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Showing posts from March 17, 2013

What do you see?

In a Peanuts cartoon Lucy, Linus, and Charlie Brown are resting on the lawn one afternoon looking at the clouds.  Lucy speaks: “Aren't the clouds beautiful? They look like big balls of cotton. I could just lie here all day, and watch them drift by.  If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the cloud formations. What do you think you see, Linus?" "Well, those clouds up there look like the map of the British Honduras on the Caribbean... that cloud up there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor...and that group of clouds over there gives me the impression of the stoning of Stephen...I can see the apostle Paul standing there to one side." "Uh huh. That's very good. What do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?" "Well, I was going to say I saw a ducky and a horsy, but I changed my mind!”   I’m with Charlie Brown today.  I’m looking for the simple things in life.  Most of everythi

When People Are Turned into Numbers

Standing in front of one of the German death camps while filming a documentary for British television several years ago, Polish/British philosopher Jacob Bronowski said: “This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance, it was done by dogma, it was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.” Conformity, everyone believing the same things, doing what you’re told to do no matter if it doesn’t make sense or is immoral or inhuman; believing you alone have all the truth; learning to hate others, to do violence even when you know it isn’t right—these are the trademarks of people who have lost their freedom and their heart; who have become duped into believin