A New Hope

On this planet, Gaza strip has just been bombed by Israel. Those soldiers have been torturing Palestinians, and killing fathers in front of the children. A number of people died of diarrhea secondary to infection in Zimbabwe. Their tap water and sewege got mixed. Kids speak back and kill their parents in Japan. Many lost jobs and became homeless in the US. India and Pakistan does not get along with each other. Wherever you go, there seems to be no place that is peaceful, without any tragedy and conflict.

Upon the end of this year, as well as the beginning of a new year to come, I hope, wish and pray for the global peace, since I still have to live, survive the next year whether I like it or not. I just wish things go well around the earth. I am now wondering that how long we all have to go through or witness a slew of sufferings like that ... Nevertheless, I believe, that is when our true hope and faith are tested ... so let us pray to the Lord ...

The Death of Ai Iijima

It was a story of one former runaway girl. She had gone through a variety of experiences such as sniffing paint thinner (A paint thinner/organic solvent chemicals junkie), cohabitation that once used to be considered immoral back in those days in Japan, survived an attempted rape case, then started working in pubs, finally landed on adult film industry as soon-would-be an popular porn star prior to become a very popular TV talent thus a celebrity in Japan.

Her name was Ai Iijima.

The news of her death seemed to have spread all over Japan. In addition, the news went across the Sea of Japan & East China Sea. She became the most googled person in the P.R. China. In her early life, it had been full of tragedy and adventurous experience. However, as she became famous on TV, her blunt/candid statements about everything around her got attention among lay people who watch TV in Japan. As a consequence, she became a sex symbol among young Japanese male, then also established the same position even among Chinese men. In her autobiography, she wrote everything that people want to know about her, which would be considered embarrassing, something that anyone would not want to reveal much less as a celebrity. Her past deed was condensed in the book, according to various sources in the Internet.

After gaining popularity among TV viewers, her life turned around. She started living in a luxurous mansion at the heart of Tokyo, where living expense is quite expensive on the planet. Nevertheless, she had been suffering from intractable deep rooted disease. I am not talking about her pyelonephritis that she suffered. It was unceasing thirst and loneliness that she once revealed stopping by at a police station nearby her place. Nobody will ever know the truth about her despair. Yet, we all can tell that the very desperate, lonely life must have deeply affected her late life having read articles about her death and life before it.

She got money, popularity, a nice house, and her new business was just started. Everything finally seemed to got settled in such a way that everybody else would want. This part of her life could be compared to "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" by Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoi. When everything seems to start going well, Mr. Ilyich died in the midst of deep despair and loneliness. As opposed to the Tolstoi's literature, Ms. Ai Iijima got some friends who were supportive, however, the common denomenator would be the unbearable loneliness of both two different persons. There is no evidence, however I'm sure that she decided to convert herself to lead a better life that can be accepted by anyone in the society. As the conversion occurred, she started suffering from pyelonephritis just like Ivan Ilyich also suffered from an unknown disease for a certain amount of time.

When you are a delinquent student, you feel you can do whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want. You will probably feel that your life will last forever. You will waste your time and you don't care that you're wasting it due to the feeling of eternity. Later in your life, you will be made to realize that you are not living your life, rather you are allowed to live on the planet by the grace of God & the Nature. You do realize that your life must end at a certain point. Her death truly must be a sensational, shocking incident indeed, particularly those who are familiar with her TV programs or her past porn movies and so forth. As for me, her life, her death itself seems like the Tolestoi's literature somehow.

Let me pray her Rest in Peace, in the name of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amin.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Reference:
The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoi
Platonic Sex by Ai Iijima* (* Deceased)

The Power of Babel

Pondering alone taking a shower, something irrelevant to this holiday season though it is Christmas Eve. Why my primary language Japanese, my mother tongue has such diversity in reading and pronounciation though we share the same character with Chinese? Then I came up with a few different words that contain the same character "人". This character basically means a person or a man in general. You can add this particular character either before or after another character, or even in the middle of other characters. For instance, if you're a Japanese learner try reading them.



>>>QUIZ JAPAN!!<<<
* Read each word and enumerate its pronounciation, then if possible, its meaning too.

1) 人間
2) 罪人
3) 武人
4) 狩人
5) 防人
6) 何人
7) 舎人


Can you pronounce them right? Can you guess their meanings? I hope so for Japanese persons, I really do. Since some of them are historically quite important words and notions. One of my acquaintance once asked me if I'm still fluent in Japanese. As a matter of course I am. However, I had no opportunity to show my proficiency so far. I had no chance to prove myself that my Japanese proficiency is still as good as someone who has been living in Japan. So I tried to come up with as many words as possible that use the character "人" but with different pronounciation.


Then I came up with those 7 words. I felt great relief as I was able to think of different words that share the same character. Why you need to memorize them all? The answer is simple. If you can't read Chinese characters (Kanji), you can't read newspapers nor catch up with higher education such as the one in University. Well, I'm sure readers must be eager to know the answers, so let me put them first.


>>>ANSWER KEYS<<<

1) 人間(NINN・GENN) A Human
2) 罪人(TSUMI・BITO／ZAI・NINN) A Sinner / A Criminal
3) 武人(BU・JINN) An old fashioned Warrior rather than a modern soldier
4) 狩人(KARI・UDO) A Hunter (& A former singer Duo...lol)
5) 防人(SAKI・MORI) A special garrison at Kyushu post during ancient Japan
6) 何人(NANN・PITO) Anyone in Legal term: e.g. "Any person shall not be allowed ..."
7) 舎人(TO・NERI) A Chamberlain/an officer of court ceremony in the Imperial Palace


During compulsory education that consists of Elementary & Junior High School, we learn at least 1000 Chinese characters during the former followed by 3000 more during the latter, in addition to 50 Hiragana characters, 50 Katakana characters and 26 Alphabet & 10 arabic digits(1, 2, 3 ... 0). 4000 characters are still NEVER enough to read a newspaper from cover to cover. You should be able to memorize at least 10000 Chinese characters in order to enter, survive & graduate from a University for sure. If you are language major such as Classical Japanese or Classical Chinese, the number would be more.

We'd shared the Chinese characters with Chinese up until the Cultural Revolution. Since then they simplified characters thus the old-fashioned classical Chinese characters remains in Japan. Even in Japan, some characters are modernized, so the real old-fashioned characters may exist in places like Taiwan or so I suppose. Anyway, don't get discouraged folks, Life is a learning process. Happy Learning !

Dr Mori's How the Greed Stole Christmas

"And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise." (John 2:16/King James Version)

This is Christmas, to celebrate the birth of the Lord, not the time to sell so-called Christmas gifts... I was wondering where our true Christmas was gone. Is it still here on the earth or forever disappeared? Has our Christmas and its true meaning and value of it been reduced, diluted and contaminated by something that has nothing to do with the Lord? Santa Clause is alright, he may have added a new flavour to our Christmas, but Santa Clause is NOT the main character of the event. It is HIM, the Lord Jesus Christ himself, no matter what you believe, agree or disagree.

Here comes our greedy Capitalistic merchandise mind-set. "Let's sell something a little more expensive than the usual price since people want to buy stuff or travel to other places at this season."

*Beverage companies put special decoration with the cap & bottle of their products.
*Musicians sell Christmas version album.
*Ice cream / cake companies sell specially decorated sweets.
*Fastfood shop will have Christmas/Family value set...
*Supermarkets put all the interior decoration and promote buying for your loved ones.

All of which have nothing to do with our Christmas...
Now I am yearning, craving for the silent, non-materialistic Christmas no matter how it is against our contemporary way of celebrating it ...

Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Alexy II dies

By JIM HEINTZ, Associated Press Writer Jim Heintz, Associated Press Writer – Fri Dec 5, 9:49 am ET

MOSCOW – Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II, who presided over a vast post-Soviet revival of faith but struggled against the influence of other churches, died Friday at age 79

The Moscow Patriarchate said he died at his residence outside Moscow, but did not give a cause of death. Alexy had long suffered from a heart ailment.

Alexy became leader of the church in 1990, as the officially atheist Soviet Union was loosening its restrictions on religion. After the Soviet Union collapsed the following year, the church's popularity surged. Church domes that had been stripped of their gold under the Soviets were regilded, churches that had been converted into warehouses or left to rot in neglect were painstakingly restored and hours-long services on major religious holidays were broadcast live on national television.

By the time of Alexy's death, the church's flock was estimated to include about two-thirds of Russia's 142 million people, making it the world's largest Orthodox church.

But Alexy often complained that Russia's new religious freedom put the church under severe pressure and he bitterly resented what he said were attempts by other Christian churches to poach adherents among people who he said should have belonged to the Orthodox church.

These complaints focused on the Roman Catholic Church, and Alexy refused to agree to a papal visit to Russia unless the proselytization issue was resolved.

Those tensions aside, Pope Benedict XVI praised Alexy on Friday.

"I am pleased to recall the efforts of the late patriarch for the rebirth of the church after the severe ideological oppression which led to the martyrdom of so many witnesses to the Christian faith. I also recall his courageous battle for the defense of human and Gospel values," the pope said in a message of condolence to the Russian church.

Alexy lived long enough to see another major religious dispute resolved. In 2007, he signed a pact with Metropolitan Laurus, the leader of the breakaway Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, to bring the churches closer together. The U.S.-based Church Outside Russia had split off in 1927, after the Moscow church's leader declared loyalty to the Communist government.

Alexy successfully lobbied for the 1997 passage of a religion law that places restrictions on the activities of religions other than Orthodoxy, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism. Under his leadership, the church also vehemently opposed schismatic Orthodox churches in neighboring Ukraine, claiming the Ukrainian church should remain under Moscow's control.

A top representative of Russia's Muslims praised Alexy's efforts to restore religion's prominence in post-Soviet Russia.

"All the activities of this man were devoted to unifying our country, developing state-religion relations and the dialogue of Russia's traditional faiths," said Albir Krangov, a deputy chairman of the Muslim Central Spiritual Administration, according to the RIA-Novosti news agency.

In a demonstration of the close relations between church and state, President Dmitry Medvedev canceled plans to travel from India to Italy, so he can return for the funeral, whose date has not been announced. "He was a great citizen of Russia. A man in whose destiny the whole difficult experience of our country's changes in the 20th century are reflected," Medvedev said.

Under Alexy, the church's influence grew strong enough that some public schools instituted mandatory religion courses — a move that human rights advocates criticized as likely to increase xenophobia.

"The church strengthened nationalism, without a doubt," said Alexander Verkhovsky of the Moscow human rights group SOVA. But he also gave the church under Alexy credit for speaking out against violent, radical nationalists.

The patriarch was born Alexei Mikhailovich Ridiger on Feb. 23, 1929 in Tallinn, Estonia. The son of a priest, Alexy often accompanied his parents on pilgrimages to churches and monasteries, and he helped his father minister to prisoners in Nazi concentration camps in Estonia. It was during those visits that Alexy decided to pursue a religious life.

Under Soviet rule, this was not an easy choice. Lenin and Stalin suppressed religion and thousands of churches were destroyed or converted to other uses, such as museums devoted to atheism or, in some cases, stables. Many priests and parishioners were persecuted for their beliefs.

The persecution eased somewhat during World War II, when Stalin discovered that the church could be used as a propaganda tool in the fight against the Nazis. But the Soviet authorities never fully loosened their grip, penetrating the church at the highest levels.

Alexy was ordained in 1950, progressed through the Orthodox hierarchy, and was consecrated Bishop of Tallinn and Estonia in 1961.

The British-based Keston Institute, which monitors religious freedom in former Communist countries, has cited research suggesting that Alexy's career may have been aided by assistance he gave the KGB while a young priest in Tallinn. Orthodox Church officials vehemently denied the allegations.
___
Correspondent Daniella Petroff in Rome contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081205/ap_on_re_eu/eu_russia_obit_alexy_ii