Night and other posts

 Night Koshur Qalam - کآشُر قلم poetry challenge January 23 poem by Dr Koshy AV

It's a "long day's journey into night"

Then a "journey to the end of night"

The sun and moon have a conversation

in the sky

One handing over its torch to the other

early morn

Night has to yield to day

To a sun so bright

The moon still a silver beauty in the blue sky

One day, sexual lust, lateness, and laziness

slowness, lack of focus and concentration

self-destructiveness, and procrastination

delay and all that hinders

will pass away/give way to the light

"There shall be no more night!"

Today's meditation

I may or may not agree with all the things the people here say but like to note how all of them agree on one point which is that Jesus helped them in some way or the other and God, and the Bible, and in some, a few cases, Christians, the church and Christianity.

Mahatma Gandhi on Jesus: “A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.”

George Foreman (boxer): “Sometimes God gives instructions that go against conventional wisdom, such as treating people kindly when they’re hateful. Who really wants to do that? Instructions like that may not always make sense, so that’s why I need to trust and obey the One (Jesus) who inspired them.”

Alice Walker (author of Color Purple): “Somewhere in the Bible it say Jesus hair was like lamb’s wool, I say. Well, say Shug, if he came to any of these churches we talking bout he’d have to have it conked before anybody paid him any attention. The last thing niggers want to think about they God is that his hair kinky.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Author) : “The most pressing question on the problem of faith is whether a man as a civilized being can believe in the divinity of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, for therein rests the whole of our faith.”

Denzel Washington (actor): “Inside every one of us we have something tugging at us, telling us to believe in something…(the Bible) is the answer to that”

Johnny Cash (singer): “When God forgave me, I figured I’d better do it too.”

Pope Francis: “Truth, according to the Christian faith, is God’s love for us in Jesus Christ. Therefore, truth is a relationship”

Theodore Roosevelt (US President) : “(My) great joy and glory that, in occupying an exalted position in the nation, I am enabled, to preach the practical moralities of The Bible to my fellow-countrymen and to hold up Christ as the hope and Savior of the world.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (atheist/rationalist/writer) : “Get rid of the miracles and the whole world will fall at the feet of Jesus Christ.”

Mother Teresa : “I believe in person to person. Every person is Christ for me, and since there is only one Jesus, that person is the one person in the world at that moment.”

John Lennon (musician): “Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.”

Sylvester Stallone (Rambo/Rocky) : “You need to have the guidance of someone else. You cannot train yourself. I feel the same way about Christianity and what the Church is: The Church is the gym of the soul “

Bono (U2/singer) : “When you align yourself with God’s purpose as described in the Scriptures, something special happens to your life.”

Elvis Presley: “I’m not the King. Jesus Christ is the King. I’m just an entertainer”

Fidel Castro : “To betray the poor is to betray Christ.“

C. S. Lewis “We must show our Christian colors if we are to be true to Jesus Christ.”

Justin Bieber (singer) : “Do you feel you have exhausted all options? Do you feel helpless? Do you feel like you are never good enough? What if I told you that there’s a God that’s willing to meet you WHEREVER you’re at! What if I told you he could take away your pain, shame, guilt, and fears. #JESUS”

Played badminton in the morning with my friend. This reminds me of how Indians call it shuttlecock or shuttle badminton or simply shuttle. Indian English! Rich! Also, how we/they say 'bat-minten' which sounds more fitting, than, say, calling it 'bad-mint-on' lol.

Psalms 30:5: For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.

Captain Marvel the movie - thoughts on it and on Ozymandias the poem

 Finished watching Captain Marvel. This one was good due to the twist, whereby the villains become the good guys, loved it! And the woman is more powerful and the glorification of the African American woman pilot and the African American Shield agent, both cool. The only jarring note is how when someone falls out of space he or she falls into America, though a shit hole, and has to speak American English.

It was also good to see how Captain Marvel is a hero as she gets up every time she falls and also how the energy core enters her from outside to then make her hundredfold more powerful. Lot of hidden messages there!

Ozymandias, the sonnet, is Shelley laughing at Rameses II, who was defeated by Moses, and also at monarchy in England and all tyrants and tyranny, thus laughing at all right and alt-right and fascist governments, including Hitler's and Modi's. But it is also Shelley laughing at more things, the idea that a ruler is God or like God or that power or violence matters, and at how art tells the truth even when forced to serve the oppressor. I begin to get all its layers only now, at the age of 57. though tracking out its references to the Bible etc. Most of all, it is Shelley laughing about how the ones who cause others to despair and think they are the mightiest end up in the trashcan of history and their nations or kingdoms, patriarchal ones, due to death and time. Shelley, what a great poet!

An old poem written on Jan 14 and a post written today - more on Get Back and Floyd etc.

 If words like

I do not know you

Go away from me

are offset by

words like

I will never leave you

or forsake you

likewise

A man can have only

what is given to him

from heaven

and: even what little you have will

be taken away from you

are sentences offset by

ones like

Ask and it shall

be given to you

Give and it shall be given to you

good measure, pressed down, shaken properly

stirred together

and running over (overflowing).

So be of good cheer.

There will be no place to hold

the blessing

when

it

arrives,

in its

consummation.

The miracle of the Beatles is still on my mind. Ringo is an average drummer who gives off his best. John is a good guitarist and George Harrison is better than him and the best musician of the lot is Paul who is really world-class. But when these four talents, not necessarily a possibility for the best band in the world "come together" in composition something happens which one can only call magic. It is not just about how they were lucky to be in the right time and the right place but about "this thing we do" that is "louder than words", to put it in the words of a song by David/Polly Gilmour on Floyd's last album "Endless River". They constellate something which is not there on their best solo albums after the split, though they played later in bands that were almost as good in collaborations like McCartney/Wonder, McCartney/Jackson, Wings, the Travelling Wilburys, Lennon and Ono, Harrison with others from India, Ringo with his All Starr band - but the same level of miracle or magic is just not there. It is the same with Zeppelin after Bonham's death or Who after Moon. Here, death did not sever them, as the deaths came later, they just ran out of patience to keep working with each other unlike a Floyd or a Stones, at least three of them, or as a Yes or a Genesis or Purple did.

"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5qb6UcLTJ0"