Indigenous Day, the Day of the Race, Columbus Day 

   

    We commemorate this Monday of October to remember and celebrate when the West met the East of this new hemisphere. Spain and its Italian captain came a-sailing on three famous vessels, La Ninha, La Pinta, and the Santa Maria. Catholics helped discover the world, which would continue to transform and evolve into what we know it to be today.

    Christopher Colombus, or Cristobal Colon, or Cristoforo Colombo, of Italian descent but sponsored by Spain, was quite the figure. Derided by many for being cruel and racist, history and its influencers and researchers have depicted him as sycophant to genius, from prophet to lunatic. 

    One growing religion (mine), has a holy book that was translated in the 1820s that has some verses describing the man and the movement that his discovery would bring: the seed of ancient peoples inhabiting these continents, to be named after another Italian, Amerigo Vespucci, would be mixed with those of the West, the Europeans who would continue to cross the Atlantic Ocean and settle and colonize, conquer and intermix, interbreed as it were. What do have?

    A new race, a new people from the north to the south. Plus, all the Europeans. Then Africans, then a host of others, including Chinese, then Indians, Arabs, Persians, Turks, then more Africans. Most of the native tribes survived, albeit pushed and shoved and at times crushed by disease, encroachment, cruelty, lies and broken promises, greed, Manifest Destiny...

    This is our day, humanity. Look into it.

    And I went to West Virginia, Morgan County, and liked it...

 College Soccer, Holy Days, Sports

    I have been blogging for many years; many (possibly most?) of my posts have been relating to sports. Sports are emblematic and metaphorical, and are historically and visually stimulating. Some writers and those of some keen knowledge say that if you cannot write about sports, you cannot write.

    Many Christians believe the Sabbath is a day of rest, and the day of the Lord, therefore working and many worldly recreations are avoided. We know that many us have to work on Sabbath days as doctors, service people, emergency responders, while thousands and millions of others recreate in venues where workers are required, to include sporting events and restaurants, and of course gas stations, which I have used amply across the years and decades, because travel tends to be more available this day of the weekend, on a non-work days, which is very often Sunday.

    I like that my alma mater in Provo, Utah, chooses to not play sports on Sundays. This is very rare in the United States. Most schools at a collegiate level consider Sundays to be a fine time for games and leisure. Liberty University and Grand Canyon are playing soccer matches today. These are ostensibly Christian schools, so according to their interpretation of the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Day, perhaps going to church and then spending some time out on the town and watching soccer or baseball or football is fine and dandy. Maybe the Evangelical roots of the south resisted professional football on the Sabbath for so long for some of these reasons? Not sure about NASCAR and Sunday races...

    Again, burning rubber, using gas and diesel, driving vehicles may not seem to be as much work as working a cash register, chopping trees, working the fields. Or swing a bat or bouncing a basketball.

    We kick it through the uprights and we praise the Lord. Of course, this is not counting the growing numbers of nones, or non-believers, or people who do not consider themselves of any faith system.

    So, Sunday has become another workday for many. 

    I have worked many a Sabbath over the years. Part of the way of our world. Some of us work on those days so that others do not have to.

    So, not trying to be too hypocritical here. But the Ten Commandments are meant to bless us, and we are blessed when we dedicate more time and thought and notions, to Him who created the rules.

    So be it. 

    Go BYU.

    

 Empty Chairs, Empty Tables, and the Reaches of Space and Nothingness 

    Yesterday in an empty building, void of anyone but me, I walked into the chapel portion, which was mostly dark, with its borders of light, both electric and natural (from the morning sun in the front steeple windows), and I thought of how the emptiness, the lack of people and things, including noise and movement, was a solemn good thing.

    It occurred to me that most of the known universe is empty, which is space with the occasional smattering of dust, or asteroids, or strange types of film, and even dark. There is light everywhere, from the distant stars and galaxies, yet there are planets that are mostly dark, too. Most planets have caves and crusts that hide further darkness and "nothingness", as it were. Like the dark side of the moon. No light, no motion, just empty valleys and craters and dust.

    Much of our deserts and mountains are like this. Plus our underbelly and core. Empty and dark, and full of nothing. But there are bats, and rivers, and fish, and some creepy crawlies, sure.

    There can even be some warm-blooded bears in some holes.

    But for the most part, there are empty, dark, reaches in our own earth, and other planets and moons, but even these orbs are surrounded by 99 percent nothing. Void. Lack or dearth of material and things.

    Plus, mostly silence.

    Does that give the apprehender, (us), any peace or pause?

    I say it does, at least this observer.

    As do our empty holy places, our quiet spaces, our empty times, the moments of nothingness or meditation, of silence and perhaps oneness with the mostly silent universe. Most of the oceans are silent in their own way, as are the vast mountain ranges and the plains and the forests.

    Well, the forests have their own quietness and solitude, but full of birds and bugs and other creatures.

    Even us. The humans.

    Speaking of humans: have the death of loved ones left voids in our lives? Certainly. Have living people left the indelible traces (what does that mean?) of their lack or absence in our souls?

    Yes. Death and separation take us away from many that we know.

    Jesus has left us many times; He is the one most millions of believers take solace and succor in. He has left the multitudes, through death and through earnest farewells.

    Many go, through natural death, which is age-related, through sickness or accident, which is fretful and more tragic, and sometimes through violence or purposeful murder. To include suicide. Or war. Or crime.

    Those gone leave absences and voids, certainly.

   Like the chairs and tables sung of in Les Misérables, which my son likes to sing at publicly populated venues.

    References to holier, or hallowed, times and people, who have left their marks and presence, now in places where they inhabit no more.

    Like the empty tomb, or the empty cross. The empty building, the empty hallowed ground, like a battlefield or graveyard, memorial, or meditation chamber, as in temples and monuments, like a pyramid or some other vast reach of nothingness and everything.

    Where are you now? Are you with or without them, those of the empty chairs and tables?

    You can be with them and without them, but you can present all the same.

    In only just remembering, contemplating, existing.

    Like Christ or Holy Mother in the empty, quiet, sacred places. Like an empty sky, or full of clouds and majesty and rain, however.

    It is all empty and void, but full and whole.

    Like you and me.

    Some Christians call the holiest spot of their chapel a word. I cannot remember it, I have been trying. 

    Some things are holy enough to keep searching for, in the recesses of our brains and memories. Our own empty, silent, holy places.

___________________

I wrote this early this morning, before talking to others, getting showered, getting dressed. Maybe during my shower, or driving away from the house, I remembered the holy place of some churches that they call "sanctuary". This is the legal meaning that gives some criminals protection in some houses of worship, and what some cities now in the 2020s are known for that allow immigrants, typically illegal, to not be aggressively prosecuted or removed from the country.

    Sanctuary. 

    A place of safety, which may not always be safe.

    Now, this word of a sacred nature, seemingly hallowed and merciful, has left this entry, my Sunday morning posting, less peaceful.

    Such is life and space.

    Now it is a warm October afternoon day.

 Apartheid, Apartheid

        A smart African-American went to Palestine and Israel not too long ago and believes that Israel has the Palestinians living in an apartheid state. I understand, and I partially agree. 

    How and why? Millions of Palestinians are a stateless people, which is not all the Israeli's fault, but the fact that most of them do not have normal sovereign rights, while between half a million and 700 hundred thousand Israeli citizens live in the West Bank, against the Palestinian charter of ownership, continues to be a problem. It is not stopping. However, of the close to 20 percent of Israelis who are Arab, I am not sure how many of them are the "illegal settlers" or "occupiers"... But that may not be the real issue...

    Gaza Strip is another matter. What to do with this 128 square miles or so?

    Is it a state of apartheid?

    Something has to change, for sure.

    And it will. South Africa transformed in the 1990s.

    Some things will change, for better or for worse.

 Poetry Can Express Things That Prose Cannot

    Maybe it just keeps my or others' attention better. Maybe, maybe. Who understands it all? Not me.

    I was thinking about writing and reflecting on stinky messes; something where smell and muck combine to make a heinous scent, olfactory and all senses.

    Have you found yourself in a stinky mess?

    I have.

    Sometimes it is only mud, perhaps with some natural fecal matter.

    An item many refer to as "poop".

    Not a fan of that word, I must say.

    I prefer manure, and guano, and stool, and feces.

    No need for more vulgar options.

    

    Many people find themselves in the dirty diapers, and all that jazz.

    Understandable, little people have their needs and limitations.

    They biodegrade the sustenance of life that we provide.

    The bottom line of the circle of life, no puns intended.

    And those buns or bums are rounded too, as circular shapes and forms go.

    Back to the stinkies...

    We who have worked in plants and industrial parks or construction yards, or

    other such places of labor and smells, beyond that of our own bodies and companions' 

    noxious odors.

    Ah, the thought of stinky friends and associates!

    Warms the heart and mind, no?

    I kid, I josh. But not really.

    

    Gratefully most of us have not had to deal with or be cowered and humbled by the stench of death.

    Likely the worst smell ever.

    Animals and their rotten corpses are enough.

    We can only terrorize ourselves with the thought of the awful spectra of human death, and its accompanying invasive qualities of the senses.

    Normally we leave it to the morticians and their scientific care.

    May we never face the ugliness of the other kind of death smell of humans.

    But some of us do. In war, in crime, in the hospital rooms, perhaps.

    Old folks homes come close enough to the stink of elderly close to death.

    Okay, not the best or most pleasant of subjects, I know.

    But, all of this perspective and contemplation may give

    Us some peace of mind, or relief,

    That the aromas and odors of life

    Are blessings more than curses.

    In general

    The extreme stinks are weighing out against all the sweet smells.

    And life is richer than poor,

    Happier than sad,

    More joyful than down.

    

    Or, we might say, it does not stink.

    

Thinking about a Lot of Things; Hoping for a World Without Hate

    I suppose greed and avarice are manifestations of hate. Selfishness and self-serving over sharing and being generous. People hate others for reasons imagined and real. Retaliation and competition are ever-present factors in our world.

    I have been reading about some bad people lately, in books about criminals and another famous book where the author hates many people. Perhaps these are not considered uplifting or positive, per se, but I find them informative and useful. I feel the need to learn about such things, because the alternatives are right there before us.

    Why are we naturally so cruel, or at minimum, lazy and selfish?

    Love, giving, working hard and not taking from others, being a peacemaker as a recent sermon implored us to be.

    Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists, agnostics. We can all be that kind of people.

    We have many rich people, many poor, and the rest of us in between. We can learn to get along and not hate, kill, steal, rob, offend

Racism is Alive and Well - But We Cannot All Be Blamed - 2024

    If it had happened in the "modern" 100 countries of the world, it would have made major headlines and all of us would be talking about it. But, because we are a simplistic and usually racist, or at minimum biased and self-serving race of humans, most of us have ignored this story. Tragic to begin with, and tragic by our collective ignorance. It did not occur in the United States, nor Canada, nor the Western Hemisphere. It did not happen in Egypt, nor South Africa, nor even Nigeria. It happened in a place, a nation, where most Americans (U.S. citizens) have never heard of, and likely most will never know of, nor want to care about it. Why? We are simplistic. We cannot grasp many things, or give time to many things far from us. Like this place, and these 600 people who were massacred by JNIM terrorists.

    Not knowing all the Muslim extremist groups of the world is not easy, or necessary, for most. I am not asking for people to know JNIM. A pretty vicious group based in the Sahel of Africa, quite central to the continent many of us know so little about. A big part of that is due to race. White, brown, Black, Asians, and others ignore the mostly Blacks of Africa. And other places. White people, the fairer skinned, get more attention, care, empathy, and awareness.

    Six hundred souls of one village were massacred these last few days. We do not talk about it. In circles in Europe, or maybe Canada, or a few academic venues across our fair country and elsewhere may talk about it. I hope.

    Six hundred people should not be viciously eliminated on our planet and no one notice.

    But we are this way. We are simplistic, biased, racist, and... we simply cannot care for all things.

    I understand. But I wish to care.

    Burkina Faso, formerly Upper Volta of my childhood books and maps, and the village of the massacre should be in our hearts, or minds, or tongues.

    But alas, we are racist. Tell me that we are not.