Quote of the Day...........

    

A people who extend civil liberties 

only to preferred groups 

start down the path 

either to dictatorship of 

the right or the left.

Beauty ? Art ....

What is mostly desired after 

has to be corrupted ( by the market forces )

To be mundanely accessible.

Quote of the day......

Concepts of justice

must have hands and feet or

they remain sterile abstractions.

The hands and feet we need

are efficient means and methods 

to carry out justice in every case

in the shortest possible time

and at the lowest possible cost.

-- Justice Warren E. Burger(1907-1995).

 Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1969-86)

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By freethinking I mean the use of 

the understanding in endeavoring to 

find out the meaning of 

any proposition whatsoever, 

in considering the nature of the evidence 

for or against, and in judging of it 

according to the seeming force or 

weakness of the evidence.

-- Anthony Collins(1676-1729).
Source: A Discourse of Freethinking, 1713.

Quote of the day.....

Protection, therefore, 

against the tyranny of 

the magistrate is not enough;

there needs protection against 

the tyranny of 

the prevailing opinion and feeling,

against the tendency of society to impose,

by other means than civil penalties,

its own ideas and practices 

as rules of conduction 

those who dissent from them.

 John Stuart Mill(1806-1873) 
 Source: On Liberty, 1859

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It is a maxim among lawyers 

that whatever hath been done before 

may be done again, and 

therefore they take special care 

to record all the decisions 

formerly made against 

common justice and 

the general reason of mankind. 

These, under the name of precedents,

they produce as authorities to justify 

the most iniquitous opinions, and 

the judges never fail of directing 

them accordingly. 

Jonathan Swift(1667-1745)
 Source: Gulliver’s Travels, 1726

           *         *        *        *        *

You do not examine legislation 

in the light of the benefits 

it will convey 

if properly administered, but 

in the light of the wrongs

it would do and the harm 

it would cause 

if improperly administered.

Lyndon B. Johnson(1908-1973) 
37th US President (1963-1969)

Homeless Ambition........

Everyday I see a great dream.

A great Possibility.

Yet each day passing 

I get on with next to nothing. 

In the Beginning........

The word in its True spirit is 

The Teacher.

Quote of the day.....

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,

adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.

He may as well concern himself 

with his shadow on the wall.

Speak what you think now in hard words, and 

to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks 

in hard words again,

though it contradict everything you said to-day.

--'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.'

-- Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood?

Pythagoras was misunderstood, 

and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, 

and Copernicus, and Galileo, and

Newton, and every pure and 

wise spirit that ever took flesh.

To be great is to be misunderstood.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Quote of the Day.......

The law is not the private property of lawyers,

nor is justice the exclusive province of 

judges and juries.

In the final analysis, true justice is 

not a matter of courts and law books,

but of a commitment in each of us 

to liberty and mutual respect.

-- Jimmy Carter (1924- )
39th US PresidentSource: Dallas Times-Herald, 26 April 1978
 
                       *      *      *     *     *

Prayer of Teilhard de Chardin.............

                    Patient Trust

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are quite naturally impatient in everything

to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way to something

unknown, something new.


And yet it is the law of all progress

that it is made by passing through

some stages of instability—

and that it may take a very long time.


And so I think it is with you;

your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,

let them shape themselves, without undue haste.

Don’t try to force them on,

as though you could be today what time

(that is to say, grace and circumstances

acting on your own good will)

will make of you tomorrow.


Only God could say what this new spirit

gradually forming within you will be.

Give Our Lord the benefit of believing

that his hand is leading you,

and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself

in suspense and incomplete.


-Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, From Hearts on Fire.

Shared by the  fellowship of  
MANNA Monday Lunch program.

Maya Angelou's "Change the Attitude"

One does only need to look in oneself

What one does not like in others.

Quote of the Day.....

Freedom of men under government is to have 

a standing rule to live by,

common to every one of that society and made 

by the legislative power vested in it and 

not to be subject to the inconstant, 

uncertain, arbitrary will of another man.

-- John Locke(1632-1704) 
English philosopher and political theorist.

Quote of the Day....

"Men in authority will always think that

criticism of their policies is dangerous.

They will always equate their policies

with patriotism, and find criticism subversive."

-- Henry Steele Commager(1902-1998) 
Source: Freedom and Order, 1966

Reality in modernist paradigm..........

In the context of modernity

Reality is not what it seems

As a construct

It is a suspension of disbelief.

Quote of the day.....

"We have never stopped sin by passing laws; and

in the same way, 

we are not going to take a great moral ideal

and achieve it merely by law."

-- Dwight D. Eisenhower
(1890-1969), 34th US President, WWII General

Some Nuggets from The Pilgrim writer's journal.....

                       THE TRUTH

There is a lot of liars out here,

Criminals ,Cons- Hustlers.

But there is one thing and

That's if something isn't True

If you are not honest with them

They can always tell, and

They don't like it

It's funny how people don't understand that.

----Miss Bartlett.
The Pilgrim -Black seed writers group

              *     *     *     *     *

                 THE RIGHT TO EXIST

Feels like all my living 

has mostly been a whole lotta fightin

for the right to exist.

Sitting on a jetty in the autumn rain

Friday night

I 'm huddled in my raincoat

trying to write

without soaking the page

Girls in glitter and pumps come by

fallin all over and under  the fog

first rangers , then cops come by-

trying to arrest me cause I refuse

to evacuate with no cause

But the girls in glitter can throw their

pumps all over the place

Long ago and far away

Colorado, rustle my stuff out of tall

grasses and rattlesnake nests

Confiscate my photos,

artwork for evidence

sent my sage and herbs

for forensic tests

Try to build a raft to camp

the only place legal and free and 

they say my old discarded fence and

nails will never pass as watercraft

Oh,and so the stories go

just plain cut and dried injustice -

I try not to be belligerent

instead fight them with calm logic

make them question themselves

put their sanity on trial, to the test

so their heart may change. . . . .

But more often 

Authority proven wrong

gets MEANER : seeking heads to roll

so the battle goes on 

the never ending need to be right

and when you think you've found

peace, Look ! Here it some again !

Another fight for the right to exist.

--- Katie Schultz
The Pilgrim -Black seed writers group
Jan /Feb Volume 3, Issue I


           *    *    *    *    *

                   LENTEN DARKNESS 

Lent will start in March this year. I've had to start

preparing for it now because it's been such an 

intense year.I¹ve always been able to put things 

in perspective, make peace with myself and move 

on after holy communion, but this year I may have 

to ask for some sort of extension.

I've met some very bad people and I¹ve seen bad 

things happen ­to me and to people around me.

I don't have a problem with forgiving people; 

I¹ve practiced that all my life. 

But I do need to determine how to forgive these 

people without enabling them to do these things again.

I¹m trying to understand their actions and intentions

so I can have a forgiveness that is clean and pure.

I won¹t receive communion at Easter with hurried

decisions of forgiveness it would be half-hearted.

Maybe I'll focus on what I can do, and get an

extension for the more complex things.

---- Diana Kottori,
 Source : The Pilgrim.The black seed writers group.

Banality of Truth.....

Truth is not only...... 

One of the most enduring 

Paths of  human existence

It is also one........ 

That is scientifically correct.

The Easter Marathon............

Beginning the Holy Week, in the wee hours of the day

and all day they run... run... run...

Some for fun and some to win,

They run... run... run...

Passing over one hurdle after another, 

reaching milestones, they run... run... run...

Centuries apart, keeping up with a 100 year-old tradition

during the Holy Week,

They run... run... run...

Some are young, some are old,

Some are strong, some are weak,

and there are women too, 

Yet they run... run... run...

Like Mary and her brothers in fellowship,

That stood before the open door,

To find the Holy One that showed us

The way to the heavens,

Beginning Easter they gather around in the wee hours

unburdening the past days,

Freeing themselves in resurrection of triumph and joy,

They run... run... run...

Some are young, some are old,

Some are strong, some are weak,

and there are women too.

Some for fun and some to win,

During Holy Week, like an Easter Bunny

They run... run... run...
  

Boundaries of Hypocrisy.....

Human hypocrisy like all other vices has no boundaries

It desires to transcend all that is good and human.

Facts and Due process.............

Facts like science help us 

towards due process.

From Mahatma Gandhi.....

"A nation's greatness is measured by 

how it treats its weakest members."

~ Mahatma Ghandi