August 6 marks 68 years since the United States committed what is arguably the single gravest act of terrorism that the world has ever known. Terrorism means the deliberate targeting of innocent civilians, and targeted they were, with the cutely named “Little Boy” atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima at a location and time of day when, as the Strategic Bombing Survey commissioned by President Harry Truman conceded, “nearly all the school children ... were at work in the open,” a perfect opportunity for mass incineration.
"That fateful summer, 8:15," the mayor of Hiroshima recalled at a memorial service in 2007, "the roar of a B-29 breaks the morning calm. A parachute opens in the blue sky. Then suddenly, a flash, an enormous blast—silence—hell on earth. The eyes of young girls watching the parachute were melted. Their faces became giant charred blisters. The skin of people seeking help dangled from their fingernails. ... Others died when their eyeballs and internal organs burst from their bodies. Hiroshima was a hell where those who somehow survived envied the dead. Within the year, 140,000 had died.”
(--from The Nation, A Statement of Peace, or an Epitaph, by Robert Scheer) August 6, 2013 http://www.thenation.com/article/175620/statement-peace-or-epitaph#axzz2bDMJyO4jNo justification, no explanation. Al Qaeda, no doubt, has their particular rationalization of 9/11.
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| "Chain Reaction," by Paul Conrad, Santa Monica CA |
In the Koine Greek of the New Testament, "the son of man" invariably used as "ὁ υἱὸς τοὺ ἀνθρώπου", which might be rendered more literally "the son of the human being". The singular Hebrew expression "son of man" (בן–אדם i.e. ben-'adam) also appears over a hundred times in theHebrew Bible.[2] In thirty two cases the phrase appears in intermediate plural form "sons of men", i.e. human beings.[2]The expression "the Son of man" appears 81 times in the Koine Greek of the four Gospels: thirty times in Matthew, 14 times in Mark, twenty five times in Luke and 12 times in John.[8][1] However, the use of the definite article in "the Son of man" is novel, and before its use in the Canonical gospels, there are no records of its use in any of the surviving Greek documents of antiquity.[1]Geza Vermes has stated that "the son of man" in the New Testament is unrelated to Hebrew Bible usages. Vermes begins with the observation that there is no example of "the" son of man in Hebrew sources and suggests that the term originates in Aramaic — ברנש - bar nash/bar nasha.[3]He concludes that in these sources "Son of man" is a regular expression for man in general and often serves as an indefinite pronoun and in none of the extant texts does "son of man" figure as a title.[3]The occurrences of Son of man in the Synoptic gospels are generally categorized into three groups: those that refer to his "coming" (as an exaltation), those that refer to "suffering" and those that refer to "now at work", i.e. referring to the earthly life.[8][4][9]The presentation of Son of man in the Gospel of John is somewhat different from the Synoptics and in John 1:51 he is presented as contact with God through "angelic instrumentality", in John 6:26 and 6:53 he provides life through his death and in John 5:27 he holds the power to judge men.[8]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_of_man_(Christianity)What if the "Christ" that so many argue about and teach were to be reconsidered as this family of sentient beings occupying the earth?
No Going Back
No, no, there is no going back.
Less and less you are
that possibility you were.
More and more you have become
those lives and deaths
that have belonged to you.
You have become a sort of grave
containing much that was
and is no more in time, beloved
then, now, and always.
And so you have become a sort of tree
standing over a grave.
Now more than ever you can be
generous toward each day
that comes, young, to disappear
forever, and yet remain
unaging in the mind.
Every day you have less reason
not to give yourself away.
(--Poem by Wendell Berry)
Finding What You Didn't Lose
When someone deeply listens to you
it is like holding out a dented cup
you've had since childhood
and watching it fill up with
cold, fresh water.
When it balances on top of the brim,
you are understood.
When it overflows and touches your skin,
you are loved.
When someone deeply listens to you,
the room where you stay
starts a new life
and the place where you wrote
your first poem
begins to glow in your mind's eye.
It is as if gold has been discovered!
When someone deeply listens to you,
your bare feet are on the earth
and a beloved land that seemed distant
is now at home within you.
(--Poem by John Fox)
The Principles of Zazen
(-- Zen Master Dogen, "The Principles of Zazen")
