‘Positive’ progress in talks on charter renewal | News, Sports, Jobs – Lock Haven Express

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MILL HALL Prior to Thursday nights Keystone Central school board meeting, representatives from the Keystone Central School District and Sugar Valley Rural Charter School reported a positive initial dialogue regarding a charter extension for SVRCS.

In an email sent to media outlets early Thursday morning, a news release stated that there was a Wednesday meeting between the two parties. Although the email was sent from a KCSD address, it stated that it was sent on behalf of KCSD superintendent Jacquelyn Martin and SVRCS CEO Tracie Kennedy.

The news release read: Last evening representatives from SVRCS and KCSD met to discuss revisions to the 20-year-old charter. The conversation between the two has been positive and productive thus far. Further meetings have been scheduled to meet the common goal of charter revisions that could be approved by both the KCSD Board of Directors and SVRCS Board of Trustees.

At last weeks KCSD school board meeting, there was a special voting session that took place following the work session. During the voting session, the board unanimously approved an agreement with SVRCS for talks to proceed in an effort to resolve differences so a new five-year agreement between the schools can be negotiated.

The settlement negotation agreement is broken down into several segments:

Scope The Parties agree that in efforts to potentially avoid litigation in connection with the proceedings, the parties will attempt to negotiate a resolution. To accomplish this, the Parties agree to the several terms and conditions related to attempting to negotiate a resolution.

Settlement discussion process The Parties recognize that they are both public entities that may officially act only through their governing boards, and within the context of an opening meeting. Prior to considering or agreeing to any settlement, each Party has the right to hear from its administration and/or attorneys as to the relevant factual and legal background pertaining to settlement of the Proceedings, for purposes of both legal and expert advice on the advertisement of the potential settlement. Each Party has the right to hold any such discussions confidentially and within executive session(s), and at the exclusion of the other party.

Duration Any Party may give written notice through its Solicitor by mail or email to the other Partys Solicitor that the Agreement is terminated. In the event this Agreement is terminated, the Proceedings shall continue as if no settlement discussions had occurred. Other than the obligation to negotiate through settlement discussions, the Parties obligations under the Agreement shall survive any termination, to include, without limitation, the provisions of paragraphs 2, above.

No waiver or obligation The Parties expressly recognize and agree that entering into this Agreement (a) does not constitute an admission of liability of any wrongdoing by any party or that the Charter Schools renewal application, or the School Districts proposed causes for non-renewal, lack merit (b) is not a waiver of any arguments, claims, positions, or defenses in connection with the Proceeding, except the express waivers and releases otherwise provided for within the Agreement, and (c) does not obligate the Parties to reach a settlement relative to the Proceedings.

Rule of Construction Each party, through its legal counsel, has reviewed and participated in the drafting of the Agreement; and any rule of construction to the effect that ambiguities are construed against the drafting Party shall not apply in the interpretation or construction of the Agreement.

Martin said that she would like see the charter which has not been revised in more than two decades amended to meet present-day budget requirements.

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LOCK HAVEN AARP Foundation is providing in-person tax assistance and preparation through its Tax-Aide program ...

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'Positive' progress in talks on charter renewal | News, Sports, Jobs - Lock Haven Express

Art Rooney II anxious to see Ben Roethlisbergers progress – Behind the Steel Curtain

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Could the Pittsburgh Steelers be a legitimate Super Bowl contender in 2020? If your answer to that question is yes, it should immediately be followed by, as long as Ben Roethlisberger comes back healthy.

The Steelers franchise quarterback is coming off a season-ending elbow injury which ended his 2019 campaign after just 6 quarters. Since Roethlisbergers surgery, news on his progress, or lack thereof, has been minimal.

At his end of the season press conference, Mike Tomlin spoke about the timeline for Roethlisbergers next step in his rehab process in February, and what it was like playing almost a full season without the only franchise quarterback he has known since taking over the head coaching position in 2007.

We live by the clich that the standard is the standard. Incidents like the loss of Ben gives us the opportunity to live that out. I dont know that our mentality changed in terms of what our intentions were. It was an opportunity for us to roll our sleeves up and make that a reality. Tomlin said to media. Our focus was there. Our focus was individually doing what was required to get in and out of stadiums with wins. I didnt spend a lot of time crying about it. I still havent. Maybe I will gain a better perspective as I gain some distance. In the process, there is a certain urgency to respond to the next challenge that doesnt give you a time to wallow in it.

On Wednesday, Steelers Team President Art Rooney II met with local media and discussed Roethlisbergers progress to date, and what he had to say was positive.

This via Mark Kaboly of The Athletic:

While things have been positive in Roethlisbergers physical rehabilitation, and his mental status after having to watch nearly the entire 2019 season, there is a lot left for Roethlisberger to do before fans should get excited for the 2020 season with the same No. 7 under center they have enjoyed watching since 2004.

In fact, there is a reason why Rooney II used the word anxious to describe the way the team is viewing Roethlisbergers return to the field. The hope is Roethlisberger is healed, and moves smoothly through the process of getting himself back into shape as a quarterback in the NFL. But there is always the chance that after all the years of hits, throws and wear and tear on his body that Roethlisberger doesnt return to the same quarterback he was prior to the injury. If that is the case, the Steelers would find themselves in quite a bind heading into the offseason, the new league year and the 2020 NFL Draft.

There are still a lot of hoops which need to be jumped through before the team even knows the status of Roethlisberger, and you better believe the fans echo Rooneys anxiety level when it comes to the future of the team being wrapped around No. 7s overall availability this upcoming season.

Be sure to stay tuned to BTSC for the latest news and notes surrounding the black-and-gold as they embark on yet another lengthy offseason.

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Art Rooney II anxious to see Ben Roethlisbergers progress - Behind the Steel Curtain

Why "Business Meets Spirituality" Is an Important Leadership Trend For 2020 – Thrive Global

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During the last decade, innovation-oriented companies realized that innovation didnt just come from having really smart, high I.Q. people in leadership roles. Rather it came from leaders who have better soft skills. From M.B.A. schools to corporate trainings, development programs focused on improving the socioemotional skills of leaders, and assessments around emotional intelligence, E.Q., flourished. And so we have moved into an era of leaders that understand their emotions better, relate to their team members better, and understand the aspirations and needs of their customer better. They are more thoughtful in day-to-day human interactions, and are less emotionally reactive to challenging situations.

The next frontier of leadership development is spiritual intelligence, or S.Q. As we see mindfulness practices become prevalent in the workplace, we are starting to see many teachings from the spiritual traditions show up in the office. For many years, we heard sports analogies and military analogies in business e.g. blocking and tackling, ball is in their court, campaigns, battle scars etc. Now entering the lexicon are words like resilience, zen, unplugging, rising above, letting go, and of course, mindful!

Many of the traits we admire in advanced spiritual people, we now want to emulate in business. Having more presence and awareness, having a clear sense of personal mission, having calm through the storm, having focus without losing sight of the big picture, are all recognized as signs of a good leader and these traits are specifically cultivated through spiritual practices.

Leaders can build or improve S.Q. through multiple practices that improve self-awareness and connection. It starts with a shift in mindset realizing that we not just a bundle of muscles, bones, thoughts and emotions. It is obvious we have a body, and somewhat obvious that we have a mind, though we dont quite know where it resides. That mind also generates thoughts and emotions, and the emotions are what E.Q. practices target. The next layer of our existence is the deeper part of our being, that spiritual traditions refer to as the soul or the spirit or consciousness.

From a leadership point of view, we might call this our greater potential, our creativity, our source of inspiration, or our reservoir of innovation. Whatever we want to call the layer of us that is beyond body and mind, is irrelevant. What is relevant however is connecting to that layer of our being on a regular basis. Depending on what is comfortable, that might be as simple as indulging in creative pursuits such as art or dance, or through being in nature or participating in inspiring activities on a regular basis. Essentially any healthy regular practice, including religious practice, that helps you transcend emotions and mind can help improve spiritual intelligence.

Other practices to improve S.Q. can include regular journaling to unpack traumatic experiences, and take a pseudo-third-party analysis of a situation. This can often reveal deep insights about oneself. Even though you might have experienced a difficult challenge, as you write about it, you take a witnessing view, which can help you step out of mind-body-emotion constraints.

A more formalized approach might be many of the mindfulness practices in vogue. Many of these techniques originate from spiritual practices such as meditation, whose techniques are directly targeted to accessing that third layer of our being. Hence meditation is proven to improve creativity, focus, resilience, and health, since we are essentially bringing three layers of our being into our existence, i.e. body, mind, and spirit.

A yoga practice is also a powerful tool to improve ones spiritual connection. Its original intended purpose was to unite the three layers of our existence (yoga itself means union, in reference to union of body, mind, and spirit). The yoga system includes numerous practices, from meditation, breathing techniques, chanting techniques, physical postures, the study of spiritual books, serving others, worship, self-reflection, practicing compassion, and expressing gratitude, all designed to move us to increased S.Q. Many of these techniques have been divorced into individual practices in the Western world, e.g. only focusing on physical yoga postures at the gym, or only focusing on breath in a breathwork class, without the broader integrated practice that they are attached to. When yoga is done in a systematized and integrated way with its multitude of practices beyond the mat, it has a multiplicative effect on improving spiritual intelligence.

As we begin this new decade, evaluate your own spiritual outlook and practices. It is often said that we are all spiritual beings, having a human experience. Often we are so caught up in that human experience, we forget our greater nature. As we connect to that third layer of our existence, through whatever practices resonate with us, we will find our business and leadership life orient towards more fulfillment, inspiration and naturally more success.

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Why "Business Meets Spirituality" Is an Important Leadership Trend For 2020 - Thrive Global

The Fall of Spirituality: The Blood-Soaked History of the Cathars – Ancient Origins

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The history of Christianity has always been filled with struggle. When the Middle Ages brought a rise in devoted, unique Christian teachings, the Church responded by declaring them heretics. And the heretics were hunted down. But one such Christian teaching managed to stay afloat, to resist the pressure and survive - for a while at least.

These were the Cathars, followers of Catharism, the Christian dualistic and Gnostic movement that swept through Europe and gained many followers. Today we are retracing their steps across the continent, exploring their impact on the history of the Middle Ages.

Who were these mysterious zealots who managed to take a stand against the Catholic Church? And what was their impact on the generations that came after?

The early history of Christianity is known for the suffering of its adherents, a prolonged struggle to find its own place among the polytheistic religions that surrounded it. Gradually, Christianity came on top in this struggle, coming to dominate the nations of Europe, becoming closely tied with its politics and expansionist movements of the rulers. And thus, Catholic Christianity dominated Western Europe.

To survive as a dominant religion, it needed wealth - a lot of it. And luckily, wealth was never an issue. The pious powerful rulers, desiring the support of the Catholic Church in their wars and conquests, showered it with lavish gifts of gold and tributes. And all was well for the rich.

But what happens when true Christianity comes forward? When true devotees step up and point fingers, when they threaten to take away the sheep of the vast Catholic flock and welcome them to a different sheepfold? When they directly threaten the wealth and income? They get annihilated.

The medieval period saw a lot of such movements, devoted Christians who wanted to spread the message of piety, of humility and love, of good deeds and poverty. But none of these aspects were well liked by the Catholic Church, especially the poverty part.

And thus, movement after movement, devotee after devotee, men and women, all who stood in the path of the Catholic Church were proclaimed as heretics, and violently hunted across Europe, and executed in the worst way possible - by being burnt at the stake. There were hundreds of such movements in the Middle Ages - the Waldensians who preached poverty and spirituality, or the Fraticelli who preached good deeds and poverty, and proclaimed the wealth of the Church as a scandal.

There were the Henricians, the Arians, the teachings of Gundolfo, the Arnoldists who criticized the wealth of the Church, Dulcinians, Beghards, and the Humiliati - just to name a few. All were persecuted. Yet there was one such movement that managed to resist - Catharism.

Catharism was dominant mostly in the region of southern France and northern Italy, but its roots go deeper and far from there. It is commonly agreed that it stems from the Paulician movement, an adoptionist sect that was created in the 7th century in Armenia. Needless to say, the Paulicians were proclaimed as heretics and were persecuted across Europe.

Map showing spread of Paulicianismacross Europe, the beginning of the Cathars. (Aldan-2 / CC BY-SA 4.0 )

As their teachings migrated, they were refined and acquired new forms and new names. From Armenia, this Gnostic teaching traveled to the Balkans, where the movement arose once more in the 10th century, among the Christians of Serbia and Bulgaria. Here they were known as Bogumili (Dear to God) or Babuni (superstitious ones).

They too were persecuted and mostly eradicated from the region. It was these movements that show great similarity with the Catharism and a distinct pathway of the teaching is shown across Europe.

Catharism first appeared in 11th century southern France, in the Languedoc region. This is the first time that the name Cathars was used, but we now know that this was not what they called themselves. Their self-identifying name was simple - good men, good women, or good Christians ( Bons Hommes, Bonnes Femmes, Bons Chretiens ).

As a teaching, Catharism was a dualistic, Gnostic revival movement and their belief was centered on the belief of two gods - one good and the other evil. At its very core, Catharism was an attempt to find answers to some key religious and philosophical questions that were centered around the existence of evil. Their basic teaching greatly differentiated from the regular Catholic Christian doctrines.

The Cathars believed that the God of the New Testament was the good one, and the God of the Old Testament was the evil one, better known as Satan. The good God created the spirit, while the evil one created the material world. Contrary to the regular Christian belief, the Cathars thought of the entire world as evil, and as such it could not have been created by a benevolent god.

Satan, whom the Cathars believed was the God of the Old Testament. (Dencey / Public Domain )

Here we can see the key aspect of the Cathar doctrines - the emphasizing of asceticism and the rejection of the physical world, as well as a direct response to the growingly scandalous and decadent lives of the Catholic clergymen in France. They also believed that the Evil God, or Satan, was the God of Judaism and they held that the Jewish law was wholly evil.

Their teaching is further characterized by a belief that human spirits were actually those of angels, who were seduced by Satan and forced to spend their lives in the material plane. In order to reach their angelic form or status, the Cathars preached full renouncing of the physical world of sin, and a devotion to the spiritual matters. The final release of their souls from the material world was done through the Cathar consolamentum ceremony.

Jesus Christ was highly venerated by the Cathars, but in a unique way. They believed that he was one of the angels and rejected his human form, considering it only an appearance. Cathars adhered to the core, good teachings of Christ, and thus called themselves the Good Christians.

The Resurrection of Jesus was denied, as well as the symbol of the Christian cross - another material thing which was simply a tool for torture and evil. Their adherents also completely avoided any form of killing and would not eat any animal products, or anything that was a form of sexual reproduction.

The Cathar Church was split into several dioceses, each one having its bishop. Those that followed and supported the Cathar doctrines, took the ceremony of consolamentum near the time of their death, similar to the last rites.

They believed that the Catholic Church was a false organization which prostituted itself for power and wealth gained by sinful means. And here we can see the first reason why the Catholic Church considered them as heretics.

With time, the Catharism movement gained serious momentum in the Languedoc region. Their teachings were accepted, spread, and in time four Cathar bishoprics were created - in the fortified city of Carcassonne, in Albi, Toulouse, and Agen. This became the core region of their movement, and these towns had a majority of Cathar adherents.

But one crucial thing made the Cathars different than other denominations that were persecuted before - they had military support. As their teaching spread through southern France, it too gained a touch of political focus.

Many prominent and powerful French nobles supported Catharism and its leaders, partly because they truly believed their religious teaching, but partly because they sought independence from the rule of the French crown. One of these noblemen was Raymond VI of Toulouse, at the time one of the most prominent lords of France. And thus, the Cathar movement had a military supporter.

Seeing their growing independence in Languedoc and a loose obedience to the crown, the new pope - Innocent III, resolved to make attempts at solving the Cathar problem. This he attempted in a somewhat peaceful manner, by sending delegations that would assess the situation. He also sent preachers, who attempted to convert the Cathars to Catholicism.

This portrays the story of a dispute between Saint Dominic and the Cathars in which the books of both were thrown on a fire and St. Dominic's books were miraculously preserved from the flames. This was believed to symbolize the wrongness of the Cathars' teachings. (Oursana / Public Domain )

They were all under the direction of one Pierre de Castelnau, a senior papal legate. Things escalated in 1208, when Pierre de Castelnau, who was greatly disliked in Languedoc, especially by Raymond of Toulouse, was murdered by one of the latters knights. At this point, the pope called for a crusade against the Cathars, with the aim to free the Languedoc region and vanquish the heresy.

He offered the Cathar lands to any lord who was willing to raise arms in the crusade and absolved of all sins any man who joined them. The crusade was greatly supported by the French crown, who sought to place Languedoc under their sphere of influence.

The Cathar Crusade (also known as the Albigensian Crusade) begun in 1209. A force of around 10,000 crusaders was assembled and soon began their march. The first town in their path was Beziers, which was protected by a prominent noble and a Cathar follower - Raymond Roger Trencavel.

But seeing his situation and being largely unprepared to defend Beziers effectively, Trencavel fled to the mighty fortress of Carcassonne, in order to prepare a suitable defense. Sadly, the city of Beziers was left to the mercy of the crusaders, and mercy was not quite a common term in the crusader vocabulary.

Under the command of the papal legate, a Cistercian abbot by the name of Arnaud Amalric, the crusaders besieged the city and on the following day managed to enter within the city walls. What followed was a shocking massacre of its Cathar inhabitants. The entire city was burnt down and all of its residents murdered.

Interestingly, the city was not only inhabited by Cathars but by Catholics too. Even so, they were all put to the sword together. When the soldiers attempted to distinguish Cathar from Catholic, Amalric reportedly said: Kill them all! God will distinguish them. In a letter to the pope, Arnaud Amalric coolly wrote that around 20,000 people were massacred that day in Beziers.

Pope Innocent IIIexcommunicating the Albigensians (left), massacre of the Albigensians by the crusaders (right). (Rolling Bone / Public Domain )

Even though it was a powerful stronghold, Carcassonne fell seven days after Beziers, after a short siege. Roger Raymond Trencavel was captured while attempting negotiations and died a few months afterwards. No massacres were conducted this time, and the Cathars and the residents of Carcassonne were exiled.

Cathars being expelled from Carcassonne in 1209. In this group, women appear to be nearly as numerous as men. (Poeticbent/ Public Domain )

After this crucial defeat, most other Cathar towns surrendered without further bloodshed. They would fall to the crusaders without resistance during the autumn. Those that didnt surrender were besieged one by one during the winter of 1209.

Lastours fell after a prolonged siege, as did Bram after it. In June of 1210 the city of Minerve was besieged and fell in the following month. Its Cathar residents were given a chance to convert to Catholicism, but none would accept.

In the end 140 Cathars, most of them priests, were burned at the stake. Many of them voluntarily went to their deaths. Several smaller Cathar strongholds fell soon after and in a similar way, with more mass burnings at the stake taking place.

Cathars being burnt at the stake in anauto-da-f, anachronistically presided over by Saint Dominic. (Soerfm / Public Domain )

In 1213, the Cathars, now desperate for assistance, sought the help of Peter II, King of Aragon, and Count of Barcelona. As Peters sister was the wife of the leading Cathar noble Raymond VI of Toulouse, he agreed to support the Cathars. But at the same time, he was also a staunch Catholic and on good terms with the pope.

This caused in a major lull in the crusade, as the pope believed that Peter II could solve the heresy problem in a diplomatic way. But soon after, things went sour and the Cathar coalition of Peter and Raymond caused the pope to renew the crusade.

This led to the Battle of Muret in September 1213, in which the crusaders, although outnumbered, crushed the forces of the Cathars and killed Peter II of Aragon. Raymond fled to England, and by 1215, the Cathar movement was largely suppressed.

Course of the Battle of Muret, which led to the defeat of the Cathars. (Macesito / CC BY-SA 4.0 )

Raymond VI of Toulouse returned in 1216, after three years of exile, and quickly re-gathered the Cathar forces from Languedoc. They waged a series of sieges and battles and managed to retake Toulouse and a few other strongholds by 1218.

As the crusade subsided and renewed in waves, the Cathars managed to regain some territories, and keep Toulouse through several sieges up to 1221. By 1224 Carcassonne was reclaimed as well.

A new Cathar Crusade was started by the Catholic Church in 1226, this time led by Louis VIII, King of France. By 1229, all Cathar towns were captured and the main supporter of the Cathars, Raymond VII of Toulouse, agreed to abandon his cause in order to regain favor with the king and reclaim his lands.

With this, and the following inquisitions of the Catholic Church, Catharism was almost gone. The last Cathar fortress, Montsegur, fell in 1244, and over 200 Cathar priests were burned at a massive pyre on the spot. After this, Catharism was largely extinguished and those few who remained practiced it in secrecy.

The sad story of the Cathars reminds us that the opposition to the powerful institutions of the world is a noble, but in the end, fruitless cause. The Cathars, in their devotion to the true, spiritual world, unwillingly stirred the hornets nest and became a thorn in the side of the rich. And such thorns, as we all know, are plucked out with vicious repercussions.

Top image: Representation of the Albigensian Crusades against the Cathars. Source: Yelkrokoyade / Public Domain .

By Aleksa Vukovi

Arnold, J. 2001. Inquisition and Power: Catharism and the Confessing Subject in Medieval Languedoc . University of Pennsylvania Press.

Barber, M. 2014. The Cathars: Dualist Heretics in Languedoc in the High Middle Ages . Routledge.

Costen, M. 1997. The Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade . Manchester University Press.

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The Fall of Spirituality: The Blood-Soaked History of the Cathars - Ancient Origins

In this art gallery, conversations about religion and spirituality are welcome – The Oakland Press

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LOS ANGELES >> For Linna Spransy, who grew up in a Christian commune in Oregon with a rock musician father, religion and art have always been intertwined.

"Religious lifestyle, and expression and art were all the same thing," Spransy told Religion News Service.

Spransy is one of the directors of Bridge Projects, a new Southern California gallery that seeks to link art with spiritual and religious traditions.

The gallery's inaugural exhibition, "10 Columns" by artist Phillip K. Smith III, features glowing mirrored panels that convert the otherwise dark room into a simulated sunrise and sunset. The panels shift colors, from warm yellow and orange tones to bright blue and red hues.

The exhibit opened in October in Bridge Project's 7,000-square-foot gallery, which sits between a Mobil gas station and a Public Storage facility on Santa Monica Boulevard. Visitors to the gallery have described their experiences in the space on Instagram, calling the installation "enthralling" and saying it made them feel reflective and meditative.

Is one witnessing a sunrise or a sunset, a cultural awakening or a catastrophic meltdown? wrote Julia Ingalls in The Architect's Newspaper.

Bridge Projects directors Spransy and Cara Megan Lewis, who are both artists, said they wanted to create a space where people can talk about spiritual and religious perspectives.

The two have known each other for about a decade and both have roots in Kansas, where Lewis had a gallery space.

Lewis, whose background is in commercial galleries, said she's seen how artists have felt the need to "suppress their faith traditions or religious convictions in the context of the contemporary art world."

"Just a fear of rejection and misunderstanding," she said.

Lewis, who grew up in the Methodist church, said she was raised with a faith-driven and social justice mindset that has influenced her own art. She was part of an interactive artwork, dubbed "34,000 Pillows," that drew attention to a congressional rule that required the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to maintain 34,000 beds in its facilities.

Bridge Projects was funded by Roberta Ahmanson, who along with her husband, Howard Ahmanson, was in 2005 named as one of Time magazine's "25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America." Spransy said Roberta Ahmanson began collecting her work when Spransy was still in Kansas City.

The Ahmansons have a track record of funding cultural endeavors, spanning back to the late Howard Ahmanson Sr., whose family name is on the Ahmanson Theatre in LA.

Through the private philanthropy Fieldstead and Co., Ahmanson and her husband have sponsored a number of art exhibitions in the United States and Great Britain along with journalism about the arts and religion. Fieldstead and Co. also funded support of California's Proposition 8, a same-sex marriage ban that passed but that was later ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge.

Roberta Ahmanson, a former newspaper reporter and editor who covered religion in Southern California, said that in order to understand human beings, you need to understand their beliefs.

"You need to be able to talk about it in the art world because it's there," Ahmanson added. "It was just a subject you couldnt talk about."

With the "10 Columns" exhibition, which continues through Feb. 16, Bridge Projects has hosted programming that relates to "the subject matter of light from diverse sources."

In November, anthropologist Ronald Faulseit lectured about the role natural light played in influencing ancient temples, ritual and religion in Mesoamerica. Earlier this month, artist Lita Albuquerque spoke about her work and the intersections of light, landscape and scientific cosmologies.

Spransy is pleased to see people being open to this kind of programming.

"I was really encouraged and interested in how many people responded well when we talked about inviting archaeologists to come talk about Mesoamerican temple architecture and the fact that light orientation was so important to a lot of ancient cultures," she said.

Spransy said that in her professional life, she's been told that religion and art need to be "strained out from one another."

She hopes the new gallery proves otherwise.

"I still believe it doesnt have to be that way, and it shouldnt," she said.

(Editor's note: Fieldstead and Co. has supported past RNS arts coverage through a grant to the Religion News Foundation.)

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In this art gallery, conversations about religion and spirituality are welcome - The Oakland Press

Spirituality and values in the Disney universe – Evangelical Focus

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Kids and young people in the Western world today are increasingly digital, surrounded by both media gadgets and media stories that play a big part in their lives.[1]

The influence of media on religious ideas and values

The Swedish sociologist Mia Lvheim notes that the media is a more frequent arena than family and church for contacts with religious ideas and values.[2]

Perhaps the cinema outdoes the church in providing todays youth with a number of its religious ideas; after all, both are places of spiritual reflection which present values and stories with an underlying message.[3]

These stories are making an impact on the younger generation and on their worldview formation.

Disney and its global influence

Walter Elias Disney (19011966) was a moviemaker who wished both to deliver a message and make good entertainment.[4] His work creating the Disney universe has gone global, and now it is a fantasy world that both entertains and educates children in [US] and around the world.[5]

The term Disney universe reflects Disney products universality and the concept of a fantasy universe that has a great effect on the young generations worldview today.[6]

One of Disneys own screenwriters, Linda Woolverton, has said: When you take on a Disney animated feature, you know youre going to be affecting entire generations of human minds.[7]

Thus, The Walt Disney Company is very much aware of its influence via messages often hidden under a cover of fantasy and magic.

While Disney plays a major role in the lives of the younger generation, this is not confined to the Western world where the Disney universe was created. The movies and products featuring Disney characters can be found almost everywhere.

Insights for the church

Since Disney through its trademark is globally present, Christians worldwide can utilize the stories from the Disney universe in communication with kids and youth about religion and basic values.

Disney is globally influential, and its stories often mirror values found in or imported from Western society such as individualism.

By familiarizing ourselves with the values that are presented in the Disney universe, the global church can also obtain increased insights into the frame of reference that kids in general are exposed to through other media stories.

Faced with a society that is more and more media engaged, the global church has the challenge of meeting the young ones where they are, in their media-saturated world. To find out what they can be influenced by, positively and negatively, we can study the worldviews represented in their media world.

My analysis of the relatively recent movie Moana shows traces in it of two important aspects of contemporary worldviews: individualism and spirituality. I have also compared my findings with an analysis of older Disney movies by Margunn S. Dahle.[8]

Individualism

Looking at Moana and some classic Disney movies, I found several elements of individualism that strongly reflect Western postmodern society.

The movie about the heroine Moana is very much focused on her need to belong somewhere, as she looks for her place and role in life. This is easy to find in other Disney classics too, such as Hercules, Mulan, and The Lion King:

- Positively, the Disney heroes take on much responsibility and are brave in their journey to find meaning in their lives.

- However, their search for identity is often in conflict with family and community values in the Disney movies.

For the heroine Moana, her peoples traditions are very important. So, living on the island of Motonui, Moana tries to do what is expected of her, like the Chinese heroine Mulan.

However, they both end up going against their familys wishes and expectations when they run away from home and follow their hearts instead.

This element of individualism is found in several Disney movies, in which the story has a central motif of breaking with traditional expectations, and following your own heart instead of accepting decisions made by your parents or larger community.

Spirituality

Several Disney classics, as well as Moana, have inherent elements of spirituality. Moana presents reincarnation as a spiritual reality and presents Moanas forefathers as being present on earth in the nature surrounding her.

Pantheism (spirits in nature) and an opening for folk religiosity are present in many post-1989 Disney classics. For example, The Lion King (1994) presents the African notion of the living dead, while the heroine in Pocahontas (1995) communicates with spirits in accordance with Native American religion.

Positively, this teaches kids and youth about different worldviews and folk religiosity; but to learn from it, they must recognize that these messages go against a Christian worldview.

Many Disney movies mix Judaeo-Christian teaching with other religious elements and spirituality and then put some magic on top as the final solution for making your dreams come true.

In Moana, the magic happens through a pantheistic worldview. The ocean calls Moana, and her forefathers who have been reincarnated (especially her grandmother) to help her to achieve her dream.

The individualism is also found in the focus on Moanas inner spiritualitythe calling she feels from the voice in her heart.

How do we engage?

By examining worldviews that are typical of the Disney universe and also reflect the world we live in, we get to understand the messages our kids and youth are influenced by in their daily lives.

In kids and youth ministry, we can look for ways to confront the me-first spirit of the age and confirm the good values that coincide with Christian faith.[9]

he Disney universe influences the young generation in both positive and negative ways. To present them with a balanced picture, we need to underscore both the points of concordance and discordance between the Christian faith and the Disney universe.

Elements of concordance and discordance

Looking for positive aspects of the Disney universe that may coincide with Christian theology, we can see that within the individualism presented, there are values such as wanting to reach your own goals and being brave and strong.

Additionally, Disney underscores the importance of accepting responsibility and the quest for meaning in life.

Being brave, strong, and taking on responsibility are all Christian values we can embrace in the Disney universe. The existential questions as to where we belong and the meaning of life can also be addressed both in Christian faith and in Disney movies.

These points of contact give material to the youth worker or parent who can communicate with the younger generation about finding their identities and reaching their goals.

Typical elements of discordance between the Christian faith and the Disney universe can also be found in individualism as the heroes/heroines often oppose their parents and follow their own will.

Their pursuit of their meaning in life causes them to put themselves and their ambitions first. This presents opportunities to discuss with youth how a Christian should think about his/her own will and ambitions compared to the interests of others.

In addition, we find pantheism and reincarnation in the Disney universe, elements that contradict Christian faith. The spirituality that focuses on forefathers and spirits in nature and inside of you can be addressed in the dialogue with the young generation to create awareness, as well as reflection on how these elements contradict the biblical message.

Double listening

In relating to the younger generation, we want to offer them fellowship, help them grow in their faith and encourage them to spread the gospel to nonbelievers.[10]

If we listen to and learn from the media world surrounding them, we can convey the message of the gospel through the similarities and differences between Christian faith and their media world.

This approach involves the principle of double listeninglistening to both the Word of God and the world around us in search of concordance and discordance between the two messages.[11]

It means trying to understand and obey Gods word, and at the same time to understand the world in which we live, in order to see how the gospel can relate to and speak to the society.

Church leaders, parents, and youth workers, in fact all Christians, should be encouraged to practice this principle. It helps us scrutinize the messages we receive and encourages the young generation to maintain awareness in their digital life.

We should watch movies with the kids and youth, get to know what their media world contains, and talk about it open-mindedly.

If we as a global church can point to Jesus through the different messages the young generation receive, the process will show us and them the unselfish, loving nature of our Lord who in bravery sacrificed the pursuit of his own happiness to make the dream of mankind come trueto live happily ever after.

Tonje Belibi serves as Assistant Professor at Fjellhaug International University College in Norway, from where she received her MA in Theology and Missions. Her Masters Thesis was entitled, Relevant Faith Education for Tweens in a Media Age: The Disney Movie Moana as a case study.

This article originally appeared in the January 2020 issue of theLausanne Global Analysisand is published here with permission. Learn more about this flagship publication from the Lausanne Movement atwww.lausanne.org/lga.

Endnotes

1. Margunn Serigstad Dahle, Worldview Formation and the Disney Universe: A Case Study on Media Engagement in Youth Ministry, Journal of Youth and Theology 1 (16), 2017: 62.

2. Mia Lvheim, Religious Socialization in a Media Age, Nordic Journal of Religion and Society 2 (25), 2012: 151.

3. Nick Pollard, Philosophical Investigation, Damaris Skole Vgs, 2018, https://damaris-skole-vgs.no/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Philosophical-investigation-Nick-Pollard.pdf.

4. Mark I. Pinsky, The Gospel According to Disney: Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 2. Gunnar Strm, Walt Disney, Store norske leksikon, 2017, http://snl.no/Walt_Disney.

5. Pinsky, The Gospel According to Disney, 3.

6. Janet Wasko, Understanding Disney: The Manufacture of Fantasy (Cambridge, UK: Malden, MA: Polity, 2013), 3.

7. Quoted in Annalee R. Ward, Mouse Morality: The Rhetoric of Disney Animated Film (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2002), 113.

8. Dahle, Worldview Formation and the Disney Universe, 6080.

9. D. Kinnaman, Whats next for Youth Ministry?, in The State of Youth Ministry (The Barna Group, 2016) 85-87.

10. Editors Note: See article by Ben Pierce, entitled, Connecting with the New Global Youth Culture, in March 2019 issue of Lausanne Global Analysis https://www.lausanne.org/content/lga/2019-03/connecting-with-the-new-global-youth-culture.

11. See John Stott, The Contemporary Christian: An Urgent Plea for Double Listening (Leicester: IVP, 1992).

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A Spirituality of Aging: Deepening our Wisdom Years – CatholicPhilly.com

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Posted January 15, 2020

Event Name

A Spirituality of Aging: Deepening our Wisdom Years

Event Location

Cranaleith Spiritual Center 13475 Proctor Road, Philadelphia, PA 19116

Start Date and Time:

January 21; February 4, 18; March 10, 24; April 21, 2020 @ 10:00 am

End Date and Time

January 21; February 4, 18; March 10, 24; April 21, 2020 @ 1:30 pm

Event Description

As we grow older, we become more conscious of the new realities that life holds for us. We invite you to come join in the sharing of fellowship with others who are seeking insight into the process of aging.In a setting of prayer, peace and beauty we will share what is stirring in us, listen to valuable reflections and enter into discussion and prayer that will touch our hearts and spirits.

January 21 Aging and Mysticism: Hildegard of Bingen February 4 Gods Presence in the Midst of Suffering February 18 Aging and Mysticism: Teresa of Avila

Presenters: Mary Anne Nolan, RSM and Marie Michele Donnelly, RSM

Go to info@cranaleith.org to see additional topics and to register.

Cost: $30/session (includes lunch) Attend one or all sessions.

Ticket URL (optional)

https://cranaleith.org/event/deepening-our-wisdom-years-a-spirituality-of-aging-2020-01-21/2020-01-21/

Please join in the church's vital mission of communications by offering a gift in whatever amount that you can -- a single gift of $40, $50, $100, or more, or a monthly donation. Your gift will strengthen the fabric of our entire Catholic community.

Make your donation by check:CatholicPhilly.com222 N. 17th StreetPhiladelphia, PA 19103

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The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s spiritual influence remembered in Steubenville | News, Sports, Jobs – The Steubenville Herald-Star

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JOYOUS SOUND The Steubenville Community Youth Choir performs upbeat Christian music during a program of entertainment and reflection on the life of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Saturday at the Sycamore Youth Center.(Photo by Warren Scott)

STEUBENVILLE Youth have been playing a big part in the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Associations weekend-long observance of Martin Luther King Day, as organizers strive to convey the civil rights leaders principles to them while also recruiting them to pass his message on to others.

On Saturday at the Sycamore Youth Center, paid tribute to King through song and dance, while Steve Forte, director of the Fishers Council a local civic group reflected on the Christian principles that guided the slain civil rights leader.

Forte said King, a Baptist minister, was driven by the teachings of Jesus Christ when he adopted and promoted a nonviolent stance while lobbying for equal rights for all races.

Forte addressed an audience of all ages during a break in a morning of entertainment at the Sycamore Youth Center Saturday.

He noted prior to the civil rights movement, whites and blacks could not use the same water fountains, restrooms and restaurants, a fact that can be difficult for younger generations to understand today.

Forte said King set out to change things but in deciding how to do that, asked himself what Jesus would do.

Blacks and others in marches promoting equality often encountered violence but King encouraged them not to fight back, following the example of Christ, who forgave the men who killed him while they were killing him.

Forte said King has been called a light in those dark times but really he was a reflection of Christ, who taught us to return love for hate.

He shared stories of victims of violence who were able to find peace and forgiveness toward their attackers through Christianity.

Forte noted following Amber Guygers sentencing for the shooting death of Botham Jean, a man she mistakenly believed had broken into her apartment, the victims brother, Brandt, hugged and forgave her.

Can you be more powerful than the person youre in conflict with, the system in which you find conflict? The answer is yes, through Jesus Christ, he said.

How wonderful would it be to be in a confrontation with someone and through that confrontation, that person finds Christ? Forte said.

Organized by Cynthia Lytle and the Rev. Bobbyjon Bauman, entertainment was provided by many youth, including the AKC Dance Team, CBE 180, Minister of Truth, Elisha Fletcher, the Ambassador Mime Team and Steubenville Community Youth Choir.

Theres so much talent and so much gifting from the young people in this community, and when they a platform to display that, its always a treat, said Lytle.

Prior to the program, she played an excerpt from a King speech in which he said everyone has an opportunity to become great by serving others.

Lytle said community service is a good way to honor King.

We believe that instead of looking at it as day off, that Dr. King would see it as a day on, she said.

Following the program, many youth and adults walked over to the Steubenville Urban Missions Unity Kitchen to serve lunch to visitors there.

As excited as I was to see them perform, I was even more excited to see them serve, Lytle said.

Forte also met Saturday afternoon with young black men enrolled in the Fisher Councils 2020 Male Initiative, a mentoring program aimed at helping them to be productive and active community members.

The weekend-long observance will continue with an ecumenical service at 6 p.m. today at Finley United Methodist Church on Lincoln Avenue, a free continental breakfast with comments from the Rev. Marshall D. Madeconia and others; and a memorial march at 10 a.m. Monday from the Martin Luther King Recreation Center on Market Street to Steubenville High School, where winners of the MLK Associations essay contest will be recognized.

A lunch will immediately follow.

STEUBENVILLE In recognition of January being National Radon Action Month, the Ohio Department of Health is ...

WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trumps legal team issued a fiery response Saturday ahead of opening ...

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5 Reasons to jumpstart your spiritual reading in 2020 – Aleteia EN

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Last year, Forbes magazine reported, The average adult consumes five times more information every day than their counterpart 50 years ago. It went on to suggest that Americans can spend 12 hours a day looking at screens!

This is no diatribe against technology after all, these thoughts were penned for a Catholic website. But there is something to be said for books. Reading a print book is contemplative, restful, and inspiring in ways that watching television or scrolling social media are not. So why not start 2020 with a new commitment to spiritual reading? Here are five reasons to consider it:

Jesus himself invites us to know and love him through the intimate conversation we call prayer. Nevertheless, in a certain respect, prayer is an input output game. What goes in, comes out. Spiritual reading helps train our minds to think of higher things and allows us to enter more easily into conversation with God. When we engage in reading about the life of Jesus or the mysteries of our faith, it becomes easier to mull them over with God in prayer.

How can I tell someone about my love for Christ without words? Spiritual reading helps shape and color our own experiences of the Lord. By giving words to the faith or considering the experiences of the saints, sharing our own love for the faith will come more readily, with a more natural feel.

Every website, news channel or radio station has a set of guiding principles that inform the stories they present and the way those stories are shared. Only the Gospel is free from ideology. Only spiritual reading, the Scriptures and the lives of holy Christian men and women, can refresh us and lift us out of the mire which so often drags us down.

We hear excerpts from the Bible each Sunday in Mass. However, deciding to regularly read the Scriptures allows a Christian to hear God speaking directly to ones own heart in a particularly intimate way. The Gospels and the Letters of the New Testament hold pride of place as they offer the heights of the story of our salvation and present in simple terms stories of consolation and joy.

We may be tempted to pick up a biography or treatise and force ourselves to enjoy it. Such and such a saint is incredible, weve heard. But we may very well not like every work we come across; Reading a breadth of spiritual works allows us to become more fully ourselves. We must not be afraid to soften the edges of our vices or expand the horizon of our own views. In so doing our faith will become more completely our own.

Looking for some suggestions? Check out this list from Aleteia. Take an hour and peruse the shelves of a local Catholic bookshop. Order a few things online or pick up a couple of books from your local library. You wont regret it!

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5 Reasons to jumpstart your spiritual reading in 2020 - Aleteia EN

Meaningful Conversations Chapel Hill looks for the spiritual basis of forgiveness – The Daily Tar Heel

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The program for this weeks conversation on forgiveness includes relevant writings such as, To nurse a grievance or hatred against another soul is spiritually poisonous to the soul which nurses it, but to strive to see another person as a child of God and, however heinous his deeds, to attempt to overlook his sins for the sake of God, removes bitterness from the soul and both ennobles and strengthens it.

The brochure for the Meaningful Conversations Chapel Hill meeting on Jan. 15, titled Finding Justice in Forgiveness.

The brochure also offers conversation guidelines for each meeting that align with Bah teachings, such as valuing everyones contribution, expressing views but keeping an open heart and mind and maintaining a humble posture of learning.

When I heard about the activity, I wanted to be a part of it and help out in any way I can, so I joined the team and I really enjoy all the conversations, said Kathy Krug, a frequent participant who found the group because she is a Bah.

Krug said that many people who come to the gatherings feel inspired by the writings, and many others come because they feel the topic is something vital to whats going on in the world. The meetings give participants the chance to meet and get to know others who feel the same.

We had no idea what the response would be, but at the end of every gathering I feel that theres some kind of power in talking about something that is unifying and uplifting, when youre all diverse people coming together at one moment in time, Krug said. I think thats something we should be encountering more often.

Solomon Gibson III, another community participant, agreed that the topics are relevant and generate valuable discussions.

The group itself seems to be in the zeitgeist these days, probably due to the political nature of our society, Gibson said. We often talk about cooperation, and how to best weather whats going on and continue to improve humanity and get through these turbulent times.

He said he merits the group for making everyone feel very comfortable sharing and expressing their ideas.

I give them credit they have attracted the most diverse group of individuals that I have seen in any such meetings Ive been to," Gibson said. "That leads to a tendency to discuss many different understandings of the subject matter, usually emotional and spiritual rather than intellectual."

Krug said she is especially looking forward to the diverse viewpoints that will be brought up at this weeks gathering, as the conversation topic is one thats important to her.

Thinking about forgiveness and justice together," she said, "Ive been reflecting and meditating on that since I was 19 and Im still learning, so Im really looking forward to the insights people bring to that as I think its something were always faced with as humans.

arts@dailytarheel.com

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Big Freedia Will Bring Bounce Tunes, Spiritual Experience When She Takes the Stage at Paper Tiger – San Antonio Current

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Since the 2000s, the New Orleans artist Big Freedia been at the forefront of bringing the energetic hip-hop form known as bounce into the mainstream.Many got their first taste of Freedia when she was featured on Beyonces Formation, shouting, I did not come to play with you hoes, I came to slay, bitch!

If youve never seen the Queen Diva live, hold onto something.

Her show is a spiritual experience one that consists of self-love, booty-shaking and the kind of fellowship often reserved for religious functions. It might seem strange to see spiritual experience and booty-shaking in the same sentence, but we assure that many have shared the same sentiment upon leaving her concerts.

$22, Sunday, Jan. 19, 8 p.m., Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Marys St., papertigersatx.com.

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Big Freedia Will Bring Bounce Tunes, Spiritual Experience When She Takes the Stage at Paper Tiger - San Antonio Current

Liverpool players spiritual preparations and how club respectfully honours faith behind the scenes – Liverpool Echo

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Liverpool Football Club are an incredible organisation when it comes to respecting and honouring faith and religion at every level.

At Anfield for example there is a multi-faith prayer room, accessible for fans via the Main Stand from up to five hours before kick-off at every match.

At Melwood for the players there is also a prayer and faith room which the ECHO understands is used by the likes of Muslim superstars Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane while Gini Wijnaldum also frequents the room as a very spiritual player for reading and reflection.

Other players use it too but a little more privately and when Liverpool complete their training ground move from Melwood to the new complex in Kirkby, scheduled for completion this summer, the room will be replicated for all staff members to continue their practices.

Before matches, Liverpool don't need to arrive at grounds early for players such as Salah and Mane to pray or carry out any religious activity they so wish. The club instead factor this in to the countdown to kick-off in terms of the rubs and stretches players receive among other things they need to do in that time before lining-up alongside their team-mates.

And with that, neither Salah or Mane has ever requested an early arrival time at a match either but both instead factor everything into their important match preparations.

Manager Jurgen Klopp is very open about his strong Christian faith. Alisson recently played a role in the baptism of Liverpool and Brazil team-mate Roberto Firmino - of which the frontman shared a video on Instagram with both players seemingly very emotional following the religious event. Belgian striker Divock Origi has too been open about his faith and how that has helped him through injuries.

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This in itself highlights just what can happen when talented people from any belief and all walks of life come together to work alongside and understand each other in perfect assimilation.

And that is exactly what World Religion Day, held on the third Sunday in January every year, aims to promote - that inter-faith understanding and harmony is incredibly important and that by emphasising the common denominators underlying all religions can help people see that working together can bring great success.

It's hard to think of another set-up that does this quite so incredibly as Liverpool with players, managers and staff following a number of different religions and factions of religions but understanding each other and helping each other along so much so that they are the reigning European and world champions of football.

Klopp manages Protestants, Catholics and other Christian denominations as well as Muslims and has spoken on numerous occasions about the harmony between the players in the dressing room being one of the most important factors for success at Liverpool.

He said recently: "It only works because of the environment, it only works because of the atmosphere the boys create by themselves in the group."

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Liverpool players spiritual preparations and how club respectfully honours faith behind the scenes - Liverpool Echo

Local Cantors are ‘The Spiritual Caretakers of the Congregation’ – The Jewish News

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Featured photo by Marty Abrin

The members of the Michigan Board of Cantors want you to know that they are more than a collection of pretty voices. Someone who simply leads and interprets prayers is not necessarily a cantor.The equivalent would be calling anyone who presents an interpretation on a Jewish text a rabbi, he said.

Singing is just a little bit of what we do, he said. Even the English translation of the Hebrew word hazzan to cantor, a Latin word taken from the Christian church, doesnt do justice to the role. The Hebrew word hazzan implies visionary and includes not only leading Jewish prayer but also Jewish education and pastoral care, said Gross of Adat Shalom Synagogue in Farmington Hills. He prefers the title hazzan to cantor.

Neil Michaels of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield and current president of the Michigan Board of Cantors, says cantors have traditionally been responsible for leading prayer, chanting Torah, working with choirs, training bnaimitzvah students andteaching Hebrew in religious schools. Now, he said, their role has expanded to include giving eulogies and sermons, counseling and even preparing an individual for conversion.

The hazzan is known as the shaliach tzibor, the emissary of the congregation; the word has visionary overtones. In ages past, the hazzan led the community in public prayer while the rabbis job was mainly to teach, counsel and answer questions of law, said Hazzan Steve Klaper, a founder of Song & Spirit Institute for Peace in Royal Oak. New Jewish communities would often hire a hazzan before hiring a rabbi, and cantors were recognized by the civil authorities as clergy with authority to solemnize marriages.

Hazzanim are more than singers or performers, he said. The shul is not a theatrical stage and davening is not a concert. We teach and lead worship through an alternate carrier wave, creating an effect at once emotional, intellectual and spiritual. We change the vibration of the room and the state of mind of the congregants in ways that most rabbis cannot. We are the spiritual caretakers of the congregation.

The training for hazzanim is similar to that of rabbis, Gross said. In the major American cantorial schools at the Jewish Theological Seminary (Conservative) and Hebrew Union College/Jewish Institute of Religion (Reform), cantorial study takes five years, including one in Israel. At the end of the program, the hazzanim are ordained or invested and are considered to be clergy.

Cantors in this community are truly respected on a level similar to rabbis. Thats not true in every community, he added.

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Local Cantors are 'The Spiritual Caretakers of the Congregation' - The Jewish News

The 12 Best Mayan Sites to See in Guatemala – Fodor’s Travel

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Unlike the famous ancient cities of Tikal and El Mirador in the northeast, this capital of the Kaqchikel Maya was brought down not by the ravages of deforestation and drought but by the consequences of the Spanish conquest in the early 16th century. Fifty years after Iximches founding, despite an early alliance with the conquistadors, the city was burned to the ground. Standing in ruins for four hundred years, Iximche once again became a center of Maya activity in the 1980s, first as a meeting place for a declaration to defend Indigenous rights during the Guatemalan Civil War, then in a ritual to re-establish the site as a sacred place for Indigenous ceremonies. While the site is open to visitors, many of those who come to Iximche are Indigenous people, including Maya priests (or daykeepers), on religious pilgrimages to this ancestral place.

INSIDER TIPTo Maya people, Iximche is a sacred site, not a tourist attraction, even when the tourist is a major world leader. After President George W. Bush visited in 2007, spiritual leaders purified the site of the bad spirits he had attracted through his administrations persecution of undocumented Guatemalan migrants in the U.S.

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The 12 Best Mayan Sites to See in Guatemala - Fodor's Travel

Father beat children secluded on Ruinerwold farm with "spiritual sword": Report – NL Times

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Gerrit Jan van D. regularly beat and abused his children in the around nine years they were kept secluded on a farm in Ruinerwold, according to accounts of how he drove "evil spirits" out of them that he wrote down himself and testimony the children gave the police. In some of those "exorcisms" Van D. used his "spiritual sword", the Telegraaf reports based on those accounts, which aredescribed in the bookSpookhoeve Ruinerwoldset to publish later this week.

One of these abuses happened early in the morning after Van D. woke up from a nightmare. He regarded the bad dream as a sign that he had to defend himself against an attack by evil spirits, according to the Telegraaf. He took his weapon - it is unclear whether this was a physical sword or a weapon that existed only in his mind, but he described that he received it from god - and woke one of his children, determined to destroy all the evil in him.

Van D. wrote down the punishment as follows: "I chastened him with words because he had such a bad spirit. And hit him a few times with my spiritual sword. I felt there was something in him. By beating him spiritually, I usually kill the spirits in him. But nothing happened and he still looked very arrogant and strange. Then I saw a tiny creature, spiritually, crawling in his head. About 1 centimeter in diameter and round. While I kept talking to him, I caught the being very quickly with my hand. I didn't touch his head. But when I caught the creature, he fell unconscious. I had the creature in my hand and studied it after I killed it with my spiritual sword. After I discovered that being, God destroyed them all and told me there were many, many billions of them."

While Van D. was convinced that he had saved his child from evil, his children saw it very differently. They considered it horrible abuse, according to a statement one gave the police, according to the newspaper. The child said: "Hit or squeeze your throat until you lose consciousness. I can remember that because you wake up and you don't know in a blind panic, disorientation. From [my brother] I know it happened once. He was brought down from the top and it happened in the hallway. I saw that he lost consciousness. My father did that. We always woke up quickly. This happened often. I think dozens of times. In the twenty times I think."

In addition to these rituals, which always ended with Van D. laying hands on them, the children had to deal with their heads being beaten or kicked, their hair being pulled, ice cold showers until they could no loner walk, and being locked up in cupboards or cages, according to the Telegraaf. They sometimes told their father they were grateful to be punished for their sins, out of fear. But often they had no idea what they had done wrong.

The 67-year-old man also punished his "disciples" from Austria, the newspaper writes. One, an Austrian engineer called Hermann, raised his voice to his Dutch teacher in an argument. Van D. thought his pupil was possessed by evil spirits. He physically beat Hermann, tied him up, and dangled him from a ceiling beam. He hung there for hours with his feet off the ground. When the Austrian man was finally let down, he was locked up in a shack for weeks. He was only fed honey and apples, and had to relieve himself in a bucket.

Van D. was discovered living with six of his nine children in a hidden space on a farm in Ruinerwold, Drenthe in mid-October 2019. This happened after one of the children, a 25-year-old named Jan, left the farm and told his story at a local bar. The authorities believe the family lived there in complete isolation for around nine years. A DNA kinship investigation confirmed that the now-adult children living on the farm all have the same mother and father, and that Van D. is their father. Their mother died in Zwolle on 6 October 2004. Van D.'s three oldest children left home before the family moved to the farm.

Gerrit Jan van D. issuspected of money laundering, deprivation of liberty and mistreatmentof his nine children, and sexually abusing two of his oldest children.Josef B., the58-year-old tenant of the farmwho was arrested shortly after the family was discovered, is suspected ofmoney laundering, deprivation of liberty, and mistreatment.Both Van D. and B. are also suspected of depriving a 69-year-old Austrian man of his liberty in Meppel for several months in 2009.

The first public hearing in the Ruinerwold case is scheduled for Tuesday. Van D. will not appear in court, because he still hasn't been questioned by the authorities, according to the Telegraaf. He is unable to talk because of a brain hemorrhage, and may never again be able to.

Robert Snorn, the lawyer representing Van D., told the newspaper that he does not want to comment. "If I decide to comment substantively, that will only be after the case has been handled substantively. I firmly believe this is the right course of events," the lawyer said to the Telegraaf.

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Father beat children secluded on Ruinerwold farm with "spiritual sword": Report - NL Times

The Ummah Chroma to Launch Spiritual & Meditative Installation at Het Nieuwe Instituut – HYPEBEAST

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This month, Het Nieuwe Instituut will activate art collective The Ummah Chromas installation, entitled G/D THYSELF: Spirit Strategy On Raising Free Black Children, in collaboration with International Film Festival Rotterdam. The project was inspired by the groups short film, AS TOLD TO G/D THYSELF (2019), which represents the cosmic journey of sacred youth, during which pain, pleasure, and sublimation are non-negotiable. With this in mind, the installation aims to provide a space that allows visitors to explore themes of metaphysical transcendence, spirituality and self-expression.

The installation in Het Nieuwe Instituut is a ritual space making exercise that extrapolates meditations on raising free Black children from the film, The Ummah Chroma says. The resulting installation draws on inspiration from many cultural traditions. Over the course of its tenure, it will invite the practicing and teaching of spirit strategies. Community members will be encouraged to use the space as a site for rituals they feel the desire to execute.

Over the course of the exhibition, local and international artists will hold rituals and musical performances at the space, adding to and transforming the installation. Terence Nance and Jenn Nkiru, members of The Ummah Chroma, will be present during the opening program of G/D THYSELF and at IFFR.

Take a look at select stills from AS TOLD TO G/D THYSELF above and head over to the Het Nieuwe Instituuts website for more information. The Ummah Chromas installation will go live January 25 and end June 28.

In other art-related news, Case Studyo and Dutch graffiti artist DELTA unveiled KOU, a sculptural edition which is part art object and part functional lamp.

Het Nieuwe InstituutMuseumpark 25, 3015 CBRotterdam, Netherlands

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The Ummah Chroma to Launch Spiritual & Meditative Installation at Het Nieuwe Instituut - HYPEBEAST

SPIRITUALLY SPEAKING: What will your legacy be? – Wicked Local

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What will be my legacy? I always return to this question as one year ends and another begins.

You are fettered, said Scrooge, trembling. Tell me why? I wear the chain I forged in life, replied the Ghost. I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

What will be my legacy?

I always return to this question as one year ends and another begins and, in the case of 2020, as one decade fades into history and another decade prepares to take center stage. Not sure just why that curious query enters my thoughts now. Maybe its because as I age and another Happy New Year! rings out, I realize that there are more Auld Ang Synes behind me than before me. That my chances to make a mark in this world are limited by time and fate.

And so, I wonder what will be my legacy?

What will I be remembered for, after I leave this earth and return to the Creator who made me? How about you? What will be your legacy? The life you will leave behind, the lives of others you touched and made better, or did not? The life of the community you lived in that is a better place, or is not, because you called that part of Creation home? How do you want to be remembered?

Its tempting to see these questions as somehow morbid, or too tender or too scary to ask. I get that. Who wants to imagine this life without ones self? Yet the truth is we are all born and we all live and we will all die, all of us, one day, perhaps in a very long time or perhaps sooner than we think. God only knows when that time will come, so it seems to me imperative that every once in a while like on the eve of another New Years Eve we should think about this. My legacy. Reflect on this. Our legacies.

Not in material things, in what we will to our heirs. As a lifelong enthusiastic consumer, I know I put far too much stock into what I have, what I possess, what I own, what earthy things are important to me right now. We all do. Weve got stuff, after all. Lots of stuff. Too much stuff. Ive got a big house full of so many things. Though I fantasize that my stuff is precious, the reality is that all of these things: they will eventually rust and they will decay and they will fall apart and one day be no more, consigned to the landfill or the Salvation Army.

I mean really: will anyone want the legacy of my big-screen TV? Or my thousands of books (mostly science fiction) or my collection of far too many coffee mugs (dont even ask) or the broken snowblower in the garage I will surely fix someday (not!)? To me thats not a legacy, not in the truest sense. The world may tell us that she who dies with the most toys wins, but to God? To life? To those we leave behind? Stuff is just stuff. Disposable. Here today. Gone tomorrow.

The real legacy of life is an accumulation of the tens of thousands of daily moral and ethical and spiritual choices that we make each day. How we decide to live: this alone will determine our most important legacy on that last day.

Did our one life make a difference for the good? Did we use that life, a gift to us from our generous Creator, for the good, for the positive, and in service to others? Did we forgive quickly and love boldly? Were we merciful to the very young and to the very old? Did we help those who struggled in life: the poor, the sick, the lonely, the powerless? Were we good citizens and did we give ourselves over to some cause or ideal greater than ourselves? Did we laugh too often and cry too deeply and live with reckless joy and take risks and fall down and get back up and try again? Did we live with humility, knowing that we were just another bozo on the bus of life, no greater, no worse, than any of our fellow passenger?

Legacy.

Or did we live for self alone? Did we mock or tear down others to build our own selves up? Did we seek power for the sake of power, or use the authority we had over others to exploit or hurt them or to add to our own largesse? Did we take the gift of our body but then not treat it well? Were we quick to judge and slow to accept? Were we miserly with our money, hoarding it all for ourselves? Did we imagine that the way we lived: this alone was the answer for everyone elses life? Did we live with cynicism, expecting the worst, or live with apathy, leaving the work of life up to others? Did we imagine ourselves better than others? Did we die with a house full of possessions and a full bank account but with a sparsely attended memorial service?

What will be our legacy?

The good news is that if we are reading this, the legacy question has yet to be answered. So, Happy New Year but more important, happy legacy. I know Ive still got lots of work to do. How about you?

The Rev. John F. Hudson is senior pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn (pilgrimsherborn.org). If you have a word or idea youd like defined in a future column or have comments, please send them to pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org or in care of the Dover-Sherborn Press (Dover-Sherborn@wickedlocal.com).

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Pray for the president’s spiritual aligning with Scripture – Anniston Star

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Anthony Cooks guidelines on praying for President Donald Trump align with Scripture.

For example, 3 John 2 reveals that John the beloved disciple, prayed for Gaius to prosper in all things, including good health, proportional to how his soul prospered. Thats a striking presidential prayer.

Pauls prayer for the Ephesians also provides a model; he prayed that God illuminate them with wisdom. Of course, the prayers expansive, and can be modified for Trump and unbelievers.

Ive heard people pray a partisan political prayer for Trump. The prayers essence a good deal of the presidents problems flow from a systematic Satanic inspired media onslaught. Really?

Trump by default spews caustic, cutting and corrosive words. Christ decrees that the mouth reveals that which fills the heart. Its obvious hes afflicted with a heart toxicity. Therefore, pray for his salvation, his heart cleansing, and his spirit aligning with Scripture.

Pray that God will install an evangelical advisory board that fears and exalts God only. For example, Tuscaloosa Pastor Gil McKee rebuked Gov. Robert Bentley for his moral failings, and demonstrated God has people who havent bowed to Baal.

Marc D. Greenwood

Camp Hill

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Spiritually Speaking: 2020 vision for the New Year | Eden Prairie Opinion – SW News Media

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In 1986 I was a young energetic 39-year-old pastor serving a young 13-year-old Eden Prairie congregation when visionary Pastor Dale Galloway from Washington State published his seminal book on church leadership titled 2020 Vision. His vision for future church communities was all about cells and celebrations, small group ministries joined with worship for congregating and celebrating with the whole church community. Leadership seminars and conferences had pastors and leaders in congregations and religious institutions focusing on Galloways theories and practices, but also wondering whether he was talking about the clarity of their eyesight for envisioning such ministries or about long-range planning and strategizing for the year 2020 or both. Envisioning ministry priorities 34 years, that was visioning with a really long view 1986 to 2020.

But now the year 2020 has finally arrived and Pastor Galloways play on the double meaning of 2020 sight and the year 2020 is immediately in front of our eyes with 2020 vision in our planning and dreaming, not only for a New Year but also for a new decade.

In faith communities everywhere people are blessed every week and every year by a great variety of inspiring small group cells for building relationships from bowling leagues to Bible studies, book groups to prayer groups, Habitat for Humanity build groups to Loaves and Fishes, too, cooks and servers and clean-up crews, and on-and-on. Likewise, rich blessings are received in gatherings of the faithful in celebration with the community all together for inspiring and uplifting from concerts to sing-a-longs, fellowship dinners to worship services. Seeing others is required for creating relationships and being seen by others is necessary for creating and experiencing community, so in the days ahead in 2020, create and then celebrate relationships discovered and developed in these and other ways.

Pastor Dick Hamlin, my lifetime mentor and encourager, frequently reminds me to finish well and begin new great advice at the turn of the years and the decades. Now is a very special time for review and preview with 20/20 hindsight and 20/20 foresight, all the while confident that God has the long view secure and in sight. Envision with eyes wide open and 2020 vision what that looks like for you and your loved ones every day.

The Popes Christmas message at the transition of these years and decades was, Let the light of God pierce the darkness in our lives and in the world. If we are standing in the darkness well never see the light, so step into the light and get involved in something every day in this brand new year.

Queen Elizabeths Christmas message called for everyone to go into the new year and new decade with forgiveness and reconciliation that will make a difference in our lives and world.

In the end is the beginning, since 2020 vision involves seeing and being seen with an eye for friendship that will build engaging relationships with others, especially when we see God in others and believe we are seen by God also.

God gifts us with eyes of faith for believing so that we might see God at work in our daily living. If ever there was a time for New Year resolutions for opening those eyes, looking and seeing Gods word and action our lives, its now in 2020. Think about it well never get this number again 2021 wont bring to mind metaphors of eyesight and vision like 2020 does now. And neither will 3030, for any of us, should we live that long, or even for our offspring many generations from now.

The Bible speaks of abundant life and abundant love that come from our God of abundance, not scarcity. Pray that eyes of faith will see with clear vision all the big and little things God is up to in our lives and our world in 2020. Then when we say, Have a happy and prosperous New Year, we just might be a little more attentive to crediting God for what we see.

May the God of plenty be yours in 2020.

The Rev. Rod Anderson, former pastor at St. Andrew Lutheran Church in Eden Prairie, shares this space with the Rev. Timothy A. Johnson as well as spiritual writers Dr. Bernard E. Johnson, Lauren Carlson-Vohs and Beryl Schewe. Spiritually Speaking appears weekly.

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The Bezos, Musk and Branson billionaire space race is happening right now – Yahoo Finance

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With a presidential election, the Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo and yes, Ludwig van Beethovens 250th birthday celebration, 2020 promises to be a humdinger of a year.

But also happening in 2020if all systems are gowill be the beginning of regular U.S. space tourism flights, either by Richard Bransons Virgin Galactic (ticker: SPCE) or Jeff Bezos Blue Origin or both. Also possibly coming this year are tourist trips to the International Space Station (ISS) on a craft built by Elon Musks SpaceX. (Boeing has a spaceship too, but that company might be otherwise occupied.)

So apologies to Donald, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Ludwig van, but commercial space travel could end up being the biggest damn thing to happen this year. In fact, I think its the beginning of a real game-changer for humanity.

If youve been following the space biz, you know that the go year has been pushed back a number of times, but Ann Kim, aerospace banker and managing director of Silicon Valley Bank, is feeling it. These companies are close. They wanted to get humans into space in 2019, but were not as successful in delivering promises as originally thought. 2020 is a good year to see that inflection point.

It has been a long time coming. In fact these three companies are more or less of the same vintage. Bezos founded Blue Origin (named after Earth, the blue planet, as the place of origin), in 2000. SpaceX, which has colonizing Mars as its ultimate mission, was founded in 2002. And Branson started Virgin Galactic two years after that.

While you may snort at all this silly space stuff, its worth noting that three of the most successful entrepreneurs of our lifetimes have been working on space travel for a collective 54 years now. Remember, once upon a time folks laughed at online bookstores, electric cars and branded air travel too.

Yes, there is a bit of a space race going on, although this time its not Russia v. the U.S., its Branson v. Bezos, who are battlingin the suborbital space (pun intended), with Musk as a competitor longer term on more ambitious projects.

Some play down the competitive aspects of the business though. Its not a race at all, future Virgin Galactic passenger Namira Salim told Yahoo Finances The Final Round, we all say that in the industry. I think its safe to say there is room for all three. (Space is a big place, right?)

Its important to remember that intermittent space tourism has been around for a while. Between 2001 and 2009, seven space tourists traveled to the International Space Station on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Dennis Tito was the first, remember him? Also top Microsoft exec Charles Simonyi made the trip. And British singer Sarah Brightman signed up but later canceled. The trips were arranged by a U.S. company, Space Adventures, and cost, gulp, $20 million a pop. But the Russians terminated the program and despite talk of restarting it, havent. In any event the Soyuz trips were always one-offs, where Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin aim to be scheduled operations and the first steps to more extensive programs.

American multimillionaire Dennis Tito, 60, gestures shortly after his landing on the steppes, 80 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of Arkalyk, Kazakstan, Sunday, May 6, 2001. Others are unidentified. The Russian Soyuz capsule carrying the world's first paying space tourist landed successfully on Sunday, ending Tito's multimillion dollar cosmos adventure. (AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel)

Virgin Galactic has been a moonshot of a stock over the past month, up over 60%. Some of that might have to do with CEO George Whitesides telling CNBC recently that demand for tickets keeps ticking up by a good chunk every month.The company says it has sold tickets to more than 600 customers at around $250,000 per person. It froze ticket sales after a crash in 2014 killed one of its pilots. Virgin Galactic now says it may reopen sales later this yearand raise prices.

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Yes, there is risk. This is not as safe as airline travel, says Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer and rocket expert at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysic. Suborbital flight, [what Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin are doing now] can be made very safe. It will just take a lot more flights and experience to make it so. Whether orbital flight will ever be that safe is more of an open question. Sir Richard says not to worry. Hell be going up as Virgin Galactics first test-space-tourist astronaut.

Branson took his company public by merging with Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), or blank-check company, founded by Chamath Palihapitiya, a former Facebook executive (who has since somewhat famously soured on his former employer.) Palihapitiya still owns 49% of Virgin Galactic.

Blue Originits motto is, Gradatim Ferociter, Latin for "Step by Step, Ferociously.hasnt pre-sold any tickets, but it too has indicated that the time is near to send passengers into space. The company just moved into a swank new 232,000-square-foot headquarters in Kent, Washingtonnear the Sea-Tac Airportto house many of its 2,500 employees. Geek Wire reports, Hundreds more are based elsewhere in the Kent area, south of Seattle, as well as at Blue Origins suborbital launch site in West Texas, the Florida rocket factory where Blue Origins New Glenn orbital-class rocket will be assembled, and at the site of its future BE-4 rocket engine factory in Alabama.

Bezos, who loved space as a child, is incredibly passionate about space and Blue Origin, so much so that I pulled these two quotes from this 2018 interview to give you an idea. (The whole piece makes for good reading, btw.)

I get increasing conviction with every passing year, that Blue Origin, the space company, is the most important work that Im doing. And so there is a whole plan for Blue Origin.

And:

The only way that I can see to deploy this much financial resource is by converting my Amazon winnings into space travel. That is basically it. Blue Origin is expensive enough to be able to use that fortune. I am liquidating about $1 billion a year of Amazon stock to fund Blue Origin. And I plan to continue to do that for a long time.

Serious!

Imagine if Blue Origin ends up being a bigger deal than Amazon? Could be.

Jeff Bezos speaks in front of a model of Blue Origin's Blue Moon lunar lander, Thursday, May 9, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

SpaceX is a different beast, not surprisingly playing at an Elon Musk, super-ambitious, Tesla-like level. With its Falcon rockets and Dragon spacecraft, SpaceX was the first private company to go into orbit. Dragon has gone to the ISS 18 times. A Falcon has orbited around the sun. And working with NASA, SpaceX is reportedly set to launch its first crewed Crew Dragon next month. Tourism to the ISS is on the agenda.

Who will launch the first U.S. space flight for tourists?

I think that Virgin Galactic is the closest, says Kim. A lot of people are putting in their deposits. It seems to be the leader of the pack. Blue Origin is close behind. SpaceX has more longer term potential. I think all three can be very successful.

Where is this all going? Space tourism needs to be more than billionaires taking selfies in space, says Tess Hatch, who once worked at SpaceX and is now a vice president at Bessemer Venture Partners, which has invested in the space business. There needs to be business reasons to be in space. Hatch says space tourism and the space economy need to catalyze business models, and cites business opportunities such as zero gravity research and pharmaceutical testing.

As for Bezos, Branson and Musk, Hatch says, ...these people made their billions in totally different industries and are now turning to space. They will make billions if not trillions in space.

I must admit, I have mixed feelings about space being dominated by the likes of Bezos, Branson and Musk. On the one hand I cant help but admire what theyve done as entrepreneurs. I dont think theyre evil. And they are filling a breach voided by governments abdication of having a consistent, strategic space program. So sure, go for it guys!

On the other hand, I worry about the inevitable lack of consensus that accompanies each of these three efforts. How much thinking about pure science, medicine or even art will be brought to bear in space endeavors controlled by billionaires. I guess I dont blame them or fault them, none of that thinking is necessarily their purview or responsibility.

In a way its just another example of our economy and society being co-opted by the technocrat class. Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Teslathose companies are all name-checked in this article. Fifty years ago, yes there were private defense contractors involved in the process, but NASA and DOD were the drivers. The amount of technological innovation and products that came from NASA is stunning and too long to list here. Now the script has been flipped. Will these tech moguls be so free with their IP? Who knows. Maybe they will be even more collaborative about fostering and sharing research and scientific breakthroughs.

One things for sure, it looks like we are going to find out. Maybe starting this year. (Roll over Beethoven.)

This article was featured in a Saturday edition of the Morning Brief on December 14, 2019. Get the Morning Brief sent directly to your inbox every Monday to Friday by 6:30 a.m. ET.Subscribe

Commentary by Andy Serwer is editor-in-chief of Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter:@serwer.

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The Bezos, Musk and Branson billionaire space race is happening right now - Yahoo Finance