Longing For Peace

Israeli and Palestinians have been fighting each other for the last 61 years. I no longer understand the conflict. I only know that innocent women and children continue to die on both sides of the conflict.

Would peace ever prevail in the Holy Land? I doubt it.

You can't expect peace when children grow up in fear of the other side.

You can't expect peace without having the will to accept the similarities between you and your so-called enemy. Peace starts with dialogue between ordinary people, especially children and women, from both sides.

When the latest conflict started, I watched filmmaker B.Z. Goldberg's documentary "Promises." When the two sides reached a cease-fire this weekend, I watched the movie "Arranged."

Promises is a must-see documentary to understand the conflict from a children point of view. Children are the future. If we fail to bring them together, there won't be peace in the region no matter how much we try.

Arranged is a wonderful movie of friendship, understanding and tolerance between an Orthodox Jewish woman and a conservative Muslim woman both living in New York. The story shows how much both women have in common in a good way.

I gave up on governments in the Middle East to achieve peace for their people. I wonder if the people of the Middle East can reach a middle ground for peace - A word that lost its meaning in this long conflict.

---

Promises

Arranged

The Death of Innocents

I'm against the death penalty. In my opinion, it doesn't achieve much. If the person is guilty, then the death penalty wouldn't do much other than give him an easy ride to finish his life instead of spending years in prison reflecting on his crime(s). If an innocent person is sentenced to death, then we have an even bigger problem.

I very much enjoyed watching the movie, "Dead Man Walking."adapted from Sister Helen Prejean's book with the same title. It's actually one of my favorite movies of all times. I salute Sister Helen Prejean for her efforts to abolish the death penalty in America. You probably know that Sister Helen is from New Orleans. She's currently in Baton Rouge as reported by The Gainesville Sun:

Hurricane Katrina forced Sister Helen Prejean and about 60 other nuns to flee their New Orleans Mother House last week and relocate indefinitely to Baton Rouge.

But the catastrophe had an effect on something else to which the woman who has come to be known as "the Death-Penalty Nun" has devoted her life.

"Katrina put a moratorium on the death penalty in Louisiana for at least three years," Prejean, 66, said before her talk Wednesday night at Holy Faith Catholic Church in Gainesville.

She said court buildings in New Orleans were so badly damaged that judges, among other things, won't be reviewing death-penalty cases anytime soon. In effect, Katrina partly did in a day what Prejean has been working more than 20 years to accomplish - abolish the death penalty in the United States.

Read more...

That's probably true, but not for a very long time.

Last December, she published another book titled, "The Death of Innocents : An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions."I haven't read the book yet. But, I intend to read it. I believe in her message, and I hope she succeeds in convincing our politicians to abolish the death penalty.
 

The Matrix and Vocations Recruitment

Does this poster remind of Keanu Reeves from The Matrix?Well yes it does.

Catholic Online reported:

The poster, which is modeled after an advertisement for the movie "The Matrix," is the brainchild of Father Meyer. It features a priest in full cassock -- and the requisite Roman collar -- holding a cross in one hand and a rosary in the other. And he is wearing sunglasses.

That simple juxtaposition provides the mood Father Meyer said he was aiming for when creating the poster -- he wanted to say something about today's seminarian.

"Today's seminarian," he said, "is engaged with the world but is also committed to orthodoxy, like (Pope) John Paul II."

Read more...

The Washington Times reported on Aug. 11th:

An edgy poster showing a somber Catholic priest in full black cassock and sunglasses posed like "The Matrix" star Keanu Reeves is proving so popular that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has snapped up 5,000 of them.
...
"If we can get high-school youth to hang a picture of a priest in their room, that's huge in helping young men to answer the call to the priesthood," the cleric said. "Anyone who is a 'Matrix' guru looks at the picture and automatically gets it."

Crucifix in hand, Father Meyer posed for the poster, rated R for "restricted to those radically in love with Jesus Christ." Running time is "all eternity," and its title reads, "The Catholic priesthood: The answer is out there ... and it's calling you."

Read more...

This may actually work. I need to get this poster for my nephew.
 

The Da Vinci Code

The debate over "The Da Vinci Code"book has reached the United Kingdom. The Associated Press reported:

The novel's premise that Jesus Christ fathered a child with Mary Magdalene has drawn strong protests from the Catholic Church, and the movie version has fanned whispers of discontent in the cathedral city of Lincoln in central England, where Tom Hanks and the crew were filming Tuesday.

"To a believer, any believer, what is happening is blasphemous," said Sister Mary Michael, who held a solo prayer vigil outside the medieval cathedral.

The head of Lincoln's Anglican cathedral, the Very Rev. Alec Knight, conceded that the novel was "far-fetched and heretical," but he defended the decision to allow filming. The cathedral accepted a reported $180,000 to double as Westminster Abbey in the Ron Howard-directed film.

"It has clearly touched the public imagination, and the church needs to open up a debate about it rather than throw one's hands up and walk away from it," Knight said.

Read more...

I don't know what to say about the $180,000 the cathedral received from the movie producers. But, I do agree with his statement that the church should be open for debate.

I read the book. I didn't take it seriously. Here's why:

1. I got angry reading the writer's claims.


2. When I reached the part about Jesus' public display of affection with Mary Magdalene, I started to laugh. I told my husband:
   

   
   If this is true, I want to go back 2000 years in time and live in THAT Middle East. The 20th century Middle East where I grew up was very different.
   

   
   That's when I stopped taking the book seriously. I actually thought the book was hilarious.


3. When I reached the last 100 pages, I got really bored with the book. By that time, I already figured who was behind the killings and the book started to feel like a slow thriller movie.

If you haven't read the book yet or already heard the conspiracy theories regarding Mary Magdalene, then you probably want to wait for the movie. Tom Hanks may turn the book to a very entertaining movie.


UPDATE Mar. 24, 2006
The Catholic church started a Web site called "Jesus Decoded." as an answer to the Dan Brown's fiction book.