PEOPLE OF FAITH #VOTE YES FOR EQUAL MARRIAGE : GATHERING AT ROSS HOUSE, MELBOURNE

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Pope Francis and his meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi : Francis to visit Myanmar in November : Will he meet the Rohingya : Will there be any left to meet

Pope Francis met Aung San Suu Kyi in the Vatican in May 2017 

CREDIT:  TONY GENTILE/ REUTERS POOL

Nicola Smith

28 AUGUST 2017 • 2:00PM

Pope Francis will visit Myanmar in November, the Vatican has announced, amid mounting concern at treatment of that country’s Rohingya Muslim minority

Monday’s announcement came as thousands of refugees attempted to flee into neighbouring Bangladesh after a renewed bout of violence between local insurgents and the army in the restive province of Rakhine.

Members of Myanmar's Muslim Rohingya ethnic minority attempt to enter Bangladesh 

CREDIT: MUSHFIQ ALAM/AP

The pontiff on Sunday decried the “sad news about the persecution of the religious minority of our Rohingya brothers,” urging worshippers gathered in St Peter’s Square in Rome to pray that God “saves them.”

The Myanmar government has reported over 100 deaths since Friday, when armed rebels, reportedly from a group called the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, attacked 30 police outposts with knives, sticks and crude bombs.  

Advocates for the Rohingya told Al Jazeera that at least 800, including dozens of women and children, have been killed in the violence. The claim could not be independently confirmed.

The army has reportedly surrounded the townships of Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Rathedaung, home to 800,000 people, and imposed a nighttime curfew.

An estimated 3,000 refugees entered Bangladesh over the weekend.

The violence marks a dramatic escalation of a conflict that has simmered in the region since October, when Aung San Suu Kyi’s government sent thousands of troops into villages in Rakhine after nine policemen were killed by a suspected Rohingya armed group.

Over 87,000 Rohingya refugees have fled to Bangladesh since amid claims of arson and abuse by the army.

In February, a UN investigation concluded that there had been grave and widespread abuses by the military that “very likely” amounted to crimes against humanity.

The treatment of Myanmar’s 1.1 million strong Rohingya minority, who are denied citizenship in the mainly Buddhist country has emerged as one of the biggest challenges for Aung San Suu Kyi since the former political prisoner secured a landslide in the November 2015 elections.

The Nobel peace laureate has been accused by some Western critics of defending the army’s actions and of not speaking out on behalf of the long-persecuted minority.

Benedict Rogers, East Asia team leader at human rights group Christian Solidarity Worldwide, said the pope’s visit to Myanmar could be an important step towards “genuine peace, reconciliation and justice.”

“To have a worldwide Christian leader such as Pope Francis speaking out and standing in solidarity with a persecuted Muslim community sends a vital message about the importance of freedom of religion or belief and inter-religious harmony,” he said.

~~~~~~

The above is this year's sadness and murder.

Below is the 2015 crop of sadness and murder.

Coming closer to us in Australia.

These refugees below made it to Indonesia.

Indonesia Rescued Hundreds of Likely Rohingya Refugees in Aceh

Posted On 12 May 2015

By : Arvelia Yardhika Ong

Indonesia has rescued almost a thousand boat people, believed to be Rohingya refugees, stranded off Aceh coast. (Photo source: Reuters)

Banda Aceh, GIVNews.com –Almost 1,000 likely Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, including children and women, were rescued in Aceh after two wooden boats stranded off the coast on Monday (11 May 2015).

The first group of 547 refugees was spotted on Sunday morning near the city Lhokseumawe in Aceh, the westernmost province of Indonesia. The overcrowded boats were towed to shore by Indonesian fishermen after they were reportedly running out of fuel. They have been sailing from Thailand since seven days ago and some of the refugees passed away in the journey. The second group was spotted on Monday around 2 AM local time. The evacuation process was carried out by the Search and Rescue Agency in Aceh.

Causes of fatality include dehydration, starvation or abuse by boat crews. Out of all the immigrants who can be rescued, fifty have been sent to the hospital for treatment.

“In general, they were suffering from starvation and many were thin,” said the Chief Police of North Aceh Adj. Sr. Comr. Achmadi, as quoted by the Jakarta Globe.

The refugees will be placed in several shelters and will go through immigration process as well as health and security checks. The International Organization for Migration has sent their officials to Aceh to carry out investigation on this issue. Meanwhile, the local government has been providing food and water for the refugees. Yet, the supply is limited and would not be comparable to the overflowing number of refugees.

According to the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, in the first three months in 2015, there have been an estimated of 25,000 Bangladeshis and Rohingyas refugees who boarded people-smugglers’ board, which has doubled the number of the same period in 2014. The long-persecuted Rohingya people have been fleeing out of Myanmar, also known as Burma, due to the ‘ethnic cleansing’ efforts on the minority Muslims. In spite the fact that the Muslims have been living in Myanmar for generations, they are still perceived as invaders from Bangladesh by people in Myanmar who are majority are Buddhists.

The United Nations listed Rohingya as one of the world’s most persecuted minorities. Previously, Malaysia has also received more than 1,000 refugees from Myanmar and Bangladesh in Langkawi. The arrival of refugees in Malaysia and Indonesia might be due to the fact that there was a crackdown on human trafficking in Thailand, one of the first South East Asian destinations in the human smuggling network. The discovery of mass graves and captives in southern Thailand has prompted a crackdown which led to the arrest of several local officials, powerful politicians, tourism business operators and police officers. The refugees reportedly suffered from extortions, abuses and rapes at camps located in southern Thailand.

Contrast this picture of "human debris"
with the photographs on this post 
of a beautifully groomed Aung San Suu Ky.

Aung San Suu Kyi has denied her government 

is involved in ethnic cleansing 

CREDIT: ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP

however,
there comes a report of brighter news.
IT IS NOT THE BRIGHTEST OF GOOD NEWS.
BUT IT BELIES THE PICTURE OF HUMAN DEBRIS ABOVE.

Racism and Charlottesville a wake-up call for the Catholic Church in the U.S.A.

Religion headlines that matter
	The U.S. Catholic Church’s last major effort on racism was in 1979. Charlottesville woke it up. The Catholic Church in America can't ignore its increasingly browner and blacker face. By Anthea Butler  •  Read more »

EARLIEST LATIN COMMENTARY ON THE CHRISTIAN GOSPELS REDISCOVERED

The earliest Latin commentary on the Gospels, lost for more than 1,500 years, has been rediscovered and made available in English for the first time. The extraordinary find, a work written by a bishop in northern Italy, Fortunatianus of Aquileia, dates back to the middle of the fourth century.

The biblical text of the manuscript is of particular significance, as it predates the standard Latin version known as the Vulgate and provides new evidence about the earliest form of the Gospels in Latin.

Despite references to this commentary in other ancient works, no copy was known to survive until Dr Lukas Dorfbauer, a researcher from the University of Salzburg, identified Fortunatianus’ text in an anonymous manuscript copied around the year 800 and held in Cologne Cathedral Library. The manuscripts of Cologne Cathedral Library were made available online in 2002.

Scholars had previously been interested in this ninth-century manuscript as the sole witness to a short letter which claimed to be from the Jewish high priest Annas to the Roman philosopher Seneca. They had dismissed the 100-page anonymous Gospel commentary as one of numerous similar works composed in the court of Charlemagne. But when he visited the library in 2012, Dorfbauer, a specialist in such writings, could see that the commentary was much older than the manuscript itself.

In fact, it was none other than the earliest Latin commentary on the Gospels.

Please read the whole article here

Lukas J Dorfbauer - Curriculum Vitae

See also the blog of Roger Pearse

David Marr

The fight for women's historic Quranic rights : Triple talaq : India court bans Islamic instant divorce

From the BBC

India's top court has ruled the practice of instant divorce in Islam unconstitutional, marking a major victory for women's rights activists.

In a 3-2 majority verdict, the court called the practice "un-Islamic".

India is one of a handful of countries where a Muslim man can divorce his wife in minutes by saying the word talaq (divorce) three times.

The landmark court decision came in response to petitions challenging the so-called "triple talaq" custom.

The cases were filed by five Muslim women who had been divorced in this way and two rights groups.

Women's rights campaigners have hailed the court's decision as a historic win.

What is instant divorce?

There have been cases in which Muslim men in India have divorced their wives by issuing the so-called triple talaq by letter, telephone and, increasingly, by text message, WhatsApp and Skype. A number of these cases made their way to the courts as women contested the custom.

• How Muslim women won the battle
• The women who challenged triple talaq
• The fight against instant divorce

Triple talaq divorce has no mention in Sharia Islamic law or the Koran, even though the practice has existed for decades.

Islamic scholars say the Koran clearly spells out how to issue a divorce - it has to be spread over three months, allowing a couple time for reflection and reconciliation.

Most Islamic countries, including Pakistan and Bangladesh, have banned triple talaq, but the custom has continued in India, which does not have a uniform set of laws on marriage and divorce that apply to every citizen.

What did the court say?

Three of the five Supreme Court judges called the controversial practice "un-Islamic, arbitrary and unconstitutional". One of the judges, Justice Kurien Joseph, said the practice was not an essential part of Islam and enjoyed no protection.

The judges also said it was "manifestly arbitrary" to allow a man to "break down (a) marriage whimsically and capriciously".

Chief Justice JS Khehar, in a differing opinion, said that personal law could not be touched by a constitutional court of law. The opposing judgements also recommended that parliament legislate on the issue. However this is not binding and is up to parliament to take up.

The Indian government, led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has supported ending the practice. Narendra Modi has brought up the issue several times including in his Independence Day address on 15 August 2017.

'Strong message' - By Geeta Pandey, BBC News

The judgement is a huge victory for Muslim women. For decades, they have had to live with the threat of instant divorce dangling over their heads like a sword.

Campaigners say over the years thousands of women, especially those from poor families, have been discarded by their husbands in this manner. Many have been rendered destitute, with nowhere to go, or have been forced to return to their parental homes or fend for themselves.

The top court has also sent a very strong message to Muslim clergy. India's Muslim personal law board had called the practice "reprehensible" but said that it was not an issue for the courts and government to interfere in. With this latest ruling, this will no longer be the case.

---

How are people reacting?

The judgement is being widely hailed as a major win for Muslim women and women's rights. The prime minister praised the "historic" ruling.

Shayara Bano, one of the main petitioners, said she appealed to people to accept the ruling and not politicise the issue. "I have felt the pain when family breaks. I hope no one has to go through this situation in future," she told reporters.

Hasina Khan, founder of the Bebaak Collective which fought against triple talaq, called the verdict "historic". "We are extremely happy. Muslim women have struggled for years," she told the BBC

Zakia Soman, an activist from Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, another of the groups which contested the practice, said Indian women of many religions had supported them. "It's a historic day for us, but it doesn't end here," she said.

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), which had maintained that the court had no jurisdiction over the matter, has yet to make an official statement on the ruling, but has convened a meeting to decide what its response should be, a report in Indian newspaper The Hindu said.

However, it quoted an executive member as saying that the judgement would have "wide ramifications" as it affected the religious rights of minority groups.

But the All India Muslim Women Personal Law Board (AIWPB), which had opposed the stand of the AIMPLB, said the judgment "could not have been better".

"It will change the entire landscape of Muslim families. It's now in the mainstream and will protect not only women, but children. Families will be more stable because children will also be protected," Chandra Rajan, an advocate for the group, told the BBC.

On social media the hashtags #TripleTalaq and #SupremeCourt began trending on Twitter India even as the verdict was being announced. The hashtag #Tripletalaq is also trending globally on Twitter.

---

Is talaq talaq talaq allowed around the world?

Dating from the 8th Century AD and not mentioned in the Koran, triple talaq divorces often conflict with countries' legal systems.

India has become the 23rd country to outlaw them, joining places as far apart as Egypt, Sri Lanka, the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia.

In countries including China and the UK a couple must go through the official channels to be legally divorced but there have been cases of individuals considering themselves divorced after the triple talaq has been said.

In Saudi Arabia the law leaves room for various interpretations of religious custom, and triple talaq is practised.

This type of verbal divorce is practiced around the world but as it is illegal in so many countries, it is hard to say exactly how common it is.

Why must "talaq" be said three times? Under some interpretations of Islamic law, a man can divorce his wife and get back together with her - but only twice. After the third divorce, the marriage is completely over and cannot be started again without an intervening marriage to someone else.

Scholars are divided on whether it counts as a full and final divorce to say the word three times, or whether it needs to be said on three separate occasions.

and please read this, too.

Terror within and evil without : our capacity for transformation as individuals & nations

From The Editor, one of the most precious sites on the internet is Brain Pickings, masterminded by the wonderful Maria Popova.  There is so much in BP to feed the intellect and the spirit.

The Terror Within and the Evil Without: James Baldwin on Our Capacity for Transformation as Individuals and Nations

“The self,” the poet Robert Penn Warren observed in his immensely insightful meditation on the trouble with “finding yourself,” “is a style of being, continually expanding in a vital process of definition, affirmation, revision, and growth, a process that is the image, we may say, of the life process of a healthy society itself.” Indeed, if the great humanistic philosopher and psychologist Erich Fromm was correct, as I believe he was, in asserting that self-love is the foundation of a sane society, our responsibility to ourselves — and to our selves — is really a responsibility to one another: to know our interiority intimately and hold our darkest sides up to the light of awareness. But part of our human folly is that we do this far less readily than we shine the scorching beam of blameful attention on the darknesses of others.

That is what James Baldwin (August 2, 1924–December 1, 1987) explores in a magnificent 1964 piece titled “Nothing Personal,” found in The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction (public library) — the indispensable volume that gave us Baldwin on the creative process and his definition of love.

James Baldwin (Photograph: Sedat Pakay)

A year after he contemplated “the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are,” Baldwin writes:

It has always been much easier (because it has always seemed much safer) to give a name to the evil without than to locate the terror within. And yet, the terror within is far truer and far more powerful than any of our labels: the labels change, the terror is constant. And this terror has something to do with that irreducible gap between the self one invents — the self one takes oneself as being, which is, however, and by definition, a provisional self — and the undiscoverable self which always has the power to blow the provisional self to bits.

Echoing Bruce Lee’s assertion that “to become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are,” Baldwin turns his critical yet uncynical intellect toward our capacity for self-transformation — the most difficult and rewarding of our inner resources comprising our collective potentiality:

It is perfectly possible — indeed, it is far from uncommon — to go to bed one night, or wake up one morning, or simply walk through a door one has known all one’s life, and discover, between inhaling and exhaling, that the self one has sewn together with such effort is all dirty rags, is unusable, is gone: and out of what raw material will one build a self again? The lives of men — and, therefore, of nations — to an extent literally unimaginable, depend on how vividly this question lives in the mind. It is a question which can paralyze the mind, of course; but if the question does not live in the mind, then one is simply condemned to eternal youth, which is a synonym for corruption.

Complement this particular portion of the wholly invigorating The Price of the Ticket with pioneering social scientist John Gardner on the art of self-renewaland Tibetan Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön on self-transformation through difficult times, then revisit Baldwin on freedom and how we imprison ourselves, the artist’s struggle, the writer’s responsibility in a divided society, and his increasingly timely forgotten conversations with Chinua Achebe about the political power of art, with Margaret Mead about identity, race, and the experience of otherness, and with Nikki Giovanni about what it means to be truly empowered.

Multifaith? Spiritually independent? Prayer guides for you ...

The material below has been excerpted from here. Please go to the linked website to find even more material. The material below is merely a glimpse, a taste.

Many people today are creating their own prayer books, collecting in a journal or a computer file favorite prayers from childhood, congregational experiences, retreats, and personal reading. Those of us on a multifaith or spiritually independent path are discovering that we are heir to all the devotional practices and resources of the world's religions, including a wide variety of prayers. The following resources provide access to this rich heritage with new and old prayers that approach life's experiences and the world around us with faith, love, compassion, justice, forgiveness, reverence, joy, and wonder.

In Secrets of Prayer: A Multifaith Guide to Creating Personal Prayer in Your Life(SkyLight Paths, 2007), Nancy Corcoran notes: "Just as we need physical diversity to survive, we also need spiritual diversity — nourishment from a variety of 'soul foods' — to grow spiritually. No one tradition or way of seeing the Divine will fit every human person or feed every human need. And therein lies another secret of prayer: Diversity in prayer is the food of spiritual growth."

Corcoran is a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph and founder of grass/roots: Women's Spirituality Center. In this excellent multifaith resource, she presents prayer practices from many different traditions, adding some fascinating stories on multiple ways of experiencing the Holy. A chapter on the senses as a vehicle of prayer is filled with many helpful spiritual practices.

Stephanie Dowrick is a prolific writer, a trained psychotherapist, and a spiritual leader and teacher. In the opening chapter of Heaven on Earth: Timeless Prayers of Wisdom and Love (Tarcher/ Penguin, 2013) she praises prayer as a restorative process that anchors us, brings life back when our faith has faltered, and opens our hearts to the grace in our lives. It also is a very helpful resource in times of illness, loss, grief, and death.

Dowrick offers the following advice on how to pray: pray in the present moment, make the prayer your own, check what motivates you, choose your prayers spontaneously, let instinct guide you, commit to prayer, pray often, and value the miracle. She uses these two quotations as ballasts for the book: "Prayer is a longing of the soul. . . . and an instrument of action" from Mahatma Gandhi and from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel: "Prayer cannot bring water to parched fields, mend a broken bridge, or rebuild a broken city, but prayer can water an arid soul, mend a broken heart, and rebuild a weakened will."

In seven chapters, Dowrick shares a treasure-trove of prayers, quotations, and sacred texts from all the world's religions and spiritual paths, giving the reader a chance to connect with God, the mysteries of human nature, the triumphs and tragedies of everyday life, and the ample wonders of light, love, and personal transformation.

God Has No Religion: Blending Traditions for Prayer (Sorin Books, 2005) by Francis Goulart is the kind of resource that should become a staple in these times when people of many traditions are regularly interacting. Blending traditions for prayer can deepen our own faith, as Karen Armstrong has pointed out: "By learning to pray the prayers of people who do not share our beliefs we can learn at a level deeper than creedal, to value their faith."

Matters numerological, astrological, and astronomical - and stone circles

The Editor's friend Junitta is an artist living in Gippsland in Victoria.  We met some years ago on an interfaith journey to the Murray River.  Junitta's spiritual leanings take a different path from that of The Editor and The Editor does not pretend to have the fullest grasp of that which Junitta espouses - but is always pleased to receive her informative emails which tell of the current situation with matters numerological, astrological and astronomical.

The Editor once would not have paid attention to this sort of material but, in her increasing years and her increasing knowledge and respect for the created universe, she no longer readily dismisses these matters.

Here is the latest email ... forwarding another email:

I have many of Neil’s Books, all excellent, well researched and full of the wonders that people of that time achieved. Definitely not smelly, skin clad or ignorant folk as depicted in so many so called documentaries.

The mathematics and geometry are brilliant.

Although Neil doesn’t mention it, there is a correlation with sound connecting Stone Circles all around the world. 

This use of sound was known to many Indigenous peoples eg There is an Astrological Gong in Great Zimbabwe. It is a small group of three stone slabs, the tops are cut at an angle. There is a corresponding group of Stones in the Orkneys, called the Stones of Stennes they are a huge ‘replica’ of the African Gong!!

When will the Rock Concert begin?

Xxxx

Junitta

From: Neil L. Thomas [mailto:enjaytom@bigpond.com]
Sent: Friday, 18 August 2017 11:35 AM

Subject: StonehengeHeritage&History.book

Greetings Everyone,

The attached is today’s fully complete and all that copy of my “Stonehenge Heritage & History” book, 48 pages A4, 16,000 words and lots of pictures.

It is my intention have a book publisher market it at the Stonehenge visitor centre, a throughput of a million visitors a year. Cross your fingers for me.

Diolch, tak, thanks, merci,  Neil, xxx

STONEHENGE HERITAGE & HISTORY concerns the history of Stonehenge ancient monument in southern England and the people who built it. Living in Britain in the third millennium BC, people were thinking, clever, constructive and hard working folk who possessed knowledge and skills previously unknown to and not appreciated by today’s generations of historians. This book explains how arithmetic, geometry, linear measurements, geometric principles were well established and consistently employed in the design and construction of Stonehenge and its contemporary surrounding ancient monuments over a wide area. Stonehenge Age 2500 BC buildings tallied both Sun and Moon calendars, the ability to forecast the next lunar total eclipse cycles every 18 years and 11 days. 

            An apocalyptic event about 2240 BC caused a decades long world –wide climatic change. Communities eventually recovered by 2000 BC with the inauguration of the Bronze Age. In the architectural traditions of Stonehenge an application of the progressive arithmetic series; previously the ‘Fibonacci Series’ is seen as the core design basis of the two monuments. one plus two equals the third number -  1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89,144,233,377,610,987,1597. The Cursus ancient monument feature to the north has direct links with Stonehenge. Stonehenge can rightly be termed the world’s first university. Its successor in time is Parliament House, Canberra, Australia and the façade viewed across the lake.

Editor's Note:  Please go here for beautiful pictures and commentary regarding the Standing Stones of Stenness in the Orkneys.