Anne Frank

Anne Frank's heart-wrenching story has been read by millions since it was first published. Most will agree that her diary must continue to be made available to future generations...in order to keep these atrocities from happening again.

For whatever reason, 121 copies in public libraries in Japan have been defaced. I won't try to explain the reasons behind this vandalism nor will I try to delve into the minds of those who did the work. I can only say "Bravo" to those who are working to replace this valuable piece of history...

Israel to donate Anne Frank diaries after Tokyo copies vandalised

Why this place? Why this time?

I read a blog that was responding to the basic question...not why was Jesus born but why did God choose to have him be born in 1st century Palestine...why would he choose that place and time? Although I must admit that I have pondered the question myself, and I do know part of the explanation offered (the part about Alexander the Great...even though he leaves out one crucial point...because of Alexander, the conquered world spoke Greek and so there was a universal language to be used)...the blogger does give a thoughtful answer:

...Thus, it is pure speculation to venture a guess as to why God did what God did at the time that God did it. God’s ways may be entirely arbitrary, but I think not. So in instances like this, I am often drawn to the aesthetics of the situation. Was there something so beautiful about that time and that place that it appealed to God? I think that may be the case. The Roman Empire, while not nearly as revolutionary in terms of art or literature as the Greek Empire that predated it, did curate beauty in a way previously unknown. The reason that we still study Rome, and visit it, is that the Empire collected and guarded much that was beautiful in the world. Ultimately, that was fused with Christian theology, generating much that we treasure about our tradition today. Alas, the power and violence of Rome eventually suffused across Christianity as well.

Take a moment and read his entire answer here...

100 years

11:30am on April 11, 1912 sees the Titanic riding anchor 2 miles out from Queenstown (now Cobh, Ireland) harbor while additional passengers board (120 total) and others (7) disembark.

At 1:30 pm, Titanic's starboard anchor is raised for the last time as she departs for her first trans-Atlantic crossing.

 

This is the last known (surviving) photograph of Titanic as she leaves Queenstown harbor. The photo was taken by Fr. Francis Browne, an Irish Jesuit priest who sailed with the ship for the first leg of its journey, from Southampton, England, to Cobh, Ireland, then called Queenstown. 

He would have stayed for the remainder of the transatlantic journey, too, having received an offer of a ticket from a wealthy family he befriended while on board. However, when Browne reached Cobh, he received a note from his clerical superior, ordering him to return to his station immediately rather than sail on. Browne disembarked. 

An enthusiastic amateur photographer (who had received his first camera from the same uncle who later bought him his ticket for the Titanic trip), he brought with him the only photos of the Titanic at sea that would survive the shipwreck. 

The Ides of March

The Ides of March (see link for info on "ides") is a day we all know as March 15. But in the year 44 BC, it became the day that changed history. A group of conspirators (supposedly about 62 in all), led by Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, stabbed Julius Caesar to death (23 times in fact). Brutus and Cassius had incited the members of the conspiracy by playing upon their fears that Julius had plans to be not just Caesar but King of Rome! 

According to Plutarch (a Greek historian), a soothsayer had foreseen that Caesar would be harmed not later than the Ides of March and on his way to the Theatre of Pompey where he would be assassinated. According to Plutarch's writings, Caesar met the soothsayer and joked, "The Ides of March are come". By that phrase he was saying that the prophecy had not been fulfilled.  At that point, the soothsayer replied,  "Aye, Caesar; but not gone", meaning there was still time left in the day. It is believed that Caesar thought the prophecy was supposed to occur by the time March 15th arrived. Not realizing that  the 15th was to be included.

From that day forward, citizens no longer needed to write specifically about the assassination, all they had to say was "the ides of March" and people knew what was being talked about.The phrase "Beware the ides of March" comes from the Shakespeare play "Julius Caesar" when the soothsayer tries to warn Caesar of impending doom. Although it has taken on much the same superstition as Friday the 13th, the Ides of March isn't something to be feared, it's just another day on the calendar.

2012

According to the predictions, we are one year away from the date the ancient Mayan Long Count calendar supposedly marks as the end of an era and the end of humanity. Many archeologists argue that the 2012 reference on a 1,300-year-old stone tablet only marks the end of a cycle in the Mayan calendar. Perhaps others have added "the end of humanity"...seems so many of us are attracted to apocalyptic ideas and always assume the worst. Although it is interesting to try and interpret the writings of ancient civilizations, I believe 12/21/12 will be the Winter Solstice for 2012...nothing more.

The History channel has more information:
 

164 years ago today...

The Gettysburg Address

by Abraham Lincoln

"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."

Beware the Ides of March...

On March 15, 1917, Czar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate his throne, ending the Romanov dynasty.

On March 15, 1939, the Nazi's invaded Czechoslovakia...the first non-German speaking country to be invaded.

Most famous of all...
In 44 BC Julius Caesar was killed...even though he had been warned:

According to Suetonius and Plutarch, sometime in March when Caesar was making sacrifices, a soothsayer or astrologer named Spurinna warned Caesar of danger on a date no later than the Ides of March.

According to Plutarch's account, written in 75AD, Caesar had decided, wisely, to remain within the safety of his chambers on 15 March. However, Caesar's 'friend' Decimus (Albinus) Brutus (not Marcus Brutus) managed to convince him that the astrologer's warnings were nothing more than superstition; so Caesar attended the Senate anyway on that date. On his way to the Senate, Caesar contrived to meet up with Spurinna and, upon seeing him mocked, 'The Ides of March are come'. Spurinna replied, 'Yes, they are come, but they are not past'. Later that day Caesar's enemies assassinated him in the Pompeii theatre, at the foot of Pompey's statue, where the Roman Senate was meeting that day in the Temple of Venus.

The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious.
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answered it....
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me.
But Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honorable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill.
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar has wept.
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honorable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse.
Was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
And sure he is an honorable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause.
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
Speech by Mark Anthony at the funeral of Julius Caesar
From the play "Julius Caesar" by William Shakespeare
Act III Scene 2

Halloween...

I have always been intrigued by the history and ancient customs that comprise the celebrations we have throughout the year...Halloween is one of the most interesting...

Ancient Origins of Halloween from The History Channel

Halloween's origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in).

The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.

To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities.

During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other's fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.

By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.

The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of "bobbing" for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.

By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls' Day, a day to honor the dead. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the eve of All Saints', All Saints', and All Souls', were called Hallowmas

For more from this article, check here.

Prehistoric Art

I believe that art and music are created within the soul and are spiritual expressions...

For years I have been fascinated by the prehistoric cave paintings found throughout the world. I can't help but believe that those who were able to throw off the limitations of their time and create such beauty were truly close to God and the earth...



Whether the paintings were created as a form of storytelling, as a pictorial history or merely to beautify their living space...



I am pleased they have been preserved to be enjoyed even today...to check out one such site...visit here.

Enjoy!