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China, in the Wake of Francis Xavier
Religious fever grips China, the pundits say. And there is a proliferation of religious studies centres in universities around the country. Encounter this week discusses the phenomenon of a renewed interest within China in religious ideas and in the exchange of religious ideas between cultures. Four hundred and fifty years after Francis Xavier set foot in China the focus is on Christianity.
Hymn, opening prayer at Mass
Margaret Coffey: Sunday Morning mass, All Soul's Day, at the Chinese Catholic church in Melbourne. The priest is from India, but he speaks good Mandarin. For 10 years he has been working in Taiwan and he's about to teach in China. When I ask how long has his family been Christian he says, well, Francis Xavier came to India! That was 460 years ago.
From India, Xavier set out first for Japan and then, ultimately for China - in 1552 he died on an island off the coast and within sight of the mainland. There were Christians in China since the 7th Century, but Xavier's arrival signalled the beginning of a new encounter between China and the Christian West. Four hundred years ago, the Jesuit Matteo Ricci took up residence in Beijing and began a sustained cultural conversation.
I'm Margaret Coffey, welcoming you to an Encounter of Civilisations
- where our first question is, what way should we tell this many stranded story?
Music: Messe des Jesuites De Pekin (comp. Joseph-Marie Amiot)
Nicolas Standaert: It is the whole contact, that is my interest, the contact between cultures, and my laboratory if you want is the 17th and 18th Century. Moreover, they were a very limited number of people but what is more important is that, in fact, from the Chinese side there was an enormous interaction. How are we going to study that encounter?
Margaret Coffey: Nicolas Standaert at the University of Leuven proposes as a model for the study of contact between cultures.
Nicolas Standaert: And let's say until the '60s, more or less, our way was following the line of the missionaries. So, as Europeans we study how our missionaries went to China and we were searching whether they were successful or not, whether they had influence or not, whether Christianity succeeded there or not. These are important words - impact, success, influence and so on. Then from the '60s onwards there was a new movement to say, yes, but we should not only look at the influence, let's look at the reception.
And my doctoral dissertation - my adviser was a professor at Leiden who studied Buddhism in China, and his main focus was always let us see how Chinese received, rejected, accommodated, changed Buddhism when it arrived in China and we did it the same with Christianity. So we were looking at the 17th Century and looking at how, on the basis of Chinese sources, China reacted with Christianity in its whole variety.
Now we are moving forward, looking at a third aspect, because even in this second scheme of approach we opposed too much the European and the Chinese - and what we see is that there were all kinds of communities that were built, that people interacted with each other, that they wrote books, created liturgies, so now we combine both the Western and the Chinese sources and we not only look at the elites, but we look also at ordinary people. And we are trying to see how ordinary people together with missionaries interacted and created communities.
Margaret Coffey: All the while communities were being created in China. The missionaries sometimes looked different.
Music: Chine - Chen Zhong, Musiques de Shanghai
Joseph: I'm from Northern China - actually it is a very small village at the foot of the mountain. Yeah, I love it, very beautiful, it have all the seasons in the year. Yes it is very beautiful countryside there.
We are farming, plant wheat, mainly wheat and also some fruit trees, or watermelon, whatever, many vegetables. We have a big family - actually I am talking about the extended family - we live in the same village but we mainly live in the same area and all the houses together surround a small church. In a Chinese family if they have came from the same ancestor they have to stay together. So now 300, around 300 people in that Catholic village. We didn't have kind of a missionary converting the people - we just occasionally became Catholic.
Around 1900, the year 1900, that time our families were very small, mainly two brothers ... they occasionally met a shepherd from far away, far away and he often shepherded all the sheeps and goats and go around. Every time when he came to this village, my grandfathers they would take him to the farm and give him food. This shepherd was a Catholic and he tell all these Bible stories and about Jesus, about all these things.
Margaret Coffey: Nicolas Standaert proposes using ideas about exchange and interaction as the tools to examine the history of Christianity in China. Dynamic cultural exchange is what he sees at work. I'm curious, because this notion of exchange and interaction has developed exactly at the same time there is another influential trend in European thinking - one that emphasises the notion of difference that can never be bridged.
Nicolas Standaert: Yes, I think we have to look at both notions at the same time to see this other process. And I think it's important also to stress that in any human communication, even interpersonal communication between human beings, being man and woman and so on, there is always this aspect, let's say an aspect that you cannot bridge - everybody has a kind of identity, has a kind of uniqueness that you can never catch, that you can never grasp, that you can never dominate.
But what can happen is that you enter into a kind of dialogue with it or with the person. There we come to the third aspect of interaction - so I think that interaction always also integrates this aspect of incommensurability - of the fact that you cannot completely compare or that you cannot completely grasp the other. It is a more dynamic concept of only saying, oh, now we have interaction and that is now beautiful - in interaction you also have aspects of violence or aspects where you do not understand the other and so on, you see. You try to integrate that aspect.
Audio: Homily at church
Margaret Coffey: In a corner of this church is a space where the dead are remembered, a kind of communal ancestor shrine. Tombsweeping Day, the priest notes, is more important in Chinese Catholic tradition than All Souls Day, at least outside mainland China. From the time of Matteo Ricci, traditional Chinese rituals have been at the centre of the interaction Nicolas Standaert describes.
Paul Rule: You can see the people wrestling with their Christian faith, especially in the late Ming when society was crumbling around them - often discussing questions of morality.
Margaret Coffey: China scholar, Paul Rule.
Paul Rule: You know, was China's decay due to failures in fundamental morality and so on, the relationship between morality and social cohesion and national strength, was something they were interested in. Also their personal dilemmas and some of these were quite severe. Two or three of the leading Christians seem to have committed suicide like their fellows did during the Manchu conquest. There are other writings which deal with their attempts to relate things they had studied in Chinese classics to Christian values, and some of them are quite interesting speculative theological arguments about how particular Chinese ideas might be linked up with European ideas - what to make, for example, of the city god, the guardian god of every Chinese city or town?
Music: Chine - Chen Zhong, Musiques de Shanghai
Margaret Coffey: Paul Rule has made a study of the famous Chinese rites controversy and Matteo Ricci's approach, in the first instance, to ancestor rituals.
Paul Rule: From very early, from the time of Matteo Ricci, the real founder of the mission, they had been faced by the question of whether the ancestor rituals which the Chinese perform could be permitted. Later on the Jesuits said they could be permitted because they are not religious. But I don't believe that that was Ricci's position at all - I think he saw them as religious but as a kind of natural religion that was not contrary to Christianity.
He, of course, was well aware that there were what he called superstitious accretions to the rituals, which could not be allowed, but his position was that once people became Christians they would understand that certain aspects of these rituals should be dropped but the basic practices could be allowed. But during the 17th Century there was a change occurring in European theology which tended to get away from the Renaissance natural religion kind of thinking and to say, no, religion is Christianity and everything else is either superstitious, idolatrous or purely secular.
Margaret Coffey: The rule about ancestor rituals changed in 1939, but it did not have time to register: Chinese Catholics were soon after shut away from interaction with the rest of the Catholic world, missing out on the prompt of the Second Vatican Council's openness to culture. On the mainland, old Catholics are still wary of integrating the ancestor shrine in their Christian practice. For so long they have defined themselves by rejecting ancestor rituals. Nicolas Standaert.
Nicolas Standaert: One of the notions that I am very much interested in is the following. When cultures enter contact with each other, when a certain culture accepts certain aspects of the other culture, it is usually because already in that culture there is a certain move, a certain tendency, towards this acceptance. Why did Chinese accept, for instance, mathematics in the 17th Century, is because they already had interest in very concrete matters.
Now it's the same with Christianity. Certainly it was not accepted in all places, it was not even accepted predominantly. But it was accepted with certain people or in certain groups that established or founded their identity on Christianity. We have Chinese researchers today who go in villages, these are Christian villages - in China you have some places where you have entirely Christian villages. Now they go as an anthropologist in these villages and they speak with the ordinary people - these are peasants - and they ask them, do you have a family genealogy, a family album. This is a very important Chinese tradition where you establish your identity as a family by having a family album with a whole genealogy over generations and generations with all the names of the people who belonged to your family and these go back to the 15th, 16th and so on century.
Now these people, these ordinary people, they have the mention of Christians since the 17th Century. So this is a very long tradition. And why at that time these villages, and not other villages, become Christian? It is partly related to the fact that they were in search of a kind of identity and that they found their identity through their interaction with these missionaries and that they discovered them with certain rituals that were adopted by these families. There you see how an identity is built through the interaction.
Music: Chine - Chen Zhong, Musiques de Shanghai
Joseph: When they became a Catholic, the second year you know, there were a very famous anti-Catholic movement in China and the Boxers also went to our village. We had a friend in government and he passed a message to the village to say the Boxers are coming from the town and we have to escape. So our family tried to get all the people running up to the mountain. We had one paralysed auntie and she couldn't walk but we didn't have time to carry her so hid her into a crop, a field but when the Boxers came they found her, they burned all the property and houses and they put her into that fire.
When I was young, very young, because later on my family rebuilt the house, well I still see the burning, that wood in the wall. My grandfathers and my fathers keep telling me all these kind of stories, see this part and this building, remember then the story of these grandfathers, about their faith, about their courage.
My grandfather became leader of the church. More than 10 years that's the Cultural Revolution and before that the Communists and things getting worse and worse and [in] the Cultural Revolution my grandfathers were put on the very, very high steeple and also the Red Guards they put the stone from the mill, we use that old-fashioned stone for the milling, so they always bow down - you are supporting foreign power or foreign belief which is not Chinese, you are anti-Chinese. The Red Guards had this idea to make them like that.
Margaret Coffey: On Radio National you are listening to "Encounter of Civilisations" - in this case, China and Christianity. I'm Margaret Coffey.
In China today, it's estimated, there are thirty million Christians. In 1949, when the Red Army ousted the Nationalist Government, there were perhaps four to five million, built up in part by the huge Protestant missionary effort in the 19th Century. The numbers are tiny, of course, in the context of China's 1.3 billion population, but they signify a remarkable social movement. People in China speak of religion fever. It was something like that when Xavier arrived and Matteo Ricci and the Jesuit mission followed him.
Jean Paul Wiest: They call it religion fever or some time even Christianity fever.
Margaret Coffey: Jean Paul Wiest is a French born historian who lives in Beijing.
Jean Paul Wiest: I think religion fever is probably the best term because it is not only for Christianity - all the five major religions in China register very, very important increase in number of people interested and in the number of faithful people. Most of the people are just ordinary peoples.
Music: Chine - Chen Zhong, Musiques de Shanghai
Jean Paul Wiest: You see a lot of the former customs, deeply rooted in to the rural farmers' I would say way of behaving, of relating to the deity, coming back. In the countryside you will see little temples at the corner of two roads meeting together, or a little hamlet with woods around and you will see little altars here and there - those are sacred places where they will pay their respects to such and such deity - deity of the wood, deity of the field, and so on.
So it goes back I would say: deeper than traditional Taoism or Buddhism is the old, old popular religion of the Chinese people - that's coming back to the surface.
Margaret Coffey: There's a spectrum of symptoms to this religion fever that has people in mainland China turning to temples and mosques, to churches and shrines - one of them is Falun Gong, the variation on traditional Chinese cultivation practices that has large numbers of often elderly Chinese gathering each morning in local parks for gentle exercise.
Jean Paul Wiest: The Falun Gong is part of that wide interest in religions - most people now don't believe in socialism, Marxism. They have been quite disappointed and so they are looking for answers and whoever can give them an answer they will follow it.
So Falun Gong is one of that movement where people very ordinary people that used to work for the state enterprise, lost their job, as young people they gave their life to China, they didn't go to school, then they got a job in the state enterprise, now those enterprises are closing doors, they are losing all their benefits, no more retirement, no more social, medical protections. Well, if something come along and says, well you do a little gymnastics, a little concentrations, meditations and you will be fine, of course, of course people are going to follow that.
And since the Falun Gong is very deeply rooted in the Chinese qi gong, which is that kind of mental exercise, the Chinese go for it very easily, almost naturally - you have all kind of qi gong that are not Falun Gong and you see the people every morning exercising in the street, and so it's something very natural. So if on the top of that you put some kind of religious meaning, most ordinary Chinese won't see anything strange about it.
Margaret Coffey: Religion fever is not confined to the masses. In Beijing, Jean Paul Wiest meets intellectuals with the bug.
Jean Paul Wiest: Those I know from personal contacts are those interested in Christianity and those will be people that you know from their academic training and so on know about Christianity, have read books about Christianity and became interested to the point that they are reading the Bible, they are reading the New Testament and they don't declare themselves as Christians, they don't belong to any particular church but they say they live by the moral principle of the gospel.
Paul Rule: Some of them write things like that the problem with Chinese culture is that it has no sense of sin, or original sin, that China has always been tempted to utopian adventures - they are thinking, of course, of the cultural revolution in particular, without realising that human nature has its limits and so on. They are also referring to the enormous problem of corruption within the political and economic system of China. How abandoning traditional religion led to the excesses that you can see in China today - their works have been widely circulated amongst young.
Jean Paul Wiest: And even now the Communist government, or at least maybe not the government per se but a lot of the people in the government, are saying that religion is a good thing because it can help in fact the government to take care of some of the social, moral problems of the society. So we say that for the first 30 years the government tried to get rid of religion, and now they realise that they cannot get rid of it, so they have to use it as a force in fact to improve the standing and the moral behaviour of the society.
Margaret Coffey: Not however when it is Falun Gong.
Xiaoxin Wu: The Government wants to make it known that there is a difference between Falun Gong and religion, and they invite scholars to talk on TV and write articles in newspapers just to help people understand what the religion is and what Falun Gong is. And of course they are looking at Falun Gong from a different angle, and the consciousness of this particular issue and its effect on the society is very much on the mind of the government certainly, and very much on the mind of the scholars as well.
Margaret Coffey: Dr Xiaoxin Wu - originally from mainland China, he now heads the University of San Francisco's Ricci Institute, where Chinese-Western cultural history is the focus of collaboration between Chinese and Western scholars. In China there is a proliferation of centres for the study of religion - religion and culture, religion and morality. These, says Dr Wu, have emerged mostly since 1979.
Xiaoxin Wu: There were some research institutes in China that devoted their attention to what we call religious studies, but they were more or less what I call government think tanks and providing information for government decision-making process. And then of course, when China started to open up from end of 1970s and beginning of 1980s, there was a gradual change in the field of religious studies, especially looking at the historical, cross-cultural encounters, trying to come to some new consensus and new analysis of what exactly happened then, what kind of impact that kind of encounter has produced in the Chinese society. And that has become more and more evident in the last, I would say, five to seven years among Chinese scholars, because people are more and more aware that this particular historical event is very much apart of Chinese history of, you know, themselves, and they become more and more appreciative of this, and taking that as part of their own history.
Margaret Coffey: The scholars, says Jean Paul Wiest, ask three kinds of questions, about Christianity in particular.
Jean Paul Wiest: A lot of them have discovered that where although religion in the West, maybe, per se, doesn't play a great role in the sense that if you look in the old Europe, well the number of believers is decreasing, but the role of religion as the building of a strong culture and the part that Christianity played, that's what they pay a strong attention to and that's where they see where religion should play a role also in the development of China. That's one of the things that they interested in.
The other thing is that yearning to find an answer to the big major questions: why I am on earth?, what is the meaning of my life?, and so on. So those professors have been asking themselves those kinds of questions trying to find any answer from the philosophical, ethical, religious point of view, and at the same time there are more and more students now, young people, that are asking those same questions and are interested in taking courses in those field.
Then, thirdly, there is that strong - small but strong - proportion of Chinese people that are very strong believers - Buddhists and Christians and Muslim - so those academics are interested in studying those groups and see why, in spite of all those persecutions, those people remained faithful and their number instead of decreasing even has increased.
Audio: Prayer in church
Margaret Coffey: On Radio National, you're with Encounter, thinking about cultural contact between civilisations. The Christian mission led by the Jesuits arrived at a messy time in Chinese history. The late Ming period of the 17th Century, says Paul Rule, was a very fluid period - a time of dynastic decline, of intellectual decline too, and the Jesuits attracted people from a range of social backgrounds.
Paul Rule: Some were very distinguished. I mean the most famous was one of the earliest converts, Shu gwan chi, who became Prime Minister of China - he held the highest bureaucratic position in the country. He was also a famous reformer, a reformer of agricultural practices, in practice as well as in theory. He wrote a great book on farming methods, but he also farmed his own properties with modern techniques and he wrote on the classics as any respectable scholar did, but he wrote on Christianity too. And he supported the missionaries when they got into trouble.
But he also pushed for the adoption of western calendrical and astronomical methods. The point was that the Jesuits had methods of calculating that proved accurate, so that you could accurately predict an eclipse and you could accurately work out when the planting season came and so on. And this was very important for the Chinese state because anything that went wrong in that was regarded as the responsibility of the Emperor and his officials.
Margaret Coffey: So this man was an enthusiast and he was an innovator too - he was attracted to the new.
Paul Rule: Yes, he was and he was also somebody who was very disturbed at what he saw as the decline, the moral and political decline, of China, with good reason. I mean, he lived through the last stages of the Ming and it was quite obvious that they were vulnerable to people from outside and from inside too. So he thought that there was a need to strengthen the moral fibre of China and that Christianity would help there, not by supplanting Confucian values but by extending them.
He made a famous statement that Christianity complements Confucianism and he also went on to say "and combats Buddhism" because he thought that Buddhism was one of the things that was demoralising China, turning people inward instead of outward towards the problems that the nation faced. And he wasn't alone in that. There was a strong reform group of Confucians with which he was associated who held the same view and were trying to do something about what they saw to be the sapping of Chinese values by Buddhism.
By the way, a lot of the early important Catholic converts at one stage or other had dabbled in Buddhism, been Zen devotees, they had gone through that phase. They were seekers, they were people who were looking to find values that would save China from its problems.
Music: Messe des Jesuites De Pekin (comp. Joseph-Marie Amiot)
Margaret Coffey: This Communion hymn was composed in China during the 18th Century and performed during the celebration of Mass. Matteo Ricci had brought with him a spinet, other Jesuits brought violins and flutes, cellos and bassoons and manuals on music styles. In the mid-17th Century, a Chinese Jesuit had written a set of canticles widely performed by Chinese Catholics. It was called "An anthology of schores presenting the correct sound of Catholic music." Nicolas Standaert.
Nicolas Standaert: When I talk about Christianity in China in the 17th and 18th Century, then people immediately link that with, let's say, theology, faith and doctrine and so on. But we have to underscore that at that time when missionaries went to China they brought a whole world vision. That included mathematics and astronomy and so on and so on.
When you look at what was the formation of the ordinary missionary in the 17th Century - well they had four or five years of studies, and in the first year they learned Aristotelian logic, in the second year they had to learn the physics of Aristotle - but this included also mathematics, very important and also, for instance, ballistics.
That means the study of the projection of the cannon balls. And why did they study that? Because in Aristotle you have the study of what is weight and what is fastness and this is very good method to study that, and then you proceeded to higher spheres of metaphysics and then you studied theology.
So when they went to China they said, well, if you want to study heaven and God who is in heaven, and that was still considered as a very material aspect, well you first have to do logic and then you have to do mathematics, in order to study astronomy, and then you can understand God. And on the Chinese side you had the same kind of vision of the world, namely they were all integrated.
At this moment I am studying Chinese ritual dances. When the Emperor offers ceremonies, sacrifices, to heaven, to gods, to Confucius for instance, there are musicians and there are also dancers, and I am interested in these dances. Now all the people who have been writing about these dances are Chinese - these are mathematicians and these are people involved in calendar reform and in astronomy. So I think here today in Europe at least and also other parts of the world, we would not associate someone who is specialised in dances together with someone who is specialised in mathematics.
But if you look at the central notion of ritual in China - how do we come to ritual? Ritual has to do with movements, and movements are expressed in geometrical ways and that's why you need one branch of mathematics. Ritual has also to do with calendar because rituals take place on certain days and you have to know whether on that day you have to have a ritual or not. So you have an integrated notion of these different branches of science - what we call sciences today - and this makes the whole study of Christianity at that time very challenging, because you always interact with all kinds of disciplines that are normally not connected in the modern worlds.
Margaret Coffey: Nicolas Standaert's kind of study - of the interaction between cultures - has just acquired a wonderful resource. Last week in Beijing saw the publication of four volumes of documents from the Chinese imperial archives, dating from the mid 17th to mid 19th Centuries, and concerning Western Catholic missions. The publication of these documents is a fascinating testimony to the status of religion in China. It was a product of cooperation between Chinese institutions and the Ricci Institute of the University of San Francisco. Ricci Institute Director, Dr Xiaoxin Wu, was in Beijing for the launch of the new publication.
Xiaoxin Wu: The idea started about, I would say, the beginning of the 1990s when the interest in the study of cross-cultural encounters between China and the West through missionaries attracted more and more attention among scholars in China and the West. And so we at the Ricci Institute started working with Chinese scholars to see how we could promote this kind of understanding by presenting primary sources. So that is when the idea started, but it really did not become a serious discussion until the year 2001 during an important conference that the Ricci Institute was cosponsoring with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, celebrating Matteo Ricci's 400 anniversary of entrance to Beijing, and then the idea came back again, and from there we started working.
Margaret Coffey: The document collection covers 200 years and thirteen emperors of varied Christian experience in China. In the documents of the last volume, drawn from the imperial court, you can read the Emperor's notations down the margins.
Xiaoxin Wu: The last volume came as a surprise because when we were planning to produce this book we only thought we would produce three volumes, roughly 700 documents. But along the way, we discovered much, much more than we thought we would discover, so the number evolved from 700 to over a thousand.
And so we thought that we would separate particular documents from the rest, which is the documents concerning missionaries working in the Qing court so in the fourth volume. That includes a large number of documents that give us all kinds of information about what the Catholic missionaries were doing in the court. For example, we all know there was this Italian artist Giuseppe Castiglione and he painted all kinds of pictures, and then the documents included in fourth volume really gave us very clear chronological steps that this unique Jesuit artist went through, had taken as his artistic life evolved in the Qing court day by day. If we close our eyes, you know, we could possibly imagine, you know, from Pagoda A he walked across the bridge B and settled in palace C and drew this dog!
Margaret Coffey: At first, Christianity was an object of intellectual curiosity, not just for its philosophical and moral teachings. In the end, it was outlawed. Christianity was banished from the imperial court, only to survive and evolve in communities.
Music: Chine - Chen Zhong, Musiques de Shanghai
Margaret Coffey: Now, it seems, Chinese Christianity is finding new ways to be Chinese.
Joseph: The church we have now is a totally new church, bigger - I think even three times bigger - than the first church we had. It is the third Chinese style church in China, inspired by the spirit of Vatican 11, but that is very difficult for old Catholics. They could not accept church built Chinese style, which they consider no different from the Buddhist temple. So they had a really, really long debate, you know the bishop and the parish priest and make them change.
Margaret Coffey: And China is finding new ways of integrating Christianity.
Joseph: Yeah, now not only happy but more than happy because the reality is when this church was built, non-Christians, when they saw this huge building like a temple, they did not feel it was something foreign stuff, but they feel, oh yeah, why should I climb up the mountain to the temple to pray? You see, in our village we have temple here. So many, many non-Catholics in the village. This actually improve the relationship between the Catholics and non-Catholics in the village. They come together and they come to visit the church now. We feel that is our own faith. The people feel very, very happy now.
Margaret Coffey: Up ahead, there is more planned in the way of cooperation between Chinese scholars and Ricci Institute, including, Dr Wu says, a seminar just to talk about how much has been published or opened to scholars in the last five to seven years. And across China, says Jean Paul Wiest, researchers are involved in a wide array of work.
Jean Paul Wiest: The government has been relaxing more and more the possibility, for instance, to do research on contemporary religion. But it's controlling that very, very, very carefully, very, very, strongly. But even within China now there are more and more small discussion groups where people can talk very freely.
About two and a half weeks ago we had a small discussion group for about 30 academics that came to discuss contemporary religion and the methodology of empirical research, meaning grass roots research. They came to present the kind of research they had done, the difficulties they had encountered and some of the things they discovered in the research. So, that was very interesting thing and those people came from religious studies, from sociology departments, an institute for religion and peace, they came even from the US, from the Ricci Institute at the University of San Francisco, there was somebody from the Chinese Government, from the Ministry of the United Front, Academy of Social Sciences people were present, Institute for National Minority Studies. So people came, you see, from very, very different fields of research. It used to be strictly historical, now it is much, much broader than that, especially when it touches to the contemporary situation.
Margaret Coffey: Dr Wiest has contributed to the setting up of a sociological study of a range of Christian communities in one particular provincial locality. The study focussed on three different kinds of communities: the rural village, the traditional big city, both with long established Christian communities, and finally the new cities along the coast.
Jean Paul Wiest: We found out, for instance, that in the rural area the role of the pastor or the priest is very important in helping the farmers to decide what they are going to do like changing from the traditional farming of rice to, for instance, growing orange groves.
In the traditional cities, our sense is that it's dying Christian communities there - they are very ghetto type, not very open on the outside world and young people are leaving the communities. So our question was, where are those young people going?
In fact they are going to that third place, those places that are developing very quickly because of capital coming from outside. And there, people are less constrained by the old rules. They build their own church, they form new parishes and quite often because it is so new and there are not that many priests or pastors in China so they run the thing by themselves until a priest comes. Those are very, very vibrant places - it' s amazing!
Music: Chine - Chen Zhong, Musiques de Shanghai
Margaret Coffey: The portrait of Matteo Ricci, the founder of the Jesuit Mission in Beijing, that is best known, has him dressed in the robes of a Chinese scholar. He looks completely at ease. For 27 years he immersed himself in China, mapping it physically and culturally, interpreting between China and the West. Joseph is heir to the conversation with Matteo Ricci his Chinese antecedents began. When he finishes his studies for the priesthood here in Australia he will return to China.
Joseph: Because of the most need of China, even now, we haven't established our own kind of theology or whatever. I would like to [go] back to China. We have many, many young priests haven't got very good education, especially theological education, new theology, new spirituality of the church. So probably I think I will go back to China, teaching in a seminary or help the local church.
Hopefully the policy in China, especially the situation of the church is getting better.
Margaret Coffey: Dr Xiaoxin Wu is also heir to that conversation that began 400 years ago.
I'm curious about your mind set - there you are as head of a research institute at a Jesuit university - not a Christian of any kind!.
Xiaoxin Wu: Yes, I really believe that people need to understand each other and there are a lot of things taking place because of misunderstanding, so I take pride and have a great interest in what I've been doing, although it is history and I hope that history will not repeat itself. And also by what we are doing we can become smarter as a whole body of human beings.
Just in the same way that those Chinese officials or literati were converted to Christianity, I think a lot of the Christian missionaries had been converted to Chinese, whatever that means. Out of this encounter they become a new person who cannot be defined in the traditional, the old way, of either a Chinese or either a Australian if we may, or either a Catholic or a Communist, and becomes a new person.
Music: Messe des Jesuites De Pekin (comp. Joseph-Marie Amiot)
- Dr Paul Rule
- Honorary Associate, School of History, La Trobe University
- Dr Nicolas Standaert
- Professor of Chinese Studies, Catholic University of Leuven, Netherlands. He has published extensively on Sino-Western cultural exchange in the 17th Century. Handbook of Christianity in China Volume 1 635-1800 (ed) Nicolas Standaert, Handbook of Oriental Studies: Section 4 - China, Brill, 2001
- Dr Jean Paul Wiest
- Collaborates with Centre for the Studies of Religious Culture at Zhejiang University. Author of The Catholic Church in Modern China, Perspectives (1993)
- Dr Xiaoxin Wu
- Director, Ricci Institute, University of San Francisco. China and Christianity: Burdened Past, Hopeful Future (ed) Stephen Uhalley Jr and Xiaoxin Wu. ME Sharpe, 2001
- Joseph
- A Chinese seminarian (preparing for ordination as a Catholic priest)
Further Information
- Music used in this program:
- Messe Des Jesuites De Pekin Composed by Joseph-Marie Amiot.
Performed by Ensemble Meihua Fleur de Prunus, Choeur du Centre Catholique Chinois de Paris, directed by Francois Picard.
Audiovis France 1998 E 8642.
Chine, Musiques de Shanghai Performed by Chen Zhong
Ocora, Radio France 1996 C560090.
Other music of interest: Concert Baroque a la Cite interdite, Teodorico Pedrini (1671-1746) Directed by Jean-Christophe Frisch.
Auvidid France, 1995/1999, AS 128609
- Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History, University of San Francisco
- Dedicated to publications, sponsorship of symposia and lectures, and collaboration between Chinese and Western scholars in the field of Chinese-Western cultural history with a concentration on the history of Christianity in China.
- Verbiest Foundation
- Among its purposes is to promote cultural and scientific exchange between East and West (more particularly between China, Mongolia and Europe), including includes the promotion of inter-church exchange between the church of China and churches in Europe.
- UCLA Centre for East Asian Studies
- A good selection of resources about the Jesuits in China
- Producer
- Margaret Coffey


text:
Andrew, Amrita, Jane and The Rite Journey team offer a variety of presentations and programs for schools, the parent community, families and corporate bodies.
For students/youth:
1. The Rite Journey – our 'flagship' year-long program in which staff are trained to facilitate the year long journey.
2. The Rite Way – A 10 session program (term length) – which draws on the outcomes and themes of our extremely successful year long Rite Journey program. This program is delivered by an individual or a teacher/facilitator from a school or youth service (having attended our two day training).
3. The Rite Way Community Based Program- An abridged program that is delivered by a trained Rite Journey facilitator and offered over either a weekend or as 8 x weekly 3 hour sessions. Participants for this program are typically sourced by a 'host' (a minimum of 8 people are required).
For staff:
"All is buzzing here with the memories of that wonderful presentation two weeks ago, Andrew. You made an impact and touched lives. There is much discussion about the possibilities for next year." Greg Hay, principal, St Mark's College.
Other than The Rite Journey school program and its associated implementation program for staff we also offer staff professional development sessions/days which can range from one hour to a whole day.
These include:
'New rules of engagement – connecting with today's students' – With the core focus of most schools being on traditional academic learning, Andrew draws on the success of The Rite Journey methodologies to help teachers find new ways of engaging students in their classes. This PD day gives teachers a practical experience of ways in which we can actually connect with our students and take their learning to a deeper level.
'Connecting with adolescent boys'- Andrew has successfully been meeting adolescent boys' needs in schools for 20 years. He can not only share the theory behind boys' behaviours but also provide a whole host of practical responses that teachers can take up.
'A schooling in manhood'- Our western culture has lost a number of powerful tools for transforming boys into good, strong men. Andrew has discovered over his 20 years of teaching that there are a number of essential experiences and learnings that a school can provide to make a positive difference to their boys' transition into a respectful, responsible and resilient beginning manhood, the results of which can ultimately transform school culture.
"We've had 42 responses from our online survey regarding your presentation 'A schooling in manhood' at our 'What's happening to our boys?' teacher seminar and your average rating was 8.9/10. To give you a benchmark, Steve Biddulph rated 9.1! Very close. 48% rated your session 10/10. Thank you so much for your contribution to the event, the attendees clearly got a lot out of it." – Booked Out Speakers Agency
'Connecting with adolescent girls'- Jane has worked with adolescent girls over many years and are able to provide a deep understanding of what 21st Century adolescent girls are facing and how we might deal with this in our schools.
'Rites of passage in schools'- Having worked with rites of passage over many years we are able to draw on a myriad of experiences to share with schools a host of options as to how to best go about celebrating and honouring their students' transition points.
'Connecting with the Gen Y/Z Student'- How do we meet the students on the cusp of Gen Y and Z? This workshop explores the characteristics of these students and what we, as teachers, can best do to connect with and offer learning relevant learning experiences for these students in our schools.
Feedback from Andrew's teacher PD presentations:
- Andrew was an amazing speaker, best workshop ever.
- The session by Andrew was excellent.
- Workshop with Andrew was excellent.
- Great day, Andrew was simply brilliant, loved what he had to offer and a great presenter.
- Andrew's workshop was fantastic- a great initiative from the South Australian's.
- Andrew Lines' presentation was very informative.
- Thoroughly enjoyed both workshops – Could have listened to Andrew for a double session.
- Andrew Lines – fantastic, very inspirational, food for thought!!
Andrew is also available to consult with schools who wish to devise their own program/Rite of Passage experience for their students.
For dads and male mentors:
'Creating a Rite of Passage for your Boy'- is a workshop designed for fathers/uncles/grandfathers/mentors to help them create a Rite of Passage process to usher their son/nephew/boy into a responsible, respectful and resilient manhood.
Andrew has just completed this process with his own son, Malachi, and will draw on this experience, as well as his work with hundreds of teachers and thousands of young people over the past 15 years, to distil the main elements which he believes make for a powerful, transformative and supportive experience for a boy's 'initiation' into a western 21st Century manhood.
In the workshop Andrew will explain the reason for such a process, share elements of the journey he created for Malachi and then provide a template and some time to help the men attending to behind crafting an experience for their own boy.
Feedback from Andrew's 'Creating a Rite of Passage for your Boy' Workshop:
- The most important 3 hours I have spent for years (or maybe in my lifetime).
- I can recommend Andrew's workshop to any father, uncle or grandfather.
- Andrew took us through a much neglected part of raising boys to be men with clarity, humour and candour.
'Being better for our boys'- this weekend program is a transformational process for men who wish to explore their own selves as a way of developing into a better father for their son, or mentor to the boys in their community. It's success lies in providing activities, conversation and ceremony to deepen men's understanding of their own boyhood and manhood…as well as an honouring process. The weekend also helps men create a process for taking the boy/s in their life through a rite of passage. The program is hosted by Rite Journey Facilitators and can be run in any state with a minimum of 8 men.
For parents:
Our offerings for the parent community include:
Seminars (packaged as 1 – 2 hour workshops):
Topics include 'Rites of passage, ceremony and celebration in family life', 'Parenting teens', 'Teens and sexuality', 'Fathering daughters' and 'Raising boys in the 21st century'
"As parents of an adolescent boy we welcomed Andrew's honest, frank and informative session on raising boys in the 21st Century. We sat as a group of parents sharing our stories of joy, despair and admiration of our sons. Under Andrew's exceptional guidance, passion and knowledge we were able to openly discuss subjects that included sexuality, physical growth, boundaries and the effects of media and technology that influence our sons' lives. Andrew has given me useful ideas and suggestions that I am sure will be invaluable in guiding my son through this period of his life."
We offer a varied and challenging corporate program which can run from a half day through to a 3 day experience (complete with the solo if wanting a real challenge). It again follows similar processes to the school staff program and incorporates physical, social, emotional and spiritual support, development and challenge.
The corporate Day/s explore the 4 themes relationship with self, relationship with others, relationship with Spirit and relationship with the world as a way of enriching employee connections in those 4 areas. The program can also involve some 'rite of passage' elements if required.
We have a number of Rite Journey Friends who provide processes for parents and/or their children, some of which are run over one day and others which involve heading away for a number of days. Please feel free to check out their work below:
Andrew Lines – ManMade – Growing Great Men
Angela White, Andrew Lines – Habits of Heart
Darren Lewis – Fathering Adventures
Garry Thomson – Uplifting Australia
Will Dobud – True North Expeditions
Ewan Rourke – Kangaroo Island Manhood and Initiation Weekend
Jane Bennett – Workshops include 'A Celebration Day for Girls' and 'Fathers Celebrating Daughters'

subset: commoncrawl


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See the Calendar of Events >
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If you have questions, Contact us.
Betty Irish Wins 2014 SWE Fellow Award – Congratulations!
2014 brought SWE Phoenix a second SWE Fellow Award in just two years! Congratulations to Betty Irish on this prestigious award!
SWE Phoenix wins Judges Award at 2014 GCOI Awards
On November 13, 2014 the SWE Phoenix Section was awarded the Judges Award at AZ Tech Council's Governor's Celebration of Innovation!
SWE Members Win 2014 Phoenix Engineers Week Awards
Two SWE members won awards at the Annual Phoenix Engineers Week Awards Gala. SWE President, Sara Christopherson, won the Outstanding Engineer Award – a first for a woman! Jennifer Reich won the Outstanding Young Engineer Award. A huge thanks to Jessica Dresang for nominating them.


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GW Fans: #RaiseHigh, Show #GWASH Pride In NCAA #6thFan Contest
Fans Can Earn Prizes and Help GW Earn General Scholarship Contributions in Online Competition
Jan. 8, 2014
How to Vote GW in the NCAA 6th Fan Competition
1 - Go to NCAA.com/6thFan, search for George Washington then VOTE once daily
2 - Use #GWASH & #6thFan on Twitter & Facebook Social Media Posts
INDIANAPOLIS - GW fans can show their #RaiseHigh pride in the NCAA's exciting #6thFan online competition and earn prizes for themselves and general scholarship contributions for the George Washington University.
The NCAA has launched the 6th Fan contest, an exciting nationwide online competition that will determine which Division I school has the most school pride and supportive fans. GW fans can learn all the details at www.ncaa.com/6thfan, including how to win great fan prizes and how to help George Washington University be awarded over $100,000 in general scholarship contributions.
GW fans can vote once per day by casting votes directly at www.ncaa.com/6thFan, or voting to the NCAA through Facebook and Twitter. Fans can vote directly on social media by posting, Tweeting or Retweeting the #6thFan and #GWASH contest hashtags (full school listings found at www.ncaa.com/6thFan).
To make it out of Round 1 in which all 345 Division I schools are competing, GW must be among the top 16 schools in the fan voting between January 7 and February 16. If GW makes it to the Sweet 16, it will be awarded $10,000 in general scholarship funds.
Once in the 2nd round with other Sweet 16 schools, GW fans can compete head-to-head with other schools in a single-elimination bracket format between February 17 and February 23. In the 3rd round, the Elite 8 schools will be matched up head-to-head from February 24 to March 2. If GW can survive to the 4th round, it would be among the Final Four schools to compete for fan votes from March 3 to March 9, with the top two schools competing in the 5th round between March 10 to March 16 for the 6th Fan National Championship. The winning school will be announced on Selection Sunday, March 16, and be awarded $100,000 in general scholarship funds.
The contest also includes prizes for individual fans. An iPad Air will be awarded in each of the five rounds to a randomly chosen fan who votes via NCAA.com in that round. In addition, one randomly selected participant who registers and votes on NCAA.com will win an all-expense paid trip to the 2015 Men's Final Four in North Texas April 5-7.


text:
Until recently Khloe Fryman had no idea what treasures the top of the coffee table held. She couldn't play with the television buttons like most toddlers or chase her brother down the hall. She didn't know what it was like to stand on wobbly, tottering legs or to take a first step.
If you currently subscribe or have subscribed in the past to the Cynthiana Democrat, then simply find your account number on your mailing label and enter it below.
Click the question mark below to see where your account ID appears on your mailing label.
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Here are a few words of advice and tips to remember before and during your wedding ceremony from Dan Jenkins, a wedding officiant in the Pittsburgh area.
Don't lock your knees. Evidently it can cut off blood circulation and cause you to pass out. That usually applies to long wedding ceremonies. It isn't so much of a problem with ceremonies which are less than 30 minutes.
Wear comfortable shoes. The Bride and Groom usually do not realize how much time they will be standing and smiling on their wedding day. If your shoes can be seen, you want them to look excellent and fashionable, but you also want them to be comfortable. Your shoes will be either your best friend – or your worst enemy – on your wedding day.
Eat a light meal a few hours before the ceremony. Failure to eat can also lead to passing out during the ceremony.
Don't consume alcohol before the wedding. Again, intoxication on top of an empty stomach can cause major problems during the ceremony. And, Pennsylvania law permits an officiant to refuse to do the ceremony if he believes either the Bride, or Groom (or both) are impaired.
A light coat of vaseline on your teeth can make a great smile dazzling.
Look at each other. For every Bride and Groom preparing for your ceremony: during the Questions of Intent, Vows and Exchange of Rings, look at each other. Your commitments are being made to each other, not the officiant.
And, don't forget to enjoy your wedding.
by Dan Jenkins
Photo by DelPrincipe Photography of Pittsburgh


text:
The school would like to thank all the parents and community volunteers who helped with Falcon fun nights, family art night, the book fair and trunk-or-treating. The events were a success due to the many hours of help from volunteers.
The staff would like to thank the Sterling Senior Center for allowing the staff to join area senior citizens for lunch Oct. 22. The lunch, piano music and the company were enjoyed by all.
The PTA will meet at 4 p.m. Thursday in the library. All parents and interested community members are invited.
Reading is Fundamental (RIF) will do its first book distribution of the year Friday. Every child in the school will get to choose a new book to add to their own book collection at home. RIF book distributions are made possible by donations from the classrooms, Title I, PTA and the national RIF program.
The school is submitting an application to be a host site for a BIRCH AmeriCorps member. Applications to be the BIRCH AmeriCorps member are being accepted and can be picked up and returned to the school. If the school's application is accepted by RuralCAP, a person would be hired by RuralCAP to coordinate health and wellness activities for the school and community, in exchange for a monthly stipend and an educational allowance, plus other benefits. See the school principal or Krissy Mahan for more information about this program.
© 2018. All Rights Reserved. | Contact Us


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(From Joe Bob's Ultimate B Movie Guide)
|In this most imitated of all horror films, Colin Clive is the tortured Dr. Frankenstein, with Mae Clarke as his fiancee, and, in the role that would make him famous, Boris Karloff as the monster. For its time, it was the absolute limit in terror, banned in several states and a few foreign countries, and famous several scenes, including the opener, in which we see and hear earth crashing onto the lid of a coffin. (Oddly enough, this was the first time anyone had tried this effect.) More controversial is the scene in which the monster drowns a little girl, thinking she's one of the beautiful flowers to be tossed onto a placid pond. In some theaters the scene was cut at such an early stage that audience members imagined some horrible molestation of the girl had taken place! James Whale directed from a script by Garrett Fort and Francis Ford Faragoh, loosely based on a previous script by French director Robert Florey, which was in turn based on an unproduced script by Horace Liveright and Louis Cline, which was in turn based on a melodramatic play by Peggy Webling, which was in turn based on the original 1818 novel by Mary Shelley. The story also borrowed from earlier German silent films like THE GOLEM and THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI. Jack P. Pierce, head of Universal's makeup department, was responsible for the Frankenstein "look," after spending three months studying anatomy, surgery, criminology and electrodynamics. Electrical engineer Kenneth Strickfaden was hired to create the lightning- arc generators that bring the monster to life. With Dwight Frye as Frankenstein's assistant Fritz, a character not in the original novel but part of the first London stage version in 1823, and Edward Van Sloan as Dr. Waldman.
© 2000 Joe Bob Briggs. All Rights
Reserved. Not an AOL Time-Warner Company in this lifetime.


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Dan Guzman from SQLServerCentral.com
Level 8 of this stairway series looks at the automation of your tracing using Integration Services. More »
Press Release from PASS
Sept 15th, 2012 at the CAIT Campus of Washington University in St.Louis - 5 Jackson Avenue, Clayton, MO 63105
SQL Saturday #154 is the very first SQL Saturday event in the St.Louis area. It is a free one day event for SQL Server professionals and those wanting to learn about SQL Server. We are planning on a 4 track event with 200 attendees. We currently have several sessions aligned towards Database Administration, Application Development, Business Intelligence and professional Development Tracks. We also have several sessions focused on SQL Server 2012! Please visit our event website for more details and free registration. More »
Press Release from SQLServerCentral.com
Come visit Rhode Island and meet fellow SQL Server professionals from all over New England as SQL Saturday comes on Sept 15, 2012. More »
Additional Articles from SimpleTalk
Although, generally speaking, source control is the truth, a database doesn't quite conform to the ideal because the target schema can, for valid reasons, contain other conflicting truths that can't easily be captured in source control. Dave Ballantyne explains the problems and suggests a solution. More »
This weekend is Labor Day in the US. It's a holiday set aside to recognize the workers and their contributions to the economy. It's a holiday here that marks the end of summer and the beginning or school for many people. Hopefully it's a relaxing and enjoyable day for you.
It's a day off for me from work but probably one where I'm laboring. With a fence to build and a horse shelter, I'm going to be busy for the next few weeks. I've included a blooper reel for you to enjoy. Whether you're working or relaxing, hopefully you enjoy it.
Steve Jones
View the WMV bloopers (31.9MB)
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Steve Jones from SQLServerCentral.com
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Professional SQL Server 2012 Adminstration
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 will have major changes throughout the SQL Server and will impact how DBAs administer the database. With this book, a team of well-known SQL Server experts introduces the many new features of the most recent version of SQL Server and deciphers how these changes will affect the methods that administrators have been using for years. Loaded with unique tips, tricks, and workarounds for handling the most difficult SQL Server admin issues, this how-to guide deciphers topics such as performance tuning, backup and recovery, scaling and replication, clustering, and security.
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SQL Server 2012 T-SQL Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach
SQL Server 2012 T-SQL Recipes is an example-based guide to the Transact-SQL language that is at the core of SQL Server 2012. It provides ready-to-implement solutions to common programming and database administration tasks. Learn to create databases, insert and update data, generate reports, secure your data, and more. Tasks and their solutions are broken down into a problem/solution format that is quick and easy to read so that you can get the job done fast when the pressure is on. Get your copy from Amazon today.
DECLARE @tmp TABLE (SlNo INT IDENTITY,Name VARCHAR(200))
INSERT INTO @tmp(Name) Values('SCREW')
INSERT INTO @tmp(Name) Values('HAMMER')
INSERT INTO @tmp(Name) Values('SAW')
DELETE FROM @tmp WHERE SlNo = 2
SET IDENTITY_INSERT @tmp ON
INSERT INTO @tmp(SlNO,Name) Values(2,'SHOVEL')
SELECT * FROM @tmp
What will be the Result ?
By Unknown
Answer: An error will return
Explanation: The table variable does not support the statement "SET IDENTITY_INSERT ON". Only static
tables and temporary tables support the statement "SET IDENTITY_INSERT ON".
Ref: SET IDENTITY INSERT - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa259221%28v=SQL.80%29.aspx
» Discuss this question and answer on the forums
Pratap Prabhu from SQLServerCentral.com
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Anabela Chan
Women's Metallic 'morpho - Edition 1' 18k Gold Diamond Pavé Bangle
Last seen for $6400 at Lane Crawford.
Get notified when it's back...
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Last seen for $6400 at Lane Crawford.
We check over 450 stores daily. Be the first to know when it comes back in stock.
Anabela Chan's Morpho - Edition 1 bangle is individually handcrafted in Paris to meet the highest echelons of design standard. Beautifully enacted in 18k yellow gold with 75 hand-set white diamond pavé along three edges, this fretwork frame edition is primed especially to be nestled amongst other dainty jewellery for awe-inspiring impact. Designer collection: Eternity Fine - Morpho Bloom. 75 hand-set white diamond pavé, total 1.02 carats. 18k yellow gold. Angular fretwork frame. Designer dust bag included. Individually handcrafted in Paris. Product size M/L measures: Circumference 20cm / Width 0.2cm. Color: metallic


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U.S. Food Festival Section: Local Food Festivals, Shows & Events Listed by STATE & MONTH
You are here > Home > Food Festivals > UNITED STATES >
Check previous year if event is not yet updated to current year
• U.S. Food Festivals by STATE >>
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· Food Holidays
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From Amateur & Basic Cooking Classes to Professional Chef Training & Degrees
More than 1,000 schools & classes listed for all 50 States, Online and Worldwide
See also the Today in Food History Section for Food Holidays, and Special Food Weeks and Months
VIRGINIA: January/February - March - April - MAY - June
July - August - September - October - November/December
May 4-5, 2018 38th Annual Strawberry Festival
Roanoke, Virginia
This two-day family-oriented festival draws approximately 20,000 visitors to downtown Roanoke. In addition to delicious strawberry desserts, there are arts and craft vendors, children's activities, and live entertainment. Attendance: 20,000.
May 5, 2018
Blues, Brews, and BBQ on the River
Historic Yorktown, Virginia
This event will showcase some of the best Blues musicians in the Hampton Roads area. Add that to 26 craft beers, incredible BBQ, and other gourmet foods and you have the makings for an incredible day. Love the Blues - then stick around for the Sunday Art on the River event that will feature the inaugural Blues weekend in Yorktown.
May 5, 2018 Chinoteague Seafood Festival - Chinoteague, Virginia
A spring seafood festival has been held here on Chincoteague Island for more than four decades. "Little Neck" clams, oysters, fish and a variety of sides will be featured the first Saturday in May at Tom's Cove Park from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Beer may be purchased separately and soft drinks are included in the ticket price.
May 5-6, 2018 - 12th Annual Spring Town Point Virginia Wine Festival
Norfolk, Virginia
Guests will be able to sample newly released vintages and past favorites from Virginia's premier wine makers. Perfectly paired gourmet foods and specialty wares will also be available for purchase throughout the day.
May 13, 2018 MOTHER'S DAY - Nationwide
Most restaurants in the U.S. have special events scheduled for today. They are too numerous to list.
May 19, 2018
Strawberry Festival
Stuart, Virginia
The festival is fun for the whole family with kids' activities and live bands, as well as many local artists and craftsmen who display and sell their products. Of course you can purchase fresh from the field strawberries and eat delicious food.
May 19, 2018
17th Annual Virginia Beer Festival - Norfolk, Virginia
Sample a bounty of brews from around the world, while enjoying live music and the spring air! Beer connoisseur? Purchase a premium tasting ticket and have access to specialty brews, private talks with brewers, and delicious snacks.
May 13, 2017 Annual 'Of Ale & History Beer Festival
Middletown, Virginia
Come and celebrate Belle Grove Plantation's German and English heritage by sampling a great array of beers from the New and Old World, as well as delicious food by area restaurants. Beverages include a fine mix of European imports and innovative American microbrews, as well as a few domestic favorites. The historic house and landscape are open for touring throughout the festival, and the Potomac Rugby Union hosts a multi-club tournament on the front meadow.
May 13, 2017 Dog Day at Breaux - Purcellville, Virginia
Join us for our annual Dog Day celebration. Bring your 4-legged friends for a day of fun at Breaux Vineyards this Spring. We have live music with Steele & Oglevee, wine tastings, dog rescue organizations, doggie based vendors, and local crafters onsite for you to enjoy.
May 20, 2017 31st Annual Virginia Wine & Craft Festival
Front Royal, Virginia
Enjoy tastings from Virginia wineries. Hand painted wine glasses, hand crafted musical instruments, jewelry, pottery and ceramics. A variety of festival food, including the famous funnel cake, fresh roasted nuts, crab cake sandwiches, steak-n-cheese, seafood, or step inside to one of our many restaurants located at the event site. Entertainment. Kids rides, games and face painting.
May 21, 2017 Annual Taste of Arlington - Ballston, Virginia
The annual Taste of Arlington transforms Wilson Boulevard and neighboring streets into a family-friendly street festival with dining, music and entertainment for all ages. This annual festival features the cuisine of more than 50 Arlington restaurants, three concert stages with live music and a DJ, an expanded Beer and Wine Garden, a 5k race benefiting Girls on the Run, World Pup tournament in the expanded BarkPark and a KidZone with a rock climbing wall, carnival games and the FRESHFARM Markets Build-A-Bug pavilion. Tickets are now on sale and you can buy discounted Taste tickets on the BallstonConnect Mobile app. (also: www.tasteofarlington.com/ )
May 21, 2017 - Whitetop Mountain Ramp Festival - Whitetop, Virginia
Always held on the third Sunday in May, the Ramp Festival features traditional mountain music played by local musicians, crafts, games, dancing, a RAMP EATING CONTEST and a BBQ chicken meal served with a side of (what else?) ramps!
May 25-26, 2017 Whitetop Mountain Maple Festival - Whitetop, Virginia
Music, tapping tours, syrup processing, storytelling, slide show and more.
May 26-July 2, 2017 Busch Gardens Food & Wine Festival
Williamsburg, Virginia
Busch Gardens Food and Wine Festival runs every Friday, Saturday and Sunday from May 26 to July 2, which features some of the world's best food and wine, including features from around the world.
May 27-28, 2017 34th Annual Pungo Strawberry Festival
Virginia Beach, Virginia
Not only does the Festival have all the strawberries you can eat offered in over 50 different ways, activities include a pie eating contest, strawberry bake-off, continuous entertainment, a parade, large carnival, livestock show and sale, military display, pig races, youth art show, and arts & craft booths. Attendance: 120,000.
May 27-28, 2017 Delaplane Strawberry Festival - Delaplane, Virginia
The annual festival is back this year with two days of music, crafts, field games, hayrides, old-fashioned fun, and yes, plenty of ripe strawberries! The event is held in the beautiful Virginia countryside at Sky Meadows State Park (also: www.delaplanestrawberryfestival.com/ )
May 17, 2015 Whitetop Mountain Ramp Festival - Whitetop, Virginia
Always held on the third Sunday in May, the Ramp Festival features traditional mountain music played by local musicians, crafts, games, dancing, a RAMP EATING CONTEST and a BBQ chicken meal served with a side of (what else?) ramps!
May 10, 2014 Town Center Art & Wine Festival
Virginia Beach, Virginia
A unique opportunity to enjoy visual and gastronomic arts in the same setting. While the late spring sun bathes the Fountain Plaza, artists of all types display their creations at the festival. At the same time, international wine favorites sit side-by-side with the best of Virginia wineries in a sampling of new and classic vintages. The Town Center Art & Wine Festival is the perfect event to leisurely examine cutting-edge art while sampling the very latest in the vintner's art.
May 14-15, 2011 Warrenton Wine and Arts Festival
Warrenton, Virginia
Spend a day in Historic Old Town Warrenton enjoying Virginia's best wineries, artists, vendors and shopping for that special treasure.
May 21-22, 2011 Wine Festival at the Plains: Spring Encore
The Plains, Virginia
WILL NOT BE HELD IN 2012. Tasting Rooms from every corner of the Commonwealth come together for this grand celebration of the harvest. Enjoy fine art, fancy food, culinary seminars and the wines that rarely make it out of tasting rooms as select Virginia wineries showcase over 250 award-winning artisan wines produced in Virginia, "America's most promising, emerging wine region".
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- Why Does My Baby Wake Up when I Try to Put Him Down? at BellyBelly
- 30 Signs Your Kid is Turning into a Hipster at Urban Playground – A little laugh for your weekend.
- A Better Way to Say Sorry at cuppacocoa
- Our Favorite Free Family Activities at Six Figures Under
Did you read or write something you'd like our readers to see? Leave a link in the comments, on our Facebook page, or send us a Tweet!
Added to Saturday Linky Love at JessieWeaver.net.


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How to askVisitor's Question from a 16-20 year old Male
Hi, I am 18 years old and I want to ask out this girl in my school, but I'm not sure the best way to that. I read the section on "asking somone out" but I still have a few questions. I know it's better to ask her in person, but I'm not sure what to say. I want a date with just her but is it better to hang out at the mall first with some friends, or would a movie be better with just her and I. I also thought about getting her a flower the day I ask but would that be too much? Obviously I not sure what she will say but would any of this helpThanks for answering my questions.
RomanceClass.com Advice
I think getting her a flower is a great idea!
Then ask her to go to a movie.
Good luck! George
-- from George
One of Your Friendly Advisors at RomanceClass.com
|Follow @RomanceClass
Speak Your Mind - Share your Thoughts on this Question!
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Please read through the advice on this site before you Submit your Own Question! We have thousands of pages of valuable advice that can immediately help you with your situation.


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Preheat the oven to 325o.
Lightly spray a 5 x 8-inch loaf pan with vegetable oil spray.
Whisk the eggs in a bowl until frothy, then pour into the bowl of an electric mixer equipped with a dough hook. Add the sugar, salt, milk and baking powder, and blend with the mixer set on slow for 2 minutes.
Gradually add the flour and blend until the flour is completely mixed in.
Increase the speed to medium and mix until the dough is smooth, elastic and clinging to the dough hook, about 15 minutes.
Flour your hands and the working surface thoroughly and frequently to help avoid sticking. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and form into a long loaf shape. Place in the oiled pan and bake until browned and crisp on top, about 1 hour or 1 hour and 10 minutes. Remove from the pan and let cool to room temperature on a wire rack before slicing.


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MECHANIC: RESURRECTION 720p.WEBRip.x264.AAC(734.29 MB)
Summry-Arthur Bishop thought he had put his murderous past behind him when his most formidable foe kidnaps the love of his life. Now he is forced to travel the globe to complete three impossible assassinations, and do what he does best, make them look like accidents.
Files :
- Mechanic Resurrection.2016.HC.HDRip.XViD.AC3 (734.29 MB)
Rate the print down below


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May 1st, 2016
That's right! The podcast is going rogue! Lashing out at the man! They're taking over! Not really, but the topic of the week does involve the crew discussing what sidekick character they want to see buck against the curve and be their own man or woman. Who's going evil? Tune in and find out.
As for the news of the week, there's been some interesting stuff. The NX seems to have delayed the next Zelda, but at least we've got a release date now. On top of that, CD Projekt Red has announced the scary scale and ambition that they'll be putting into Cyberpunk 2077. Last but not least, there's the story that this might (definitely not gonna) be the last Dark Souls game… it won't be, fun fact. Regardless, join us in the revelry!
Website: http://middleofnowheregaming.com
Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/middleofnowheregaming
YouTube for Podcasts: https://www.youtube.com/user/MONGnetwork
YouTube for Let's Plays/Livestreams: http://youtube.com/c/middleofnowheregamingplays
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/middleofnowheregaming
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MONGdotcom
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Tumblr: http://middleofnowheregaming.tumblr.com/
Instagram: http://instagram.com/middleofnowheregaming
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/middle-of-nowhere-gaming/id713816889?mt=2
Application to work with MONG: http://middleofnowheregaming.com/application/


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Students of Folklore are required to complete a fieldwork projects for their final semester papers. Although some students will have completed fieldwork projects before taking a Folklore class, students are not expected to have prior experience with the fieldwork process and will be given specific instruction regarding how to successfully complete the project.
The basis of Folklore scholarship rests on the collection and preservation
of folk materials in the local community. These collections are varied
and can include oral histories and personal narratives, family stories,
folklore of the workplace, contemporary legends and other topical areas.
Students are encouraged to select a fieldwork project that reflects
their interests and experiences. In addition, students can expect one-on-one
assistance from their professor in selecting a topic and limiting the
scope of the project. Generally, students will select an informant and
will complete a brief (40-60 minute) tape-recorded interview.
Based upon the information gathered during the interview, the student will compose a formal essay that applies the terms and concepts of the field of folklore to the materials they have collected. As part of this process, students will be required to complete library research drawing on Folklore scholarship as it relates to their project. A comprehensive list of folklore resources at GMU (folklore encyclopedias, journals, etc.) can be found on the Folklore Resources site.
Although fieldwork is a central feature to other folklore offerings at GMU, in some upper division and graduate courses students will have the option of completing a library research essay and/or a fieldwork semester project. For specific project requirements, please see the websites of the GMU Folklore professors.


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The first monthly subscription box for the geek and gaming lifestyle, essentially Think Geek meets Birchbox.
Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) September 17, 2012
Loot Crate delivers a monthly box of epic gear and swag, hand-picked for geeks and gamers, for under $20, $19.37 ($13.37 + $6 S&H). Loot Crate, which launched at the end of July, is the first monthly subscription box for the geek and gaming lifestyle, essentially Think Geek meets Birchbox.
Loot Crate, which formed during LA Startup Weekend, partners with both established brands and new emerging companies to deliver our members, known as Looters, with new products, gear, art, apparel, snacks, comics and other items deemed "geek" worthy. For brands, Loot Crate offers a new way to engage and introduce the community to products beyond traditional retail, trade shows, and sampling programs.
The company just passed 500 paying subscribers in less than 45 days and is on pace to triple subscribers in September from it's first box in August. The Loot Crate community is highly engaged and due to an overwhelming amount of positive feedback, Loot Crate is now one of the highest rated boxes on http://www.subscriptionboxes.com, based on positive reviews from it's inaugural box in August.
The company's inaugural August box, named "Assemble," included custom wood founding membership cards, $20 Gift Card for Gentle Giant busts and figurines, Avengers themed cologne from Marvel and JADS International, Turkey Perky Jerky, Jolt Gum, Domo Mini Figs, PWN Gum, and a limited edition art print. There has been a positive response from these initial brands to their inclusion in the box, due to increase in awareness, engagement and conversion around their products.
The company is working to expand it's list of partners and will be adding new product categories and subscription offerings in the coming months. The company had it's first industry event presence at Stan Lee's Comikaze Sept. 15th and 16th at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
Loot Crate was founded by Chris Davis and Matthew Arevalo, with a strong supporting team. Chris Davis previously was director of business development for ViaClix, and most recently, founded Gamer Food, an energy snack company that has done promotions with gaming industry leaders like Fatal1ty, Riot Games, and Kiip. The product is sold at Think Geek, Frys Electronics, Xoxide, and Amazon.com. Matthew Arevalo is a digital strategy consultant and entrepreneur, who in addition to leading his own firm, Relentus, has co-founded and advised local startups in additional to developing community driven campaigns for large global brands like AT&T, Nintendo, EA and T-Mobile. For more information, visit http://www.lootcrate.com and join the Loot Crate community on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/lootcrate and Twitter, http://twitter.com/lootcrate.
For media inquiries, please contact Matthew Arevalo via phone 323.365.3435 or e- mail weloveyou(at)lootcrate(dot)com


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Proto J7420TX SKT IMP 1/2 DR E20 TORX
List Price: $19.90
You Save: $9.02 (45%)
Part Number: J7420TX UPC: 662679343682 Weight: 0.17
•Proto® Torx® Impact Sockets can be used on stubborn Torx® fasteners. •Tight tolerances for snug fit on fastener. •Torx® Impact Sockets are used wherever power drive tools are used to help install or remove fasteners. •Torx® Impact Sockets are designed to withstand the high torque and force associated with impact tools in repetitive applications. •Socket size stamped on tool for easy identification. •Side locking hole.


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I want to make some prusik's for my tarp to the ridge line.
What size should I use for a prusik on 7/64 amsteel?
Where is the best place to buy it?
I was planning on maybe buying some extra for my guy lines off my tarp if it will be ok to use for that too?
Any tips links or any info is great! I appretiate all the info and help I have recieved so far from all of you! Thanks


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Samsung has put a price on its U250 and U200 all-in-one PCs. The larger 23in touchscreen model will cost £899 including VAT and will run Windows 7 Home Premium. It will have a screen resolution of 1920x1080-pixels.
The Samsung U200 all-in-one PC, meanwhile, will have a 20in touchscreen with a 1600x900-pixel display and will cost £699 including VAT. Samsung will start selling both models sometime in May.
Aside from their differences in screen size, the two Samsung Windows 7 Home Premium machines are mainly distinguished by design.
The U250 is a fairly conventional-looking model with squared-off bevels and wireless peripherals. The U200, however, doesn't have a stand in the traditional sense. Instead it has a kickstand that folds away when not in use, allowing it to be hung on a wall if desired.
What intrigues us, however, is the fact the U200 has wired peripherals, making for a potentially odd arrangement should you elect to wall-mount it.
Both all-in-one PCs have 4GB of RAM, come with 500GB hard disks and a Super Multi Dual Layer DVD drive. The U250 has a 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 processor while its sibling is powered by a 2.2GHz Intel Pentium Dual Core T4400.
See also: Samsung U200 all-in-one PC
See also: All in one and desktop PCs reviews


text:
Red Sox News
FN In News
Names Project
FN Pics
FenwayNation Awards
About Us
Contact FenwayNation
Monday, December 7, 2015
Rangers Showing Interest In Red Sox Starter Joe Kelly
Joe Kelly
According to multiple reports from the MLB Winter Meetings in Nashville,
the Texas Rangers are expressing interest in a trade for Red Sox starter
Joe Kelly
. Kelly began to turn around things in the second half of 2015, but overall, went 10-6 with a 4.82 ERA (putting him well out of contention for the Cy Young Award he predicted). In his four-year MLB career, Kelly has gone 31-22 with a 3.82 ERA—striking out 6.4 batters per nine innings. Hey,
maybe we can get old friend
Mike Napoli
. Stay tuned!
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Share to Twitter
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Ice accumulations starting to add up, snow expected late tonight
WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — A Winter Storm Warning remains in effect for southeastern NC through Wednesday morning. Since late afternoon, sleet has been falling across most of our viewing area. Here is a quick weather update for the rest of the night/morning:
Now – 10 PM: Moderate/heavy sleet likely. Additional ice accumulation of .25 to .5 inches possible
10 PM – Midnight: Snow begins to mix with sleet in inland counties
1 AM – 4 AM: Moderate/heavy snow possible for inland counties
4 AM – 8 AM: Moderate/heavy snow likely in all counties
9 AM – 11 AM: Light snow showers ending
NOTE- The snow/sleet forecast map pictured here shows the forecasted storm totals. Totals in the southern counties will be a mix of sleet/snow. Totals in the northern counties will reflect more snow accumulation.
Stay with WWAY and the StormTrack 3 Weather Team for continuing developments as the system approaches. Follow updates via Facebook and Twitter or download our StormTrack 3 mobile app to keep up on the go.
Chief Meteorologist Jerry Jackson
More: continued here


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The Limbourgs chose to illustrate Psalm II with a
scene showing the annihilation of those who tried to
rise up against their Lord: "The kings of the earth
stood up, and the princes met together, against the
Lord and against his Christ." (Psalm II: 2)
But the Lord "troubles them in his anger," strewing the ground with the bloody corpses and arms of the rebellious.
God the Father appears in the upper right, while the armored ranks of the faithful kneel to pray, pennants and banners flying in the wind.
The figure in front wearing a helmet adorned with a cross is probably David, identified by the pink tunic and yellow belt that he wears in other small miniatures in the manuscript.
Blue foliage decorates the background of the illumination; the center column is ornamented with birds and plants.
small image (21KB) --- large image (189KB) --- God the Father and the faithful (large) (198KB)


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April 1, 2001
One year old
Blue and Gold Macaw
Madison, Dane County, Wisconsin, USA
y bird's name is Berry. She is a one year old Blue and Gold Macaw, and we live in Madison, Dane County, Wisconsin. It has been a great learning experience having Berry. We have learned how to play lots of silly parrot games, such as the game where we hand her a toy, and she drops it, and we pick it up, and she drops it. It's fun for hours! Her other hobbies include destroying anything she can get her beak on, and exploring the new world of flight that she has just discovered! She is certainly lacking in some discipline, in that she can't believe that we would ever not want a parrot sitting on us, or nibbling our fingers, or dive bombing us as we walk by. But she is only one year old, and she is making some progress. What is really remarkable about her is the enthusiasm with which she greets everything - whether it be her toys, her food, a shower, or just a scritch on the head from her family, she runs into life beak-first and puts her all into everything she does!
Find out how
your pet
could be Pet of the Day.


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Atheist Know a Thing or Two About Religion, so Settle Down Benedict!
September 30, 2010
Thank god only the Pope has the power of infallibility - and not just any average catholic! As has been discussed on this blog a couple of times, a recent Pew survey shows that atheists and agnostics - along with Jews and Mormons - seem to know more about religion and associated issues, than catholics, protestants and others. Without adding my own analysis to this complicated issue, I just wanted to share with you an amusing time I just had on NewTalk1010 Toronto radio engaged in a one on one "Holier Than Thou" battle against Fr. Damian MacPherson, Director of Ecumenical & Interfaith Affairs for the Archdiocese of Toronto. The radio show thought it would make a good follow up to the Pew survey story.
We were each asked 5 questions, mostly on irrelevant pop culture. MacPhearson seemed good natured enough, but it also didn't seem like he really wanted to be there. He managed to get only 2 correct answers, whereas I was able to get 4. The only one I missed, shockingly, referred to an episode of Family Guy with Adam Sandler. The good father failed to identify Cat Stevens as the famous british muslim musician, forgot the word "fatwa" (although he was awarded a point anyway for answering that a "death sentence" was placed on Rushdie) and I believe mispronounced "matza" when asked the Hebrew word for unleavened bread. He also missed identifying the most common animal in the Old and New testament, answering lion, instead of lamb. Perhaps he has an overly aggressive view of scripture. He also, and most damningly, managed to get my name wrong, referring to me as "Jason" at the end of the segment, just before the host thanked "Justin Trottier" for his participation.
This was reminiscent of the national Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Test the Nation IQ game show hosted in January in which CFI created the atheist team and we went on to (admittedly narrowly) defeat the religious leaders team on live television.
As I began this blog post just before the radio interview request, please forgive the awkward transition, but I had originally meant to comment briefly on Benedict's recent outburst and plug an editorial we had published condemning the Pontiff. The two subjects are at least related in that if it should be the case that atheists know a thing or two about religion, perhaps their rejection shouldn't be seen as a sort of apathy on matters of faith and ethics, as Benedict stated, but as a well thought out rejection of the comingling of faith and ethics in favour of a more equal secularism.
As is now well known, Pope Benedict XVI, who has such a knack for winning friends, managed to demonize at one stroke hundreds of millions, if not over a billion, individuals on this planet, by blaming the Nazis and the Holocaust on atheism , in a desperate and transparent move to shift any responsibility from the Vatican. To those who have been following the disasterous career of the present Pope, this is hardly shocking. But what is surprising - and heartening - have been the reactions that these despicable comments have generated. For example, there was well respected journalist Gwynn Dyer reporting : "The best defence is a good offense. A less worldly pope, making a state visit to Britain as the revelations about Catholic priests and bishops abusing the children in their care spread across Europe, might have been reduced to shame and silence."
Other religions have also responded , such as, for example, Eminent Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, who said: "that as Catholics and Hindus and others had freedom of their belief systems and were respected for their respective choices, and so should be the atheists. A religious leader of Pope's stature should have been more inclusive."
And of course members of our own movement were given a platform to respond directly to the Pope's attack, including Richard Dawkins who addressed it in his speech at the Protest the Pope rally in London.
Finally, Centre for Inquiry Canada got into the action with a number of editorials, including the following published in the Holy Post , which managed to go on the offensive:
We should all be very satisfied with the way the Pope's thoughtless and revisionist comments only provided yet another opportunity for atheist activism and solidarity.
"The Pope conveniently leaves out the Catholic pantheon of moral failures in the mass murder department. Examples include Torquemada, the father of the Inquisition and the force behind the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, and all of the Popes who preached war against Islam and absolved the knights in advance of any mortal sins, allowing the Crusaders to indiscriminately butcher thousands of men, women and children in the Levant."
#1 Gordon Wolters (Guest) on Thursday September 30, 2010 at 10:46am
The more the pope opens his mouth, the more he puts his foot in it. Well I take that back, it has always been thus, but now people are actualy taking notice.
#2 Juna (Guest) on Thursday September 30, 2010 at 8:32pm
Sounded more like someone was being thrown under the bus to me.
#3 M Walsh (Guest) on Friday October 01, 2010 at 6:41am
"This was reminiscent of the national Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Test the Nation IQ game show hosted in January in which CFI created the atheist team and we went on to (admittedly narrowly) defeat the religious leaders team on live television."
Having read things by you a couple times I wondered various times if you exaggerated information in an attempt to make CFI look more successful. If your organization is doing well there should be no need to add little pieces of information to try to make yourselves look better. It really makes any corporation skeptical about working with you again and makes people not believe what is said.
CFI did not create the atheist team.
#4 Justin Trottier (Guest) on Thursday October 28, 2010 at 4:41pm
I would agree an organization shouldn't exaggerate its accomplishments, but in point of fact, we did work with CBC in creating the atheist team. CBC contacted CFI and worked with us in reaching as many atheists as possible. From having been copied on many of the responses I can tell you that we were responsible for over 100 applicants for the show. This is precisely why CFI in general and myself in particular were chosen as the featured atheist on their game show website (see the link above). It's also why CFI was the only organization given an opportunity to represent itself on the show, through a question directed at me by the hosts. (Our team captain also spoke but, like all team captains, he had to be an actual CBC TV personality). I apologize for having to enumerate all this evidence, but the charge of deceit was leveled, so it was necessary to respond. Also, I never claimed CBC didn't investigate other avenues for finding atheists, although many of those were the result of our recommendations too, but I don't see anything wrong with us taking credit not just for having had many of our members on the show but also having definitely been involved in the creation of the team. In any case, the show was a great opportunity for all atheists and whoever deserves the credit, I'm just grateful for the CBC having given us all this chance. Hopefully, we can focus on that.