text:
"The Rites of Man" — a continued reading from Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man by Sam Keen
-- "Modern Day Job" by John Larsen
Act I: Separation. The cultural task of turning a boy into a man begins by the disruption of the primal bond between mother and son. In infancy he and she have been one flesh. But at some point, usually near the onset of puberty, the boy child will be rudely stolen from the encompassing maternal arms, ready or not, and thrust into the virile society of men. In many tribes, the men kidnap the boys and take them to live in the men's clubhouse where they are subject to hazing, discipline, and teachings of the elders. "Modern Day Job" by John Larsen
Some form of painful ordeal inevitably accompanies and dramatizes the separation from the world of WOMAN. The list of minor and major tortures imposed upon initiates reads like a page from the fantasy life of de Sade and includes: lip piercing, scarification, filing or knocking out of teeth, scourgings, finger sacrifices, removal of a testicle, bitings, burnings, eating of disgusting foods, being tied on an ant hill, subincision of the penis, solitary confinement, exile in the wilderness for long periods, sleeping naked on winter nights, etc. Often a boy was sent out into the forest to kill a dangerous animal or an enemy to prove his courage. Among the Plains Indians,«fasting, vigils, and sometimes psychedelic drugs were used to induce an altered state of consciousness and a personal vision.
As a general rule, the more a tribe or nation practices warfare the harsher its rites of initiation for boys. In such cultures, the main purpose of the initiation rites for males is to turn civilian boys into military men. The life of a man is the life of a warrior. To be a man one must be able to bear suffering without complaint, to kill, to die. Some tribes, in their effort to create manly virtues, amputate the nipples, since only women should have breasts. The neophyte warrior learns to disdain woman's ways, to reject the sensuous knowledge of the body he learned kinesthetically from his mother, and to deny all that is "feminine" and soft in himself.
Why this connection between masculinity and pain? We can see the logic that underlies such ordeals if we look closely at the typical "primitive" ritual of circumcision. For reasons that are deeply unconscious—or mythic—the male elders of the tribe ordain that boys must bear a scar throughout life to remind them that they are required to sacrifice their bodies to the will of the tribe. To be a man is to leave behind the world of women-nature-flesh-sensuality-pleasure and submit one's will and body to the world of men-culture-power-duty. The implicit message given to a boy when he is circumcised, whether the ritual is performed when he is seven days old or at puberty, is that your body henceforth belongs to the tribe and not merely to yourself.
If we are to understand the male psyche, decipher the baffling male obsession with violence, break the unconscious sadomasochistic game that binds men and women together in erotic combat, and end the habit of war, we must understand the original wound, the scar, around which masculine character has traditionally been constructed.
The rite of circumcision is widely though not universally practiced, but it is the best symbol of the process by which boys are turned into men. That so primitive and brutal a rite continues to be practiced nearly automatically in modern times when most medical evidence indicates that it is unnecessary, painful, and dangerous suggests that circumcision remains a mythic act whose real significance is stubbornly buried in the unconscious. That men and women who supposedly love their sons refuse to examine and stop this barbaric practice strongly suggests that something powerfully strange is going on here that is obscured by a conspiracy of silence. We do not want to look at the cruelty that is systematically inflicted on men or the wound that is deemed a necessary price of manhood.
Imagine, if you dare, that you are small enough to rest complete within your mother's arms, so sensitive that every nerve ending of your flesh reaches out to the unknown world, eager as lips to receive the bounties of the breast. Then, suddenly, you are seized by male giants, taken from your mother's arms (but with her consent), and held down by force. The tender skin covering your penis is cut off (whether by a stone knife or surgical blade is a matter of small difference). Feel the violation of your flesh, your being. (Do not allow yourself the comforting lie that circumcision isn't that painful, the wound heals quickly, and the pain is soon forgotten.) What indelible message about the meaning of manhood would be carved on your body, encoded within the scar tissue of your symbolic wound?
It is possible to interpret the cruelty involved in rites of passage as expressing the unconscious resentment of the fathers against the sons. But more likely the pain inflicted served as a sacrament—an outward and visible sign of an inward change that transforms boys into men. To create a social body requires a sacrifice of our individual desires. The pain of the ordeal, the hazings, and the insults were designed to break down individuality and replace personal identity with the imprint of the tribe. From the beginnings of recorded human history to the present day the most important tacit instruction boys receive about manhood is: Masculinity requires a wounding of the body, a sacrifice of the natural endowment of sensuality and sexuality. A man is fashioned by a process of subtraction, decision, abstraction, being severed from the "natural" world of WOMAN. We gain manhood by the willingness to bear the mutilation imposed on us by the ruling elders.
BUY the BOOK:
'WOMAN as Erotic-Spiritual Power' (excerpt) Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man by Sam Keen
-- "Venus Verticordia" by Dantte Gabriel Rossetti
The third aspect of WOMAN is as an irresistible erotic-spiritual force. She is the magnet, and men the iron filings that lie within her field.
It is difficult to give this aspect of WOMAN a familiar name because Western mythology, philosophy, and psychology have never acknowledged its reality. Once, men and women assumed that the goddess controlled all things that flow and ebb—the waxing and waning moon, the rise and fall of tide and phallus. But ever since God became Father, and men have considered themselves the lords over nature (and women), we have defined man as active and WOMAN as reactive. Consequently, we have never developed a language that does justice to WOMAN'S erotic-spiritual power.
In Eastern mythology, notions of gender are reversed. The female principle is seen as active and the male as responsive. Among human beings, lions, and other members of the animal kingdom, the female of the species sends out her invitations on the wind and commands the male's response. He may think he initiates, but her sexual perfumes (pheromones) and inspiring image influence him to action. She is the primer mover, the divine eros, whose power draws him to her. As Joseph Campbell points out,3 the term Shakti in Hindu mythology names the energy or active power of a male divinity that is embodied in his spouse. "Every wife is her husband's Shakti and every beloved woman her lover's. Beatrice was Dante's. Carried further still: The word connotes female spiritual power in general, as manifest, for instance, in the radiance of beauty, or on the elemental level in the sheer power of the female sex to work effects on the male."
To detect this important aspect of men's experience of WOMAN that our language or philosophy of gender does not name or honor, we have to look at the angelic and demonic extremes of men's sexuality—the ways in which WOMAN figures in the imaginations of artists and rapists.
For many creative men WOMAN is the muse and inspiration for their work. She possesses a semi-divine power to call forth their creativity. Without her inspiration they cannot paint, write, or manage. She is the anima, the spirit and soul of a man. Without her a man is only will and intellect and blind force.
At the opposite end of the spectrum the rapist confesses the same experience of the irresistible erotic power of WOMAN. His defense is inevitably: "She tempted me. She wanted it. She seduced me." For a moment, put aside the correct response to such deluded excuses, which is that it is not the victim's fault, and consider the raw unconscious experience of WOMAN that underlies rape no less than the inspiration of the artist. In both cases, she is experienced as the active, initiatory power.
When we consider how most "civilized" men have repressed their experience of the power of WOMAN as goddess, mother, and erotic-spiritual motivator, it is easy to understand the reasons that lie in back of the history of men's cruelty to women. We fear, therefore deny, therefore demean, therefore (try to) control the power of WOMAN. There is no need here to rehearse the routine insults and gynocidal hatreds of men toward women. Mary Daly, Susan Griffin, and other feminist thinkers have traced this painful history in brilliant and convincing fashion.
As men we need to recollect our experience, reown our repressed knowledge of the power of WOMAN, and cease establishing our manhood in reactionary ways. If we do not, we will continue to be workers desperately trying to produce trinkets that will equal WOMAN'S creativity, macho men who confuse swagger with independence, studs who anxiously perform for Mother's eyes hoping to win enough applause to satisfy a fragile ego, warriors and rapists who do violence to a feminine power they cannot control and therefore fear.
So long as we define ourselves by our reactions to unconscious images of WOMAN we remain in exile from the true mystery and power of manhood.
BUY the BOOK:
More from In the Absence of God/Dwelling the Presence of the Sacred by Sam Keen
As bio-mythic, storytelling animals, we inevitably construct a linguistic frame around objects, events, and emotions. Language is our glory and our downfall, our greatest freedom and our maximum-security prison. Before we know it, the gossamer words we have spun to capture our fleeting experience harden into rigid beliefs that block the flow of passing moments and new meanings.
Our most hallowed languages and symbols—the religious and political terms that encode the dominant myths of our culture—establish a tyrannical hold on our minds, emotions, and imaginations. Before we know it, our unthinking allegiance to the God who blesses "democracy," "capitalism," and "freedom" becomes a rationale for forcing our way of life on others, whom we define as "enemies" when they resist. Unknowingly, our spirits become colonized by the voices and values of officials, authorities, and pundits.
Once the spin doctors, advertisers, propagandists, and religious authorities lay claim to language, the sacred connection between word and truth is severed. The common trust upon which all civil society depends—the understanding that we will tell the truth and abide by our word—is destroyed. When systematic lying, dissimulation, and secrecy become a way of life, the public ceases to expect the truth from government officials and cynicism blossoms.
Every institution and profession—religious or secular— has its lingo. It is the nature of professions and organizations to invent special languages that are understood by insiders but are otherwise opaque; to be a professional is to speak in code. For the uninitiated, reading a political policy brief, a theological text, a legal document, a medical diagnosis, or a journal article on structuralism is like deciphering code. It is not uncommon for professionals of all kinds—lawyers, politicians, businesspeople, pastors, and priests—to use obfuscation, complexity, and mystification to claim knowledge—and thereby power—unavailable to the layperson.
In the beginning of the Christian era it was said that spirit became flesh. But then Spirit became Word (logos), and words became sacrament, which in turn became the basis for the church. The farther Christianity moved from its original event, the more powerfully theology established its dominion over the living spirit. The creed makers performed a reverse miracle: They turned wine into water.
How can we break the spell of religious language, wake up from the hypnosis of god jargon, and escape from the gravitational pull of the political ideologies implicit in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam?
The first antidote for the prostitution of language is voluntary chastity. Just say no. Paul Tillich, the Protestant theologian, said that the great words—faith, hope, love, grace, sin, and salvation—sometimes become so trivialized and degraded that we need to cease using them for a generation. We need to declare a moratorium on old, hallowed, and overused words: a linguistic fast.
Mystics within the great religious traditions have always cautioned against becoming too comfortable with language describing G-d. Judaism prohibited naming G-d altogether. What theologians called the via negativa suggests that we remain most faithful to the ultimate mystery when we remember what G-d is not. The One we try to capture in our names and definitions remains, as Martin Luther said, a hidden G-d.
One way to recover the original meaning and power of religion is to adopt the radical discipline of linguistic asceticism. Put yourself on an austere verbal fast: slim down; clean house. During the month of Ramadan, good Muslims do not eat between dawn and dusk. Abstaining from our habitual patterns of eating and speaking sharpens the appetite and the tongue.
Stop using the tattered language, outworn creeds, and tired metaphors that were once vital but now belong in museums of ancient beliefs. Abandon archaic notions that no longer speak to our condition. The primitive idea that we can be purified by the blood sacrifice of an animal, or a savior who vicariously atones for our sins, makes no more sense to the modern mind than a three-level universe with heaven above and hell below.
What would happen if churches, synagogues, and mosques underwent a time of verbal fasting, when they put their old stories and traditional religious languages on hiatus? At first things would probably get worse. People wouldn't know how to talk about religious matters. But gradually congregations would begin to experiment with new metaphors and create a new poetry of faith by sharing stories and by helping one another discover fresh expressions of their perennial fears and hopes.
Years ago, when I first took my own advice, I made a list of religious, political, and psychological words I habitually used and forced myself to give them up: neurosis, paranoia, salvation, justification by faith, grace, sin, estrangement, mysticism, spirituality, faith, hope, vocation, et cetera. (I told my children I would put one dollar in a box every time I slipped—a costly agreement.) I stopped praying, stopped reading religious literature, and stopped going to church. Insofar as I was able, I allowed the old words to be replaced by silence.
At first, I became anxious. The silence was painfully awkward. Stripped of familiar language, the God I had known disappeared from the horizon of my life, leaving me feeling naked and vulnerable. Without this God, my basic values and core sense of identity were thrown into question.
Gradually, the silence took on a different valence. God was replaced by G-d. The threatening emptiness turned into sweet anticipation, like that of a lover waiting quietly for the object of her desire to appear. The fear I had experienced suddenly appeared baseless, even comical. How, I wondered, had I fallen prey to the absurd belief that the One with Ten Thousand Names could only exist within my limited religious vocabulary? It seemed unlikely that the Unknowable One would starve to death if I neglected to make the old burnt offerings.
(It would be interesting to see what would happen within corporations if, for one hundred days, it was forbidden to talk about profits, losses, stockholders, competition, or market share. Some workers might wonder out loud if what they were doing with fifty or sixty hours a week truly reflected how they wished to spend their fleeting years. Others might wonder whether the product being promoted was ecologically viable, or if their contribution to a global economy was likely to benefit those on the planet who needed it most, or whether we might choose to measure the success of our society by gross national happiness [as they do in Bhutan], rather than by gross national product.)
BUY the BOOK:
"In the Absence of God/Dwelling the Presence of the Sacred" (Excerpt) by Sam Keen
---"Sacred Mountains" Marina Petro
At first the path leading to an oasis is nearly imperceptible. A slight veering away from the arid landscape and the painful disciplines of self-examination, doubt, and asceticism. A turning toward the promise of transformation— the redolence of green fields and flowering trees coming from a yet-unseen wellspring of life.
The transformation that begins in the desert occurs in the inner spiritual landscape and does not immediately alter the facts of our quotidian existence. A wide variety of metaphors have been used to describe the experience.
It is as if:
the darkness becomes luminous;
we are surprised by joy;
anxiety gives way to courage;
we are healed of our dis-ease;
we are fully alive although we are still destined to die;
our defense mechanisms are disarmed, and we dare
to be vulnerable in a dangerous world; we regain an innocent eye; we are born again; a chrysalis is emerging from the cocoon.
These metaphors of awakening, enlightenment, and metamorphosis point to momentary peak experiences of transcendence. But William James warned us that, while it is notoriously easy to have religious experiences, it is difficult to create a religious life. So, before considering how we craft a religious life by re-owning our elemental emotions, learning to speak in poetic ways about G-d, and practicing justice, we turn our attention to those largely fleeting experiences in which we have premonitions that we are encompassed within a sacred web th; includes all sentient beings. These minor oases are memories of Edenic moments of childhood; a sudden fee of being quickened or enthusiastic (possessed by a god); momentary epiphanies and visions.
I remember a time when my world was magical and every moment was charged with a sense of the numinous. Twice upon a time, long ago and far away, I inhabited a garden of innocent delight and sacred pleasure. Before my fall into Presbyterian religion and modern profanity I lived in a seamless world, with no clear boundaries between time and eternity, self and other, sacred and profane. I was six years old and there was only Now and Forever.
I remember staring into the mirror, seeing the stranger's eyes of my reflected self and asking, "Who are you? Where have you come from? Why are you here?" I knew even then that I, the knower, could never be known to myself.
I remember sitting on my father's lap, secure forever, beyond the realm of death, feeling the vibrations of his rich baritone voice singing "Danny Boy," keeping time with the beat of my heart.
I remember lying on my back outdoors on moonlit summer evenings, watching the endless drift of cloud castles, formed solely for my amusement.
I remember waking on dark nights when the chorus of cicadas was suddenly interrupted by ominous rustling sounds in the backyard. Bears? Burglars? (As it turned out, it was only the insomniac next door, Mr. Traylor, wandering in quest of elusive sleep.)
I remember rearranging rocks in small creeks to produce an elaborate symphony of water music—babble, ripple, gurgle, whoosh.
I remember perfectly ordinary mornings when everything seemed charged with anticipation, a kind of pervasive Christmas spirit, as if some extraordinary surprise awaited me around every shrub and tree.
BUY the BOOK:
"Life's Moral Paradox" (excerpt) In the Absence of God—Dwelling in the Place of the Sacred by Sam Keen
To experience our lifescape as sacred also creates a moral paradox. How can we both revere and use the world? Whatever is seen as sacred is, at least in principle, inviolate. It ought to be hallowed, venerated as an end rather than a means. But clearly this is not always possible. If I am to survive the winter, my glorious, molten aspen may need to be harvested for firewood, and I may need to kill one of the graceful deer who so delight me during warmer months. Among traditional hunters and gatherers, the game animal upon which they depended for food was believed to have sacrificed itself during a successful hunt. The Bushmen of South Africa performed a ritual dance reenacting the kill and thanking the eland for its life. They believed that through this sacrament their prey returned to earth to sustain the herd.
In premodern times, shedding blood through hunting and warfare was considered a tragic necessity, requiring repentance and purification. The modern worldview tries-to resolve the moral paradox by turning everything in the nonhuman world into an object, to be utilized as we wish. But once we disenchant the rivers, forests, soil, and air, we end up destroying the network of life upon which we depend.
The proper task of religion is to remind us that, in spite of the tragic aspect of life that must feed on other life in order to survive, we should tread reverently on the earth and be compassionate to all sentient beings. We may not be able to speak convincingly about the transcendent God of traditional religion or of a kingdom of heaven beyond history, but we are not left without witnesses to the sacred. The Logos, the Word, the Divine Hologram that informs the cosmos—all things great and small—is still spoken in sparrow song, wind sigh, and leaf fall. An electron is a single letter, an atom a complex word, a molecule a sentence, and a mockingbird an entire epistle in the great ongoing saga. The ocean still whispers the song that originated with the big bang. Listen to the longing in your heart for love and justice, and you may hear the sacred word. To live in a reverential manner is not to surrender to authority, scripture, or institution but to create an autobiography in which we tell the stories of the unique epiphanies that have informed our lives.
No-thing in the world is sacred.
Every-thing is: wonderful, not miraculous,
awe-full, not lawless,
graceful, not capricious,
sacramental, not supernatural,
abounding in epiphanies,
lacking any final revelation of a divine purpose or plan.
BUY the BOOK:
"The Never Ending Journey (excerpt) In the Absence of God—Dwelling in the Place of the Sacred by Sam Keen
"Never Ending Journey" by Marianna G. Mills
In the Absence of God: Dwelling in the Presence of the Sacred
by Sam Keen
In the desert nothing is exactly what it seems. A distant lake shimmers for a moment, promising relief and refreshment, but as you draw closer it vanishes. Sandstorms obscure the sun and cause the unwary traveler to walk in circles. Springs and oases that were once verdant dry up and disappear beneath the shifting sands. To live in the desert is to become part of an unending quest for water and wild game. To join any new quest we must challenge the values and concerns that have governed our lives to this time. Freud got it slightly wrong. True, many of us suffer from the thorn in the flesh of childhood wounds, but we suffer more frequently from a void, from what hasn't happened to us, from what we haven't found as a result of the questions we haven't asked.
Questioning is not something we do but something we are—an elemental force. Were you to dissect my brain, you would find that the neurochemical circuitry, the complex strands of cells that make up my brain and my mind, are as individual as my fingerprints. But beyond the wetware, what makes me Sam Keen rather than Rupert Murdoch are the questions that shape my life. Instead of spending each day asking myself how I could acquire more news media, I wonder about the vagaries of the experience of the sacred and the shape of future religion.
Nothing shapes our lives so much as the questions we ask, refuse to ask, or never dream of asking. Our minds, bodies, feelings, and relationships are literally informed by our questions. The defining essence of an individual is his or her quest print. The men and women who made an enduring mark in history, for better and for worse, ignored the accepted worldviews, values, and myths of their time and chose to pursue their own answers to their deepest questions.
Here's a random sample:
How can we put an end to suffering?—Buddha
What is eternal and unchanging?—Plato
What is the will of God?—Jesus Of what may I be certain?—Descartes
How is a falling apple like a rising moon?—Sir Isaac Newton -
Why were men born free but are everywhere in chains?—Karl Marx
What is the meaning of dreams?—Sigmund Freud
How can we create a master race?—Adolf Hitler
Does God play dice with the universe?—Albert Einstein
How is a woman unlike a man?—Betty Friedan
The questions we habitually ask determine whether we will be superficial or profound, acceptors of the status quo or searchers, creators of the peace between nations or the cause of its destruction. They reflect our values, needs, circumstances, and situation. It is the courage to ponder the great mythic questions that gives depth to human life. These queries form antibodies that protect us from the diseases of orthodoxy and ideology, although sometimes they lead us to create new pseudo religions, such as fascism or communism. But so long as we return again and again to the great unanswerable questions, we will never wander far from the endless sky and quickening winds of the spirit.
And if we don't?
If I don't ask, "What are my gifts?" and "What is my vocation?" I may spend my life working at a job that has little or no meaning for me. If I don't ask myself, "Am I willing to kill the designated enemies of my government?" I may join the military, and possibly be placed in a combat situation where my only choice is to kill or be killed. If I don't ask, "Should I compromise my values to serve the interests of my employer?" I am more likely to tailor my personality to what is demanded for advancement. If I do not ask, "Who am I? What is my story?" I am more likely to be informed by the myths, scripts, and stereotypes of my culture. If I don't ask, "What do I believe about G-d and the ultimate purpose of life?" I am more likely to live unconsciously, within either a profane ideology or an uncritical religious orthodoxy.
To be authentically religious is not to affirm any one creed or to have unwavering faith in a transcendent God. It is to be passionately concerned with the meaning of existence, and to linger with questions of origin, destination, and purpose, not because they are answerable but because we are swept up by our cultural myths when we cease to ask these questions.
These perennial, unanswerable questions send us forth on a philosophical quest that lasts a lifetime:
Origins: Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the origin of life? Of my life?
Destination: What is the end toward which history and my life are moving? Who or what is the moving force?
Death: For what may I hope when I die? Is there life after death? Immortality of the soul? Resurrection of the body? Reincarnation? Complete annihilation?
Identity: Who am I? How do I become that unique self that fulfills my destiny? How do I win my freedom from biological necessity and from the myth my culture has imposed over my body, mind, and spirit?
Vocation: Does my life have meaning? If so, what is it? How do I contribute to life beyond my own?
Community: Who are my people? With whom do I belong? Do I have enemies? If so, who are
Authority: Who is in charge? Who is the author of my story? What are the rules? What am I obligated to do? Why?
Path of life: What is the map of life—the stages along the way? How should I conduct myself as a child, an adolescent, an adult, and an elder?
Evil: Why is there evil? Why do the good suffer and the evil prosper sometimes? Or vice versa? Is there ultimate justice? What can I do to reduce the power of evil?
Dis-ease: What is wrong with me? With human beings? Why does dis-ease exist? Pain? Why are we self-destructive sometimes?
Healing: What is wholeness, health? What nostrums, medicines, means of healing are available? Who can help, who can heal?
G-d: Are we alone in the universe? Is there a supra-human caring intelligence?
In the beginning, the prodigal son was comfortable in the household of his father. He accepted and practiced the ancient faith. But one day his spirit was disturbed by questions neither he nor his elders could answer. Leaving home on a quest for answers, he wandered in the desert and in the distant land of the skeptics and flesh-pots. Often on cold nights among strangers, he longed to return to the warmth and security of home and put aside his doubts. But his questions would not be silenced. They resounded in his mind like the beat of a great drum in a vast emptiness.
In time, haunted and exhausted by finding no path that led back to the innocent land in which he had once lived, he fell into despair and decided to abandon his quest. But some impulse encouraged him to keep going, and gradually he resigned himself to being an anxious pilgrim on a road whose destination he did not
know. Then, one night in a foreign land, he realized with the clarity of a star falling in a moonless sky that his agonizing questions had become his treasure, his joy, and his guide to a never-ending adventure in a desert, an oasis, and a wondrous world that had become his home.
"The God-Shaped Vacuum" (Prologue from) In the Absence of God — Sam Keen
--"El Federal Cafe IV" by Fabian Perez
There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing.
—Blaise Pascal
--Digging beneath my immediate mind, which distracts itself with pizza, paper clips, and the rising and falling of the Dow, I uncover ruins of old dwellings, a house, a temple, and a town square once occupied, believed in, faithfully tended.
--I stumble, unstable on shifting ground. My mind wanders through layers of rubble, discarded beliefs, outworn creeds, broken hopes, shattered illusions, bones of failed heroes and false saviors.
--Socrates, that old trickster, taught me a way of thinking, dialectic and dialogue, an endless approach. But I never arrived at the promised vision of the good, the beautiful, and the true.
--I believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, with as much heart, mind, and soul as I could manage, but he failed to saved me from death's dominion and the fear of nothingness.
--I trusted Freud to lead me down into an underworld (neither he nor I conquered) from which I returned wounded, with little redemptive wisdom other than a sermon on coping and the virtues of love and work.
--Marx, in whom I never believed, taught me better than he knew the danger of all Utopias and left me with the bitter truth that I and all the bourgeoisie are moved more by desire for power and profit than by love of justice.
--Tiring of pure reason, I dreamed of the dark kingdom of Dionysus, an orgy of the senses to wash away the pale abstractions of the mind. In time I learned what Apollo knows: Order may be sweet, and discipline a path to delight.
--A skilled archeologist might map more layers, passions, persons, and places that I thought might save me— from what I am not certain—and give me peace at last.
--Should I mourn and build again? Clear away the debris, smooth out the ground, prepare a solid foundation for a new edifice to house my spirit?
--Wherever I stand, tectonic plates rumble. I am earthquake-prone. Not a good insurance risk.
--I think it is better to dwell in the desert under open skies, look for hidden oases, make a hearth, light a fire, cherish sunrise, noonday, moonset, a flight of Canada geese, an ant empire being built an arm's length away, the comfort of touch, the language of glances, smiles, laughter, tears—sacred moments.
--Be thankful for the myriad hints of a G-d present in absence, in the longing without end. Amen.
--We who have been unsatisfied by any traditional religion have spent our lives in quest of a rose, but the closest we ever get is entering a room still redolent with the scent of a rose that was removed before we arrived. We cannot easily locate God in the house of our longing, yet we remain haunted; God's missing presence echoes throughout the empty rooms. In the void we hear faint hymns of an ancient faith for which we no longer have room among the endless quarks, waves, and subatomic particles identified by science. We exist in a God-shaped vacuum. That which is no longer present (but is not completely absent) gives shape to our aspirations and longings.
--Although longing seems to be perennial, the historical tide of faith ebbs and flows. Currently in the industrialized nations it seems to have receded, depositing its driftwood of nihilism and violence on the shore, leaving us devoid of a vision of the sacred that we need in order to create a hopeful society. We suffer from a spiritual autoimmune disease. Lacking antibodies of faith to keep us from despair, we attack ourselves.
--We are trapped in a life in which little attention is paid to the encompassing mystery of Being traditionally known by the Ten Thousand Names of God. Many of us feel the loss of this absent God, and we feel outrage. You can hear it in the voices of the new atheologians who condemn the violence of religious fundamentalism but are angry that a God in whom they do not believe does not prevent holocausts or provide verifiable evidence of His existence. It is painful to be aware of what is missing, but the experience of longing should not be denied, covered up, or tranquilized. It is precisely from this point that we may start on a path toward renewal.
--Our experience of absence rests firmly upon an ancient memory of presence. The premise and promise of this book is that if we have the courage to wait patiently on the border between agnosticism and faith, forsaking the false certainties promised by the God of traditional religion (a God whose nature and name true believers presume to know), we may find ourselves encompassed by the G-d of the mystics, the ultimate reality that energizes all beings but can only be named in the gossamer language of myth and metaphor and poetry. (Note: Throughout, I will continue to use "God" and "G-d" to differentiate traditional from mystical religion.) As we will find, only by rediscovering the elementary emotions that accompany the experience of the sacred—wonder, awe, gratitude, anxiety, joy, grief, reverence, empowerment, vocation, compassion, outrage, hope, humility, trust—may we once again find ourselves in the presence of an unknowable but all-present G-d.
--Hold a chambered shell to your ear and you will hear the undulating surge and sigh of the primal sea.
—Sandor McNab
"Radical Questions for Critical Times" by Sam Keen (http://samkeen.com)
----"Jimmy Carter" by Sidney Maurer
Rumor has it that on leaving the Garden of Eden, Adam said to Eve: "My dear, we are living in an age of transition." Ordinarily, life proceeds ordinarily. We dwell securely within the garden of the protective myths, values, and paradigms of our society; our questions are about making a living, purchasing the things we have been taught to desire, raising our children, and keeping up with the neighbors. But times of crisis challenge our comfortable assumptions about who we are and force us to ask more radical questions. Carl Jung reached such a point at midlife when he realized that he didn't know what myth he had been living.
Since permanent change is here to stay and crises and transitions are an inevitable part of the human condition, a wise person will hone some of the skills necessary for thriving in troubled times. Think of the crises every Adam and Eve must negotiate as composed of three interlocking circles: identity crises, love crises, social crises. It follows that the radical questions we most need to ask in times of transition (when our world is burning) are those addressed to the solitary self, those concerning the intimate relationship between I and thou, and those that have to do with the commonwealth within which we live and move and have our being.
—What is happening to me?
—What comes next for me?
—What is the source and meaning of my restlessness, dissatisfaction, longing, anxiety?
—What do I really desire?
—What have I not brought forth that is within me?
—What have I contributed to life?
—What are my gifts? My vocation?
—What ought I to do? Who says?
—What does my dream-self know that "I" don't?
—What story, myth, values, authorities, institutions inform my life?
—What is my ultimate concern?
—How faithful am I to my best vision of myself?
—At whose expense has my wealth, security, and happiness been purchased?
—Whom do I love?
—By whom am I loved?
—Am I more loved or loving?
—How intimate are we?
—How close is close enough?
—What are we doing together?
—Do we help each other broaden and deepen the reach of our caring, to become more compassionate?
—What clandestine emotions fear, anger, resentment, guilt, shame, sorrow, desire for revenge – keep us
from being authentic with each other?
—When do our vows and promises become a prison from which I and thou must escape to preserve the
integrity of our separate beings?
—Can we renew our passion and commitment?
—When is it time to say goodbye?
—Who is included within the "we," the community, the polis that encompasses and defines my being?
—Who is my neighbor?
—For whom, beyond the circle of my family, do I care?
—Who are my enemies?
—To what extremes would I go to defend my country?
—Can I be just, loving, merciful, and be loyal to my profession, my corporation, my country?
—If we were to measure our success by Gross National
—Happiness (the national standard of Bhutan) how would our economic, political, educational, and religious institutions change?
—What would have to happen to convince sovereign nations to wage peace rather than expending their wealth and creativity in producing more deadly and genocidal weapons?
If you doubt that asking a new question is a royal road to revolution, transformation, and renewal, consider what happened when Descartes asked, "Of what may I be certain?" or when Newton asked, "How is a falling apple like a rising moon?" or when Marx asked, "Why were men born free but are everywhere in chains?" or when Freud asked, "What is the meaning of dreams?"
Your question is the quest you're on. No questions – no journey. Timid questions — timid trips. Radical questions — an expedition to the root of your being. Bon voyage.
[Part 2] ------> "The High Price of Success" (excerpt) FIRE IN THE BELLY: ON BEING A MAN by Sam Keen
---Painting by Derek Turcotte
When we live within the horizons of the economic myth, we begin to consider it honorable for a man to do whatever he must to make a living. Gradually we adopt what Erich Fromm called "a marketing orientation" toward our selves. We put aside our dreams, forget the green promise of our young selves, and begin to tailor our personalities to what the market requires. When we mold ourselves into commodities, practice smiling and charm so we will have "winning personalities," learn to sell ourselves, and practice the silly art of power dressing, we are certain to be haunted by a sense of emptiness.
Men, in our culture, have carried a special burden of unconsciousness, of ignorance of the self. The unexamined life has been worth quite a lot in economic terms. It has enabled us to increase the gross national product yearly. It may not be necessary to be a compulsive extrovert to be financially successful, but it helps. Especially for men, ours is an outer-directed culture that rewards us for remaining strangers to ourselves, unacquainted with feeling, intuition, or the subtleties of sensation and dreams.
Many of the personality characteristics that have traditionally been considered "masculine"—aggression, rationality— are not innate or biological components of maleness but are products of a historical era in which men have been socially assigned the chief roles in warfare and the economic order. As women increasingly enter the quasimilitary world of the economic system they are likely to find themselves governed by the logic of the system. Some feminists, who harbor a secret belief in the innate moral superiority of women, believe that women will change the rules of business and bring the balm of communication and human kindness into the boardroom. To date this has been a vain hope. Women executives have proven themselves the equal of men in every way—including callousness. The difference between the sexes is being eroded as both sexes become defined by work. It is often said that the public world of work is a man's place and that as women enter it they will become increasingly "masculine" and lose their "femininity." To think this way is to miss the most important factor of the economic world. Economic man, the creature who defines itself within the horizons of work and consumption, is not man in any full sense of the word, but a being who has been neutralized, degendered, rendered subservient to the laws of the market. The danger of economics is not that it turns women into men but that it destroys the fullness of both manhood and womanhood.
History is a game of leapfrog in which yesterday's gods regularly become today's demons, and the rectitude of the fathers becomes the fault of the sons. The Greeks invented the idea of nemesis to show how any single virtue stubbornly maintained gradually changes into a destructive vice. Our success, our indus-•try, our habit of work have produced our economic nemesis. In our current economic crisis we are driving to the poorhouse in new automobiles, spending our inflated dollars for calorie-free food, lamenting our falling productivity in an environment polluted by our industry. Work made modern men great, but now threatens to usurp our souls, to innundate the earth in things and trash, to destroy our capacity to love and wonder. According to an ancient myth, Hephaestus (Vulcan) the blacksmith, the only flawed immortal who worked, was born lame.
Somehow men got so lost in the doing that we forgot to pause and ask, "What is worth doing? What of value are we creating—and destroying—within the economic order?" Work has always been our womb—the fertile void out of which we give birth to our visions. Today we need to stop the world for a while and look carefully at where our industry is taking us. We have a hopeful future only if we stop asking what we can produce and begin to ask what we want to create. Our dignity as men lies not in exhausting ourselves in work but in discovering our vocation. Remembering Dr. Faust, it might be a good idea to pause and ask ourselves how much of our psyches we will trade for how much profit, power, and prestige. Maybe we should require graduate schools, professional organizations, places of labor, and corporations to put a warning over their doors. Caution: Excessive work may be hazardous to the health of your body and spirit.
I fear that something beautiful, terrible, and complex about work has escaped me. Some part of the mixed blessing I cannot capture in words.
A friend who is a successful entrepreneur asked me, "Are you antibusiness? Business is where I create. It is where the excitement and juice is for me. I can hardly wait to get to my office." My literary agent, Ned Leavitt, tells me: "My work is my art. When I dress in my suit each morning I feel like a knight going forth to battle, and I love to fight hard and win in a hard bargaining session with a publisher and get the best deal for my clients."
I know. I know. I am also one of the work-driven men. And I am lucky to have work that fits skintight over my spirit. I hardly know how to separate work from self. Even when I subtract the long hours, the fatigue, the uncertainties about money, the irritation of having to deal with a million nit-shit details, the long hours in the limbo of jet planes and airports, the compromises I have to make, the sum is overwhelmingly positive. I don't know who I would be without the satisfaction of providing for my family, the occasional intoxication of creativity, the warm companionship of colleagues, the pride in a job well done, and the knowledge that my work has been useful to others.
But there is still something unsaid, something that forces me to ask questions about my life that are, perhaps, tragic: In working so much have I done violence to my being? How often, doing work that is good, have I betrayed what is better in myself and abandoned what is best for those I love? How many hours would have been better spent walking in silence in the woods or wrestling with my children? Two decades ago, near the end of what was a good but troubled marriage, my wife asked me: "Would you be willing to be less efficient?" The question haunts me.
[Part 1] ------> "The High Price of Success" (excerpt) FIRE IN THE BELLY: ON BEING A MAN by Sam Keen
---Painting by Derek Turcotte
At the moment the world seems to be divided between those countries that are suffering from failed economies and those that are suffering from successful economies. After a half century of communism the USSR, Eastern Europe, and China are all looking to be saved from the results of stagnation by a change to market economies. Meanwhile, in the U.S., Germany, and Japan we are beginning to realize that our success has created an underclass of homeless and unemployed, and massive pollution of the environment. As the Dow rises to new heights everyone seems to have forgotten the one prophetic insight of Karl Marx: where the economy creates a class of winners it will also create a class of losers, where wealth gravitates easily into the hands of the haves, the fortunes of the have-nots become more desperate.
On the psychological level, the shadow of our success, the flip side of our affluence, is the increasing problem of stress and burnout. Lately, dealing with stress and burnout has become a growth industry. Corporations are losing many of their best men to the "disease" of stress. Every profession seems to have its crisis: physician burnout, teacher burnout, lawyer burnout. Experts in relaxation, nutrition, exercise, and meditation are doing a brisk business.
But finally, stress cannot be dealt with by psychological tricks, because for the most part it is a philosophical rather than a physiological problem, a matter of the wrong worldview. Perhaps the most common variety of stress can best be described as "rustout" rather than burnout. It is a product, not of an excess of fire but of a deficiency of passion. We, human beings, can survive so long as we "make a living," but we do not thrive without a sense of significance that we gain only by creating something we feel is of lasting value—a child, a better mousetrap, a computer, a space shuttle, a book, a farm. When we spend the majority of our time doing work that gives us a paycheck but no sense of meaning we inevitably get bored and depressed. When the requirements of our work do not match our creative potential we rust out. The second kind of burnout is really a type of combat fatigue that is the inevitable result of living for an extended period within an environment that is experienced as a battle zone. If the competition is always pressing you to produce more and faster, if life is a battle, if winning is the only thing, sooner or later you are going to come down with battle fatigue. Like combat veterans returning from Vietnam, businessmen who live for years within an atmosphere of low-intensity warfare begin to exhibit the personality traits of the warrior. They become disillusioned and numb to ethical issues; they think only of survival and grow insensitive to pain. You may relax, breathe deeply, take time for R and R, and remain a warrior. But ultimately the only cure for stress is to leave the battlefield.
The feminist revolution made us aware of how the economic order has discriminated against women, but not of how it cripples the male psyche. In ancient China the feet of upper-class women were broken, bent backwards, and bound to make them more "beautiful." Have the best and brightest men of our time had their souls broken and bent to make them "successful?"
Let's think about the relation between the wounds men suffer, our over-identification with work, and our captivity within the horizons of the economic myth.
Recently, a lament has gone out through the land that men are becoming too tame, if not limp. The poet Robert Bly, who is as near as we have these days to a traveling bard and shaman for men, says we have raised a whole generation of soft men—oh-so-sensitive, but lacking in thunder and lightning. He tells men they must sever the ties with mother, stop looking at themselves through the eyes of women, and recover the "wild man" within themselves.
I suspect that if men lack the lusty pride of self-affirmation, if we say "yes" too often but without passion, if we are burned out without ever having been on fire, it is mostly because we have allowed ourselves to be engulfed by a metabody, a masculine womb—The Corporation. Our fragile, tender, wild, and succulent bodies are being deformed to suit the needs of the body corporate. Climbing the economic or corporate ladder has replaced the hero's journey up Mt. Analogue. Upward mobility has usurped the ascent of the Seven-Story Mountain, the quest to discover the heights and depths of the human psyche.
At what cost to the life of our body and spirit do we purchase corporate and professional success? What sacrifices are we required to make to these upstart economic gods?
Here are some of the secrets they didn't tell you at the Harvard Business School, some of the hidden, largely unconscious, tyrannical, unwritten rules that govern success in professional and corporate life:
Cleanliness is next to prosperity. Sweat is lower class, lower status. Those who shower before work and use deodorant make more than those who shower after work and smell human throughout the day. As a nation we are proud that only three percent of the population has to work on the land—get soiled, be earthy—to feed the other ninety-seven percent.
Look but don't touch. The less contact you have with real stuff—raw material, fertilizer, wood, steel, chemicals, making things that have moving parts—the more money you will make. Lately, as we have lost our edge in manufacturing and production, we have comforted ourselves with the promise that we can prosper by specializing in service and information industries. Oh, so clean.
Prefer abstractions. The further you move up toward the catbird seat, the penthouse, the office with the view of all Manhattan, the more you live among abstractions. In the brave new world of the market you may speculate in hog futures without ever having seen a pig, buy out an airline without knowing how to fly a plane, grow wealthy without having produced anything.
Specialize. The modern economy rewards experts, men and women who are willing to become focused, concentrated, tightly bound, efficient. Or to put the matter more poignantly, we succeed in our professions to the degree that we sacrifice wide-ranging curiosity and fascination with the world at large, and become departmental in our thinking. The professions, like medieval castles, are small kingdoms sealed off from the outer world by walls of jargon. Once initiated by the ritual of graduate school, MBAs, economists, lawyers, and physicians speak only to themselves and theologians speak only to God.
Sit still and stay indoors. The world is run largely by urban, sedentary males. The symbol of power is the chair. The chairman of the board sits and manages. As a general rule those who stay indoors and move the least make the most money. Muscle doesn't pay. Worse yet, anybody who has to work in the sun and rain is likely to make the minimum wage. With the exception of quarterbacks, boxers, and race car drivers, whose bodies are broken for our entertainment, men don't get ahead by moving their bodies.
Live by the clock. Ignore your intimate body time, body rhythms, and conform to the demands of corporate time, work time, professional time. When "time is money," we bend our bodies and minds to the demands of EST (economic standard time). We interrupt our dreams when the alarm rings, report to work at nine, eat when the clock strikes twelve, return to our private lives at five, and retire at sixty-five—ready or not. As a reward we are allowed weekends and holidays for recreation. Conformity to the sacred routine, showing up on time, is more important than creativity. Instead of "taking our time" we respond to deadlines. Most successful men, and lately women, become Type A personalities, speed freaks, addicted to the rush of adrenaline, filled with a sense of urgency, hard driven, goal oriented, and stressed out. The most brutal example of this rule is the hundred-hour week required of physicians in their year of residency. This hazing ritual, like circumcision, drives home the deep mythic message that your body is no longer your own.
Wear the uniform. It wouldn't be so bad if those who earned success and power were proud enough in their manhood to peacock their colors. But no. Success makes drab. The higher you rise in the establishment the more colorless you become, the more you dress like an undertaker or a priest. Bankers, politicians, CEOs wear black, gray, or dark blue, with maybe a bold pinstripe or a daring "power tie." And the necktie? That ultimate symbol of the respectable man has obviously been demonically designed to exile the head from the body and restrain all deep and passionate breath. The more a corporation, institution, or profession requires the sacrifice of the individuality of its members, the more it requires uniform wear. The corp isn't really looking for a few good men. It's looking for a few dedicated Marines, and it knows exactly how to transform boys into uniform men. As monks and military men have known for centuries, once you get into the habit you follow the orders of the superior.
Keep your distance, stay in your place. The hierarchy of power and prestige that governs every profession and corporation establishes the proper distance between people. There are people above you, people below you, and people on your level, and you don't get too close to any of them. Nobody hugs the boss. What is lacking is friendship. I know of no more radical critique of economic life than the observation by Earl Shorris that nowhere in the vast literature of management is there a single chapter on friendship.
Desensitize yourself. Touch, taste, smell—the realm of the senses—receive little homage. What pays off is reason, willpower, planning, discipline, control. There has, of course, recently been a move afoot to bring in potted plants and tasteful art to make corporate environments more humane. But the point of these exercises in aesthetics, like the development of communication skills by practitioners of organizational development, is to increase production. The bottom line is still profit, not pleasure or persons.
Don't trouble yourself with large moral issues. The more the world is governed by experts, specialists, and professionals, the less anybody takes responsibility for the most troubling consequences of our success-failure. Television producers crank out endless cop and killing tales, but refuse to consider their contribution to the climate of violence. Lawyers concern themselves with what is legal, not what is just. Physicians devote themselves to kidneys or hearts of individual patients while the health delivery system leaves masses without medicine. Physicists invent new generations of genocidal weapons which they place in the eager arms of the military. The military hands the responsibility for their use over to politicians. Politicians plead that they have no choice—the enemy makes them do it. Professors publish esoterica while students perish from poor teaching. Foresters, in cahoots with timber companies, clear-cut or manage the forest for sustained yield, but nobody is in charge of oxygen regeneration. Psychologists heal psyches while communities fall apart. Codes of professional ethics are for the most part, like corporate advertisements, high sounding but self-serving.


text:
Bihar elections: Bitter on ground, smart on social media
The new-age trend, which began with Barack Obama using social media tools as a major campaign strategy in 2008 and found its way into the 2014 general elections with Narendra Modi's online brigade, played a big role in setting the tone for the five-phase polls in Bihar.india Updated: Nov 08, 2015 14:18 IST
While the Bihar assembly elections were fought bitterly on the ground, political leaders attempted to capture a social media windfall in their campaigns with Twitter hashtags and Facebook trends, despite a limited internet reach among the people of Bihar.
The new-age trend, which began with Barack Obama using social media tools as a major campaign strategy in 2008 and found its way into the 2014 general elections with Narendra Modi's online brigade, played a big role in setting the tone for the five-phase polls in Bihar.
"Most of the political leaders made promises on Twitter and Facebook and asked for votes. The online platform allowed me respond to them directly without any fear. While the social media gave a platform to politicians, it also gave a voice to the common man," said Manish Kumar, who visited the Rashtriya Janata Dal office on Friday to hear Lalu Prasad speak. When asked about his profession, Kumar said with trepidation: "I don't work here; I have just come see Lalu ji."
क्या हुआ तेरा वादा ,वो कसम वो इरादा, वादे है वादों का क्या, चुनाव जीत गए उसके बाद तू कौन और तेरा क्या #LaluDubsmash
https://t.co/M23l6Q0yHf— Lalu Prasad Yadav (@laluprasadrjd) October 2, 2015
While he is feared by many for his 'jungle raj' in Bihar, Prasad is also known for his tongue-in-remarks. He recently released a Dubsmash video making fun of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah in the campaign season.
Grand Alliance leader and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, who till recently shied away from social media, also realised its true potential this poll season, answering thousands of questions from his fans.
Astonished at Modiji's brazen use of divisive language. In his desperation to win the losing battle of Bihar, I'm afraid he might lose India— Nitish Kumar (@NitishKumar) October 30, 2015
Kumar held hour-long question-answer sessions under the "AskNitish" and later extended it to Facebook. "I asked a question to Nitish ji on Twitter. He didn't respond to my question but I saw he replied to several others. Apart from working on the ground, he worked very hard on social media," said a Patna JDU worker who did not wish to be named.blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en-gb">
Modiji was always unmatched in theatrics, rhetoric & using unsubstantiated facts now tactical silence is his new weapon of choice— Nitish Kumar (@NitishKumar) October 25, 2015
According to a report, the Bihar CM took time studying the questions, clubbing them under categories and responding to them personally.
The BJP, living up to its popular image of a mean machine on social media platforms, conducted a constituency-wise social media mapping of the state, attempting to repeat its Lok Sabha poll success. The communication department of the saffron party focused on Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp to enhance its reach.
Leaders from the NDA and the Grand Alliance indulged in mudslinging and attacked each other throughout the campaign on the ground.
In the run up to the high-voltage elections, however, the Bihar Congress also adopted a high-tech strategy online to bolster its presence in the state. To catch up with the craze for social media, the party launched a mobile app named 'BPCC'. The app was designed to give out information about its activities and get feedbacks from the ground.
The political parties, however, faced a challenge in the form of poor internet penetration. "I also want to try tweeting and using Facebook to follow the leaders, but I don't have access to the internet," said Rajeev Singh, a bystander outside the JDU office.
While there is a lot of ground to cover, things are looking up for Bihar. The total number of telephone connections went up about 10% to more than 60 million in 2013-14 and the new government will have to play a crucial role in ensuring more people get access to the internet.
First Published: Nov 07, 2015 20:20 IST

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Eaten by Lions
Omar and Pete are half brothers. When their parents are eaten by lions they embark on a journey to find Omar's real father. What follows is a funny, heart-warming journey of self-discovery for both boys…in Blackpool.
The Choudray family represents a truly contemporary example of modern multicultural Britain – but what will the brother's make of their eccentric newfound family? Will they be going to Mecca or Mecca bingo?
In contrast to some old-fashioned stereotypes about Blackpool, this comedy is sharp, current and non-stop.
Official Selection Edinburgh International Film Festival 2018 - World premiere
- Year
- 2018
- Type of film
- Features
- Running Time
- 94 mins
- Format
- Digital (Pro-res Standard HD) Alexa Mini
- Director
- Jason Wingard
- Producer
- Hannah Stevenson
- Executive Producer
- Chris Boukely
- Editor
- Andrew McKee
- Screenwriter
- David Isaac, Jason Wingard
- Director of Photography
- Matt North
- Production Designer
- Martin Butterworth
- Sound
- Billy Bannister
- Music
- Dan Baboulene
- Principal Cast
- Jack Carroll, Antonio Aakeel, Asim Chaudhry, Johnny Vegas, Tom Binns, Kevin Eldon, Vicki Peppardine, Darshan Jariwala, Nitin Ganatra, Hayley Tamaddon, Peter Slater, Sarah Hoare, Natalie Davies, Stephanie Fayerman
Please let us know if we need to make any amendments to this Film entry mailing us directly at
Last updated 30th April 2018


text:
Lesson Overview: In this activity and the next one, students learn about the concept of the Fire Triangle, then test it experimentally.
Lesson Goal: Increase students' understanding of fire as a process of chemical change.
- Students can describe the chemical change that occurs in combustion.
- Students can explain why combustion is a chemical change.


text:
Name: Cam350 license file
File size: 793mb
Language: English
Rating: 6/10
Problem: CAM installation using a Keyless license is starting up in Demo Mode. If the license file is not named balifrangipani.com, then cam will ignore it. Advisory: Network Licensing Troubleshooting Guide for CAM or Later Locate and open the balifrangipani.com file in a text editor (such as Notepad) It should. DownStream's installation program allows you to install the BluePrint-PCB and CAM products ("DownStream products"), a license file and a license manager .
Advisory: Hardlock Key Troubleshooting Guide for CAM or Later . The license file must be named balifrangipani.com, or CAM will ignore it. Make sure. Please include CAM version and contact information. Include your Place balifrangipani.com file and the Daemons into a folder on the license server. Path to folder . 21 Feb im having a problem with cam v8 everytime i start the flexlm asks for me to point to the license,wehn i do everything works well but after i.
For floating licenses, CAM requires a license manager to run. The license manager reads the license file and services requests to run CAM and to. License for DownStream CAM VX # By LONG # PACKAGE ECAM act_inc D0D0BDDD99 COMPONENTS="CAMW. Streams RC for DFMStream and CAM is updated to perform DFM checks between .. different CAM bundles are defined in the combined license file. 11 Nov CAM Version is a support release that introduces important . Symptoms: A single license file cannot be used to specify license. Complete Application Manual - is built into the help system of CAM Pack 2 - causing FlexLM license failures due to inability to acquire the license file.
CAM Crack; balifrangipani.com 0 MB; balifrangipani.com 1 MB; DownStream__c_bexe MB; balifrangipani.com 0 MB [WWW. balifrangipani.com].JPG 0 MB. Use of the reference design or other items described above may require a license from a third party under the patents or other intellectual property of the third. PCB Production File Format Wars. By Ben Jordan, Oct 14, Unified Design. There's been a lot of excitement among PCB Designers and Fabricators over. 27 Apr balifrangipani.com Licenses: [email protected] . Symptoms: For certain CAM files with mill route data, the File.


text:
Lisa Maguire continues to climb the mountain as Duke wins big at East Lake
Lisa Maguire loves watching her twin sister Leona dominate in the amateur game but there's nothing like getting rewards for your own hard work and she was suitably thrilled to help Duke win the East Lake Cup earlier this week and take a giant step back towards the top again.
The County Cavan native has struggled with her game for a few years, falling to 1,131st in the World Amateur Golf Rankings from No 10 just five years ago.
She's been rebuilding her swing with the help of her college coach Dan Brooks and Black Bush's Shane O'Grady at home while US based Englishman Nick Bradley was also briefly involved.
Her joy was understandable after she clinched a crucial 1 up win as Duke beat Washington 3.5-1.5 to take the second annual East Lake Cup at the East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta on Wednesday. Scores
Lisa led for 10 of the first 14 holes against Eunwon Park before being taken back to all square with three to go
She got up and down for a winning par at the 16th to go one up, lost the 17th but then hit the 18th in regulation and two two putted from 60 feet for a winning par that put Duke 2-0 ahead and on the road to overall victory
"The season's first two tournaments weren't as good as we wanted them to be," said Lisa. "So to finish with a win is a great way to end the [Fall] season and I think it was what we needed to give us the confidence to work even harder than we would have in the offseason to get some momentum going into the spring.
"Right now it is still very much a fight for me on the golf course. Every day I go out and promise myself that I am going to fight as hard as I can.
"Ultimately that ended up in a win so I was proud of myself in that respect. I was even more delighted to get a win for the team."
Lisa caddied for twin sister Leona at the Olympic Games and will be her No 1 cheerleader when she follows her progress at Stage III of the LPGA Tour's Qualifying School later this month.
"Leona is my best friend and hopefully she always will be," she told the Duke website. "We've been really close growing up and I wouldn't change this college experience for the world.
"Going through this has been one of the best things ever and going through this experience. Being further away from home we have relied on each other. So it has been really cool to be a part of."
As for her swing rebuilding journey, her college coach Dan Brooks and Leona spoke to Ryan Lavner at GolfChannel.com about how she has battled to get her game back to the level that brought her 16 top amateur titles and a top world amateur ranking before she arrived in the US two years ago.
"I was watching a game that August and September that isn't going to be on the LPGA tour," Brooks recalled Wednesday. "It's not going there. It's going to struggle on the Symetra Tour, maybe, and it's going to fizzle out and she's going to do something else. That's what I'm watching.
"I could have squeezed a lot of good golf out of that in college, but she would have been at a dead end in four years."
What followed was agonizing for both player and coach. While Leona earned NCAA player of the year honors in 2014-15, Lisa didn't shoot in the 60s her entire freshman season, finishing no better than 40th in her last eight events. The low point came at the 2015 NCAA Championship, where she shot four consecutive rounds in the 80s and finished 83rd out of 84 players, at 51 over par.
"It's been tough for me to watch her go through it," Leona said, "but it's been tougher for her to go through it herself. I try to be as supportive as I can and help her any way I can."
...."It's still very much a work in progress," said Maguire, 21. "I've worked very hard the last two years to try and master it. It's obviously not quite there, but I feel like I've seen a lot of progress."
Said Brooks: "This is a big step in the right direction."
When she rolled in the 3-footer to win, Maguire calmly tucked the ball into her pocket and shook hands with Park. Then the emotion poured out. Normally timid and reserved, she leaped into the arms of teammate Virginia Elena Carta. The smile on Brooks' face was unmistakable.
"That's the most I've ever involved myself with a player's game in 32 years, this tournament," he said.
It's too early to tell, of course, but this encouraging result might help revive Maguire's career after three years of frustration.
"I know if I can get through this swing change, I'll be a better player than I was as a junior," she said. "It's just focusing on the future and what the possibilities could be when I do get it right."


text:
Dr. Kaanan Sharif BDS , MDS1 Reviews Ask the doctor to put his/her schedule online
About the DoctorDr. Kaanan Sharif is a Specialist Orthodontist practicing at Al Thuraya Center since 2007. Dr. Sharif has recently been appointed as the Managing Director and Business Development Manager. He has more than 17 years of post graduate experience in administration as well as clinical orthodontics.
Dr. Sharif worked as a Consultant Orthodontist in several private clinics and hospitals in Pune, India after passing his Masters of Dental Surgery (MDS) in 1997. He also worked as a Professor and Head of Dept and post graduate guide for a leading university in Pune.
- Bachelor of Dental Surgery, Mangalore University, India
- Master of Dental Surgery, Mangalore University, India
Specializing InBraces Braces / Retainer Checkup Bridge Crown Dental Consultation
Dental Implant(s) Dental Jewelry Invisalign Oral Surgery Consultation Orthodontic Consultation Pediatric Dentist Consultation Retainer Installation Root Canal Wisdom Tooth ProblemRead More less
Al Thuraya Dental and Implant Center
Licenses / Permits
- Health Authority - Abu Dhabi
Languages Spoken
- Tagalog
- Arabic
- English
- Urdu
- French


text:
Jenkins launches Colorado Summer Dance Retreat and featured through National Choreographers Initiative
Inspired by the need he saw for dancers to be nurtured as artists, choreographer Kevin Jenkins created the Summer Dance Retreat to inspire and rejuvenate working professionals. Hosted just outside Boulder, Colorado the retreat will be focused on creating a space where dancers can rest and enjoy the natural beauty of the Rocky Mountains.
Kevin will lead class, teach repertoire, and host discussions about the dance field and how to stay inspired while working in it. Also teaching will be David Maurice, formerly of Ate9 and current artistic director of Cocodaco Dance Project.
All professional dancers are encouraged to apply as the retreat will be provided at no cost to the attendees. Their sole expense will be travel to and from Denver International Airport. Transport to the retreat center will be facilitated, meals will be curated by a personal chef, and all dancers will be provided lodging on site.
Kevin's vision is to support dancers so they can return for the 18/19 season with a new sense of inspiration, reinvigorated by their time at SDR.
Dates: August 13-19
Location: Boulder, Colorado
To apply submit:
Video reel
Brief description of why you want to attend
Email all materials to email@example.com by April 15.
Enrollment is limited. Applicants will be notified regarding selection on April 25.
Kevin has also been selected for the National Choreographers Initiative this summer in Irvine CA. As one of four choreographers, he will be working with dancers from major companies around the country to workshop new ideas. The three weeks are directed by Molly Lynch and hosted at the University of Irvine with a showing on July 28 at the Irvine Barclay Theatre.
An Award-winning Choreographer
Prolific choreographer and faculty member of Boston Ballet School, Kevin Jenkins has choreographed for State Street Ballet, St. Louis Ballet, Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, Columbia Ballet Collaborative, Island Moving Company, Big Muddy Dance, Western Ballet, Dimensions Dance Theatre of Miami, Bellingham Repertory Dance, and the School of Ballet Arizona among others. His choreography has been performed on the Inside/Out Series at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival and at West Wave Dance Festival in San Francisco. Dance Magazine has praised his work as "riveting" and he has served as an instructor at the University of San Diego, Arizona School of the Arts, Southwest Classical Dance Institute, and Master Ballet Academy.
Please direct booking inquiries to Jessica Marino of JAMpress Management, email@example.com.


text:
A project dedicated to showcasing adopted & rescued pups and their humans. The hope is to advocate for rescues in need, encourage others to adopt not shop, and advocate to end breed specific legislation. All dogs deserve a second chance at a better life.
*If you're interested in having your pup be a part of the project please email email@example.com


text:
BANFF, Alberta — Of all the rights of humankind, is none more cherished than the right to park our cars without plugging coins into meters?
That would seem to be the take-away message in a story out of Banff, the townsite with the eponymously named park. There, elected officials decided to test the idea this summer of paid parking. The Rocky Mountain Outlook reports a vociferous meeting.
Alanna Pettigrew, representing Banff Residents Against Park Parking, reported that her group had collected 1,370 names on a petition against paid parking. She tartly noted that this was more than the votes cast for any one candidate on the council.
One interior issue is whether the town should have long ago built what in Canada is called a parkade. In the states, it's more commonly described as a parking garage or, in more refined settings, parking structure.
The other interior dispute is about special events designed to attract athletes. Banff seems to hold a number of them, drawing some of the cars. "Why allow more events to take up parking? The events cause mayhem with parking and noise," said Cynthia Anderson.
Free-range dogs and the leashed kind
JACKSON, Wyo. — Mountain towns can be roughly divided into two categories: those where dogs run wherever they please and those where they have to be on leashes.
Oh sure, every town has laws. But are they enforced?
Consider Red Cliff, located on what is, from a Vail perspective, the "back" side of Vail Mountain. It began life as a mining town, but never struck it rich like Aspen and Telluride. It's hemmed in tightly by mountains, so much that even the town softball field is tilted. There are only rumors of curbs.
As for dogs? They have, at least in the not-too-distant past, run free, sometimes even in packs. Sometimes, alas, they also got shot.
Jackson tilts toward greater refinement. There are laws against dogs running free and, apparently, enforcement of those laws. Can there also be a place for them to run free?
"If you have 10,000 dogs you have to take care of them," Councillor Bob Lenz said.
But where? One park being considered consists of 11 acres sold at a low price by a couple. A son says they never dreamed of the park being the domain of off-leash dogs, and he wishes the idea were dropped.
Two acres of land for free-ranging dogs doesn't seem like that much, but then, this is Jackson Hole, where 97 per cent of the land is administered by the federal government.
Colorado mountain town has new 350.org chapter
SALIDA, Colo. — The organization called 350.org has a new chapter in Colorado, its 13th. The Colorado Central chapter is headquartered in the mountain town of Salida, located at the base of a string of 4,260-metre peaks.
Other chapters are located in Aspen and Carbondale, but nearly all the 10 others are found along the Front Range.
The organization was founded by Bill McKibben, the writer and activist, as a way of pushing for grassroots action to address the threat of climate change by reducing combustion of fossil fuels.
The new Central Colorado chapter has a mailing list of 80 people, but maybe 10 to 20 people who can be expected for meetings.
Aspen to become a one-gas station town
ASPEN, Colo. – Aspen is soon to become a one-gas station town. The Conoco station on Main Street last month sold for $6 million. The next life of the prime real estate will not be to sell gas for $4 or $5 per gallon but more likely lodging at $400 or $500 a night, at least during Christmas.
The Aspen Daily News reports philosophizing on the city council. Adam Frisch noted a handful of gas stations in Manhattan, a borough of New York City, for $25 million.
Aspen Mayor Steve Skadron sees this as not at all inimical to Aspen's interests. "We live in a town whose priority is to de-emphasize the automobile," he said. "The fact hat we may be losing a gas station that serves automobiles ... that's not a big concern of mine."
Bear tumbles after infractions
ASPEN, Colo. – No wonder dark alleys have a bad reputation. An off-duty Pitkin County sheriff's deputy was walking in an alley in downtown Aspen around closing time for the bars when she was assaulted.
The 400-pound bear raked her stomach and upper thigh sufficient to require stitches. "This could have been much worse, but fortunately this deputy was able to fight the bear off," said Mike Porras, a spokesman for the Colorado Parks and Wildlife. "Fortunately, she knew what to do and she didn't run."


text:
Colorado Grants Guide | Logo Design Process
The Colorado Grants Guide is an online resource managed by the Community Research Center that helps nonprofit organizations across the state of Colorado engage in more effective, efficient, and strategic grant research so that they will be more successful in securing grant funds.
CRC came to me to create a logo for the Grants Guide to distinguish it from the CRC organization and have it's own identity. Our goal was to give the Grants Guide a recognizable visual representation that still reflected the branding of CRC. We started by (very) roughly sketching out the initial concepts that reflected some of the Grant Guide's key words: exchange, partnering, and Colorado.
After selecting their favorite sketch ideas, I moved to the computer and digitized our three strongest concept selections. From there, we worked together to refine the icon, layout, and text. We then added in the CRC color palette to complete the mark.
Get more information on the Community Resource Center and the Colorado Grants Guide here.
"Thank you so much for your hard work, diligence, and patience throughout the logo design process for the Colorado Grants Guide! We greatly enjoyed working with you and will definitely send recommendations your way! The logo is fabulous!"
- The CRC Staff


text:
FITCHBURG — Police are bracing for a possible spike in traffic accidents this holiday weekend, but some intersections in the city are more likely to see crashes than others.
Last year, five intersections made up 11 percent of the 1,466 reported crashes in the city, according to the Fitchburg Police Department's 2017 annual report, released last week.
The top five intersections for motor vehicle crashes in 2017 are:
* John Fitch Highway and Lunenburg Street — 30 crashes
* Central Plaza (90 Water St.) — 29 crashes
* Main Street and North Street — 27 crashes
* Water Street, Wanoosnoc Road and Bemis Road — 25 crashes
* Electric Avenue and South Street — 17 crashes
This isn't the first time John Fitch Highway and Lunenburg Street have topped the list. Though in recent years the intersection has slipped behind others in the top five, Fitchburg Police Chief Ernest Martineau said it has been a high-crash area for decades.
"That's just shear volume," he said.
It's also one of two on the list with a Dunkin' Donuts drive-through, which Martineau said can contribute to the high volume of traffic. At the other — the intersection of Main and North streets — several City
Councilors have unsuccessfully tried to prohibit left-hand turns from the parking lot, according to Martineau.
The intersection of Main and North streets was ranked the 46th highest in the state for crashes in a 2014 report released by the state Department of Transportation.
With the shift of Main Street from two lanes to one lane in September 2016, Martineau said, the number of crashes at the intersection nearly doubled from the 15 reported in 2015.
However, the number of total crashes on Main Street remained steady with crashes at other locations, such as Main and Prichard streets, decreasing, he said.
With 11 additional crashes, the intersection of John Fitch Highway and Lunenburg Street saw the biggest increase. Central Plaza was a close second with 10 additional crashes.
According to the report, about a quarter of all crashes in the city happen during the afternoon commute, or 3 to 6 p.m. In years past, the department has seen a spike in crashes on Monday and Friday, but this year the number of crashes on Monday was about on par with other weekday rates.
The report credits the dip on Monday to "proactive enforcement."
Last year saw moderately more crashes than the five-year average — about a 10 percent increase — but a drastic increase in the number of arrests for driving under the influence.
In 2016, city police arrested 19 people on these charges. In 2017, the department arrested 49, an increase of 158 percent.
Martineau said this jump is the result of an initiative undertaken, not by the department as a whole, but by a group of officers.
In 2016, the Fitchburg Police Department had one officer in the traffic division, but have since increased the number to two officers and a supervisor.
However, Martineau said many officers in the 78-person department are involved in traffic enforcement and use department data to make patrol decisions.
"We try to distribute this data to all the shifts," he said.
Follow Elizabeth Dobbins on Twitter @DobbinsSentinel.


text:
Enter your email here to receive 10% off today as well as great specials throughout the year from DFO Home! *Only one coupon per order.
Labor Day Sale! | 10% OFF Orders $100+!| Free Shipping on EVERYTHING!
Use Code: LABOR
Exclusions Apply
Save an Extra 10% Off Select Hammocks
Code: HAMMOCK >
Save an Extra 15% Off Extrawide Curtains
Code: EXTRAWIDE >
Save an Extra 10% Off Select Furniture
Code: RELAX >
Save an Extra 25% Sunbrella Curtains
Code: SUMMER >
A vision of captured sunlight, the Sunbrella Canvas Vellum Outdoor Curtain is a soft yellow with an illuminating quality thats never overwhelming and always warm and welcoming. A mixture of muted oranges, greens, pinks blues and browns are perfect accents to pair with the Sunbrella Canvas Vellum Outdoor Curtain.
The best-known, most-established high-performance outdoor fabric available today, Sunbrella offers an unmatched history of quality, durability and attractiveness.
Easy to use, grommeted curtains are among the most efficient and popular drapery types for outdoor settings. With stylish all-weather circular grommets fitted at the curtain-top to slip over a stationary hanging rod, these unpleated curtains are a cinch to put up and take down. Grommets also add a terrific design element; the perfectly round holes smartly contrast with the natural linearity of the curtains themselves.
Payment Methods We Proudly Accept:
© Copyright 2019, DFOhome.com. All rights reserved.


text: The internet is loaded with information. It can be great for source material and can be great for news. It's also great for smut/misdirection and for projecting people's biases. The Rotcast welcomes Taylor Smith of the 'Off The Record' podcast to tell us how we can better filter our internet to find factual information.Help support the show by making any regular purchase @ theoamnetwork.com/amazon episode 00: disinformation THE OAM NETWORK February 22, 2016


text:
Worries about the scratched luxurious furniture, smashed electronics and scruffy cartons are common. Lost family heirlooms, damaged priceless pianos and unbudgeted expenses are among the nightmares of the future relocation agencies' customers. Ontario residents postpone forthcoming moves because of the fears, losing unique opportunities. But mess, fuss and time pressure will be overcome with the assistance of professional Newmarket moving companies while the risks are completely eliminated. Multiple insurance options are designed to protect the customers. Just check the certificates, study the contracts, sign them and stay calm.
Reliability Testimonials
There are four useful online resources to check the reliability of the suitable Newmarket Moving Companies:
- Mover's insurance;
- Workers' compensation insurance.
The minimum coverage to became a CAM member (Canadian Association of Movers) is 250,000 USD. All workers' rehabilitation and medical expenses are covered by their employers. Check the Clearance Letter and the Certificate of Insurance of the selected relocation agencies to reject scammers.
Newmarket Moving Companies Insurance Options
The relocation agency reputation and license checking is a must. Your valuable household appliances, furniture, music instruments and electronics can be protected by additional insurance coverage. Full or limited insurance policies help homeowners to get compensations for damages. Read the contracts carefully, including fine print and don't save on the relocation safety. Create inventory list, use professional packing materials. Accurate, trained and responsible movers will take charge of everything else, using the advanced furniture pads, straps, piano dollies, trolleys and ramps. When the movers are interested in the secure belongings delivery, the move will be safe and smooth.


text:
I'm still thinking today about purpose and intention and what I choose to do and not do, what I feel I "should" do and not do, and where I get hung up in both doing and thinking. Today when I made notes in my schedule book (after taking time to write in my personal notebook and pray, carrying on from yesterday's insights), I wrote "Why?" in the margin beside each one.
Last night I did some more personal writing, and unearthed the fact that I often lose the "why" about what I do. I have a great idea for something new and I'm all excited to start, but as I move into the actual work I forget why the idea seemed like such a good one and why I was interested in it. I lose purpose and I lose momentum and end up twiddling my thumbs and not getting anywhere, nervously wondering what I "ought" to be doing. I hate it when I do that, hate how it makes me feel.
So I'm making a point of asking "why?" to the items on my daily to-do list. Each item must be part of a larger whole with a good purpose, and reminding myself of the purpose will put some life back into the doing. Or else each item has no good reason and no real purpose, and I don't want to waste my time doing it. Asking "why?" is my way of trying to move toward work with purpose, work I can care about and find meaning in.


text:
Socially-Engaged Mindfulness Interventions (SEMI) and the Promise of Making Refuge
July 28–30, 2017
Mangalam Research Center for Buddhist Languages, Berkeley, California
Organizers: Ronald Purser, Edwin Ng and Zack Walsh
Participants: David Loy, Jack Petranker, Mushim Patricia Ikeda, Katie Loncke, Dawn Haney, Rhonda Magee, Funie Hsu, Beth Berila, Nathan Doshin Woods and Peter Doran
This seminar, funded by both the Frederick P. Lenz Foundation for American Buddhism and the Mind & Life Institute Think Tank program, brings together engaged Buddhist and secular mindfulness practitioners, teachers, scholars, and activists from areas like minority rights and struggles, environmentalism and sustainability, critical pedagogy and liberal arts education.
We draw on Buddhist and feminist and posthumanist thinking for inspiration to formulate our working questions:
What is refuge?
Where or when do we encounter refuge?
Who or what creates space for refuge?
We experiment with Socially-Engaged Mindfulness Interventions (SEMI) in order to probe the limits of prevailing outlooks. How might we develop more caring ways of relating the human to the nonhuman and vulnerability to resistance in "social", "ecological", or other modes of engagement with the world-in- becoming? What are the dangers accompanying the pathologizing and medicalized connotations of "intervention"? What new ways of engaging with mindfulness might be discovered by investigating these questions? What is the role of mindfulness in the investigation of these questions? We perform these inquiries to resituate mindfulness as part of a larger praxis-ideal of making refuge, understood as the collective work of cultivating conditions of trust and safety necessary for living and dying well together as co-inhabitants of a precarious planet.
This is an invitation-only seminar. At the conclusion of the seminar, the public is invited to a panel discussion with our seminar leaders. To register for the public event, please click here.


text:
small scale gold ore processing plant
Gold processing technology upgrading from gold ore by crushing equipment to upgrade the technology. In recent years, the domestic gold ore crusher technology has a few years ago has been a qualitative breakthrough, a large number of independent innovation of ore crusher model emerging market.
In the domestic gold ore crushing and processing efforts at the same time, Chinese small-scale gold processing enterprises to take the initiative to seek development opportunities, carry out overseas gold processing cooperation pattern is formed. Domestic gold have a foundation experience in the use of the domestic gold market, with the crushing application machinery and equipment is the inevitable with the international gold mining development, obtain the bigger development space. China's small-scale gold mining accounts for over 90% of all mines, many countries called small mines.
Gold ore processing production line refers to the complex process of certain gold ore processing and equipment, will be extracted some elements of gold mining gold ore in. These were extracted from gold concentrate powder used for smelting and industrial base.
Gold processing firstly used the jaw crusher for primary crushing, using a standard cone crusher crushing for medium crushing, using short head cone crusher and roller crusher for fine crushing. The two section a closed-circuit crushing is used mostly in small scale gold. Large gold use three sections of a closed-circuit crushing process. In order to improve the utilization factor of production and equipment, mineral processing plant usually follow more crushing and less grinding principle, reduce the particle size of ore into the mill.
As the small gold ore processing essential equipment, jaw crusher plays important role in gold mineral resources development and utilization in the. At the same time, jaw crusher and other equipment not only need to meet certain requirements on the yield, the production of stone quality also need to meet the needs of national application.


text:
Zion Williamson is making waves.
A 16-year-old high school junior who is 6'6" tall (and plays "small forward"), has been finding his name in headlines since December, when he set a scoring record by putting up 53 points in the Chik-Fil-A Classic while being defended by two 5-star players.
Now, a video compilation of Williamson's dunks has gone viral after being shared by Bleacher Report, and it is NASTY. I bet the other high school kids who are forced to play against Williamson don't even have any fun.
This kid is a monster. Is he better than LeBron James?
Maybe not better than 2017 LeBron, but I'd take Zion Williamson in a one-on-one against high school LeBron any day. LeBron was a big star in high school, but he wasn't on Zion's level. Williamson electrifies the crowd more than LeBron ever could. Sure, LeBron's high school fame didn't come in an age where everything noteworthy was on the Internet, but come on? Did every sports host in the country wake you up every day with reports of what LeBron had done in his high school gym the night before?
They did, in fact. LeBron was a once-in-a-generation high school basketball star. Zion Williamson is a once-in-a-generation star, too, and we're several high school generations past LeBron.


text:
Full Cast of The Bachelor Actors/Actresses
The Bachelor cast list, listed alphabetically with photos when available. This list of The Bachelor actors includes any The Bachelor actresses and all other actors from the film. You can view additional information about each The Bachelor actor on this list, such as when and where they were born. To find out more about a particular actor or actress, click on their name and you'll be taken to page with even more details about their acting career. The cast members of The Bachelor have been in many other movies, so use this list as a starting point to find actors or actresses that you may not be familiar with.
This list contains actors like Mariah Carey and Sarah Silverman.
If you want to answer the questions, "Who starred in the movie The Bachelor?" and "What is the full cast list of The Bachelor?" then this page has got you covered.This cast list of who was in The Bachelor includes both lead and minor roles. (52 items)


text:
Psalm 15:
1 Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord? Who may enter your presence on your holy hill?
Who is invited into your sanctuary, Lord? Do you have an "in-crowd"? You've called me to ministry, shouldn't I know who is allowed in? That way I can block the sanctuary doors from those who may not enter your presence; I can keep your sanctuary holy and pure by keeping outsiders out and welcoming insiders. Tell me, God, who is allowed in…other than me, of course?
2 Those who lead blameless lives and do what is right, speaking the truth from sincere hearts.
Yes. Truth tellers. All truth tellers and sincere people are welcomed into God's presence. Got it. Tell me more, Lord. Who else is allowed in?
3 Those who refuse to gossip or harm their neighbors or speak evil of their friends.
OK…about this gossip thing. Help me understand, Lord. Can you define gossip? I would hate to cast someone out of your sanctuary just for a little gossip. Surely you meant something else, right? I mean, who hasn't hurt their friends at one point or another? Tell me more, Lord. Who else is allowed in?
4 Those who despise flagrant sinners, and honor the faithful followers of the Lord, and keep their promises, even when it hurts.
Even when it hurts?
5 Those who lend money without charging interest, and who cannot be bribed to lie about the innocent. Such people will stand firm forever.
Then I'm eliminated. I'm out. No rose for this gal. How can I possibly lead your people? I'm not qualified! I use swear words and gossip. I remember when people borrow my office stapler until they bring it back. I don't even tithe my full 10%.
Gracious God, how many people have I turned away in your name? How many more lives did I block from your sanctuary door, thinking it was my responsibility to protect your holy presence? I've done more harm than good.
Lord, in your mercy, hear my prayer: Forgive me.
Protect your Church from all false teaching and preaching which would destroy faith, which would confuse the unassuming, which would distract the seeker, or block the traveler from the path of faithfulness. Send to your Church leaders with great wisdom, hearts warm with love, and courageous lips who speak truth. Send to your Church teachers who build, not destroy; who challenge the wise and extend grace to the simple; who will desire truth as the hungry who follow the sweet smell of warm soup and freshly baked bread. May we long for you and long to make you known.
Make us a redeemed and redeeming fellowship. A movement, marked by the hope of Christ, who is our firm foundation and by whose faith alone we can stand. Amen.