The Awakening---speech contest script

Spring, it is the best time of the year. It is a season of sunshine and flowers and joy. After the longest winter I’ve ever had of my life, I finally see a tint of verdure popping out the ground. All the life here is enjoying the spring awakening. Time flies. It's time again to say goodbye.

Clearly I remember 9 months ago when I first stepped on this land, I stood in the crowd in the Minneapolis airport, excited to have breathed the first breath of fresh air of this country. “Welcome to Heaven.” I got the message from my friend. The scene had already been played in my dreams time and time again and the excitement overwhelmed all the fear. Here I am, America, a country that bears the name of freedom, advance and power.

Also I remember 8 months ago, for the first time I heard the serious argument about politics over the radio hot-line program. For the first time, I saw the Christian fellowship be part of the school activity so explicitly; for the first time I joined a church with over 100 people and for the first time I experienced a retreat of thousands of people shouting Jesus and Hallelujah. This is a country not afraid of speaking about politics, parties and God.

Then 4 months ago, standing in the crossroad of Time square, New York, I watched people passing by, with or without facial expression, some with the shining mink coat and some with dirty cloth that narrowly covered their body. I was shocked by my familiarity to this scene, as if I was standing on the street of Shanghai. Suddenly I was awakened from my dream: America is not heaven. I started to wonder: among them how many knows where they are from and where they are going? How many still hold a rest place of their spirit and soul? How many of them value the words carved on the money more than the money? And how many still have the courage and confidence declaring that “in God we trust” as they did hundreds years ago when this nation of power was established?

I was fully awakened from my dream: America is not heaven and no country on this earth can be heaven. As a result, between here and the place I come from there seems no difference to be excited about.

Just several hours ago, I rested my body on the sofa of the Williams Library with books on my lap. The sun comes out after a brief drizzle. The sky was dyed by the Great Creator. I know that’s the very thing I will definitely miss when I go back.

However, when I found myself more than reconciled to this placidity, I asked myself: If you can enjoy these beautiful painting everyday, are you still be touched by heart every time, standing in awe of the greatness of the creator? If you can see the Milky Way everyday, are you still moved to tears and gain more awe and gratefulness of the wonder and beauty of God? And you see recent catastrophe stoke again and again in other parts of the world, are you still be able to kneel down to pray for God’s mercy though it seem so far away from this peaceful place. If one of the answers to these questions could be no, I would rather go back and stay away from this beautiful home for me, in case the evil part of me turns a blind eye to all the things God has done. I’d rather be awakening, for it’s already spring.

On Memorial Religious Seeing in Judaism

On Memorial Religious Seeing in Judaism

Idolatry, as discussed in the article, is either “an improper form of worship” or “the improper god being worshiped”. Icon is a medium bridging the past and the present while idol is the object for worship.  [1](Plate, 240) In that sense, I can see the three memorials not as memory itself but as medium that remind people of the past memories, though they are somewhat somehow created intentionally to resemble the real objects of the past---like the poet carved on the railcar, the special smell of oil, which might mislead people to believe them to be the real “idol” thus generating the practice of worship. 

For the three memorials, these artworks express certain personal or cultural values of artists but whether the interpretation is religious or not can be determined by the viewers through their personal values and whether they see them as icons to reminisce or idols to worship. Thus to make some religious, for one thing, the displayed should be the real object and for another, the viewers t should take it as generator for worship---the religious practice. For example, the three memorials invoke the heavy memory of the past and the call for peace and love from the Judaism. However, if the viewers take the displayed railcar as the real ones used during war time, acknowledge all they see to be part of the history and stand in awe at them---which could be the practice of worship, then the “seeing” becomes religious seeing and the act becomes idolatry.

To answer the last question, art, as I see it, is something of aesthetic and various cultural values which could embody religious value. In Judaism, to worship, or rather say---to be in awe of anything else more than God can be idolatry. That could be part of the contradiction brought by those art forms related to Judaism.

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[1] Plate, S. Religion, Art and Visual Culture. 1st ed. NYC,N.Y.: Palgrave, 2002. 240. Print.

On Eusebius' Church History

What makes this book interesting most for me is the identity of the author of this book. As a historian as well as a Christian---not only a Christian but also an important one), the role he was playing is interestingly shown in his history book. He is recording the history while being part of the history; he is studying the group while being one member of the group; he was praying for the power of God to assist in writing the history work of God. His illustration reads very attractive.

Besides,  it becomes even more interesting to read the comment of the later historians' comments on the old while reading the old. Now spirit moving and brain working, we, as the latest or newest at this time this moment, come up with the latest thoughts and ideas. It's just interesting to compare these three.

On the value of Hinduism

I agree with what Rebekah has said---Hindu art focus on pleasing their gods. As they believe the actual presence of gods/goddesses, every time the appearance of a certain god, though of artistic form, is sacred as a real presence and because of the frequent presence of gods, the sacred worship becomes part of their daily life. Thus I think the value of Hinduism lies in the truthfulness. Beside, this kind of value is expressed by seeing. They values the truthfulness of seeing---which is related to Dashan.


Related link: http://theideasofart.blogspot.com/2011/04/values-of-hinduism.html

On the film Baraka

There was a plethora of images, locations, and religions presented throughout. My questions are: What was the film about? What is the message? Why was there no talking? What does the film say about religion? What does it convey concerning value in religion?

The film is a documentary without story and even talks, but it is also one with abundant stories that can hardly be described by words. These are stories of the present and also the past. These are the common and the difference of the ancient and the modern. These are question marks of development or recession of the human species.

About the theme,I'd rather conclude it as Time.They find something in common in the less developed area and developed areas and connected the scenes---like the repetition work in beating drums and raising chickens.  

About religion, I think the director is also finding the way to show some common practice of worship shared by different religions and also their similar ultimate goal----to find out how and why to live and to die.

I believe the director wants to show us just pictures and music and encourages us to find the anwer of our own. To avoid the intervene of the external guidance might be another reason that the film has no words in it.

On the Apocrypha---The Gospel of Mary

Q: What is your evaluation of this book? Is it a book to die for? Does it seem to you useful and/or interesting? Or is it a book you wouldn't mind seeing burned by government officials? Why?

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/apocrypha.html


BG: RETRIEVED FROM http://www.gnosis.org/library/GMary-King-Intro.html

From the Introduction to:

The Gospel of Mary of Magdala:
Jesus and the First Woman Apostle

by Karen L. Kin

 Yet these scant pages provide an intriguing glimpse into a kind of Christianity lost for almost fifteen hundred years. This astonishingly brief narrative presents a radical interpretation of Jesus' teachings as a path to inner spiritual knowledge; it rejects his suffering and death as the path to eternal life; it exposes the erroneous view that Mary of Magdala was a prostitute for what it is-a piece of theological fiction; it presents the most straightforward and convincing argument in any early Christian writing for the legitimacy of women's leadership; it offers a sharp critique of illegitimate power and a utopian vision of spiritual perfection; it challenges our rather romantic views about the harmony and unanimity of the first Christians; and it asks us to rethink the basis for church authority. All written in the name of a woman.

The Gospel of Mary was written when Christianity, still in its nascent stages, was made up of communities widely dispersed around the Eastern Mediterranean, communities which were often relatively iso­lated from one other and probably each small enough to meet in someone's home without attracting too much notice.

Comment:

The first several chapters---the words the Savior said---sound to me like a collection from the other gospels. Several examples of comparison with other gospels as listed.
1)Mary4:29 He who has a mind to understand, let him understand.32,he who has ears to hear, let him hear
Matthew 11:15 He who has ears, let him hear.
Mark4:9 Then Jesus said, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
2)Mary 5:9 Blessed are you that you did not waver at the sight of Me. For where the mind is there is the treasure.
Matthew6:21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Luke12:34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
3) Mary 4:34 Beware that no one lead you astray saying Lo here or lo there! For the Son of Man is within you.
Luke 17:21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.(KJV)
4)Mary 4: 36 Those who seek Him will find Him.
Matthew 7:7 Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
Luke 11:9 So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

Those listed above can all be found in the canons which is part of Jesus' teaching of different times. Thus it just feels so strange that at the end of the chapter 4, it writes "When He said this He departed." It seems it all came from preaching at one time.

Second, chapter 8 is the most interesting of all, the dialogue among desires, soul and ignorance, and the visions of the different powers of wrath like the seven sins. This is really beyond my poor understanding. Especially what the soul said in Mary 8:21: "What binds me has been slain, and what turns me about has been overcome," Does it mean the struggle of soul to get rid of the bind of body and be submissive to the spirit? Anyway, it's a little bit theatrical.

Third, the last argument in chapter9. It is not in accordance with that age, like an intentional writing arguing for women's rights, the modern verion story based on the ancient teaching.

I don't think this book worth one's life to protect it, at least we've the four gospels there.