Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Real Strong Women

Real strong women,
Independent
Liberated
Smart
Bold
Empowered
and
Enlightened,
Value Life. 

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Polybius Histories--Insight to the darkness within

Spendius and his men then led out from the camp Gesco and the other prisoners, in all about seven hundred. Taking them a short distance away, they first of all cut off their hands, 12 beginning with Gesco, that very Gesco whom a short time previously they had selected from all the Carthaginians, proclaiming him their benefactor and referring the points in dispute to him. 13 After cutting off the hands they cut off the wretched men's other extremities too, and after thus mutilating them and breaking their legs, threw them still alive into a trench.
81 1 The Carthaginians, when news came of this unhappy event, could take no action, but their indignation was extreme, and in the heat of it they sent messengers to Hamilcar and their other general Hanno imploring them to come and avenge the unfortunate victims. 2 To the assassins they sent heralds begging that the bodies might be given up to them. 3 Not only was this request refused but the messengers were told to send neither herald nor envoy again, as any who came would meet with the same punishment that had just befallen Gesco. 4 With regard to treatment of prisoners in the future, the mutineers passed a resolution and engaged each other to torture and kill every Carthaginian and send back to the capital with his hands cut off every ally of Carthage, and this practice they continued to observe carefully. 5 No one looking at this would have any hesitation in saying that not only do men's bodies and certain of the ulcers and tumours afflicting them become so to speak savage and brutalized and quite incurable, but that this is true in a much higher degree of their souls. 6 In the case of ulcers, if we treat them, they are sometimes inflamed by the treatment itself and spread more rapidly, while again if we neglect them they continue, in virtue of their own nature, to eat into the flesh and never rest until they have utterly destroyed the tissues beneath. 7 Similarly such malignant lividities and putrid ulcers often grow in the human soul, that no beast becomes at the end more wicked or cruel than man. 8 In the case of men in such a state, if we treat the disease by pardon and kindness, they think we are scheming to betray them or deceive them, and become more mistrustful and hostile to their would‑be benefactors, 9 but if, on the contrary, we attempt to cure the evil by retaliation they work up their passions to outrival ours, until there is nothing so abominable or so atrocious that they will not consent to do it, imagining all the while that they are displaying a fine courage.10 Thus at the end they are utterly brutalized and no longer can be called human beings. Of such a condition the origin and most potent cause lies in bad manners and customs and wrong training from childhood, but there are several contributory ones, the chief of which is habitual violence and unscrupulousness on the part of those in authority over them. 11 All these conditions were present in this mercenary force as a whole and especially in their chiefs.

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Eucharist-- at the very heart of the Catholic Faith

"Many ecclesiastics want to make me known through sophisticated arguments and complex reasonings,  forgetting the Eucharist, which is my very substance, and the sublime simplicity of the Gospels, which I proclaim. This is like throwing mud at simple people." (Cf. Message to Julia Kim, September 22, 1995)

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

"My feets is tired, but my soul is at rest."

I've been reading the Martin Luther King's letter from Birmingham jail for the course on Early Christianity.

The exercise was to compare Paul's letters from the 1st century with that of MLK in the 20th.

But so many profound statements were made during MLK's letter that I found myself crying many times before I finished my reading, which took me two days to complete.

I have been feeling in my heart that God has more in store for me--that he made me capable of more than what I've done thus far. I have been so unsettled recently with just the need to make something happen.

So coming across this quote of an older black women during a very dark period of civil unrest in the south, "My feets is tired, but my soul is at rest." I was instantly inspired. 

My God!  I want to feel that. I want my soul to be at rest with the peace of knowing that I worked tirelessly for the Lord.

Get Motivated! 

St. Catherine of Sienna said, "We we become who were are called to be, we will set the world ABLAZE!"

I've written it before, but I write it again!

Be Motivated!


Saturday, January 11, 2014

where am i

I've a few friends who have posted what they read in 2013.But for the life of me I can't figure out which books I read last year or didn't read last year. It's like every book I've read is so fresh in my mind it feels like just yesterday that I last laid it down. 

Anyway I feel inclined to at least mention what I'm doing now and why I'm doing it. 

I'm currently reading: 
David Copperfield 
Stiff--the curious life of human cadavers
The Peacemaker--a biblical guide to resolving personal conflict


I'm reading david Copperfield because it's a classic and every so often I like to sharpen my classic reading skills. It's slower and sadder than books today , and I love it for that. 

Stiff, because it's interesting and morbid. I find it irresistible. 

The peacemaker, I'm reading because I have to figure out what I want more--respect or peace. 

I'm also taking a course online. It's called Early Christianity: letters of Paul. I'm doing this because I want to get my master's degree or a graduate certificate and I feel like I need to start getting used to academia. This is a certificate course not one for credit, but it's only to get me going. 


I can't just keep reading for no reason and storing knowledge with no outlet and no respect. Who cares if you're smart? It's all about what your stupid linked in profile says you are.