounds. They typically show signs of profound alienation.

"Religious belief does not appear to be the key personal factor," Jenkins said. Participants have been motivated by "grievance, sense of anger, desire for revenge, feelings of humiliation, desire to demonstrate manhood, participation in an epic struggle, thirst for glory."

Your beliefs become your thoughts ...

“Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.”

~ Mahatma Gandhi

People will never forget how you made them feel

"I've learned that people will forget what you said,
people will forget what you did,
but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

~ Maya Angelou

Footprints on our Hearts

"Some people come into our lives and quietly go.
Others stay for awhile and leave footprints on our hearts and we are never the same."

Otto's

Down But Not Out

Michael Jordan, arguably the greatest NBA player of all time, credits his attitude about failure as a critical driver behind his enormous success:
“I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet

Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet:

“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.”

Make 'em laugh or they'll kill you

If you want to tell people the truth, make 'em laugh.
Otherwise, they'll kill you.

~ Oscar Wilde

The Good-Morrow - John Donne

The Good-Morrow

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I

Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?

But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?

Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?

’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.

If ever any beauty I did see,

Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,

Which watch not one another out of fear;

For love, all love of other sights controls,

And makes one little room an everywhere.

Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,

Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,

Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,

And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;

Where can we find two better hemispheres,

Without sharp north, without declining west?

Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;

If our two loves be one, or, thou and I

Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

By John Donne 1572–1631

Source: The Norton Anthology of Poetry Third Edition (1983)

strength from the integrity that comes from keeping promises

Finding Your Spiritual Strength

By NORRIS BURKES

Published: Sunday, December 16, 2012 at 3:36 a.m.

quote: 

"But here's the rub in the story. Samson didn't really get his strength from his hair. I know that's what Miss Myrtle taught in Sunday school, but the truth is a little more complicated than that.

Samson was a part of a religious order that took a vow before God not to cut his hair. He didn't get his strength from his hair. He got his strength from the integrity that came to him from keeping his promises. When he lost the integrity, he lost the source of his real strength.

The story ends with God restoring Samson's strength, and in a suicidal burst of energy, he literally brought the house down on himself and his enemies — not your typical hero ending, but Samson died, in touch once again with the source of his real strength."

 

http://www.theledger.com/article/20121216/
COLUMNISTS0420/121219440?p=2&tc=pg

 

The dangers of a fatalistic, pessimistic perception of history

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/opinion/sunday/friedman-the-full-israeli-experience.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20121209

 

Op-Ed Columnist

The Full Israeli Experience

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: December 8, 2012

The dangers of a fatalistic, pessimistic perception of history:

quote: 

Today, alas, not only is the Israeli peace camp dead, but the most effective Israeli “bastard for peace,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak, is retiring. As I sat with Barak in his office the other day, he shared with me his parting advice to Israel’s next and sure-to-be-far-right government.

Huge political forces, with deep roots, are now playing out around Israel, particularly the rise of political Islam, said Barak. “We have to learn to accept it and see both sides of it and try to make it better. I am worried about our tendency to adopt a fatalistic, pessimistic perception of history. Because, once you adopt it, you are relieved from the responsibility to see the better aspects and seize the opportunities” when they arise.

If Israel just assumes that it’s only a matter of time before the moderate Palestinian leaders in the West Bank fall and Hamas takes over, “why try anything?” added Barak. “And, therefore, you lose sight of the opportunities and the will to seize opportunities. ...
I know that you can’t say when leaders raise this kind of pessimism that it is all just invented. It is not all invented, and you would be stupid if you did not look [at it] with open eyes.
But it is a major risk that you will not notice that you become enslaved by this pessimism in a way that will paralyze you from understanding that you can shape it. The world is full of risks, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t have a responsibility to do something about it — within your limits and the limits of realism — and avoid self-fulfilling prophecies that are extremely dangerous here.”

 

Value of Churches to the Community

The study, commissioned by Partners for Sacred Places, a religion-related historical preservation group in Philadelphia, assigns a dollar value to factors including the effect on individuals, safety net ministries, tourism and education. The study's first phase found that the average congregation in Philadelphia returned $4.3 million to its community. Raw data collected in Chicago suggests similar results, said Tuomi Forrest, executive vice president of Partners.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/religion/ct-met-church-water-fee-reversal-20121207,0,2604304.story

Chicago's religious leaders fight water fee

By Manya A. Brachear, Chicago Tribune reporter, December 7, 2012

Living Blissfully with the Mystery

Henry Miller’s Reflections on Writing

“Understanding is not a piercing of the mystery, but an acceptance of it, a living blissfully with it, in it, through and by it.”

Religion Among the Ranks of the Long Gray Line

B.J. Garrison

USMA Class of 2002

Religion Among the Ranks of the Long Gray Line

Posted: 12/06/2012 11:16 am

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bj-garrison/religion-among-the-ranks-of-the-long-gray-line_b_2250487.html

"Challenging Cadets, officers and NCOs to have meaningful discussions on all facets of Army life is one of the many reasons why the Academy exists. Rather than running away from the thought, we stress the need for critical thinking.

Is that hard to do in an atmosphere like West Point? Absolutely. But we revel in the difficult and solve the impossible. We members of the Long Gray Line have been taught to run to the problems and do what we can to help set things straight, and not run away cursing the ground of those who don't hold similar views as we retreat."

Evil from Conviction

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."

-Blaise Pascal (Pensees, 1670)

"Jamais on ne fait le mal si pleinement et si gaiement que quand on le fait par conscience."

lit: Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it conscientiously.

Variant: Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction (trans. W.F. Trotter)

Blaise Pascal, Pensées (# 894 or 895, depending on differing editions).

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Evil

Author

Profession: Philosopher

Nationality: French

Born: June 19, 1623

Died: August 19, 1662

Scripture which troubles me most

"Most people are bothered by those passages in Scriptures which they cannot understand; but as for me, I always notice that the passages in Scripture which trouble me most are those which I do understand."

~ Mark Twain

Haiku

Haiku computer error message:

Chaos reigns within.

Reflect, repent and reboot.

Order shall return.