B"H
Itzhak and Rivka has two sons Ya'acov and Esav. From the their conception to their birth and beyond they struggled with each other. Two very different people, and one was flawed and the other strove for perfection and sought to I come his limitations. Ya'acov who was conceived first, should have been born first. But it was the younger hairy red Esav who pushed to the front to attempt to steal the birthright from his brother Ya'acov, who was allowed later to regain the birthright both through the actions of his mother Rivka and Esav himself.
What does Esav represent for us, but a person who does follow his own desires, a hunter and a trapper of men with his tongue. He is actually cleverer, more cunning by far than Ya'acov. Ya'acov dwells in tents, he is a civilised and sweet human being, a bit naive, gentle and compassionate. He does not want to trick his father, but Rivka knows that for his own survival in this world he must develop insight and vision in dealing with the Esav's of this world even though they are his own brother, in ord to survive. Esav is a hunter, a cunning predator and Rivka knows that if it suited him he would have no compassion or conscience about even killing Ya'acov if he could benefit from it. He is a person who follows only what is best for Esav. He is all ego and a me first person. Ya'acov who was born hanging onto his heel, is no match for him when he is younger. Rivka knows this. Ya'acov who dwells in the tents, does care for others. He is cooking the meal of mourning for his father Itzhak at the death of Avraham when Esav comes in and demands of him,'Give me some of that red stuff,' He has been out in the fields while Ya'acov has tended to the needs of the dead and the mourner. Ya'acov has instinctive insight into fulfilling the needs of others on many levels.
Esav does not. He is a person with great potential but all of it is used for his own gains and nothing for others. He is potentially very dangerous to cross. When Ya'acov takes back his birthright, Esav wants to kill him and that is why Rivka tells Ya'acov to flee.
The lesson that Ya'acov has learnt with his own family does him in good stead when dealing with another trickster Laban.
If we see into people that we come into contact with we can see both the qualities of Ya'acov and Esav. There are those who are very much immersed in the physicality of this world. Their senses are closed to the spiritual realms. It does not mean that they can not comprehend different dimensions, they can, but they do not want to do so. It involves too much effort and self sacrifice. They have to step out of themselves and imagine how another person would feel or why they act as they do. They are locked within their view or perspective of the world. To step into the realms of another view we need to focus on that person and see them with compassion and understanding. The Esav's of this world are focused only on their appetites and immediate satisfaction of physical desires.
Ya'acov contemplates and strives to understand a situation, a person and a concept. Ya'acov looks to the future and not just of the first generation but succeeding generations. Ya'acov himself was also flawed in his absolute love for Yosef at the expense of his brothers and also Yosef himself.
There is a little bit of Ya'acov in all of us, just as there is the Esav. The latter, untrammelled desires, doing what we want without thinking of our family and those around us, eating and drinking, using our resources with abandon, pleasure seeking hedonists are the Esav's of this world. Many of them are such sad and bitter people, because nothing will ever be enough or fill the void. They are rarely content and seek to always get what they want and more and more. Their eyes search hungrily for the next thrill, sexual adventure, people to trick and deceive to make money and who cares if they swindle and cheat and destroy to do so, they do not. They swallow all in their path if they can.
Ya'acov on the other hand, contemplates, learns and is a builder of the generations - a family man and a maker of peace. Think how hard it must have been for Ya'acov married to two sisters. That in and of itself, must have been a feat of extreme sensitivity and compassion on his part.
Ya'acov teaches us the fine line between excessive controls and fulfilment of desires and how to do the right thing when all our instincts and passions may be saying 'Oh G-D this is so unfair! Why,why me? We must learn patience and perseverance and fix we have to trick in order to gain back what is rightfully ours or to survive murderous intents of others, then we must.
Shabbat Shalom
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
A Tragedy that could have been AVOIDED
B"H
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/
national/mans-body-found-near-waterhole-in-mutawintja-national-park/story-fndo317g-1226516860468
Today there is a report in the paper about a group of three people who did something so unbelievably foolish. They were in outback NSW and had a crash. It is November and getting very warm during the days but still very cold at nights in some of the desert areas out near Broken Hill.
The first thing they did wrong was to leave their car. One wonders if they had enough water on board as well.
I used to travel with my son who was a baby at the time to see my mother in Charleville. It was a long trip. We used to go up through Griffith to Hillston on the Kidman Highway through Cobar, Bourke and on to Cunnamulla, Wyandra and then finally to Charleville. It was a long and tiring trip but I did it despite the expense (I can no longer afford to see my mother since I have been out of work for years) because my mother did enjoy our visits I did think.
However some tips for travelling.
I always made sure I had two twenty five litre containers of water and a fuel container with a spare fan belt and spare oil. You do not travel those roads unprepared. Have a recent road map on board, a phone charger that works. If there is an accident and you do not know where you are and there is no reception you are in big trouble. However, what many people do is keep friends or the police in the next town notified of their location. If you make an arrangement to check in with a friend or two every couple of hours then it is easier for the SES to locate you. For example, ring when you start out in the morning or sms this rellie or friend and check in again at lunch time or around 12 noon and then again at say 3pm and when you finish driving for the day. If something happens, DON'T leave your bloody car. It may be the only shade you have and you should be carrying spare water for a couple of days at least.
The Barrier Highway to Wilcannia and Broken Hill is even more isolated than the road between Hillson and Cobar.
When you are tired, you rest. I used to rest every couple of hours but still had an accident one trip when a front tire blew out just over the border into Queensland. I had just had a break of an hour or so at the truck stop just below the border in NSW at Barringun. I was tired as we had only another 125 kms to Cunnamulla and I was thinking to drop in and see my Aunt who was the Nursing Supervisor there and stay over night with her before continuing on to Charleville another 200 kms north.
As it was I did not handle the blowout of the tire despite it happening when I was only going 80 kms an hour and the car over turned. I used to be a bit of a speed hog before my child was born. It's funny how having a kid changes your perceptions on what is acceptable. I used to think that doing 140 on the back roads of the country, even dirt tracks was ok because there were no other cars around and you would only kill yourself, no loss to the world I used to think.
All that changed when I had a child to look after as well as myself. His needs come before mine. They still do. Your children are the reason we are put in this world. Yes, I agree some who choose to be or do not choose to be childless do have other missions to fulfil in the world. All who are wanting children badly and have the means to support and give them loving homes and raise them to be good people, honest people and compassionate people, G-D should bless them in revealed ways.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/
national/mans-body-found-near-waterhole-in-mutawintja-national-park/story-fndo317g-1226516860468
Today there is a report in the paper about a group of three people who did something so unbelievably foolish. They were in outback NSW and had a crash. It is November and getting very warm during the days but still very cold at nights in some of the desert areas out near Broken Hill.
The first thing they did wrong was to leave their car. One wonders if they had enough water on board as well.
I used to travel with my son who was a baby at the time to see my mother in Charleville. It was a long trip. We used to go up through Griffith to Hillston on the Kidman Highway through Cobar, Bourke and on to Cunnamulla, Wyandra and then finally to Charleville. It was a long and tiring trip but I did it despite the expense (I can no longer afford to see my mother since I have been out of work for years) because my mother did enjoy our visits I did think.
However some tips for travelling.
I always made sure I had two twenty five litre containers of water and a fuel container with a spare fan belt and spare oil. You do not travel those roads unprepared. Have a recent road map on board, a phone charger that works. If there is an accident and you do not know where you are and there is no reception you are in big trouble. However, what many people do is keep friends or the police in the next town notified of their location. If you make an arrangement to check in with a friend or two every couple of hours then it is easier for the SES to locate you. For example, ring when you start out in the morning or sms this rellie or friend and check in again at lunch time or around 12 noon and then again at say 3pm and when you finish driving for the day. If something happens, DON'T leave your bloody car. It may be the only shade you have and you should be carrying spare water for a couple of days at least.
The Barrier Highway to Wilcannia and Broken Hill is even more isolated than the road between Hillson and Cobar.
When you are tired, you rest. I used to rest every couple of hours but still had an accident one trip when a front tire blew out just over the border into Queensland. I had just had a break of an hour or so at the truck stop just below the border in NSW at Barringun. I was tired as we had only another 125 kms to Cunnamulla and I was thinking to drop in and see my Aunt who was the Nursing Supervisor there and stay over night with her before continuing on to Charleville another 200 kms north.
As it was I did not handle the blowout of the tire despite it happening when I was only going 80 kms an hour and the car over turned. I used to be a bit of a speed hog before my child was born. It's funny how having a kid changes your perceptions on what is acceptable. I used to think that doing 140 on the back roads of the country, even dirt tracks was ok because there were no other cars around and you would only kill yourself, no loss to the world I used to think.
All that changed when I had a child to look after as well as myself. His needs come before mine. They still do. Your children are the reason we are put in this world. Yes, I agree some who choose to be or do not choose to be childless do have other missions to fulfil in the world. All who are wanting children badly and have the means to support and give them loving homes and raise them to be good people, honest people and compassionate people, G-D should bless them in revealed ways.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Gay Rights to Rites - HAD a GUT FULL of them!
B'H
Just picked up my mail in the post office today and had a chat with my postmistress. We often have a little chat. One of the benefits of country living is that you can form close chatty relationships with people like the Post mistress, the school teachers that teach your child, the garbage truck collector and the local shire people that you normally would not even give the time of day in the city because you are too busy rushing here and there. The country pace of life is slower and more civilised.
These are the normal every day simple folk who go about their business and are salt of the earth, commonsense individuals. We talked about the push for these same sex marriages and the Hu Ha about gay peoples' rights to rites and frankly both of us found it disturbing. As she said, we can't get away from them and just have a normal TV experience, we have to have gay people in soaps, gay newsreaders, gay radio shows, gay politicians (quite frankly they are the worst), gay bars,gay events, gay movie stars and the rest.
I used to go to the movies, but don't any more or if I do, I can only watch the kid shows or G rated stuff. Some of the PGs are now too adult for me and mine. Do I want to go to the movies and be confronted with two women pawing each other's naked bodies on the big screen? NO. Do I find the sight of two men simulating G-D only knows what on a big screen? NO, NO. Do I want to view a man and a woman being intimate in a way that they should be behind a locked door at home in private on a big screen in front of me? NO, definitely NOT.
We have become such a vulgar society. What is worst is that it is seen by younger under thirties and even the forty and fifty somethings as 'normal'. Don't ask about the younger teens and twenties group. It is all they have ever known and having video games with androgynous females being battered and thrown about, is entertainment. That is the scary part that nice society and manners has all gone out the window. We are all about the rights of this and that person or group, that we really do not know who we are or what we are.
Look at the Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Yes, she is a woman. Is she an appropriate role model for young women? Think again. She has been cohabitating with her current partner for and does not marry him despite holding the highest government office position in the country. Is that what one wants for a daughter? Not at all. But these are modern times. They also had 'modern times' in ancient Rome and also in Egypt. She has also had some very questionable dealings involving finance and while Slater and Gordon are good at covering up what happened to these funds, there is only so long you can keep the lid on a simmering pot and one day it will boil over with the help of one of her political rivals. Julia needs to watch her back.
Then, we have our dear Craig Thompson. How a person like that gets into Parliament and we pay for a greasy pig like that to represent an electorate who knows? This country is really going to the dingoes and the rabbits.
With John Howard there was not a whiff of a scandal and the guy led a boring life, but he did the job he was paid to do. Not so these ALP coots. The go to see a bit of lap dancing, fiddle with funds that they should not have their dirty little fingers on, visit a massage parlour or two and have a little bit of R and R at the expense of the tax payer or the Union members and we say and do nothing. It is beyond a joke.
Then they want in NSW to educate kids that being gay is 'normal'. Where is it going to end?
I say let's start a Radio Station for Rednecks and get Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones to hit the airways. Let's call it Radio Rednecks United with Bogan Conservatives. We could have talk shows for the norm of society and we will not discriminate against gays.
We will put them on for an hour a day at midnight (past the family hours) with Alan Jones, Tony Abbot and Fred Nile if he is still alive, or maybe we could call him back from the other side, and let them present their case for equality despite being a minuscule cult part of the population. This gay cult thing needs to be stopped in its tracks before they destroy the minds and intellect of our young and vulnerable.
Just picked up my mail in the post office today and had a chat with my postmistress. We often have a little chat. One of the benefits of country living is that you can form close chatty relationships with people like the Post mistress, the school teachers that teach your child, the garbage truck collector and the local shire people that you normally would not even give the time of day in the city because you are too busy rushing here and there. The country pace of life is slower and more civilised.
These are the normal every day simple folk who go about their business and are salt of the earth, commonsense individuals. We talked about the push for these same sex marriages and the Hu Ha about gay peoples' rights to rites and frankly both of us found it disturbing. As she said, we can't get away from them and just have a normal TV experience, we have to have gay people in soaps, gay newsreaders, gay radio shows, gay politicians (quite frankly they are the worst), gay bars,gay events, gay movie stars and the rest.
I used to go to the movies, but don't any more or if I do, I can only watch the kid shows or G rated stuff. Some of the PGs are now too adult for me and mine. Do I want to go to the movies and be confronted with two women pawing each other's naked bodies on the big screen? NO. Do I find the sight of two men simulating G-D only knows what on a big screen? NO, NO. Do I want to view a man and a woman being intimate in a way that they should be behind a locked door at home in private on a big screen in front of me? NO, definitely NOT.
We have become such a vulgar society. What is worst is that it is seen by younger under thirties and even the forty and fifty somethings as 'normal'. Don't ask about the younger teens and twenties group. It is all they have ever known and having video games with androgynous females being battered and thrown about, is entertainment. That is the scary part that nice society and manners has all gone out the window. We are all about the rights of this and that person or group, that we really do not know who we are or what we are.
Look at the Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Yes, she is a woman. Is she an appropriate role model for young women? Think again. She has been cohabitating with her current partner for and does not marry him despite holding the highest government office position in the country. Is that what one wants for a daughter? Not at all. But these are modern times. They also had 'modern times' in ancient Rome and also in Egypt. She has also had some very questionable dealings involving finance and while Slater and Gordon are good at covering up what happened to these funds, there is only so long you can keep the lid on a simmering pot and one day it will boil over with the help of one of her political rivals. Julia needs to watch her back.
Then, we have our dear Craig Thompson. How a person like that gets into Parliament and we pay for a greasy pig like that to represent an electorate who knows? This country is really going to the dingoes and the rabbits.
With John Howard there was not a whiff of a scandal and the guy led a boring life, but he did the job he was paid to do. Not so these ALP coots. The go to see a bit of lap dancing, fiddle with funds that they should not have their dirty little fingers on, visit a massage parlour or two and have a little bit of R and R at the expense of the tax payer or the Union members and we say and do nothing. It is beyond a joke.
Then they want in NSW to educate kids that being gay is 'normal'. Where is it going to end?
I say let's start a Radio Station for Rednecks and get Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones to hit the airways. Let's call it Radio Rednecks United with Bogan Conservatives. We could have talk shows for the norm of society and we will not discriminate against gays.
We will put them on for an hour a day at midnight (past the family hours) with Alan Jones, Tony Abbot and Fred Nile if he is still alive, or maybe we could call him back from the other side, and let them present their case for equality despite being a minuscule cult part of the population. This gay cult thing needs to be stopped in its tracks before they destroy the minds and intellect of our young and vulnerable.
Workshop on Behaviours in Secondary Schools
B'H
I went to a workshop on secondary school students and management of behaviours. I cannot say I was impressed. The gentleman giving the workshop and I have totally different approaches. I am, I guess what he would call a 'rule Nazi' and he is into being friendly and casual with students. We do agree on some points however, like no handing out of personal mobile numbers or allowing students to 'friend' you on FaceBook.
I have one main rule in the classroom and that is 1. > 10. Follow the teacher's instructions. We usually discuss it on the first day and do a quick brainstorm on expectations for the class room with a flow chart for consequences both positive and negative with student input.
He was right in the way the classroom rules were set up, but I did not like his attitude. Students need boundary s and feel more secure with structure in the way the lesson progresses and also consistent and fair rules, but they also need interesting and engaging work to involve them. Positive reinforcement and praise he hardly mentioned and also he backpedaled from something thrown at him by a young male teacher who was obviously undermined. He steered in a cowardly fashion away from criticizing the principal who bought back into the classroom, a boy who had been quite violently physically towards this teacher.
That is where I have a problem. I think constructive criticism of peers (not in front of students as was done to me by my so called HT when she did not have the full story) should be par for course.You do not bring a violent or badly behaved student back into a classroom. If you are a principal, he is obviously in your domain for a reason, that reason being that a higher authority and an investigation is needed to deal with the boy's behaviour. Throwing him back into the classroom disrespects the authority of the teacher who sent him to you in the first place and please hear the teacher's side of the story. There usually is more to the story.
Give teachers credibility and credit for commonsense. Yes, I know there are teachers who are stupid and use their phones to make soft core porn of their marital life and bring it to work or teachers who are over friendly with students, BUT that is NOT all of us and for every DUM DUM who behaves badly and it gets into the media, there are thousands of decent, caring and compassionate individuals who are teachers and work their ass off in schools to educate kids for the future, theirs, yours and ours. We need to ensure that our kids have the correct values systems in place, before they hit the streets of life running after we finish with them in the school system. They need to be resourceful, responsible and respectful young adults with healthy self esteem that allows them to be respected by others, happy and able to trust. I have found that the best young people have the ability to be friends with people younger than them, they can be nurturing and allow themselves to be nurtured and mentored by older adults as well as their peers. We all have something to learn from others. I learn from my son things that I had forgotten from my childhood. We needed to have known then what we know now and it gets harder as you get older to understand yourself and how you acted at an earlier time. Does that make sense, probably not. It is late so off to meditate and go to sleep.
I went to a workshop on secondary school students and management of behaviours. I cannot say I was impressed. The gentleman giving the workshop and I have totally different approaches. I am, I guess what he would call a 'rule Nazi' and he is into being friendly and casual with students. We do agree on some points however, like no handing out of personal mobile numbers or allowing students to 'friend' you on FaceBook.
I have one main rule in the classroom and that is 1. > 10. Follow the teacher's instructions. We usually discuss it on the first day and do a quick brainstorm on expectations for the class room with a flow chart for consequences both positive and negative with student input.
He was right in the way the classroom rules were set up, but I did not like his attitude. Students need boundary s and feel more secure with structure in the way the lesson progresses and also consistent and fair rules, but they also need interesting and engaging work to involve them. Positive reinforcement and praise he hardly mentioned and also he backpedaled from something thrown at him by a young male teacher who was obviously undermined. He steered in a cowardly fashion away from criticizing the principal who bought back into the classroom, a boy who had been quite violently physically towards this teacher.
That is where I have a problem. I think constructive criticism of peers (not in front of students as was done to me by my so called HT when she did not have the full story) should be par for course.You do not bring a violent or badly behaved student back into a classroom. If you are a principal, he is obviously in your domain for a reason, that reason being that a higher authority and an investigation is needed to deal with the boy's behaviour. Throwing him back into the classroom disrespects the authority of the teacher who sent him to you in the first place and please hear the teacher's side of the story. There usually is more to the story.
Give teachers credibility and credit for commonsense. Yes, I know there are teachers who are stupid and use their phones to make soft core porn of their marital life and bring it to work or teachers who are over friendly with students, BUT that is NOT all of us and for every DUM DUM who behaves badly and it gets into the media, there are thousands of decent, caring and compassionate individuals who are teachers and work their ass off in schools to educate kids for the future, theirs, yours and ours. We need to ensure that our kids have the correct values systems in place, before they hit the streets of life running after we finish with them in the school system. They need to be resourceful, responsible and respectful young adults with healthy self esteem that allows them to be respected by others, happy and able to trust. I have found that the best young people have the ability to be friends with people younger than them, they can be nurturing and allow themselves to be nurtured and mentored by older adults as well as their peers. We all have something to learn from others. I learn from my son things that I had forgotten from my childhood. We needed to have known then what we know now and it gets harder as you get older to understand yourself and how you acted at an earlier time. Does that make sense, probably not. It is late so off to meditate and go to sleep.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Walking Boundary Fences
There are some who love lines
Drawn deep in sand, dragged out furrows
That make impressive barriers
Until the ocean waves swoop and swallow
Them whole, chanting all the time,'that's mine, mine.'
A lisping whisper that becomes a roar
of robes and placards stating'death to freedom'
Or is it death through freedom unbound?
There are some who love walls
That will tower tall over us all.
That will keep us locked in
Away from me, you, them and him.
We have our own little enclaves and heaven help us
If our slaves will mingle and our worlds collide thus
There will be hell to pay for the sins of the bound
And those too different dare not make a sound,
There are hidden doors somewhere but hard to find
Even more difficult for those who are blind.
There are some who love fences
And I must say, with that concept I am quite taken,
but not fences of razor strands stretching out
for miles and of the worst kind, without a doubt.
But fences of netting and these are the best
especially with a gate here and there
To allow some fingers to poke through
To the other side and contact and to see
what might be on the other side of the fence.
Netting is strong for the job, it keeps pests out
for the majority and confines the beasts
To the appropriate pastures
At the appropriate times
But still it needs to be walked
Regularly to repair breaches
to close the holes like all good husbandmen
Would do to keep the soul whole
for this day and the next.
Drawn deep in sand, dragged out furrows
That make impressive barriers
Until the ocean waves swoop and swallow
Them whole, chanting all the time,'that's mine, mine.'
A lisping whisper that becomes a roar
of robes and placards stating'death to freedom'
Or is it death through freedom unbound?
There are some who love walls
That will tower tall over us all.
That will keep us locked in
Away from me, you, them and him.
We have our own little enclaves and heaven help us
If our slaves will mingle and our worlds collide thus
There will be hell to pay for the sins of the bound
And those too different dare not make a sound,
There are hidden doors somewhere but hard to find
Even more difficult for those who are blind.
There are some who love fences
And I must say, with that concept I am quite taken,
but not fences of razor strands stretching out
for miles and of the worst kind, without a doubt.
But fences of netting and these are the best
especially with a gate here and there
To allow some fingers to poke through
To the other side and contact and to see
what might be on the other side of the fence.
Netting is strong for the job, it keeps pests out
for the majority and confines the beasts
To the appropriate pastures
At the appropriate times
But still it needs to be walked
Regularly to repair breaches
to close the holes like all good husbandmen
Would do to keep the soul whole
for this day and the next.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
The Catholic Church really needs to do some work on itself
B'H
There are big problems for the Catholic church in Australia with this latest spat of child abuse cases bursting from the woodwork like maggots from a rotting corpse being dug up after a few weeks in the ground. It just goes to show that you deal with problems now before they get bigger and more rotten by the week, day, hour or minute. Up to 70 % of an order of priests are connected to child abuse. Shocking, but it appears to be that more than a few paedophiles found a literal 'garden of Eden' in the young, very vulnerable children that they had access to unhindered in homes set up to help and 'nurture kids in poor or no family situations. They were able to abuse at will because they were in a position of trust and power within this organisation. Who would believe a little boy of ten or eleven when he says that the priests had taken him away for an orgy of buggery? There is an old saying that 'birds of a feather flock together'. How very apt when applied in this case. These kids with no real family to look out for them were ideal victims. They could be raped and abused with ease and when they became substance abusers because of the abuse, well, they were bad boys to begin with weren't they, telling lies about the priests?? Think about what happened and it makes your blood run cold.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/pell-urged-to-close-order-over-abuses-20121111-296ng.html
A Dr Michelle Mulvihill who actually at one time worked for the order in dealing and negotiating with child abuse victims, has apparently stated, over 75% of this particular Order of St John are paedophiles of the worst type who pack raped vulnerable children and possibly killed two boys, apart from the boys whose death by suicide because of childhood abuse is possibly not attributed to the abuse they suffered in a home run by these insidious people. Often these sick individuals will find ways to blame the victims as they are shifted from parish to parish to parish as the Catholic Church protects these vile individuals hiding in the folds of their priestly cassocks.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/list-grows-of-abusers-moved-from-parish-to-parish-20121111-296ht.html
One wonders how the Catholic church can produce people like Mother Theresa and people who devote themselves to helping others and then protects the social filth or bottom of the barrel scum like Father David Daniel or a Father Terence Pidoto? It does not make sense. If we protect this scum in society and allow religious organisations like the Catholic church to defend these evil people, then we are doing a disservice to our future generations.
I think the problem probably lies within the Catholic Church itself. One wonders how an organisation that insists its priests and nuns not marry is able to adequately understand and support 'family' as an institution within its spiritual structure. Catholicism probably should have died a natural death centuries ago. However there is a level of hypocrisy within Catholicism that is astounding when you come to examine its philosophies and theology closely. Most of the Catholics I know are lapsed ones. That tells you something. I went to school at PGC with one Catholic out of the school of 200 boarders. When I saw the film The Godfather I was intrigued by the aspect of Catholic forgiveness. This Mafioso boss goes and garrotes a guy and then goes and confesses to his priest and he is forgiven?? I asked Curly Morris who was our token Catholic at PGC, is that true, you can confess to the priest if you do something wrong and you are forgiven? Yep, she assured me. I somehow never found that an attractive option.
I grew up with the idea of consequences. My late father would have made a very good Orthodox Jew. If you did something you did it right. If you made a mistake, you went back and corrected it and did it again and again until you got it right. If Dad built a fence, it was built to last and last a long time. If he welded a cattle or sheep crate for the back of a truck, it could properly last a century or more. Dad was not sloppy in his approach. He was never messy. His workshop was amazingly organised and neat. When I researched our ancestor Rachel Aaron I was not surprised to learn that her mother married to Yosef Aaron was descended from German Jews from Hamburg. The Yeker strain - like attracts like. My mother is Austrian and also a Yeker. Forgiveness for us in our family might happen on the rare occasion, but we never forget a slight. The family also having a strain of Irish Catholics on my father's mother's side must have mixed with some Jews somewhere in county Cork in Ireland because we just do not forget things. My father was fond of telling about two Irish great Uncles who ran a painting business down in Goodiwindi on the NSW Qld border at the turn of the 19th Century early 20th Century. They had a falling out for some forty years of their lives and still ran their painting business together. They communicated through a sister who lived with them and did their housekeeping. She was unmarried. I asked my father, when I was around ten or so, why didn't she just tell them to go to the buggery and elope and what happened when she died, how did they communicate? My father, very tellingly, told me that she knew she had to outlive them both and as for the other, well she also knew that she had to look after them as she was the oldest in the family. The females in the Kirby families tended to be overlooked in the marriage stakes because they were overprotected and needed in the family businesses or to look after the children of the married brothers. Kind of a sad state of affairs, but I have diverged.Let's get back to the Catholic Church and its role and responsibilities.
If you have institutions set up to look after vulnerable and defenseless children, don't hand them over to sicko priests with perverse tastes to administer. Find stable family people = an experienced mother and father who have had experience in raising kids to administer the home and hire suitable staff. It is like letting a pack of hungry mice or rats take care of a drum of horse feed or a block of cheese.
Maybe priests and nuns should only be occupied in making olive oil, wine, cultivating orchards and such pursuits that do not involve the care of the vulnerable young of our societies.Even when the monasteries and nunneries were close to each other, many did not keep their vows of chastity. Under many of those nunneries have been found the corpses of fetuses and new born children probably strangled or smothered at birth. How convenient for the nuns to be wearing those long flowing robes. I guess they hid pregnancies very well and the priests and nuns could present the facade of chastity etc etc and go about their 'good works' during the day and go hell for leather at night with each other, then go to confession and its all OK all forgiven and if a pregnancy resulted the babe could be disposed of at birth and thrown into the sewers that ran under the converts. The whole structure of such an organisation is rotten. However, at least they are hanging on to the vestiges of decency and are against gay marriages. That is something to be thankful for and a hint that there is some normalacy in the organisation. Unless some of the gay priests get in on the act and infiltrate the higher echelons of the church and all of sudden the Catholic Church will start to support gay marriage.
We need Torah and Torah values now more than ever in our society.
"Good fences make good neighbours", states the poet Robert Frost's neighbour in his poem Mending the Wall. This adage is talking more about the setting of boundaries and understanding where we stop and the other person's property begins. Paedophile priests or child abusers do not have personal boundaries where their sexual desires are concerned and do not allow others to have them. They like the vulnerable children because the child does not know yet how to set boundaries or to enforce their personal boundaries when harassed by an adult who uses them for their own purposes. That is the pity. Children need to be healed from abuse and validated in their belief that the abuse was and is wrong. When we protect abusers of another person, WHATEVER age they may be, we hurt the victims more and allow the abuser to be validated in doing what he or she does. The abuser feels powerful and vindicated in his abuse, whereas the abused feels that he or she is somehow the one who is wrong and has somehow 'asked for the abuse' for any number of stupid illogical reasons.
We MUST start to protect the victims and NOT PROTECT abusers. I hope the Catholic church takes note of this.
There are big problems for the Catholic church in Australia with this latest spat of child abuse cases bursting from the woodwork like maggots from a rotting corpse being dug up after a few weeks in the ground. It just goes to show that you deal with problems now before they get bigger and more rotten by the week, day, hour or minute. Up to 70 % of an order of priests are connected to child abuse. Shocking, but it appears to be that more than a few paedophiles found a literal 'garden of Eden' in the young, very vulnerable children that they had access to unhindered in homes set up to help and 'nurture kids in poor or no family situations. They were able to abuse at will because they were in a position of trust and power within this organisation. Who would believe a little boy of ten or eleven when he says that the priests had taken him away for an orgy of buggery? There is an old saying that 'birds of a feather flock together'. How very apt when applied in this case. These kids with no real family to look out for them were ideal victims. They could be raped and abused with ease and when they became substance abusers because of the abuse, well, they were bad boys to begin with weren't they, telling lies about the priests?? Think about what happened and it makes your blood run cold.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/pell-urged-to-close-order-over-abuses-20121111-296ng.html
A Dr Michelle Mulvihill who actually at one time worked for the order in dealing and negotiating with child abuse victims, has apparently stated, over 75% of this particular Order of St John are paedophiles of the worst type who pack raped vulnerable children and possibly killed two boys, apart from the boys whose death by suicide because of childhood abuse is possibly not attributed to the abuse they suffered in a home run by these insidious people. Often these sick individuals will find ways to blame the victims as they are shifted from parish to parish to parish as the Catholic Church protects these vile individuals hiding in the folds of their priestly cassocks.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/list-grows-of-abusers-moved-from-parish-to-parish-20121111-296ht.html
One wonders how the Catholic church can produce people like Mother Theresa and people who devote themselves to helping others and then protects the social filth or bottom of the barrel scum like Father David Daniel or a Father Terence Pidoto? It does not make sense. If we protect this scum in society and allow religious organisations like the Catholic church to defend these evil people, then we are doing a disservice to our future generations.
I think the problem probably lies within the Catholic Church itself. One wonders how an organisation that insists its priests and nuns not marry is able to adequately understand and support 'family' as an institution within its spiritual structure. Catholicism probably should have died a natural death centuries ago. However there is a level of hypocrisy within Catholicism that is astounding when you come to examine its philosophies and theology closely. Most of the Catholics I know are lapsed ones. That tells you something. I went to school at PGC with one Catholic out of the school of 200 boarders. When I saw the film The Godfather I was intrigued by the aspect of Catholic forgiveness. This Mafioso boss goes and garrotes a guy and then goes and confesses to his priest and he is forgiven?? I asked Curly Morris who was our token Catholic at PGC, is that true, you can confess to the priest if you do something wrong and you are forgiven? Yep, she assured me. I somehow never found that an attractive option.
I grew up with the idea of consequences. My late father would have made a very good Orthodox Jew. If you did something you did it right. If you made a mistake, you went back and corrected it and did it again and again until you got it right. If Dad built a fence, it was built to last and last a long time. If he welded a cattle or sheep crate for the back of a truck, it could properly last a century or more. Dad was not sloppy in his approach. He was never messy. His workshop was amazingly organised and neat. When I researched our ancestor Rachel Aaron I was not surprised to learn that her mother married to Yosef Aaron was descended from German Jews from Hamburg. The Yeker strain - like attracts like. My mother is Austrian and also a Yeker. Forgiveness for us in our family might happen on the rare occasion, but we never forget a slight. The family also having a strain of Irish Catholics on my father's mother's side must have mixed with some Jews somewhere in county Cork in Ireland because we just do not forget things. My father was fond of telling about two Irish great Uncles who ran a painting business down in Goodiwindi on the NSW Qld border at the turn of the 19th Century early 20th Century. They had a falling out for some forty years of their lives and still ran their painting business together. They communicated through a sister who lived with them and did their housekeeping. She was unmarried. I asked my father, when I was around ten or so, why didn't she just tell them to go to the buggery and elope and what happened when she died, how did they communicate? My father, very tellingly, told me that she knew she had to outlive them both and as for the other, well she also knew that she had to look after them as she was the oldest in the family. The females in the Kirby families tended to be overlooked in the marriage stakes because they were overprotected and needed in the family businesses or to look after the children of the married brothers. Kind of a sad state of affairs, but I have diverged.Let's get back to the Catholic Church and its role and responsibilities.
If you have institutions set up to look after vulnerable and defenseless children, don't hand them over to sicko priests with perverse tastes to administer. Find stable family people = an experienced mother and father who have had experience in raising kids to administer the home and hire suitable staff. It is like letting a pack of hungry mice or rats take care of a drum of horse feed or a block of cheese.
Maybe priests and nuns should only be occupied in making olive oil, wine, cultivating orchards and such pursuits that do not involve the care of the vulnerable young of our societies.Even when the monasteries and nunneries were close to each other, many did not keep their vows of chastity. Under many of those nunneries have been found the corpses of fetuses and new born children probably strangled or smothered at birth. How convenient for the nuns to be wearing those long flowing robes. I guess they hid pregnancies very well and the priests and nuns could present the facade of chastity etc etc and go about their 'good works' during the day and go hell for leather at night with each other, then go to confession and its all OK all forgiven and if a pregnancy resulted the babe could be disposed of at birth and thrown into the sewers that ran under the converts. The whole structure of such an organisation is rotten. However, at least they are hanging on to the vestiges of decency and are against gay marriages. That is something to be thankful for and a hint that there is some normalacy in the organisation. Unless some of the gay priests get in on the act and infiltrate the higher echelons of the church and all of sudden the Catholic Church will start to support gay marriage.
We need Torah and Torah values now more than ever in our society.
"Good fences make good neighbours", states the poet Robert Frost's neighbour in his poem Mending the Wall. This adage is talking more about the setting of boundaries and understanding where we stop and the other person's property begins. Paedophile priests or child abusers do not have personal boundaries where their sexual desires are concerned and do not allow others to have them. They like the vulnerable children because the child does not know yet how to set boundaries or to enforce their personal boundaries when harassed by an adult who uses them for their own purposes. That is the pity. Children need to be healed from abuse and validated in their belief that the abuse was and is wrong. When we protect abusers of another person, WHATEVER age they may be, we hurt the victims more and allow the abuser to be validated in doing what he or she does. The abuser feels powerful and vindicated in his abuse, whereas the abused feels that he or she is somehow the one who is wrong and has somehow 'asked for the abuse' for any number of stupid illogical reasons.
We MUST start to protect the victims and NOT PROTECT abusers. I hope the Catholic church takes note of this.
Preserving the dignity of our elderly and the aged
B'H
Getting older has a lot of challenges apart from the fact that the younger generation think you have had it past the age of forty or so and after fifty you are definitely on the road to senility if not senile already. The Y generation is in a hurry to push us off the cliff face and into oblivion. There are too many of us and we take up too many resources, I overheard this being stated by a couple of thirty somethings the other day. Great to know that once we hit fifty we have, seriously, zero use for the rest of the world apart from providing employment to younger people who will staff the nursing homes where we might all eventually end up. I hope to die in my own bed peacefully with my slippers under it and in my sleep. However for whatever reasons, that choice is denied to some of our senior citizens who need to go to a home. They have maybe high needs in the area of physical health and are frail.
That fragility means they have to have certain necessary daily functions that we enjoyed doing for ourselves done for us. They need assistance with showers, dressing and any number of other functions that most of us would prefer to do for ourselves.
Privacy and preserving one's dignity are important to older people. All of us start life in nappies and many of us also end them in nappies. Oh, surprise, surprise you may say, but it is true. Not many of us give much thought to incontinence until we or a friend or relative is faced with such. It is not pleasant to leak bodily fluids uncontrollably but that is what happens, whether through illness or muscles wearing out through normal wear and tear, child bearing or otherwise. It happens. We don't talk about it because let's face it, it is not really the most inspiring topic of conversation.
In an aged home there are many people who need assistance with showering. It is bad enough to have to have another person with you in your shower, but a member of the opposite sex?
Most elderly women grew up in an era which was remarkably different to today's world where standards are very lax. Even so there are still women who would not want a man to shower them. It does not matter that he is a nurse or as in the case of an older lady friend of mine, if he is gay as he stated to her.
She told him, 'I am religious, I do not want a man showering me'. 'That's alright,' he told her, 'I am gay.'
So big DEAL, you are gay? Does that change the fact that you are a man? No. You may be gay as gay as gay, but you are still a man and still have the physical appearance of a man. Most women whether they are in their nineties or in their fifties, do not want a man showering them and wiping their bottom for them, unless they are in the final stages of dementia and even then, if when they were with their full faculties, likely to object if they were to be showered by a man, why should they have to accept it in the last stages of dementia. Can't we as a society preserve their dignity and modesty to the end of their life?
I would not want a man showering me and especially not if he was gay and nor would I feel comfortable about a lesbian showering me. Aren't there any normal people around to do these jobs and we need to respect the modesty and decency of our elderly. Can you imagine an elderly gentleman wanting to be bathed or showered by someone who is as camp as a row of tent pegs?
There are other professions and if a gay person wants to be a nurse, good but don't think you can walk into an elderly lady's room and offer to bath her and say its ok because I am gay. You are still a man. It is not ok. Some men who you might have to bathe may not also want to know your sexual preferences and it may make them uncomfortable, so don't wear a sign on your chest about it. Do I announce at the beginning of an English class 'Hello, I am Ms Leeds your new English teacher. I am a Heterosexual.' The students would think I am some sort of fruit cake. Heterosexual or not. If I can be quiet about being hetero surely they could shut up about being gay.
Getting older has a lot of challenges apart from the fact that the younger generation think you have had it past the age of forty or so and after fifty you are definitely on the road to senility if not senile already. The Y generation is in a hurry to push us off the cliff face and into oblivion. There are too many of us and we take up too many resources, I overheard this being stated by a couple of thirty somethings the other day. Great to know that once we hit fifty we have, seriously, zero use for the rest of the world apart from providing employment to younger people who will staff the nursing homes where we might all eventually end up. I hope to die in my own bed peacefully with my slippers under it and in my sleep. However for whatever reasons, that choice is denied to some of our senior citizens who need to go to a home. They have maybe high needs in the area of physical health and are frail.
That fragility means they have to have certain necessary daily functions that we enjoyed doing for ourselves done for us. They need assistance with showers, dressing and any number of other functions that most of us would prefer to do for ourselves.
Privacy and preserving one's dignity are important to older people. All of us start life in nappies and many of us also end them in nappies. Oh, surprise, surprise you may say, but it is true. Not many of us give much thought to incontinence until we or a friend or relative is faced with such. It is not pleasant to leak bodily fluids uncontrollably but that is what happens, whether through illness or muscles wearing out through normal wear and tear, child bearing or otherwise. It happens. We don't talk about it because let's face it, it is not really the most inspiring topic of conversation.
In an aged home there are many people who need assistance with showering. It is bad enough to have to have another person with you in your shower, but a member of the opposite sex?
Most elderly women grew up in an era which was remarkably different to today's world where standards are very lax. Even so there are still women who would not want a man to shower them. It does not matter that he is a nurse or as in the case of an older lady friend of mine, if he is gay as he stated to her.
She told him, 'I am religious, I do not want a man showering me'. 'That's alright,' he told her, 'I am gay.'
So big DEAL, you are gay? Does that change the fact that you are a man? No. You may be gay as gay as gay, but you are still a man and still have the physical appearance of a man. Most women whether they are in their nineties or in their fifties, do not want a man showering them and wiping their bottom for them, unless they are in the final stages of dementia and even then, if when they were with their full faculties, likely to object if they were to be showered by a man, why should they have to accept it in the last stages of dementia. Can't we as a society preserve their dignity and modesty to the end of their life?
I would not want a man showering me and especially not if he was gay and nor would I feel comfortable about a lesbian showering me. Aren't there any normal people around to do these jobs and we need to respect the modesty and decency of our elderly. Can you imagine an elderly gentleman wanting to be bathed or showered by someone who is as camp as a row of tent pegs?
There are other professions and if a gay person wants to be a nurse, good but don't think you can walk into an elderly lady's room and offer to bath her and say its ok because I am gay. You are still a man. It is not ok. Some men who you might have to bathe may not also want to know your sexual preferences and it may make them uncomfortable, so don't wear a sign on your chest about it. Do I announce at the beginning of an English class 'Hello, I am Ms Leeds your new English teacher. I am a Heterosexual.' The students would think I am some sort of fruit cake. Heterosexual or not. If I can be quiet about being hetero surely they could shut up about being gay.
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