Opinion

 Simple Truths – When 40% is a 100%

Life is simple, not complicated. Yet somehow we seem to be caught up in a web of complexities that entrap us. We find ourselves descending into a world of negativity, frustration, anger and what have you.

We seek to find solace and peace in things and people and eventually end up despondent, for no one can give us that perfect peace but God alone. And while God is good and divine, we mortal creatures need human elements to draw strength and inspiration from.

The problem is that there is no single person who can satisfy our human aspirations, be they emotional or physical. Perhaps herein lays the problem. While the one closest to us at this moment seems to be a cut above the rest, they still fall short in some aspects of their life and boy do we want them to change!

For years I advocated a fallacy and perhaps preached a burden that weighed people down. I often said that in a relationship one needs to give a hundred per cent which also implies that the receiver expects to gets one hundred per cent. Nothing can be more ridiculous and idiotic and sheepishly I confess that the dunce cap belongs to me.

Human as we are, it is impossible to give to another a hundred per cent in a relationship. Make no mistake, I am not advocating that we lower our standards, I am just stating that often our goals are unrealistic. It is a miracle if you even get forty per cent in any relationship. Oddly that’s the number I advocate these days for a perfect relationship. If you think you’re getting forty per cent from your significant other you are super blessed.

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Art/ Heritage

opnamedatum: 2006-04-18

INRI: ‘Christ before Pilate’ by Rembrandt (1636)

The indefinable Rembrandt Van Rijn (1606 – 1669) has made his mark in history more through his etchings than his paintings. His scratches and scribbles; his bizarre variety of lines from loose to quick, cross hatched to deep and from dark to blotty have succeeded in depicting the world through its black and white beauty . Rembrandt’s needle like a quill weaved waves of life and creativity. His secret weapon was the dry point technique. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM0qlQ0lyBc )

One of the most powerful prints composed by Rembrandt is undoubtedly ‘Christ before Pilate’. Rembrandt wiped the ink differently each time he printed thus creating several renditions of one image. The plural scene is set with limpid fusion and high emotional intensity. Contrary to Michelangelo, Rembrandt was not obsessed with the muscular. His style is boundless representing the human being in all ages, statures and conditions. They are subtle and yet complex; detailed and yet bare; grouped and yet isolated. But like the musicians of an orchestra Rembrandt’s drawings symphonise to form one unique song of art.   

The lyrics of today’s etching however are piercingly paradoxical. The hailing hosannas have now stifled to the callous ‘Crucify-Him’. The theatre in which the tragic scene unfolds is a stone-clad Roman courtyard, teeming with life. To our left we notice an arched gateway through which pours in an amorphous, anonymous assembly displaying various stages of analysis, anticipation and agitation.

The gesticulating crowd is so grand that it does take an effort to disentangle them for their many individualizing gestures. They prowl over each other and climb up the base of the obelisk surmounted by the bust of a Roman Emperor in order to bear witness to the spectacle set before them. Soldiers are seen mitigating the mob with spears even as a young beardless general lifts up his hand in an attempt to pacify the magnifying multitude now reduced to a minute suffrage.

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Travel

The picturesque village of Ein Kerem (Karem), is nestled 7.5 km south west side of Jerusalem in the mountains. This village goes back to the Canaanite period (the Late Bronze Age, 1550-1200 B.C.), which evolved around the spring that gave its name (Ein Kerem – “the spring of the vineyard”).

According to tradition it is the birthplace of John the Baptist. Five churches and monasteries are located around the village in this Judean town.  Two of them are of great significance in the New Testament; St. John’s (birthplace of John) and the Church of the Visitation (named after Virgin Mary’s visited to the house of John  the Baptist.

People often ask why are there two sites linked to John the Baptist? It is believed that Zechariah and Elizabeth had two houses in Ein Karem. This is not to be understood as some fancy mansion but rather modest dwellings. Their usual residence was in the valley but  apparently they also had a cooler ‘summer house’, high on a hillside which allowed them to escape the heat and humidity.

The summer house is believed to be where the pregnant Elizabeth “remained in seclusion for five months” (Luke 1:24) and where Mary visited her. The house in the valley is where John the Baptist was born. It is here that Zechariah finally regained his power of speech after his son was born, when he obediently wrote on a writing tablet that the baby’s name was to be John.

The village is also famous for it is linked to another tradition. This was the village that was the source of stones used to build The Second Jewish Temple, and according to archaeological finds existed already prior to the Roman period. The site is also identified as “Beit Hakerem” from the Israelite period (Jeremiah 6,1): “O ye children of Benjamin, gather yourselves to flee out of the midst of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and set up a sign of fire in Bethhaccerem”.

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Travel

Holy Land – Church of the Multiplication of fish and loaves.

The shores of Galilee play host to a number of events in the life of Jesus ministry. On these same shore stands the village of Tabgha. The town is on the north western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Tabgha is a corruption of the Greek name, Heptagon, which refers to the seven springs which flow into the Kinneret or Kinnereth (another name for Lake Galilee). The place is 200 meters below sea level and in summer is very hot and humid. Even winters are rarely cold even when it rains.

Whether Tabgha was actually the location of the miracle is not known for sure but tradition holds this place as the location for the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fish described in the Gospel of Mark 6:30-44. The Gospel account of the loaves and fishes does not specify where it took place; only that it was in a “remote place” (6:32, 35) on the shores of Galilee.

courtyard of the Church

The Spanish pilgrim Egeria (the nun) visited this church in the 380 AD and wrote that people would break off pieces of the stone on which Jesus served the meal and they would use the stone as a talisman. She noted that there was a small chapel or shrine which was significantly enlarged around the year 480 AD.  The foundations of this chapel have only been partially uncovered. An inscription attributes its building to the patriarch Matryrios (478-86) which included the addition of the splendid floor mosaic

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Travel

Holy Land – Shall I build three tents?

Mt. Tabor sits at the eastern end of the Jezreel Valley, 11 miles (17 km) west of the Sea of Galilee. Its elevation at the summit is 1,843 feet (575 m) high.  It is used in Scripture as a symbol of majesty. (Jeremiah 46:18, Ps 89:12).

One translation of Tabor in Arabic is ‘the belly button’. If you take your belly button to be the centre of a map then Moses was camped in the South West on Mount Nebo and Elijah was on Mount Carmel in the North West and in the centre was Mt Tabor where Jesus meets both of them on the Mount of Transfiguration . The law represented by Moses, meeting the prophets, represented by Elijah. Even though Moses did not see the promised land in his life time, he did stand in it on the day of the Transfiguration.

Mt. Tabor is probably not the location for the Transfiguration for scripture tells us that Jesus and his disciples are in the region of Caesarea Philippi just prior to the Transfiguration. This is most likely a traditional site as the Gospel accounts are silent as to the location of the Mountain of Transfiguration

In the 2nd millennium BC there was a Canaanite shrine, a “high place,” on Mount Tabor, as there was on other hills like Mount Carmel and Mount Hermon. The god worshipped here was Baal, whose cult spread in the 2nd millennium, as a result of trading links, to the island of Rhodes, where he was worshipped on Mount Atabyrion (1,215 meters) under the name of Zeus Atabyrios. (Atabyrion was also the Greek name for Mount Tabor).

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