Of Holidays: Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday, the Sunday prior to Resurrection Sunday, is the day Jesus enters Jerusalem on the back of a colt.  Upon His entry into the city the Jews, believing He was coming to liberate them from the Romans, lined the streets in celebration waving palm branches and laying them, and in some cases their cloaks, on the ground for Jesus to ride over.  They were anticipating something momentous, yet what they were anticipating and what ended up happening wasn't anywhere even close.  The Jews believed He would be their savior from decades, if not centuries, of living under the oppressive rule of one after another conquering nation.  Rome was just the latest of many.

Of Holidays: Lent

Lent is a period of 40 days and nights, the example of which comes from Christ's time he fasted in the desert up to His temptation by satan and embarkation of his ministry as well as the time Moses spent fasting on Mount Sinai when he received the first copies of the tablets with the Ten Commandments. This period begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Holy Thursday (the day before Christ's crucifixion). The dates for these events are determined, based on a resolution at the Council of Nicaea of 325 AD, where Resurrection Sunday falls on the Sunday after the Paschal Full Moon (the first full moon on or after the vernal (spring) equinox). Then Ash Wednesday is set 40 days prior to Holy Thursday, which is, of course, three days prior to Resurrection Sunday.

Of Bullying...

Jesus answered, "The most important is, 'Hear O Isreal: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'  The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'  There is no other commandment greater than these."
Mark 12:29-31 (ESV)(emphasis added)

Bullying, obviously, is the act of one or more persons asserting their perceived dominance over another person or group of people.  It has gone on throughout time and has been instrumental in making the world what it is today.  Various forms have been employed from the schoolyard to the battlefield.  The most common motivations for it are envy, greed, and power.  Of course the question is, what would the world look like if bullying was not part of the fabric of humanity?  Some have asserted that bullying is a part of life and that it is one of the many things that ultimately define us as human beings.  But should we accept it as that?

Of Picking a Topic...

When I first thought of starting this blog I thought it might be somewhat difficult to come up with specific topics to discuss on a routine basis, such as daily, weekly, or monthly.  Then Providence showed me a rather appropriate topic to get the ball rolling.  This happened when I came across this article that was posted on the Daily News website that is based in Los Angeles, California.  Let's see what topics rise to the top on this one.

The subject of the article is a woman who, having been, reportedly, led by a religious organization that is an off-shoot of the Roman Catholic Church called: the Cross of Love or Friends of the Glorious Cross of Dozulé constructed an almost 25 foot tall cross in her front yard.  This group, according to the article, "was launched in the 1980s by members of a church in Dozule, France, who said God told them in a series of apparitions to build crosses to ensure their salvation."