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------------------------ JESUS ✝️ SAVES -------------------------
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, FOREVER! Through Faith in Jesus!
10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️ ✝️ ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.
My THANK'S to all those who have taken the time to view, fave, comment or share my photo's with others. I really appreciate it! ❤️
------------------------ JESUS ✝️ SAVES -------------------------
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, FOREVER! Through Faith in Jesus!
10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️ ✝️ ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.
My THANK'S to all those who have taken the time to view, fave, comment or share my photo's with others. I really appreciate it! ❤️
Ladder-backed Woodpecker
I wonder if this is a big enough pile of food to keep him coming back for awhile? I want my wildlife to feel the love. ❤️
Ya don't think I'm over doing it do ya? :^ P
------------------------ JESUS ✝️ SAVES -------------------------
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, FOREVER! Through Faith in Jesus!
10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️ ✝️ ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.
My THANK'S to all those who have taken the time to view, fave, comment or share my photo's with others. I really appreciate it! ❤️
my first form of liquid painting was on abstract spiritual forms in motion.
i finished that series in 1999 after a show in which no one seemed to be intrigued by the essential qualities of what our eyes show to us.
i switched over to REAL representational art.
but i kept the NOT GALLERY aspect of my work pretty strong -- using way more black, only tints and shades and full chroma colors. i painted my feelings with the colors i chose.
and "my feelings" weren't intended to be my own.
i love classical ideology.
form and beauty and also our modern understanding that the 1 percent is fetish and nazi/fascist by its nature.
so i'm not into perfection as much as the idea of things that are just obviously better or trying or engaged or activated.
arguments about perfection are weird.
why do people like to fight so much?
my eyes tend to see all things as rather ordinary and i want to show off the simple things i find, to revel in their nature and then to figure out an expression that suits the two -- the object itself and my attitudinal relationship with it. for me, more than ambiguous emotional terms, i favor HEAT and MOTION as the aspects of light that i choose to focus on.
because my life is so interlapped with photography, i am both a camera and a painter, a robot and a brain, a drone and brighter magick user.
i can't help this double nature and like prince said, you'd better know your dark side and your bright side and if they can get along and you end up bright, that is the path of the philosopher guide.
so if that's you, now is the time!
RISE up among the people.
use your intelligent power to untangle the ropes of darkness!
but i digress.
so through and along my urban and townsy journeys -- santa barbara, seattle, san francisco, santa fe, san diego, amsterdam, manhattan -- i eventually found my way to flowers.
they grow in the front yards of the people's homes wherever i walk, or in buckets at a florist shop along the street or a grocery store. the beauty of flowers is everywhere.
and flowers are a reminder that everything dies. but it can be beautiful.
and we cut flowers for their beauty.
for me, roses are wanton.
they are my third form/series of liquid paintings.
the second one, and the most explored/exploded, is the exploding rainbow dahlia.
and where roses are wanton and vain-glorious (really, i had no idea!), the dahlia is like a swiss community with its order and its architectural phenomenon.
my exposure to dahlias was limited before i arrived in san francisco. i had painted orchids, peonies, chinese rose, birds of paradise, cala lilies, california golden poppies, and tulips.
but dahlias and the rainbow seemed like they were made for each other. that those TWO THINGS were US. that we, as people were just like dahlias in the way we ordered and constructed our lives. the dahlia with its form for capturing and storing light and moisture, and the exploding rainbow with its blatant and broken spectrum of blasting color.
so i floated those dahlias in space where a million things were happening all at once. everything as one moved into a constellation. i added multiple sided die and glinty bits of ambiguous crow candy for the eye.
vanity and selfism, the star charisma of the rose's nature -- that of desire and death masked as finality -- was just another form of circustry in this new unexploited world of die and glinty, treasury bits spinning and rolling and falling through space, into space, as space. hitting and colliding, forcing loss and explosion and aiding decay.
and there was a war in these pieces which forced them into a liquidity.
that war was between the clarity of stasis and our fascination with movement.
the impressionists, aided ENTIRELY BY THE USE OF THE CAMERA, had learned that aperture values that the camera's limited technology could exploit at the time had shown new essentials.
aperture values taught the impressionists that they could DELETE things from the environment to increase the imaginative suggestibility of the viewers mind.
for example, if i have my focus on the nostrils of a racing horse and progressively blur and fade out the clarity as the horse goes away through foreshortening, the horse's nose will seem MUCH closer to the viewer and more three dimensional than it would if the receding part of the horse were in perfect detailed clarity.
people like manet realized even further, using the same deletion technique of the intelligence, that a glove could literally look MORE glove-like with just three strokes of a brush. indeed, that the SUGGESTION of a glove was infinitely more powerful and perfect to the impression of the piece than an actual glove ever could be.
so in my liquid painting, i envisioned a human circus as exploding rainbow dahlias. our vanity and self-love; our beauty and our grace; and our aging and exploding.
all with dreams of promise, jewelry in the sky, and an unending ability to NEVER grasp much of anything.
and we are constantly coming in and out of focus in our own lives, a living constellatory fascination with ourselves and others creating patterns and habits and occupations.
and that rabbit hole lasted for several years.
it started in 2010/11 as a discovery process and eventually ended up producing over 6,000 images of that world. enough to create an app that could endlessly recreate the world imagined.
and the goal was to document every conceivable color pattern that the human eye could see.
and i think it worked.
it also led to the conclusion of the PIXELWITHIN theory.
which i have elaborated over on torbakhopper's news outlet, lol. the merkaba is a beautiful thing!!
so now the rose.
sometimes slutty, sometimes regaling and proud. sometimes curvy, sometimes more than curvy or with torn edges and hot little shadows.
england had a war over roses.
just like the u.s. had a war over rubber. just kidding. it was all about democracy and partiotism.
and roses are more likely to cause trouble than dahlias.
dahlias are all about the community as a metaphor.
there is a fundamental "coming together" about dahlias.
whereas, honestly, roses are all about falling apart.
this large group of examples are all different now. just like the other forms of liquid painting, CHANGE is a part of the game.
------------------------ JESUS ✝️ SAVES -------------------------
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, FOREVER! Through Faith in Jesus!
10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️ ✝️ ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.
My THANK'S to all those who have taken the time to view, fave, comment or share my photo's with others. I really appreciate it! ❤️
------------------------ JESUS ✝️ SAVES -------------------------
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, FOREVER! Through Faith in Jesus!
10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️ ✝️ ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.
My THANK'S to all those who have taken the time to view, fave, comment or share my photo's with others. I really appreciate it! ❤️
Shah Hussain was a Punjabi poet and Sufi saint. His Urs (annual death anniversary) is celebrated at his shrine every year. It is known as "Mela Chiraghan" ("Festival of Lights"). Shah Hussain was the pioneer of the Kafi form of Punjabi poetry, which are very popular form of sufi singing in Punjab.In the new Lahore lies buried Shah Husain and with him lies buried the myth of Lal Husain. Still, at least once a year we can hear the defused echoes of the myth. As the lights glimmer on the walls of Shalamar, the unsophisticated rhythms of swinging bodies and exulting voices curiously insist on being associated with Husain. This instance apparently defies explanation. But one is aware that an undertone of mockery pervades the air - released feet mocking the ancient sods of Shalamar and released voices mocking its ancient walls. Husain too, the myth tells us, danced a dance of mockery in the ancient streets of Lahore. Grandson of a convert weaver, he embarrassed every one by aspiring to the privilege of learning what he revered guardians of traditional knowledge claimed to teach.
Then again, fairly late in life, he embarrassed every one by refusing to believe in the knowledge he had received from others, and decided to know for himself. He plucked the forbidden fruit anew.
The myth of Lal Husain has lived a defused, half-conscious life in the annual Fare of Lights. The poetry of shah Husain which was born out of common songs of the people of the Punjab has kept itself alive by becoming a part of those very songs. In recent past, the myth of Madhu Lal Husain and the poetry of Husain have come to be connected. But the time for the myth to become really alive in our community is still to come.
Husain s poetry consists entirely of short poems known as "Kafis." A typical Husain Kafi contains a refrain and some rhymed lines. The number of rhymed lines is usually from four to ten. Only occasionally a more complete form is adopted. To the eye of a reader, the structure of a "Kafi" appears simple. But the "Kafis" of Husain are not intended for the eye. They are designed as musical compositions to be interpreted by the singing voice. The rhythm in the refrain and in the lines are so balanced and counterpointed as to bring about a varying, evolving musical pattern.
It may be asserted that poetry is often written to be sung. And all poetry carries, through manipulation of sound effects, some suggestion of music. Where then lies the point in noticing the music in the "Kafis" of Shah Husain? Precisely in this: Husain s music is deliberate - not in the sense that it is induced by verbal trickery but in the sense that it is the central factor in the poet s meaning.
The music that we have here is not the vague suggestion of melodiousness one commonly associates with the adjective "lyrical : it is the symbolic utterance of a living social tradition. The "Kafis" draw for their musical pattern on the Punjabi folk songs. The Punjabi folk songs embody and recall the emotional experience of the community. They record the reactions to the cycle of birth, blossoming, decay and death. They observe the play of human desire against the backdrop of this cycle, symbolizing through their rhythms the rhythms of despair and exultation, nostalgia and hope, questioning and faith. These songs comprehend the three dimensions of time - looking back into past and ahead into future and relating the present to both. Also, these songs record the individual s awareness of the various social institutions and affiliations and clinging to them at the same time - asserting his own separate identity and also seeking harmony with what is socially established.
Through this deliberate rhythmic design, Shah Husain evokes the symbolic music of the Punjabi folk songs. His "Kafis" live within this symbolic background and use it for evolving their own meaning.
By calling into life the voice of the folk-singer, Husain involves his listeners into the age-old tension which individual emotions have borne it its conflicts with the unchanging realities of Time and Society. But then, suddenly one is aware of a change. One hears another different voice also. It is the voice of Husain himself, apparently humanized with the voice of the folk-singer, and yet transcending it. The voice of the folk-singer has for ages protested against the bondage of the actual, but its fleeting sallies into the freedom of the possible have always been a torturing illusion. The voice of the folk-singer is dragged back to its bondage almost willingly, because it is aware of the illusory nature of its freedom and is reluctant run after a shade, fearing the complete loss of its identity. The voice of Shah Husain is transcending folk-singer s voice brings into being the dimension of freedom - rendering actual what had for long remained only possible:
Ni Mai menoon Kherian di gal naa aakh
Ranjhan mera, main Ranjhan di, Kherian noon koori jhak
Lok janey Heer kamli hoi, Heeray da wer chak
Do not talk of the Kheras to me,
O mother, do not.
I belong to Ranjha and he belongs to me.
And the Kheras dream idle dreams.
Let the people say, "Heer is crazy; she has given her-self to the cowherd." He alone knows what it all means.
O mother, he alone knows.
Please mother, do not talk to me of Kheras.
At first , the little "Kafi" deftly suggests the underlying folk-song patter. The usual figures in the marriage song - the girls, the mother, the perspective husband and the perspective in-laws are all there. And the refrain calls the plaintive marriage-song address of the girl to he mother on the eve of her departure from the parents house.
But the folk-song pattern remains at the level of an underlying suggestion. The mother and the daughter in the folk-song were both helpless votaries of an accepted convention, bowing before the acknowledged power of an unchanging order. Here in the "Kafi" the daughter assumes the power of choice and rejection. She stands outsides the cycles of time and society. The mother continues to represent the social order and the accepted attitudes according to her convictions, the Kheras offer the best possible future for her daughter because they assure mundane security and prestige, within a decaying order. But the daughter I snow determined to go beyond this order and seek further inner development. To her the Kheras, her unacceptable in-laws, represent the tyranny of the actual forced on the individual. To her, Ranjha, the socially condemned cowherd, represents the consummation of her revolt, promising a union which is the real inner fulfillment. The accepted attitudes are based on a superficial vision,
which takes appearance to be the only reality. Ranjha, who always hides his real self behind the shabby garb of a jogi or a cowherd can never be understood and can never be preferred to the wealthy Kheras. His real identity is a mystery that can be realized only in Heer s individual emotions. And for such a realization, a conscious break with the order of appearances is a prerequisite. Husain s triumph is achieved, not by evading the bondage s of the actual but by suffering them and finally transforming them. The mother remains a part of the daughter s consciousness - in addressing her she addresses herself. But this part of her consciousness is now subjected to more vital individual self. In the refrain:
Ni Mai menon Kherian di gal naa aakh
there is a tone of confidence - a mixture of earnest protestation and assured abandon.
Here is a "Kafi" presenting a different emotion:
Sujjen bin raatan hoiyan wadyan
Ranjha jogi, main jogiani, kamli kar kar sadian
Mass jhurey jhur pinjer hoyya, karken lagiyan hadyan
Main ayani niyoonh ki janan, birhoon tannawan gadiyan
Kahe Husain faqeer sain da, larr tairay main lagiyaan
Nights swell and merge into each other as I stand a wait for him.
Since the day Ranjha became jogi, I have scarcely been my old self and people every where call me crazy. My young flesh crept into creases leaving my young bones a creaking skeleton. I was too young to know the ways of love; and now as the nights swell and merge into each other, I play host to that unkind guest - separation.
The slower tempo of the refrain sets the mood of the "Kafi." The voice of the singer stretches in an ecstasy of suffering along the lengthening vowel sounds. The vowel sounds initiated by the refrain are taken up by rhythms and several other words.
The Heer-Ranjha motif is used here in a different emotional background. The intense loneliness here contrasts sharply with the confidence of fulfillment shown in the earlier "Kafi." Here people s preoccupation with appearances is not treated with indifference;
Ranjha jogi, main jogiani, kamli kar kar sadian
instead it adds to the plain. But in the notes of suffering, there is a strange quality of single-mindedness. One is not aware of any fidgety second thoughts. The plain does not evince any desperation: in fact there is an air of contemplative pose, born out of the awesome finality of commitment.
In another "Kafi" using the Heer-Ranjha motif, we are taken back to a still earlier stage of the poet s emotional Odyssey:
Main wi janan dhok Ranjhan di, naal mare koi challey
Pairan paindi, mintan kardi, janaan tan peya ukkaley
Neen wi dhoonghi, tilla purana, sheehan ney pattan malley
Ranjhan yaar tabeeb sadhendha, main tan dard awalley
Kahe Husain faqeer namana, sain senhurray ghalley
Travelers, I too have to go; I have to go to the solitary hut of Ranjha. Is there any one who will go with me? I have begged many to accompany me and now I set out alone. Travelers, is there no one who could go with me?
The River is deep and the shaky bridge creaks as people step on it. And the ferry is a known haunt of tigers. Will no one go with me to the lonely hut of Ranjha?
During long nights I have been tortured by my raw wounds. I have heard he in his lonely hut knows the sure remedy. Will no one come with me, travelers? <
The folk-song locale is present here in the shape of a river, a ferry and a batch of travelers. The travelers gather to set off to remote places for business, duty and other reasons. And there is the self conscious girl who comes daily to hear some chance gossip drop a word about her friend. The river for centuries has flowed between desire and fulfillment. No one knows where it goes; it has no beginning and no end. The river is ancient and unfathomable - holding mysterious dangers. It causes both life and death but shows a fascinating indifference that compels awed men and women to kneel and worship the river. There is another reason for this homage. The river bounds the village. It limits and defines the known and tried capacities of humanity. The girl s father has no possessions beyond the river. What she was born with lies placidly marked this side of the river. What is beyond, is vaguely threatening. But this hazardous unknown fascinates the girl and seeks to lure her out of the complacent peace she was born with.
But the girl in the "Kafi" differs from the girl in the folk-song in one vital respect. The girl in the folk-song has for ages, waited on this side of the river. She visits the ferry and moves among the travelers with questioning looks. But in her words and looks there lurks the knowledge of perpetual impossibility, the acknowledge that desire is never more than a wish is often less than it. The girl in the "Kafi" is prepared to bridge the gap between desire and attainment. She too is aware of the hazards of her ways but for her he imperative need to set out has become the supreme fact.
The image of a patient, desperately looking for a last remedy contains subtle implications. When Heer fakes illness in the house of her in-laws, Ranjha the fake jogi was approached for some magic cure. Heer was cured in a way the people did not foresee and her illness turned out to be of an unexpected nature. Those believing in appearances as the only reality were given a dramatic lesson. Here in the "Kafi", the metaphorical background is recreated. The girl earnestly wishes to align herself with ordinary motives and measures. But the uncommon purpose of her journey and the uncommon destination still stand out among the group of travelers. Her request for some one to accompany her only throws into stranger relief her unique loneliness.
The ecstatic rhythm brings to the refrain a tone of finality, a finality comparable to that of death. The journey across the river is a transition as radical as death. The two worlds of experience are as different from each other as the familiar life and the unknown beyond. (1959)
------------------------ JESUS ✝️ SAVES -------------------------
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, FOREVER! Through Faith in Jesus!
10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️ ✝️ ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.
My THANK'S to all those who have taken the time to view, fave, comment or share my photo's with others. I really appreciate it! ❤️
"Spectral Resonance" captures the stark contrast between the finality of death and the exuberance of life. This ai-generated artwork features a haunting skull enveloped by an explosion of vibrant splashes, symbolizing the burst of energy that is life against the void of nonexistence. The dynamic interplay of colors set against the dark background evokes a sense of the cosmic dance between creation and destruction.
Notice, we aren't saved by the Death of Christ, we are saved through his LIFE. Without the Resurrection, there is no SALVATION.
Most people believe we are saved by the cross, which is only half of the Gospel. We are saved when we come to FAITH in the full Gospel message of his death for us, where he takes away the sins of the world through Propitiation. His burial, which is the proof of death and the Power of his RESURRECTED LIFE. So that same life that raised Christ from the dead, can raise us to EVERLASTING LIFE IN JESUS!
That my friend is the GOOD NEWS OF THE GOSPEL!
------------------------ JESUS ✝️ SAVES -------------------------
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, FOREVER! Through Faith in Jesus!
10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️ ✝️ ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.
My THANK'S to all those who have taken the time to view, fave, comment or share my photo's with others. I really appreciate it! ❤️
------------------------ JESUS ✝️ SAVES -------------------------
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, FOREVER! Through Faith in Jesus!
10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️ ✝️ ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.
My THANK'S to all those who have taken the time to view, fave, comment or share my photo's with others. I really appreciate it! ❤️
------------------------ JESUS ✝️ SAVES -------------------------
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, FOREVER! Through Faith in Jesus!
10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️ ✝️ ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.
My THANK'S to all those who have taken the time to view, fave, comment or share my photo's with others. I really appreciate it! ❤️
------------------------ JESUS ✝️ SAVES -------------------------
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, FOREVER! Through Faith in Jesus!
10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️ ✝️ ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.
My THANK'S to all those who have taken the time to view, fave, comment or share my photo's with others. I really appreciate it! ❤️
JESUS ❤️ SAVES
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, FOREVER and EVER.
10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.
My THANK'S to all those who have taken the time to view, fave, comment or share my photo's with others. I really appreciate it! ❤️
JESUS ❤️ SAVES
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, FOREVER and EVER.
10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.
My THANK'S to all those who have taken the time to view, fave, comment or share my photo's with others. I really appreciate it! ❤️
----------------------------- JESUS ✝️ SAVES-------------------------------
SALVATION THROUGH FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST - ALONE!
12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."
❤️❤️ IT'S ALL JESUS AND NONE OF OURSELVES! ❤️❤️
16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the SALVATION of everyone WHO BELIEVES: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel a RIGHTEOUSNESS FROM GOD IS REVEALED, a righteousness that is by FAITH FROM FIRST TO LAST, just as it is written: "THE RIGHTEOUS WILL LIVE BY FAITH." (Romans 1:16-17)
16 KNOW that a man is NOT justified by observing the law, but by FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be JUSTIFIED BY FAITH in CHRIST and NOT by observing the law, BECAUSE BY OBSERVING THE LAW NO ONE WILL BE JUSTIFIED. (Galatians 2:16)
1. Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2. BY THIS GOSPEL YOU ARE SAVED, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
3. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4. that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5. and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. 6. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8. and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
9. For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them--yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11. Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed. (1 Corinthians 15:1-11)
7. Therefore Jesus said again, "I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. 8. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9. I am the gate; whoever enters through me WILL BE SAVED. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10. The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:7-10)
1 Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. 2 For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. 3 Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. 4 Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.
5 Moses describes in this way the righteousness that is by the law: "The man who does these things will live by them." 6 But the righteousness that is by faith says: "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?'" (that is, to bring Christ down) 7 "or 'Who will descend into the deep?'" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8 But what does it say? "The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart," that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: 9 That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. 11 As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame." 12 For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile--the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13 for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." (Romans 10:1-13)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so WE might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
So you'll KNOW, and not think you're to bad for God to love. The Christian LIFE isn't about how good WE are, because NONE of us are! It's about how GOOD JESUS IS! Because JESUS LOVES US, so much he died in our place and took the punishment for all of our sins on himself. The wages of sin is DEATH, and Jesus took the death WE so richly deserved for us and died in our place. The good news is, there's no more punishment for sin left. WE, you and I were all born forgive as a result of the crucifixion of God himself on the cross that took away the sins of the whole world. All we have to do is believe it, and put your Faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ. That my friends is REAL UNCONDITIONAL LOVE! YOU ARE LOVED. ❤️ ✝️ ❤️
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK ON THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE.
My THANK'S to all Flickr friends who fave and/or commented on my photos, I very much appreciate it! ❤️
© All Rights reserved no publication or copying without permission from the author.
This lil' guy is so cute. He's so tiny when he finds one little small grain to munch on, it looks so big in his little hands as he munches on it. Little birds land close by and they're so much larger than he is, it's funny.
------------------------ JESUS ✝️ SAVES -------------------------
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, FOREVER! Through Faith in Jesus!
10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️ ✝️ ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.
My THANK'S to all those who have taken the time to view, fave, comment or share my photo's with others. I really appreciate it! ❤️
JESUS ❤️ SAVES
10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.
My THANK'S to all those who have taken the time to view, fave, comment or share my photo's with others. I really appreciate it! ❤️
“Boston is not a small New York, as they say a child is not a small adult but is, rather, a specially organized small creature with its small-creature's temperature, balance, and distribution of fat. In Boston there is an utter absence of that wild electric beauty of New York, of the marvelous, excited rush of people in taxicabs at twilight, of the great Avenues and Streets, the restaurants, theatres, bars, hotels, delicatessens, shops. In Boston the night comes down with an incredibly heavy, small-town finality. The cows come home; the chickens go to roost; the meadow is dark. Nearly every Bostonian is in his house or in someone else's house, dining at the home board, enjoying domestic and social privacy.”
Elizabeth Hardwick
The Boston skyline as shot during sunset on a friend's rooftop.
------------------------ JESUS ✝️ SAVES -------------------------
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, FOREVER! Through Faith in Jesus!
10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️ ✝️ ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.
My THANK'S to all those who have taken the time to view, fave, comment or share my photo's with others. I really appreciate it! ❤️
THE WORLD AT 70 MPH
This is a view going through the edge of "Old Sacramento". Old town is a fun place to hang. But I didn't have time to stop and enjoy the sights. Race down, and race back. Next time maybe?
------------------------ JESUS ✝️ SAVES -------------------------
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, FOREVER! Through Faith in Jesus!
10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️ ✝️ ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.
My THANK'S to all those who have taken the time to view, fave, comment or share my photo's with others. I really appreciate it! ❤️
I love the way the moon looks here. It's so bright I'm really surprised you can see any stars at all. Moonlight isn't the best time to take shots of the night sky.
I also wanted to see how this lens would work for astronomy. Which I love. That's Mars center right of photo, the largest star in this shot..
------------------------ JESUS ✝️ SAVES -------------------------
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, FOREVER! Through Faith in Jesus!
10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️ ✝️ ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.
My THANK'S to all those who have taken the time to view, fave, comment or share my photo's with others. I really appreciate it! ❤️
A supervisor comforts one of his men who is feeling the finality of it all.
So, it's over.
The steel mill where I've worked for 22 years has closed the "melt shop" where now steel is made by melting scrap and refining it into new and better steel grades. No more.
I went in early AM to catch the last heat melted and followed it down the line.
Most photos taken with the Fujifilm X100S and some with a Fujifilm X-M1 and Fujinon 35mm f/1.4.
Please like my Facebook Artists page: entropic remnants photography on facebook Also, please visit the Entropic Remnants website, my Entropic Remnants blog, and my Entropic Remnants YouTube page -- THANKS!
Fawn.
------------------------ JESUS ✝️ SAVES -------------------------
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, FOREVER! Through Faith in Jesus!
10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️ ✝️ ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.
My THANK'S to all those who have taken the time to view, fave, comment or share my photo's with others. I really appreciate it! ❤️
------------------------ JESUS ✝️ SAVES -------------------------
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, FOREVER! Through Faith in Jesus!
10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️ ✝️ ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.
My THANK'S to all those who have taken the time to view, fave, comment or share my photo's with others. I really appreciate it! ❤️
----------------------------- JESUS ✝️ SAVES-------------------------------
SALVATION THROUGH FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST - ALONE!
12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."
❤️❤️ IT'S ALL JESUS AND NONE OF OURSELVES! ❤️❤️
16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the SALVATION of everyone WHO BELIEVES: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel a RIGHTEOUSNESS FROM GOD IS REVEALED, a righteousness that is by FAITH FROM FIRST TO LAST, just as it is written: "THE RIGHTEOUS WILL LIVE BY FAITH." (Romans 1:16-17)
16 KNOW that a man is NOT justified by observing the law, but by FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be JUSTIFIED BY FAITH in CHRIST and NOT by observing the law, BECAUSE BY OBSERVING THE LAW NO ONE WILL BE JUSTIFIED. (Galatians 2:16)
1. Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2. BY THIS GOSPEL YOU ARE SAVED, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
3. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4. that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5. and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. 6. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8. and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
9. For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them--yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11. Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed. (1 Corinthians 15:1-11)
7. Therefore Jesus said again, "I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. 8. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9. I am the gate; whoever enters through me WILL BE SAVED. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10. The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:7-10)
1 Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. 2 For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. 3 Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. 4 Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.
5 Moses describes in this way the righteousness that is by the law: "The man who does these things will live by them." 6 But the righteousness that is by faith says: "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?'" (that is, to bring Christ down) 7 "or 'Who will descend into the deep?'" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8 But what does it say? "The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart," that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: 9 That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. 11 As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame." 12 For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile--the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13 for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." (Romans 10:1-13)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so WE might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
So you'll KNOW, and not think you're to bad for God to love. The Christian LIFE isn't about how good WE are, because NONE of us are! It's about how GOOD JESUS IS! Because JESUS LOVES US, so much he died in our place and took the punishment for all of our sins on himself. The wages of sin is DEATH, and Jesus took the death WE so richly deserved for us and died in our place. The good news is, there's no more punishment for sin left. WE, you and I were all born forgive as a result of the crucifixion of God himself on the cross that took away the sins of the whole world. All we have to do is believe it, and put your Faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ. That my friends is REAL UNCONDITIONAL LOVE! YOU ARE LOVED. ❤️ ✝️ ❤️
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK ON THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE.
My THANK'S to all my Flickr friends who've favored and/or commented on my photos, I very much appreciate you're kindness! ❤️
© All Rights reserved no publication or copying without permission from the author.
I live under a tree
I balance an apple on my head
A man with a rusty revolver and
A twitching trigger finger
Stands at spitting distance
The man is high on gin, cigars and power
There are many like me
There are few like him
I was born with the apple on my head
The gun was a gift to him
He nods off occasionally
Stumbling, twitching and squeezing off
Random bullets that graze all but
The apple in the process
I’ve taken his bullets before
Hence fear and pain but never finality
I am not tied to this tree
If I turn my head enough the apple falls
My eventual assailant isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed
I would barely be missed
I could leave anytime
Yet, I stay
- Brandon Boyd (Incubus) from his book White Fluffy Clouds
The Lever House, 390 Park Avenue, NYC
by navema
Acrylic ink on adhesive vinyl, dimensions variable; Lever House Art Collection
Barbara Kruger's bold and ambitious installation covers the entirety of the Lever House's vast windows, both inside and out, in addition to the floor. Using letters, many as high as seventeen feet, Kruger creates phrases that emote situations, interactions, and thoughts that occur throughout ones lifetime. Borrowing from mass media's high-volume graphic punch, her black-and-white text questions the viewer about power, gender roles, social relationships, political issues, consumerism, and individual autonomy and desire.
The exterior surfaces announce, "Know nothing, forget everything, believe anything," "Plenty should be enough," and "In violence we forget who we are" (a quote from Mary McCarthy). On the interior walls, reading clockwise, she continues with the declarative phrases, "If it screams, shove it, "If it vomits, starve it," "If it sees, blind it," and "If it laughs, choke it. If it cries, drown it. If it sighs, shame it. If it loves, buy it. If it moves, f*ck it."
The pronounced verticality of the Helvetica ultra-condensed typeface accentuates the vertical thrust of the window mullions, the mass of the skyscraper, and the erect stainless steel columns. On these columns, Kruger has applied phrases that read vertically rather than horizontally and that complicate their readability: "The globe shrinks for those that own it" and "Between being born and dying." Kruger completes the total transformation of the lobby space by covering the floor with sentences that read from opposite directions: "You make history when you do business," and "A rich man's jokes are always funny."
This new work is an immersive installation that transforms the iconic Lever Lobby into a textual array that zigzags between declaration and doubt, between threat and tenderness. Its the in-between that inserts itself into the brilliantly edged heart of architectural modernism and speaks of the space between the event and the everyday. Kruger's installation addresses the stroller and the task driven, and suggests the complicated terrain of this site, a piling on of power, ambition, pleasure, laughter, contempt and the finality of it all. As she has stated: "I think what I'm trying to do is create moments of recognition. To try to detonate some kind of feeling or understanding of lived experience.... I try to deal with the complexities of power and social life, but as far as the visual presentation goes I purposely avoid a high degree of difficulty."
- - -
Barbara Kruger was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1945, and studied at Syracuse University, the School of Visual Arts, and Parsons School of Design, New York. Her work is in the collections of major national and international museums, and she has recently had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Palazzo delle Papesse, Centro Arte Contemporanea, Siena, Italy; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; and Mary Boone Gallery, New York. The artist lives in Los Angeles, where she is a professor at UCLA, and New York City.
Much of Kruger's graphic work consists of black-and-white photographs with overlaid captions set in white-on-red Futura Bold Oblique. The phrases included in her work are usually declarative, and make common use of such pronouns as "you", "I", "we", and "they". The juxtaposition of imagery and text containing criticism of sexism and the circulation of power within cultures is a recurring motif in Kruger's work. The text in her works of the 1980s includes such phrases as "Your comfort is my silence" (1981), "You invest in the divinity of the masterpiece" (1982), and "I shop therefore I am" (1987). She has said that "I work with pictures and words because they have the ability to determine who we are and who we aren’t.
Kruger's words and pictures have been displayed in both galleries and public spaces, as well as framed and unframed photographs, posters, postcards, t-shirts, electronic signboards, billboards and on a train station platform in Strasbourg, France. For the past decade Kruger has created installations of video, film, audio and projection. Enveloping the viewer with the seductions of direct address, her work is consistently about the kindnesses and brutalities of social life: about how we are to one another.
For more info, visit: www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/feminist/Barbara-Kru...
------------------------ JESUS ✝️ SAVES -------------------------
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, FOREVER! Through Faith in Jesus!
10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️ ✝️ ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.
My THANK'S to all those who have taken the time to view, fave, comment or share my photo's with others. I really appreciate it! ❤️
The Lever House, 390 Park Avenue, NYC
by navema
Acrylic ink on adhesive vinyl, dimensions variable; Lever House Art Collection
Barbara Kruger's bold and ambitious installation covers the entirety of the Lever House's vast windows, both inside and out, in addition to the floor. Using letters, many as high as seventeen feet, Kruger creates phrases that emote situations, interactions, and thoughts that occur throughout ones lifetime. Borrowing from mass media's high-volume graphic punch, her black-and-white text questions the viewer about power, gender roles, social relationships, political issues, consumerism, and individual autonomy and desire.
The exterior surfaces announce, "Know nothing, forget everything, believe anything," "Plenty should be enough," and "In violence we forget who we are" (a quote from Mary McCarthy). On the interior walls, reading clockwise, she continues with the declarative phrases, "If it screams, shove it, "If it vomits, starve it," "If it sees, blind it," and "If it laughs, choke it. If it cries, drown it. If it sighs, shame it. If it loves, buy it. If it moves, f*ck it."
The pronounced verticality of the Helvetica ultra-condensed typeface accentuates the vertical thrust of the window mullions, the mass of the skyscraper, and the erect stainless steel columns. On these columns, Kruger has applied phrases that read vertically rather than horizontally and that complicate their readability: "The globe shrinks for those that own it" and "Between being born and dying." Kruger completes the total transformation of the lobby space by covering the floor with sentences that read from opposite directions: "You make history when you do business," and "A rich man's jokes are always funny."
This new work is an immersive installation that transforms the iconic Lever Lobby into a textual array that zigzags between declaration and doubt, between threat and tenderness. Its the in-between that inserts itself into the brilliantly edged heart of architectural modernism and speaks of the space between the event and the everyday. Kruger's installation addresses the stroller and the task driven, and suggests the complicated terrain of this site, a piling on of power, ambition, pleasure, laughter, contempt and the finality of it all. As she has stated: "I think what I'm trying to do is create moments of recognition. To try to detonate some kind of feeling or understanding of lived experience.... I try to deal with the complexities of power and social life, but as far as the visual presentation goes I purposely avoid a high degree of difficulty."
- - -
Barbara Kruger was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1945, and studied at Syracuse University, the School of Visual Arts, and Parsons School of Design, New York. Her work is in the collections of major national and international museums, and she has recently had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Palazzo delle Papesse, Centro Arte Contemporanea, Siena, Italy; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; and Mary Boone Gallery, New York. The artist lives in Los Angeles, where she is a professor at UCLA, and New York City.
Much of Kruger's graphic work consists of black-and-white photographs with overlaid captions set in white-on-red Futura Bold Oblique. The phrases included in her work are usually declarative, and make common use of such pronouns as "you", "I", "we", and "they". The juxtaposition of imagery and text containing criticism of sexism and the circulation of power within cultures is a recurring motif in Kruger's work. The text in her works of the 1980s includes such phrases as "Your comfort is my silence" (1981), "You invest in the divinity of the masterpiece" (1982), and "I shop therefore I am" (1987). She has said that "I work with pictures and words because they have the ability to determine who we are and who we aren’t.
Kruger's words and pictures have been displayed in both galleries and public spaces, as well as framed and unframed photographs, posters, postcards, t-shirts, electronic signboards, billboards and on a train station platform in Strasbourg, France. For the past decade Kruger has created installations of video, film, audio and projection. Enveloping the viewer with the seductions of direct address, her work is consistently about the kindnesses and brutalities of social life: about how we are to one another.
For more info, visit: www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/feminist/Barbara-Kru...
my first form of liquid painting was on abstract spiritual forms in motion.
i finished that series in 1999 after a show in which no one seemed to be intrigued by the essential qualities of what our eyes show to us.
i switched over to REAL representational art.
but i kept the NOT GALLERY aspect of my work pretty strong -- using way more black, only tints and shades and full chroma colors. i painted my feelings with the colors i chose.
and "my feelings" weren't intended to be my own.
i love classical ideology.
form and beauty and also our modern understanding that the 1 percent is fetish and nazi/fascist by its nature.
so i'm not into perfection as much as the idea of things that are just obviously better or trying or engaged or activated.
arguments about perfection are weird.
why do people like to fight so much?
my eyes tend to see all things as rather ordinary and i want to show off the simple things i find, to revel in their nature and then to figure out an expression that suits the two -- the object itself and my attitudinal relationship with it. for me, more than ambiguous emotional terms, i favor HEAT and MOTION as the aspects of light that i choose to focus on.
because my life is so interlapped with photography, i am both a camera and a painter, a robot and a brain, a drone and brighter magick user.
i can't help this double nature and like prince said, you'd better know your dark side and your bright side and if they can get along and you end up bright, that is the path of the philosopher guide.
so if that's you, now is the time!
RISE up among the people.
use your intelligent power to untangle the ropes of darkness!
but i digress.
so through and along my urban and townsy journeys -- santa barbara, seattle, san francisco, santa fe, san diego, amsterdam, manhattan -- i eventually found my way to flowers.
they grow in the front yards of the people's homes wherever i walk, or in buckets at a florist shop along the street or a grocery store. the beauty of flowers is everywhere.
and flowers are a reminder that everything dies. but it can be beautiful.
and we cut flowers for their beauty.
for me, roses are wanton.
they are my third form/series of liquid paintings.
the second one, and the most explored/exploded, is the exploding rainbow dahlia.
and where roses are wanton and vain-glorious (really, i had no idea!), the dahlia is like a swiss community with its order and its architectural phenomenon.
my exposure to dahlias was limited before i arrived in san francisco. i had painted orchids, peonies, chinese rose, birds of paradise, cala lilies, california golden poppies, and tulips.
but dahlias and the rainbow seemed like they were made for each other. that those TWO THINGS were US. that we, as people were just like dahlias in the way we ordered and constructed our lives. the dahlia with its form for capturing and storing light and moisture, and the exploding rainbow with its blatant and broken spectrum of blasting color.
so i floated those dahlias in space where a million things were happening all at once. everything as one moved into a constellation. i added multiple sided die and glinty bits of ambiguous crow candy for the eye.
vanity and selfism, the star charisma of the rose's nature -- that of desire and death masked as finality -- was just another form of circustry in this new unexploited world of die and glinty, treasury bits spinning and rolling and falling through space, into space, as space. hitting and colliding, forcing loss and explosion and aiding decay.
and there was a war in these pieces which forced them into a liquidity.
that war was between the clarity of stasis and our fascination with movement.
the impressionists, aided ENTIRELY BY THE USE OF THE CAMERA, had learned that aperture values that the camera's limited technology could exploit at the time had shown new essentials.
aperture values taught the impressionists that they could DELETE things from the environment to increase the imaginative suggestibility of the viewers mind.
for example, if i have my focus on the nostrils of a racing horse and progressively blur and fade out the clarity as the horse goes away through foreshortening, the horse's nose will seem MUCH closer to the viewer and more three dimensional than it would if the receding part of the horse were in perfect detailed clarity.
people like manet realized even further, using the same deletion technique of the intelligence, that a glove could literally look MORE glove-like with just three strokes of a brush. indeed, that the SUGGESTION of a glove was infinitely more powerful and perfect to the impression of the piece than an actual glove ever could be.
so in my liquid painting, i envisioned a human circus as exploding rainbow dahlias. our vanity and self-love; our beauty and our grace; and our aging and exploding.
all with dreams of promise, jewelry in the sky, and an unending ability to NEVER grasp much of anything.
and we are constantly coming in and out of focus in our own lives, a living constellatory fascination with ourselves and others creating patterns and habits and occupations.
and that rabbit hole lasted for several years.
it started in 2010/11 as a discovery process and eventually ended up producing over 6,000 images of that world. enough to create an app that could endlessly recreate the world imagined.
and the goal was to document every conceivable color pattern that the human eye could see.
and i think it worked.
it also led to the conclusion of the PIXELWITHIN theory.
which i have elaborated over on torbakhopper's news outlet, lol. the merkaba is a beautiful thing!!
so now the rose.
sometimes slutty, sometimes regaling and proud. sometimes curvy, sometimes more than curvy or with torn edges and hot little shadows.
england had a war over roses.
just like the u.s. had a war over rubber. just kidding. it was all about democracy and partiotism.
and roses are more likely to cause trouble than dahlias.
dahlias are all about the community as a metaphor.
there is a fundamental "coming together" about dahlias.
whereas, honestly, roses are all about falling apart.
this large group of examples are all different now. just like the other forms of liquid painting, CHANGE is a part of the game.
This is Romeo today. Yep, he needs a bath and a hair cut, but he's so cute I had to share it. He weighs about 3 1/2 lbs, a little bundle of Love. He loves to go for rides with us in the truck and hates it when he has to stay home because it's too hot. But that's summer time, what are ya going to do?
When I take him for rides, he smothers me with kisses and hugs. I wish I could clone him and have hundreds of these little gifts from God in our lives. But I don't want to be greedy, he's really ALL WE NEED. Thank you JESUS for this little constant FRIEND!
------------------------ JESUS ✝️ SAVES -------------------------
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, FOREVER! Through Faith in Jesus!
10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️ ✝️ ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.
My THANK'S to all those who have taken the time to view, fave, comment or share my photo's with others. I really appreciate it! ❤️
Our first snow of the Season, and I wonder whose foot prints those might be coming down our driveway. :^ )
------------------------ JESUS ✝️ SAVES -------------------------
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, FOREVER! Through Faith in Jesus!
10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️ ✝️ ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.
My THANK'S to all those who have taken the time to view, fave, comment or share my photo's with others. I really appreciate it! ❤️
youtu.be/0fjJ0Yi-2F8 Trailer Updated
The Mutara Nebula battle is perhaps the greatest space battle in all of cinema.
www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GPzE7...
Starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Ricardo Montalban, Walter Koenig, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, Bibi Besch, Merritt Butrick, Paul Winfield, Kirstie Alley, and Ike Eisenmann. Directed by Nicholas Meyer.
The year is 1982. It has been thirteen years since the original Star Trek has gone off the air. Three years ago, Star Trek: The Motion Picture hit and while it was a financial success, it was grossly over-budgeted ($46 million) and criticized for being too long, too boring, and too god damn weird.
So they slashed the budget down to a quarter of the previous film and removed Gene Roddenberry from the lead creative role. Instead, they made Harve Bennett, a new Paramount producer who had never seen an episode of the original series, the figurehead in getting a second Star Trek movie off of the ground. What we have here is a perfect storm of things that should create a terrible movie.
So it’s no small miracle that Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is not only good, but is easily the best Trek movie that’s ever graced the screen. Bennett threw out a lot of the esoteric trappings of the first film and the team brought on board, including director Nicholas Meyer, were also unfamiliar with the Trek universe. Gone were the kitschy 60s/70s outfits (many of the costumes from The Motion Picture were altered and dyed to make the new uniforms). Also gone were the abstract threats. Pulling out a villain from seemingly random in the original run of the show, Wrath of Khan was going to be as direct and reductionist a sequel to the show as was possible.
This new look of the concept of Star Trek recast the Federation as a much more military organization. The uniforms were more naval. The ships more complex and more delicate. The Enterprise became cramped and bustling, crawling with incidental crewman running a myriad of tasks. What Wrath of Khan did was turn Star Trek into a naval warfare movie in space.
I imagine most people are already familiar with the basic plot of Wrath of Khan. Khan Noonian Singh (a chesty, magnificently hammy Ricardo Montalban), a genetically altered egomaniacal superman from Earth’s distant past, has been marooned on a planet for 15 years after a run in with Kirk and company during the original run of the show. The USS Reliant, looking for a barren planet to test a new terraforming device (sprearheaded by an old flame of Kirk’s and his heretofore unknown son), encounter Khan and his crew of survivors who quickly proceed to capture the Reliant and use it to exact revenge on Kirk.
What happens next is a series of intricate cat and mouse submarine battles cast in a sci-fi setting, great Shakespearean scenery chewing by one of film’s greatest sci-fi villains, and a great personal sacrifice by one of the most enduring pop culture characters. It’s great stuff, full of high drama and brilliant character beats, serious but not ponderous, clever by not showy, the textbook case of less is more.
What other movie has the gall to cast its two opposing leads in a situation that never brings them face to face? Kirk and Khan taunt and challenge and curse each other from across the reaches of space but never share a single scene. What other movie has the restraint to limit itself to the quiet predatory climax in an obscuring nebula? Both ships blindly gliding by each other in silence, one mistake away from annihilation? Wrath of Khanis as tense as any thriller, cast in a familiar franchise turned into something vital and exciting by fresh talent and fresh ideas.
But you know all this, so let’s start at the beginning, where the truly special ideas in Wrath of Khan lie. From the start we’re introduced to a younger group of Starfleet cadets, competent and ready, in a training simulation of the infamous no-win Kobayashi Maru scenario. Saavik (Kirstie Alley before she became a lazy tabloid joke) is being groomed as Spock’s protegee, commanding the Enterprise in this simulation, causing everyone aboard to die by her actions.
James Kirk, now an admiral and instructor, chides Saavik about her approach to the scenario. Kirk is, to date, the only cadet who ever defeated the test, meant to train cadets the reality of sacrifice when command leads you to no sure victory. Kirk’s legacy is already well established as the man who has cheated death countless times, a man who doesn’t believe in no-win scenarios.
Yet we open on a Kirk in darkness. He’s bored and aging at the academy. He accepts gifts from his closest friends begrudgingly on his 50th birthday. To Kirk, all this is a defeat, a quiet retreat from the adventure he always considered his right. Which is why when the Enterprise receives a distress call while on a training mission, Kirk takes control of the ship and steers her towards the science outpost where Khan lays in wait.
What the film so carefully does is lay open the truth that Kirk isn’t quite the man he used to be. He’s not as fast, but he’s not as rash. Confronted with a son he didn’t know he had, he’s left to wonder just how many opportunities his lifestyle has made him forsake. As much as command is about making the decisions day to day, it is about the decisions left at the wayside.
It is when all hope is lost that Kirk reveals to Saavik how he beat the Kobayashi Maru–he reprogrammed the scenario to allow him to win. Saavik protests that it was cheating, Kirk retorts with the fact that he got a commendation for creative thinking. And in the depths of the battle between Kirk and Khan, spanning across space between two men wrapped up in their own legacy, Kirk cheats his way to victory again.
But this time he doesn’t escape cleanly, as the victory costs him the life of Spock. For Kirk, who had the galaxy as his plaything for decades, the realities of the choices, the realities of life looming behind all the adventures, come crashing down around him. When asked after Spock’s burial among the stars how he feels Kirk replies “I feel … young.” It is the risk and the finality that provides the spark of life, not the adventure itself.
What Wrath of Khan manages to do is to humanize what was quickly becoming remote and abstract. Star Trek was never about the aliens or the adventure so much as it was about what it means to be human. At the best of times it remembers its better self, and brings that to the forefront, and becomes something more than the fandom or the slightly silly space western it was originally conceived as. That is what makes Wrath of Khan so singular, and so special.
157. But most did not even walk on this steep path, except the one patient and the one who felt compassion, even if it was with a sweet word alone
فَلَا ٱقْتَحَمَ ٱلْعَقَبَةَ
وَمَآ أَدْرَىٰكَ مَا ٱلْعَقَبَةُ
فَكُّ رَقَبَةٍ
أَوْ إِطْعَمٌۭ فِى يَوْمٍۢ ذِى مَسْغَبَةٍۢ
يَتِيمًۭا ذَا مَقْرَبَةٍ
أَوْ مِسْكِينًۭا ذَا مَتْرَبَةٍۢ
ثُمَّ كَانَ مِنَ ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَتَوَاصَوْا۟ بِٱلصَّبْرِ وَتَوَاصَوْا۟ بِٱلْمَرْحَمَةِ
أُو۟لَٓئِكَ أَصْحَبُ ٱلْمَيْمَنَةِ
But he has not attempted the steep path.
And what can make you know what the steep path is?
It is freeing a neck,
or feeding in a day of severe hunger,
on orphan of near relationship,
or a needy person in misery.
Then he is of those who believe and enjoin (each other) to patience, and enjoin (each other) to compassion.
Those are the Companions of the Right Hand.
Surah Al Balad, Verse 11-19
Tafseer e Jilani
And after We bestowed upon him and guided him…
Falaqtahma: he, the human being, did not take up by storm and he did not enter…
Al aqaba: the steep path i.e. reaching the peak, which was fatiguing and toiling for his nafs until he fulfilled the gratitude for that which We bestowed him.
Then Allah Subhanahu placed the steep path in ambiguity, honouring it and exalting it so He said:
Wa ma adraaka: And what have you understood, O Maghroor, the one who is arrogant about life, which (itself) is borrowed as are its necessities…
Mal aqaba: what the steep path is on the way for the people of imaan, faith and irfaan, Divine Recognition.
Then He explained His Words:
Fakku raqaba: That steep path is freeing a neck from the enslavement of desires and hopes…
Aou: or that steep path is…
It’aam: feeding the needy of Allah and those who of His Servants who do ask…
Fi youmin di masghaba: on the day of extreme need and intense hunger…
Yateeman da maqraba-tin: (or that steep path is feeding) the orphan relative of the one feeding…
Aou miskeenan da matraba: or (or that steep path is feeding) the needful one lying in dust, his poverty making him live in misery and throwing him in the dust of humiliation and lowliness.
Summa: Then after he takes the step, without thinking, of entering this steep path…
Kana minalladina aamano: then he becomes of the ones who attained to faith in Allah and becomes certain that whatever is in their possession is for Allah and they are the Munfiqoona, the one who spend, by the Decree of Allah in the Ways of Allah.
Wa: With their faith in Him, they become marked by their salih, good, deeds which strengthen their faith…
Tawasau: and they enjoin each other…
Bis sabr: towards patience upon the practice of the Commands of Allah and towards patience upon the pains of obedience to the Orders for them.
Wa: And in this way…
Tawasau: they enjoin each other…
Bil marhamate: towards kindness and compassion towards the Servants of Allah and respecting them and being tender with them and doing extra in goodness for them, even if it is in a sweet word alone.
Ulaika: They are the ones As Suada, the fortunate, Al Mausufoona, the ones who are characterized by the taste of honour and majesty…
Ashab ul Maimana: as the People of the Right Hand before Allah and the people of honour and those upon whom different favours are bestowed and those who are of the highest ranks and stations.
Subhan Allah!
156. And remember the Name of your Lord with devotion
وَٱذْكُرِ ٱسْمَ رَبِّكَ وَتَبَتَّلْ إِلَيْهِ تَبْتِيلًۭا
And remember the Name of your Lord and devote yourself to Him with devotion.
Surah Al Muzzammil, Verse 8
Tafseer e Jilani
Wa: And overall…
Udkur isma Rabbika: remember the name of your Lord and keep on praising Him and His Sacredness forever in all your timings and your states and do not become occupied from remembering Him because of your work. Instead…
Wa tabattal: devote yourself i.e. dedicate yourself and detach yourself from your daily tasks…
Ilayhi: towards Allah Subhanahu…
Tabteelan: with complete devotion and and dedication so much so there is not even a thought in your heart of focus upon your own state. So how will you think about anyone else (when you don’t even think about yourself)?
153. Be steadfast upon what I, Allah, order
فَٱسْتَقِمْ كَمَآ أُمِرْتَ وَمَن تَابَ مَعَكَ وَلَا تَطْغَوْا۟ ۚ
So stand firm as you are commanded
and those who turn in repentance with you, O Beloved (peace be upon you), and (those who) do not transgress.
Surah Hud, Verse 116
Tafseer e Jilani
And when you are gentle (in behaviour), O Messenger who completes Messenger-hood (peace be upon you), by Allah making you aware and by His Presence and you are made fully alert emotionally, feeling present and you unveiled with that awareness, unveiling, watching and witnessing…
Fastaqim: so be steadfast i.e. ae’tadil, be morally correct in your attributes and your deeds and your words…
Kama umirta: as you have been commanded by your Lord by His Revelation upon you and His Inspiration upon you and He has also commanded you towards being just and being steadfast.
Wa man taba ma’aka: And also the one who repents before you (in your presence) and brought faith upon you and made your path the roadmap towards Allah (is ordered to be steadfast).
Wa: And overall…
La tatghau: do not move from and do not exit, O you all who are steadfast in your commitment to the Path of the Reality of Tauheed being Al Muttahaqqiqoona, and do not turn away from the Sabeel As Salama, the Way of Peace, which is undoubtedly the way of the Sharia’ and the way of Nabi Kareem (peace be upon him).
And due to the difficulty of following this blessed verse, the Prophet of Allah (peace be upon him) said:
شَيَّبَتْنِي سُورَةُ هُودٍ
“Surah Hud made me age.”
ھذہ الآیۃ قصمت ظھور انبیاء اللہ و اولیائہ
“This verse broke the backs of Allah’s Prophets and His Auliya, the Friends.”
155. Those who say Allah is their Lord and then becomes Mustaqeem, steadfast upon it, Angels will descend and give them glad tidings of no fear and no grief
إِنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ قَالُوا۟ رَبُّنَا ٱللَّهُ ثُمَّ ٱسْتَقَمُوا۟ تَتَنَزَّلُ عَلَيْهِمُ ٱلْمَلَٓئِكَةُ أَلَّا تَخَافُوا۟ وَلَا تَحْزَنُوا۟
Indeed, those who say, "Our Lord is Allah," then stand firm - will descend on them the Angels saying, "Do not fear, and do not grieve but receive the glad tidings of Paradise which you were promised.
Surah Al Fussilat, Verse 30
Tafseer e Jilani
Then said Allah Subhanahu on the according to His Sunnah, Ways, in His Book:
Inna: Indeed, the Al Mowwahideen, the believers of One-ness…
Alladina qalu: they say, in happiness and in suffering and in secret and openly…
Rabbun Allahu: Allah is our Lord, Al Wahid, The One and Only, Al Ahad, The Only One, Al Farad, The Singular, As Samad, The One who is Independent, who is lam yalid wa lam yulad wa lam ya kullahu ufuwan ahad- He has no offspring nor is He born from anyone and there is no one equal to Him...
Summ astaqamu: then they become steadfast and are unwaivering upon that which they have declared and acknowledged by their deeds and by their states and those intentions of theirs which result in their day to day actions…
Tatanazzalu: descend for their help and to open their hearts and to discipline their manners…
Alaihim al malaikatu: upon them angels, Al Mutarassidoona, who are the ones keeping careful watch following the Commands of Allah, standing ready for His Orders, saying to those believers, giving them glad tidings…
Allaa takhafu: do not fear because of your excesses which happened from you before were unveiled for you the secrets of Tauheed and Certainty.
Wa la tahzanu: And do not grieve for what happened to you because of the demands of your being a human…
Wa abshiru bil jannati allati kuntum tu’adoon: And receive the good news of the Paradise you have been promised from the tongues of the Prophets and your Messengers, who are the guides and the guided ones.
154. O Man you are labouring towards your Lord
يَٓأَيُّهَا ٱلْإِنسَنُ إِنَّكَ كَادِحٌ إِلَىٰ رَبِّكَ كَدْحًۭا فَمُلَقِيهِ
O Mankind! Indeed, you are laboring to your Lord with exertion and you will meet Him.
Surah Il Inshaqaaq, Verse 6
Tafseer e Jilani
Then called out Allah Subhanahu to the human being, a call of warning and a call that must be followed and a call of stimulating the stubbornness in the nature of Mankind and shaking the chain of his original nature, so He said:
Ya ayyuhal insaan: O Mankind, formed upon the Appearance of Ar Rahman, chosen from between all that was made to appear for the wisdom of Khilafat, Vice-Regency, and being the successor and the advantages of Ma’rifa, the Recognition of Allah, in Tauheed, His One-ness, recognize your importance and do not be forgetful of your reality.
Innaka kaadihun: No doubt you are the one bearing hardships, striving hard for gaining closeness to Allah and for His One-ness…
Ila Rabbika kadhan: towards your Lord, toiling and endeavoring, until you dissolve your being in your desire for His Desires. And overall…
Famulaqui-he: you are going to meet your Lord according to your struggle and your exertion so you should not leave those things that make you reach Him and dissolve you in Him after being pulled over from Allah Al Haq and ability from His End so that you become from the Arbaab al Yameen, the People of the Right Hand and of honour, who have been named Ashaab al Yameen, the People of the Right Hand, who are given the records of their deeds from their right side which is the sign of their imaan, faith and their irfaan, recognition (of Allah).
Subhan Allah!
158. The one who wishes can take a path towards Allah
إِنَّ هَذِهِۦ تَذْكِرَةٌۭ ۖ
فَمَن شَآءَ ٱتَّخَذَ إِلَىٰ رَبِّهِۦ سَبِيلًا
Indeed, this (is) a Reminder, then whoever wills let him take to his Lord a way.
Surah Al Muzzammil, Verse 19
Tafseer e Jilani
Inna hadihi: Indeed these words which are proving the fulfillment of Allah’s Promises…
Tadkira: are a reminder and an admonition for those who gain from advice and remember and they are from the people of blessings and ability.
Faman sha’a: So who so ever wants that he gains advice through this…
Ittakhada: must take…
Ila Rabbihi sabeela: a way to his Lord after Allah Al Haqq gave him ability and aided him in exiting the requirements of this world and guided him to elevation towards True Existence, rising from one rank to another and from one station to another until he reaches the beginning of the Way of Fana’, Dissolving.
Then he elevates from that also from state to state until he becomes an fana’ia anil fana, loses all of his identity in complete extinction of his existence. And after all this he becomes what he becomes and except for Allah there is no purpose and there is no finality.
159. The one saved from the fire is the one who is Al Atqa, the one who is the most mindful.
وَسَيُجَنَّبُهَا ٱلْأَتْقَى
ٱلَّذِى يُؤْتِى مَالَهُۥ يَتَزَكَّىٰ
But distant from (the fire) will be the one who is mindful.
The one who gives his wealth to purify himself.
Surah Al Layl, Verse 17-18
Tafseer e Jilani
Wa: And in this way we made clear to the Al Mukallifoon, the ones who obey Allah’s Orders as obligatory…
Sayujannabuha: that the one who is kept away from the fire which is blazing in sections of Hell…
Al Atqa: is the one who is the most mindul…
Alladi yu’ti: the one who gives and makes alms…
Maalahu: from his possessions in the Way of Allah, seeking His Pleasure, spending upon the needy of His Creation. (We made clear) how…
Yattazakka: he became pure and cleansed from the filth of the world. And there is nothing left in his heart except Al Maula, Allah, until he reached Sidrat ul Muntaha, the Lote Tree.
And despite verses like this, they did not take heed and they did not understand.
Rasa, me & mum. the family was part of the contingent of "Beautiful Balts" the then immigration minister Arthur Calwell encouraged to come to Australia, believing that the fair-haired, blue-eyed foreigners would be less likely to raise the anxiety level of the locals than more swarthy types. in general, the Zizis family experienced kindness and support, and i in particular remember my 5 years of childhood in Sale as the most idyllic time of my life. the photo, one of only two on the ship, is more damaged than me memory. what a shame that the many photos my dad took on the journey on the ship, of Napoli & Bagnoli beforehand, & of the Bathurst reception camp afterwards were, as he discovered when he tried to develop them later, done on defective film acquired in Napoli. nearly all had to be discarded. i have a clear memory of us boarding the ship moored @ the left side, as you look out to sea, of the main international pier in Napoli. for the following i'm relying on www.naa.gov.au/collection/search/: the 'Amarapoora' departed Naples on 5/9/49 (not long after i turned 8) and arrived in Sydney on 20/10/45 (just before my sister, Rasa, turned 6). it was carrying 598 DPs from all over europe (18 were disembarked @ Port Said & Colombo for medical reasons; also, i remember, the 'burial @ sea', which i find confirmed in the record, of Kristina Adamaitys, aged 19 months). "All other passengers proceeded to the Department of Immigration Reception and Training Centre, Bathurst per special trains which departed from No 13 Wharf, Pyrmont at 11pm and midnight [i have a clear memory of the night train trip through many tunnels before i fell asleep]". interestingly (probably only for me!), checking through the Amarapoora's passenger list (on another website) i find there were two other passengers aboard with the family name 'Zizis' - but they were greeks. it explains why greeks have a habit of claiming, knowing better than i do, that my name is of greek origin (for fuller explanation see @ flic.kr/p/8N6Xyk). on my certificate of australian citizenship which i applied for in 2003 my name is given as Arunas Zizis "I, the Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural affairs, hereby declare that the above named is an Australian citizen and that citizenship was acquired on 1st January 1984." i had required this document to renew my litho citizenship. now, i gather, my Oz citizenship can be revoked without my prior knowledge by Minister Dutton, should i be deemed to have misbehaved - ah well, par for the course, the jesuits pulled a stunt like so on me years ago @ flic.kr/p/8NnQ7Y. for the following i'm dependent on trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper. but first i note that despite it being almost impossible not to find evidence of yourself in the Trove collection now that it has been completed up to 2006 neither of the two other Zizis' have made it into there. they must have led very quiet lives seeing as Trove is a great way of checking whether your parents, grandparents, neighbours, or anyone else of interest to you has ever been newsworthy enough to make it into the press, however local. juicy court cases, a staple of the press, provide particularly rich grounds to mine for information. search a few names you know - you'll be surprised whose made the cut in small country courts in the regional rags; or in the major city ones for that. you have to have been almost invisible not to be in there somewhere. & @ this point i challenge the person in my own street who said to me "ah, so you've done time" to find evidence of it. i note, in the "Argus" (2nd Feb 1955) my father, calling himself "Simonas Zizis", lodged an intention to apply for citizenship. my mum makes it into the "Gippsland Times" (Thursday 5/11/53, page 6) for membership of a forum in "The New Settler" festival: "The main idea of the festival is to show old Australians something about the countries from which European migrants have come". quite a few things are reported re our family in the Gippsland Times that year. my sister Rasa (spelt "Rasa Zazis"), boarding @ the Notre Dame de Sion Convent school (@ flic.kr/p/8NmR4Y), won the grade 5 'Dr Ryan's prize' for Christian Doctrine (@ flic.kr/p/8NixER); also she got a credit for First Grade piano; i got a credit for Second Grade piano; "a daughter arrived at the Gippsland Hospital for Mr. and Mrs. S. Zizis of York street [Sale. presumably Egle hadn't been named yet]". now fast forward to The Biz, (Fairfield, NSW : 1928 - 1972), 21/1/71, page 2 where there is a very leggy full length shot of my youngest sister described as "Lithesome Egle Zizys (17). snapped by Richard Piorkowski at Merrylands last week is a star member of a Lithuanian dance group. Away from that, she likes reading and poetry and she wants to become a journalist [her son, Matt, now edits a paper in Alice Springs]. She has also written children's books [news to me!]." & you thought some things, e.g. your bank account number, are private......dream on. there are scores of perfectly legal sites, not to speak of the 'dark web', illegal access, authorised access by a variety of agencies, where your info can be browsed from an ordinary home computer. for some prison records you may need to go 'on location' but. finally, let's return via this circuitous path, to the photo above. i remember, with a kind of crystal clarity, the day we steamed through the Sydney heads. i don't remember what is obviously the stiff breeze evident in the photo. i spent most of the passage up the harbour on the opposite, port side, of the Amarapoora staring at mile after mile of red roofed houses passing by along the shore. it was the middle of a brilliant day without a cloud in the azure sky. next i remember pulling into the pier and people on the ship looking down from the rail at the greeting party of compatriots and some relatives waiting below. someone next to me remarked how healthy they looked....next memory is from the train in the middle of the night on the way to Bathurst. the only other photo on the Amarapoora is @ flic.kr/p/8NaYM4
*************
1/4/21. yesterday got this email from me sister Egle:
"Hi Arunas and Helen
I might have mentioned that in 2008 Mum wrote a memory manuscript for Matt [me journo nephew with the ABC in Darwin] about the first year in Australia - a kind of Elena's Journey 2 [or u could title it "Getting Established"]. Last year I transcribed the text (with a light edit) and gave it to Matt for a final polish and to decide what he wanted to do with it. This is still to be done, but in the meantime I thought you might be interested.
Much of the detail you have both read before in other texts, but some is new.
I forward it to you now as is.
see you both soon
love
E
Egle Garrick"
***********
the manuscript: -
"Elena’s Journey part 2"
1949-1951
ELENA JONAITIS
Sydney, 2008
INTRODUCTION (undated)
BATHURST
1.
October, 1949
‘Mum, do you know where we are going?’ asked my eight- year old son Arūnas looking from the slow train window at wide, sun-burnt slopes.
‘No, I don’t know,’ I answered somewhat impatiently and Vytautas, my husband, hastened to supply the required information:
‘It’s to a place called Bathurst’.
‘Is that a town?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘It doesn’t look that this train is going to a town!’ chirped out not quite six-year old Rasa gazing at the huge shining emptiness through which we were travelling.
Our family of four was amongst six hundred other East-European newcomers to Australia who had landed in Sydney the previous day and now were being taken to the newly established migrant reception centre in Bathurst, New South Wales. The ship “Amarapoora” which had brought us from Naples had taken six weeks for the voyage, so the travellers had had time not only to relax after five post-war years spent in various camps in Germany, but also to be introduced to the country where we were going to settle. There were daily lessons of English for adults and for the children, lectures, talks, films, singing sessions, books, newspapers, all intended to provide information about Australia and to what the accompanying migration officers called ‘the Australian way of life’. Most people were anxious to absorb as much of it as possible, although the lack of English language made it difficult for many, and there were not enough people on board capable of interpreting.
As during the time in displaced persons’ camps in Germany, people of different nationalities on board this British ship tried to stay together in their own national groups. The majority were Balts: Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians. They organised activities in their own languages, produced news bulletins, staged concerts and sports’ competitions. Did we need to reassure ourselves that now with all the preparations for a very new and different existence we could preserve something of our fundamental values?
Our family, the Lithuanian Žižys (Ed‘s note – in English ‘Zizys’), could not participate in all these common activities. Vytautas was kept busy in other ways. He was one of those who could speak English, so was placed on a list of interpreters and was being called upon by the Australian officers any time language help was needed. He quite enjoyed it and felt that it was useful for some future occupation in the new country. He could find out for himself all the information provided in talks and lessons that he missed while interpreting for others.
I was sick during most of the journey. It was not sea-sickness but frequent debilitating attacks of pain in my side and back which started towards the end of our unexpected four months’ stay in Italy. We had left Germany as a family of five with our baby Saulutis who was born in Stuttgart. He was a big, healthy baby whom the health commission allowed to travel without raising any concerns. We left Stuttgart by train to go to Naples and expected after a day or two to board a ship to Australia. On arrival in Italy, however, we were told that the ship had been delayed and that we would have to wait a few weeks in a transit camp in Bagnoli near Naples. After four weeks of waiting, the Italian summer heat set in. Saulutis became sick. We could not leave and stayed in Bagnoli another desperate three months battling with supervisors, doctors, hospital authorities. There was no help for the baby: at first the official camp doctors refused to believe he was sick. When, at last he was sent to one city hospital and then to another, it was too late and he could not be saved.
Three days after Saulutis’ funeral, we had to board the ship and leave. During the whole voyage wherever my glance turned, I saw my dying baby’s small fleshless face with his parched mouth and enormous eyes, imploring, accusing. Every night, if I managed to fall asleep, I would be awakened by the sound of his exhausted painful crying, just like I heard him cry in those dreadful last days of his brief life.
So I could not be a fit traveller, or a member of society, or even a member of my own family. I spent long days on my bunk in the women and children’s dormitory below decks, mostly doubled in pain, ignoring the ship’s and my family’s activities. Vytautas was patient and understanding. Other travellers helped look after the children when such help was needed. Only towards the end of the voyage did I manage to get up, re-join the others and prepare for disembarking.
BATHURST
Bathurst migrant reception centre was a collection of close-standing identical wooden barracks with corrugated iron roofs. They were built in the middle of a great yellow plain bordered on the horizon by a chain of rounded hills. Coming by bus from the Bathurst railway station the newcomers wondered at the surprising colour of the landscape: there were no greens under the radiant blue sky. On both sides of the road the tall grass of the fields was pale yellow turning in the distance to white. The few isolated trees here and there looked mere outlines marked in grey and brown. For the greater part of the journey no human habitation could be seen. When the cluster of the roofs of the migrant centre came into view, they looked like an uninhabited island in a shining white sea, its ripples of pale gold the only movement.
TEXT ENDS HERE
NEXT PART, written 2008
1950
It was the first day of school in Sale’s school of Notre Dame de Sion. In fact it was not the first school day for all, only for the teachers and boarders arriving from outside town. The day pupils would all come tomorrow. I was introduced to the other teachers and the nuns. I had a talk with the Principal – Reverend Mother Julian. My teaching load would be forty periods a week, plus some boarders’ supervision in the evenings. It would be mostly French as the convent belonged to a French order. Besides French I was going to take some classes in…Needlework (everybody can do a little embroidery and such) and a class or two of…History!! Seeing my fright, Rev. Mother suggested postponing that for some weeks until my English became more fluent. Instead I was to go to Rev. Mother to practice in French conversation with her - which she was using with me until now anyway. I was to have lunch at the convent with Miss Daly, the other lay teacher. Seeing that my little son would be going to the public Catholic school at the other end of the town he’d take a cut lunch and his main meal would be kept warm from our lunch when he came back from school. Little Rasa would be a boarder like others here. Already she seemed happily absorbed by a group of other little girls, already dressed in uniform and happy with the world and herself. Poor child. I just had a glimpse of her with the others in the corridor. Smile on her dear little face, she gave me a little wave from the distance. I wonder how she would communicate in these early days? Arūnas would find it much harder to adjust all alone in a strange place and further away from me. As in general, it was very, very difficult to find a place to live in, Rev. Mother would let me have one of the little cottages belonging to the convent, just across the road. One of them was lived in by two Irish ladies, great friends of the convent: a Mrs Connelly and Sister (nursing sister, that is) McGregor, the other one would be ours. It had been used for storage for several years, so it wasn’t quite liveable yet. Some senior girls, who arrived a few days earlier, were given the task to clear and clean the cottage and to make it as presentable as possible. They promised to have it ready for next week. Meanwhile Arūnas and I would continue staying with the Henneberrys practically next door to St Mary’s, Arunas’ school. Rasa, as a boarder, would sleep at the school.
So, our settling in was all arranged. Rev. Mother had thought of everything. No, not quite yet. After inquiring after my husband and hearing that he had to stay in Bathurst, busily occupied interpreting for other new arrivals, Rev. Mother after a brief moment, suggested: ‘A little later, when the beginning of the school year is sorted out, I’ll speak to one of our pupil’s fathers who is an influential man here, to look into your situation and see how to get your husband to Sale on his company work contract.’
Now, that really was everything. We were surrounded by kindness from all sides. Almost drowning in it…Will my teaching repay it all? Will I manage to teach?
A moment by myself in the teachers’ room. It is on the second floor and looks out onto the back playground. It is quite a large area, but the playground is not big: it is a round cleared area, surrounded by decorative plants, opening onto a wide shaded avenue, with great trees on both sides, wide reaching branches meeting overhead, making a living green roof for people below. Beyond the avenue and on its both sides stretch the convent’s orchard and its kitchen garden. At the moment several small groups of little girls can be seen in the playground and the avenue. They seem to be talking or playing gentle games. All are in uniform. All black but bright blue play tunics over them, all looking very neat and very prim. A young sweet-faced nun stands in the shadowy opening of the avenue, obviously supervising the pupils.
A calm, peaceful scene with no marks of any past storms or wars, many miles away from wrecked Europe lying in ruins, licking its wounds.
Can it be real. Can it last? Will the past be forgotten, or completely ignored? Can strangers be accepted here and feel part of the peaceful scene.
After school, Arūnas was very quiet. Asked how the first day went he answered with one word (in Lithuanian of course): ‘all right, good’ and a little shrug as if there was nothing to be said about it, as if it was unavoidable and therefore has to be accepted. Only later, when he was ready to go to bed, he said: ‘I wonder what Dad is doing now? I wonder’…
Before meeting the classes, the Rev. Mother raised another problem: what would the pupils call me? My surname will be too difficult for them to pronounce with two ‘Z’s’ and a ‘Y’. Would I mind if they simply called me ‘Madame’? So let me be Madame. For the five years that we lived in Sale, I was ‘Madame’ not only for the pupils and teachers at school but also in the town at large.
When tall, straight Rev. Mother walked along the long, wide corridor, she never had to raise her hand to open the double doors in several places dividing the corridor into sections and she never slowed her pace. There were always two girls, each on either side of the door expertly curtseying and opening each wing of the door. Rev. Mother passed through without a glance at the girls and without a change of expression. It looked as if the doors just open automatically at her approach.
When Rev. Mother for some reason entered a class-room the girls rose in perfect unison, like a regiment of soldiers at attention before a general. Such was the discipline in the school intended for the daughters of well-to-do families of the town and especially of the wealthy farmers of the large properties widely scattered in the countryside.
Local papers describing some social event liked to mention: ‘Miss So-and-So, a former pupil of Notre Dame’, or: ‘Miss So-and-So, educated at Sale Notre Dame school…’ The level of that education or the results achieved never got a mention.
1950
Rev. Mother herself took me to each class where I was to teach: middle-sized to large junior classes, small senior classes, Matriculation French class – nine girls. Every class presented the same scene: perfectly uniformed girls standing by their desks without a sound or a whisper, replying in chorus to Rev. Mother’s greeting, remaining standing until after some words of introduction about myself, she invited them to sit down and turn their attention to me. They must have been told about the new teacher, for after my standard ‘Bonjour, mademoiselles’, the prefect chorus answered: ‘Bonjour, Madame’. A few more words in French from Rev. Mother and then she left the classroom. All eyes on me – sink or swim. Of course I had planned and memorised some words and phrases for the pupils to repeat, copy, illustrate (for juniors and a little fuller conversations for seniors), I was not at all sure that they were suitable and appropriate. However the attention did not seem to lessen to the end of each lesson. Or was it their well-schooled manners? There was no sign of protest. The girls, sitting in their desks straight-backed, hands joined on the desk, eyes on me, not showing any animosity, making an effort to understand, to repeat or answer what was asked. When the bell went at the end of the period, the pupils didn’t rush from the room, but continued sitting, only indicating that they were waiting for the teacher’s permission to stand and file out.
Of course, of course, that sort of perfect behaviour could not last forever and even would not be natural for children of their age. But what an unforgettable first day of school! Despite all my inadequacies, what a gift of sympathy, attention and friendliness!
1950
The Cottage
The senior girls had finished the task of preparing our new home. I was given the keys and accompanied by a nun went across the road to see it. From the street, the cottage was hidden from view by some trees, especially a huge old acacia, covered in white blooms, growing in the centre of the block. A long path (probably be newly swept) led to the cottage which looked very small amongst all the greenery. On one side, parallel to it, stood its twin – another cottage, looking exactly the same but somehow different, perhaps wearing a brighter coat – newly painted? On the other side a small shed and a large bare field beyond.
“That used to belong to the convent, but was sold a few years ago” explains the accompanying nun seeing me looking at the field. At a glance I see at some distance, a lone big gum tree. The nun, noticing my look, continues with her explanation; “This old tree is good for wood. Mrs Connelly and Sister McGregor use it for their fireplace. You probably will want to follow their example. Plenty of dead branches, excellent for fires.”
Stepping inside we stopped to take in the place.
It was shiny! Whitewashed walls, dark furniture shining with polish. That’s what the girls were doing here - making it not only liveable, but inviting and welcoming. A huge fireplace by the side wall, a door to the next room which was the main bedroom. All fully furnished: the sitting room had a big table in the middle with six chairs with straight backs around it. Obviously old convent furniture. A cross above the fireplace. In the next room two beds, similar to the boarders’ beds in the convent, all fully made-up with mattresses, blankets, pillows, white well pressed sheets. Above the beds there was a little framed picture of the Madonna. At the end of the room a wardrobe and a chest of drawers. Like the things in the main room: all of heavy, dark and now highly polished wood. No mirrors, same as the convent.
The sitting and bedroom made up half the cottage. The next half was also two rooms of similar size. The first was the kitchen. A wood burning stove instead of the open fireplace in the first room, a small table, a few stools, a tap with a hand basin, next to the smallish window looking out onto the backyard. On the other side of the window – there was an ice-chest. On the second wall a long shelf with crockery and cutlery already filled. Nothing forgotten!
On to the last room – a second bedroom with bunk beds and a small chest of drawers. The toilet was outside, and there was supposed to be a shower in the laundry, also outside. I could hardly take it all in. I was delighted. Our first home in Australia!
When Arūnas saw the place in the afternoon he too was delighted: not a camp, not a dormitory. This was a real house, a home! “Who is going to live with us?” he asked as if there was too much space for one family. “Well, you’ll have to share your room with Rasa when she comes for the weekends and the holidays”. That suited him as they never been separated. “And Dad will share with you when he comes, won’t he?” – “Of course,” I answer, not all that sure at all. Goodness knows where Vytautas would be sent for his contract work.
When Rasa saw the place she loved it too although not to the point of not wanting to go back to the dormitory with all the other little girls. A little later, when all the nuns knew about our arrangements, they would allow her to cross the road and come ‘home’ for the night.
We all loved the place despite some short-comings, mainly the absence of washing facilities. The laundry was supposed to serve as laundry and bathroom. The rusty tub was not connected to any heating and had been used for storing wood. The shower had only cold water. Bed linen had to be laundered in the convent’s laundry at agreed times, small things had to be washed by hand. The big fireplace in the house and the cooking stove were, at least for me, hard to light, so were not much used at all except in winter, when cutting winds from the Antarctic blew into Sale and it could be very cold. Still we did not worry about any of it at all. We loved the cottage and the lovely shaded block on which it stood, where the children could run around and play, where I could set up a garden and grow vegetables and a few flowers….hopefully there would be some free time?
1950
Classes
The last time I had faced a class of children or adolescents was in 1941 in Šiauliai, ten years ago. All my prior teaching experience had been two years earlier: 1939-40 in Pasvalys H.S. and 1940-41 in Šiauliai H.S. There I had been a totally unprepared temporary teacher with no plans of making school teaching my permanent vocation. Nor did I have any professional training. I had been good at languages at school, but then I had been good at most other subjects, especially maths. At that time I didn’t have any definite future plans, although in the family there was never any doubt of me and my two younger brothers undertaking tertiary education – that was a given. After high school (Aušra H.S. in Kaunas) I had enrolled in Kaunas University, Faculty of Arts and was still debating what subjects to choose when the results of an Alliance Francaise competition which I had participated in during the last school holidays came through and I won first prize: a course of French at the Sorbonne University in France.
Of course I had to go Paris, forgetting any other possible studies. Two years later, in 1939, I had completed the course set by Alliance Francaise and graduated with a ‘’Diplome de Preparation de Professeurs de Francais a l’Etranger’’ (Ed: Diploma for teachers of French as a foreign language). I had also done half of the course (Bachelier des Lettres) for a B.A. degree studying French literature and philology. Feeling pleased with myself I decided to go home to Kaunas for summer holidays. It was during these holidays that Germany invaded Poland and the second World War started. The northern and western borders of Lithuania closed. I was stuck at home.
Many other things happened at this time and I did not worry about being ‘temporarily’ unable to return to Paris. To fill in time ‘until the madness blows over’ I was offered a temporary teaching job in the country in Pasvalys. Now, all these years later, I was to resume it in Sale.
A newcomer stepping into an assembly of unfamiliar people may feel apprehensive. In those days long ago of my early teaching I always feared meeting my new class. Here though I had already been formally introduced to all classes, the next morning waiting in the corridor for the bell to go, I felt choked with dread. Not only was I totally unprepared, not really knowing what I was expected to do and how to behave in my only shabby, home-made dress and worn sandals on bare feet, but there before me was an enormous, perhaps insurmountable obstacle – my inability to speak everybody’s common language. I had already accumulated some elementary knowledge of words and structures on paper and perhaps would manage to make up little sentences but it was doubtful that anyone would understand my pronunciation of them. And probably, more importantly I could not understand what other people were saying.
I would have to rely on my still fluent French, but would the children tolerate it?
They did. Gracefully, beautifully. With the seniors, who had been very well taught by old Sister Eleanor, simple conversations could be held from the first day and then quickly grew more fluent and complicated.
In the junior classes I tried to talk all the time: gesticulating, indicating, grimacing. The children, baffled but curious, watched in silence. Very soon, though, here and there, lips could be seen moving in repetition of an understood or guessed word or expression.
Imperceptibly the routine began to change, loud repetition was introduced, co-operation started, a little dialogue introduced. As days and weeks went by, silent curiosity was replaced by lively participation, enjoyment, little games, bits of songs (the eternal “Frere Jacques”), and all the time the dear little girls did not abandon their perfect good manners and their patient generosity.
It was very hard work which exhausted me like heavy labour, I never stopped still for a moment even though I was still recovering from a major operation, never having a free period or coming home without school work. But – I was happy. I did love those children.
The pupils were learning and so was the teacher. I cannot exactly remember when I started speaking a sort of English. Very early, I think. I was surrounded by it all the time in the convent. Only Reverend Mother and old Sister Eleanor who was the only other teacher of French at the school (not French herself though) spoke to me in French. I shared the music room at school, which was allocated to us as our teachers’ room and where we had lunch and a corner desk to keep our things in, with Sheila. Sheila was an English, History and Geography teacher and was about my age. She was a devout Catholic and a former nun. She didn’t know any French, so from the first day spending lunch time together, we had to find ways to communicate somehow. At first it was only Sheila doing the talking with me only smiling, nodding, trying to understand, pretending to understand, nodding more, often at the wrong times. Dear old Sister Brigidene looking after us and serving lunch (always on a beautifully set table with a white starched tablecloth and with a little bouquet of flowers or greenery in a vase in the middle of the table which was freshly cut every day) loved to talk and reminisce about Ireland and daily asked for our news. I had to find some elementary words to reply to her. And of course, as I did with everybody out of school, the elderly ladies, Friends of the Convent, whom Rev. Mother had asked to look after us and who did it faithfully. In short, everybody around us was Australian and spoke English. By and by, I had to pick it up and did. At first it must have been a great source of amusement to the children at school that their teacher confused the meaning of words, mispronounced words, gave wrong instructions. Every day I could make a list of verbal mistakes I made in class. Still, it was more acceptable than waiting until the pupils were ready to speak French…
Thinking back, I still wonder at how the pupils never lost their decorum at their teacher’s blunderings. How innately kind and generous they were. Of course, almost always I was aware of making an error. I could read a sudden merriment passing through the children’s eyes, although not reaching their lips, not provoking a sound of laughter, but making me stop and often ask: “Was that wrong, did I make another mistake?” How funny it must have sounded when I wanted to say that pupils who didn’t do their homework would score NOUGHTS, I pronounced it NUTS. Or in a teenage girls’ class I asked them to explain the contents of the CURSE when I meant COURSE. We all, they and I, were progressing steadily, by leaps and bounds.
Did my own children find it as challenging as I did?
THE CHILDREN
Rasa was six, Arūnas eight. Until now, living mainly in mixed Baltic communities (camps in Germany, transition camp in Italy, on board the ship, in the collection camp at Bathurst) besides the family talking only in Lithuanian, they had heard mainly German. They did not speak it at all, but at least the sound of it must have been more or less familiar. Not so with English which was totally new and unfamiliar. Surprisingly they never mentioned any difficulties they experienced. Rasa did not seem to have any problems at all and Arunas refused to discuss it. During weekends which we three spent together, Rasa did not stop talking about her week at the convent. She had already made three new friends who were the only other foreign pupils at the school, all Hungarians in a similar situation to ourselves as recent refugees. But they were not her only friends. She mentioned other names, also the names of the nuns – her teachers. And quite often she would say: “And Sister said that she…” and I could not resist asking: “How do you know what she said?” and she would say as if self-evident: “I just know it”, or “Well, I heard it!”
Arūnas on the contrary, did not speak about school. Even when Rasa was not there, every working day, after homework, we did not talk about his school. It is not that he kept silent when we were together. When we were alone with nobody around us, he would talk all the time – about what he saw on the way to and from school, on the street, in the cottage and around about; his thoughts about everything in our daily life, news from Bathurst and his father, still quite fresh memories of that camp where we had gone straight from the ship and where we had stayed several months. There he and Rasa had had the freedom to wander in the sun-bleached fields of the surrounding area, while his father was busy interpreting for other newcomers, and while I was sick in hospital. He still clearly remembered our voyage and some of the ghastly time in Bagnoli camp. He did not appear to have yet moved on from the family’s past experience to the new life. He missed the family being together, permanently so. “When will Dad be coming?” was his daily question. As Vytautas himself was still waiting to be sent somewhere to a place of appointment and did not know when this would be as he was still needed at the camp as an interpreter of English and German, the boy’s question could not be answered.
Every day meeting him from school and asking about his day he would answer with one word: “Good”, offering nothing more.
When some months had passed since we arrived, I met his teacher and asked about him and she answered: “Oh, he’s a very good boy, very very quiet in class. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say a word. Does he speak at home?”.
Should I start worrying? Did he really not understand what was happening around him?
The problem solved itself. One day he came home pre-occupied. Before I could ask him what the matter was, he said: “I want to make a rug. There is one with a beautiful orange collie dog. I want to make it!” It took me a while to work out which dog he meant and what it was all about. It was a hooked rug pattern that his class was going to make for a competition in Sale’s agricultural show later that year. Arūnas only knew that his class was going to make hooked rugs and he saw one he wanted to make. The parents had to buy the painted canvas, the wool and the hook. I already had saved a little money and didn’t mind spending on what the child so wanted, and what was needed for school. I did not understand why he was so worried about it. I said to him: “Are worried that we don’t have the money for that? Don’t worry, it’s all right. Do you know how much it costs?”
"You’ll have to come and see the Sister”.
“You know that I can’t come myself. I can’t leave my classes, but I’ll give you the money”.
Arūnas was upset.
“You don’t understand! You have to come”.
“Surely you can do without my coming?”
“No, I can’t, I can’t”.
“Why?”
“I just can’t”.
The argument went backwards and forwards and it only stopped when I declared with finality:
“You can have the rug when you tell me how much it is and I’ll give you the money to take to Sister”.
The child started crying, turned his back on me, climbed onto his bunk and put his head under the pillow shaking with sobs. It did not occur to me as to where lay the reason for such heartbreak.
The next day we spent the evening in silence. I dared not ask and Arūnas did not ask again, but remained silent and miserable. So was I. A few days later the original argument was repeated with his request: “You must come”, with me answering: “If you so much want to do it, you must tell the Sister”.
Some time past in this unhappy way.
It looked as if he were giving up on the idea. Then one afternoon he came into the house declaring: “I need twelve shillings for my rug. I’m going to make that orange dog”. He went and spoke to his teacher, got his rug and to the nun’s surprise from then on, the silence was broken! He spoke and participated and played with the others!
Rev. Mother found Arūnas a job. Since his school was at the other end of the township and practically next door to the post office, he could help the convent by going to the post office after school to collect the convent’s mail. To make it even easier, he was given an old bicycle that had belonged to a former gardener. Arūnas was delighted with the offer of the bicycle and he did not mind collecting the mail daily. The bicycle was to be kept in the shed of our cottage and he could use it whenever he wanted. So my little son became not only a talking pupil of St Mary’s but also the Notre Dame convent’s postman. At the end of term, he was given a good report, with a comment that the principal was delighted with his progress of integration into the school. His collie dog rug was also progressing steadily and before the end of the school year it won first place in the competition in the town’s agricultural show.
GOOD NEIGHBOURS
Two Australian families contributed greatly to our learning and then practicing English. The first one was our neighbours next door: Mrs Connelly and Sister MacGregor. In the new little extension to their wood and chicken shed there was also said to live a Mr Connolly, but we never saw or met him. Mrs Connelly and Sister MacGregor were always together. Years ago they had come from Ireland, were staunch Catholics and official Friends of the Convent who had special front row seats in the convent’s chapel where we attended Mass every Sunday and every official feast-day. They were a strange couple. Mrs Connelly was the older, setting the tone, a middle-aged lady, all comfortably plump and round with greying hair set in a bun on her neck and a rosy cheeked face. Sister MacGregor was a younger woman, still working as a medical sister at Sale Hospital, well over six feet tall and slim with dark hair severely pulled back from her face. Her face had no distinguishing features, but she always had a serious, almost solemn, expression. The ladies had a car – rather Sister MacGregor had it and they shared it with Sister at the wheel and Mrs Connelly in the passenger seat.
Rev. Mother must have told them about us, for when she introduced us officially, they seemed to know all about us already and graciously promised to: “look after us and help us with anything we might need to know about our new country and the Australian way of life.”
They took their promise very seriously and from then on, we saw them very often. First of all, they wanted to show us the sights.
These were our first experiences of car rides, especially on those Saturdays when Sister did not have to be on duty in the hospital. At first, we did not venture far out of town as there was much to see and learn right there. Mrs Connolly liked to stop in the shopping centre and look at the window displays. This was in order to explain to us (again and again and again) how lucky we were to be here.
“You probably have never seen so many things available”.
“That is not what you were used to in the old world, is it?”
“You probably never had that at home, but….”
In the early days I couldn’t understand all her comments and certainly didn’t possess the vocabulary to reply, so I usually just nodded in agreement, smiled, showed appreciation and occasional delight. The important thing was the learning of English sounds, new words, ‘The Australian way of life’, but as time went on it all started to grate. Further excursions to the surrounding area were much more pleasant.
To both the children’s delight they took us to a small park which had swings, then to a big park that had a lake with black swans swimming in it. One special Saturday we even travelled about 20 kms to Seaspray beach.
Living so close to each other (the two cottages were separated by a narrow garden walk with a broken fence in between) meant that we spoke to each other nearly every day, usually Mrs Connelly advising me about something and me nodding in agreement: “Yes, yes...mmm…yes”.
Other early acquaintances and later great friends and benefactors were another family, also Friends of the Convent, the Henneberries. They were four middle-aged to elderly sisters and one brother, all unmarried and living together in a big stone house on the other side of town. They were part of a well-to-do squatter’s family. One other brother had a family of his own on a large cattle farm where he lived and worked with his wife and two daughters, while the older brother and sisters, except Hilda, the youngest, were retired and lived in Sale.
The two youngest Misses Henneberry were the two ladies who, at Rev. Mother’s asking, had met us on our arrival at Sale, when none of us could speak any English, and that was all they spoke. Miss Hilda Henneberry drove the shiny black family car that belonged to them all, but was only driven by her. They were not seen at the convent as much as Mrs Connelly and Sister MacGregor, as they attended Sunday mass at the Cathedral and were highly respected members not only of Sale’s Catholic community, but of the town’s ‘leading class’.
From the first day of our arrival and due to the obvious lack of means of verbal communication, unobtrusively but constantly, they took care of us and helped in many ways not only when they were asked by Rev. Mother. Already on our first Sunday in Sale, they established a custom which lasted five years, until we left Sale; they invited us for Sunday lunch with their family.
It was an almost formal occasion.
In the middle of the great family room stood a festive looking big oak table covered with a stiff white damask tablecloth, sparkling glasses for water, fine matching plates, three for each seat, silver cutlery.
Introductions were made first, as until then we had only met Hilda and Elizabeth Henneberry, the two youngest sisters. There was Miss Irene who seemed to be the manager and housekeeper of the family and Miss Mary, a frail looking elderly lady, who as we discovered later, had the role of the family decorator, a painter whose oil landscapes adorned the walls of this, and as we were shown later, other rooms of the house. Mr James Henneberry , the only man in the house, was a retired gentleman who on occasion went to their other brother’s property to help with the office work.
We all shook hands with the hosts, who seemed to welcome us with smiles and kind sounding words which we did not understand and then they invited us to the table. The meal was a baked lamb roast with potatoes and three hot vegetables, followed by sweets of fruit salad and ice-cream. Everything was very tasty, but with our worry about what the correct behaviour at the table should be and our lack of language we could not fully appreciate the meal. The children were exceedingly shy at first, especially Arūnas, but nobody seemed to mind and by the time the ice-cream came around, they managed to show that they liked it very much and tried to say a word or two of thanks. After the meal Miss Hilda and Miss Elizabeth cleared the table and Miss Irene served the tea and cake – clearly home-made, covered with cream and decorated with strawberries. Sheer delight! Even Arūnas became bolder and accepted a second slice.
That Sunday was an example of their established custom and we felt included in it. That first time, after the meal, we were shown the other rooms in the house, and the garden which at that time of the year was full of flowering shrubs and greenery. Back inside, Miss Hilda found some old picture books that had belonged to her now grown-up nieces and showed them to the children, speaking easily to them as if they understood perfectly what she was saying, and which they probably guessed correctly.
As time went on, some Sunday afternoons after lunch, we were taken in their car on excursions out of town, right into the country, the bush, the sea-side, from time to time even to their other brother’s property, where we met the family, and were shown how the large dairy-farm worked without a lot of hired labour, but with a lot of machinery. The country Henneberry family were as friendly and welcoming to us as the town ones, but they seemed much busier. I wondered if they ever had time to swim in their big swimming pool or play on the well-kept tennis courts. Perhaps these were left over from a previous more numerous generation.
I was learning, experiencing kindness, friendliness and generosity.
UNITED
Brief weekly letters came from Vytautas. He continued to be fully occupied in the Bathurst migration reception centre, interpreting for the administration and the newcomers from and into English, German and Lithuanian. The Australian officers of the camp seemed to appreciate him being there and didn’t want to send him anywhere else in a hurry, even though that was part of the migration contract.** (Ed’s note: ** The Australian government required of migrants that the head of the family (or single person) undertake a two year contract to work as and where requested to pay back the cost of travel to Australia).
He was not unhappy with what he was doing there and must have appreciated the satisfaction of being needed. However he mentioned in almost every letter that he missed his family and was worried about us.
I answered the letters briefly as well as there never seemed to be enough time to write longer ones.
Days were filled with schoolwork: teaching face-to-face forty periods a week and preparing for them. Marking pupils’ work in the evenings, followed by more preparation. Sundays were dedicated to the children and visits to the Henneberries, evenings to washing, ironing and mending Arūnas and my clothes, essential as we did not have enough clothes for frequent changes. Rasa was given second-hand uniforms, so I did not have to worry how to keep her clean and tidy. As she liked to spend Sunday nights with us, it was compulsory to tell the children a story in bed (reading their own stories came months later.) Only after the children went to sleep, did I have quiet time to write a letter but I was too tired myself. The letters had to be brief.
Rev. Mother did not forget her early promise to try and have Vytautas sent to Sale for his contract job with the help of some influential friends. As per our passports we were qualified as Labourer (male) and Domestic Help (female). Rev. Mother thought however, that as Vytautas was already working as an interpreter, he may be able to continue this occupation in Sale. There appeared to already be a number of foreign migrants in Sale, all having difficulties through lack of English language and needing an interpreter. Rev. Mother discussed the matter with the Henneberries, who shared her opinion and advised her to speak with the director of the Sale district hospital which was a very large establishment and already provided jobs to most of the foreign newcomers. The director agreed that there was a real need for an interpreter in the hospital and promised to make a special application to the migrant employment office. Rev. Mother felt sure that “Madame’s” husband could have that position. I felt excited and assured that our problem was solved and that we would soon be together again as a family.
The same evening – not waiting until Sunday – I wrote a brief note to Vytautas to share the news. He replied immediately that he too was excited and very happy and asked more about the hospital, the promised job and his future employer. I didn’t know all that much about it but I had high hopes. Being together again was the most important thing, surely?
A mid-term break came along allowing the boarders to visit their families for three whole days. There was no school on Monday. I took the opportunity to go ‘down the street’ with Rasa, perhaps to buy her an ice-cream and to look at the window displays. As we stopped to admire some hats in a shop window, I heard someone behind us say: “Devil take it, all the wrong dates…all in loud and clear Lithuanian! I pulled Rasa’s hand and caught up with two tall men.
“Gentlemen, you speak Lithuanian!”
“Is that forbidden?” one answered, laughing.
It felt like meeting close, but long-lost friends. Introductions on both sides followed; situations explained, worries shared; right there on the street.
They were Adolfas Eskirtas and Antanas Bikulčius. They were both in their thirties or early forties, married with no children and had come a year earlier than the Zizys family. It was the earlier period of post-war migration when only single people and families with no children were admitted. Both were working in Sale hospital in contract jobs and living in garages. When I mentioned that my husband was coming soon and had already been promised a job in the hospital as an interpreter, Bikulčius expressed some doubt.
“Why would they make an exception for him? Our papers are clearly marked ‘labourer’, not ‘office worker’. Anyway, there are a few amongst us already who have picked up enough English to help the rest of us. Everybody is trying to learn the language.”
I felt that I shouldn’t have said anything about Vytautas’ hope for an office job and asked them about something else. We exchanged addresses – the men promised to give mine to their wives – and said they wanted to meet my husband when he arrived.
It turned out there was already a whole group of Lithuanians in Sale and that they enjoyed getting together to share their own stories and as well as news from the larger group of compatriots in Melbourne.
Later the Eskirtas, Bikulčius and Zizys families became the nucleus of the Sale branch of the larger Lithuanian community in Victoria.
When he finished his work contract Bikulčius moved to Melbourne and joined various organisations, becoming a well-known member of the community. He sponsored two young boys through their studies, one through medicine, one through religious studies.
The Eskirtas family stayed on in Sale where they became farmers and owners of several houses in the town. They were well known and respected in the town and surrounding area, as well as being active members of the Catholic church and patriotic Lithuanians. They had a daughter who as a baby was left with her grandmother in Lithuania. From their first days in Australia they started a campaign which lasted seventeen years to get their daughter out of Soviet Lithuania and over to Australia. When at last their campaign was successful and the girl came out to Australia we were the first who went to Melbourne airport to meet her. By then Eskirtas also had a younger son born in Sale. We had become best friends with them especially me with Elena Eskirtas.
Soon Vytautas received his papers from the camp administration in Bathurst with an instruction to depart and to report for work to the Sale district hospital. When he arrived and went to the hospital, he was told that his job was to be the hospital’s boiler attendant. There was no mention of translating and interpreting. He was bitterly disappointed.
There was no-one to complain to. At home his family was overjoyed to finally have him with them after the long separation. New Lithuanian acquaintances in the town all had menial jobs and didn’t see any problem. He tried to speak to his superiors at the hospital who only reminded him:
“Before coming to this country, you signed a contract and knew what to expect. It’s not too difficult a job anyway and you are together with your family.”
It was all true and Vytautas knew it. Nevertheless, he thought that it was humiliating, demeaning and wasteful. The disappointment and bitterness which he felt on arriving lasted the whole two years of his contract. He avoided speaking about it and tried not to show his feelings even to his family, but there remained in him a sadness which at least at home, could not be hidden.
“A poor man” was a new expression that he used whenever there was talk about the general situation of migrants, those newcomers to a new country who had to adjust to new ways.
It took some time for me to understand his feelings. One evening when he came home later than usual and dead tired, I suggested to him that he try to rest more and not do so much overtime, which he took on from the first day, and he interrupted me angrily:
“It is not the work I am tired of. The work isn’t hard and I want to do all the overtime I can. After all it is paid and we need the money. What I hate about it is being at the beck and call of all and sundry, all those chits of nurses-aids ordering me around as though I was an illiterate idiot…”
“Darling, I didn’t know”.
“No, you wouldn’t.”
Later he apologised for his outburst and insisted he did not blame me for anything, it was just the general circumstance that for the first time in his life he felt useless and that he was going to make those two years as useful for the family as possible for our future.
The first thing we needed to do was to save money for that time when he would be free of the contract and be able to take his family away from here. That meant owning our own house first of all. Even though he heartily disliked the contract work it brought a regular income. A lot of overtime was available and he took almost as much as was offered, including double-paid work during the weekends. He saved most of it, spending only what was absolute necessary.
My weekly salary was 6 pounds, but out of that 2 pounds was for rent of the cottage, another 2 pounds went to Rasa’s boarding fees and 1 pound was the cost of lunches at the school. The leftover was not paid regularly fortnightly but only when it accumulated to some small sum at the end of term or even less frequently. In the first year I had managed with almost nothing in the way of cash. When Vytautas came, he gave me a little housekeeping money regularly, which was mine to manage and to spend. When he worked during the day, he ate at the hospital, so I only needed to get breakfast for us three and we didn’t need much as Arunas and I had a full cooked meal at the convent. We did not need – at least at the beginning – any new furniture for the cottage as everything had been provided. What we did acutely need was clothing, especially underwear. The children had grown out of theirs and mine was practically gone through wash and wear and needed to be supplemented. In winter I learnt where to find cheap wool and began knitting. I could make clothes for the children and even my own dresses (I had done a dress-making course at the camp in Germany), but I had to get access to a sewing machine. The first big outlay of money was required. The school was ordering new sewing machines for dress-making classes. So, I managed to save a minimum deposit for a new sewing machine from my house-keeping money. My order went with the common order for the school, with the same discount and we acquired our first furniture item: a new Singer sewing machine in a shiny dark wood cabinet! It would take two full years to pay off the debt, but that machine did serve me for a great part of my life.
Besides doing frequent overtime and saving money, Vytautas looked for something useful to study, “so as not to become a professional illiterate”. I don’t know exactly where and when he found an advertisement about various correspondence courses at the Melbourne technical college. He wrote for more information and applied to be admitted to a radio technician’s course. He was accepted and became a student, although he avoided speaking about it at home to me and never mentioned
it to any of our new acquaintances. I really never knew how and at what times he studied; this was somehow his separate private life. He never seemed to have any books or notes. But in two years’ time, when he finished his contract work, he was able to straight away get a job as a technician in a radio station and then he applied for another correspondence course in radio engineering - again at Melbourne technical college – and eventually graduated as a radio engineer.
Looking back, I still wonder how he managed to achieve it all and how little I knew about it at the time. I must have been too absorbed in my own teaching job (as, I am ashamed to say, I must always have been and probably still am, even in my old age and doing practically nothing).
In fact, as long as he lived, he never stopped studying and his family were hardly aware of it. He never took time off his daily work and we never saw him studying at home. Coming home from work he seemed to leave behind not just his daily occupation, but also study and reading. What books could be seen at home were my books, my work, and books for my studies later on. I must have neglected my husband so much.
After Vytautas came, the cottage we were now both living in started to gradually change and became more lived in, not just occupied. He started doing work on it. First of all, he roughly repaired the bath in the laundry shed, emptying the kindling out of the tub where it had been stored and cleaning it thoroughly. Then he fixed the roof of the shed and made the shower usable even if it still only had cold water. He made a lean-to from the tumble down woodshed against the back fence and put in there the things taken out of the laundry and whatever was lying around the backyard; a few garden tools, briquettes for the fireplace and kindling wood, small bits of cut wood and anything else that didn’t have a special place to go. The whole backyard became empty, a place to bring out a stool and sit in the sun.
He decided to make the large front yard into a grassed area with garden around it. There was plenty of hard labour in the plan and this he loved.
The first person to talk to him outside the hospital was, of course, Mrs Connelly. Curious to see the new member of the family next-door, she did not wait long to come and introduce herself and was most impressed to find a stranger with such a good command of English. Immediately she overflowed with advice on how to do this, that and the other. Vytautas smiled politely but did not show great interest.
From the first Sunday he came to visit the Henneberries with us and unless he was working overtime from then became a constant Sunday lunch guest there.
The Henneberries were, as always, beautifully tactful and with them Vytautas relaxed and was attentive and interested in everything they said, especially when the older Mr Henneberry spoke about his childhood on the farm.
I introduced my husband to Rev. Mother in the first days of his arrival and he thanked her for making the effort to bring him to Sale, without mentioning his disappointment. I sensed a definite coldness in his attitude to her though and could not help but notice that he avoided going into the convent, even just to mass in the chapel on Sundays.
On one occasion he made his feelings perfectly clear to me. Rev. Mother noticed him digging up the ground around the cottage and asked me what we were planning to grow there. I explained. She said:
“Mr Zizys seems to be really interested in the land. I just thought – maybe he could come and help our gardener from time to time? The old gardener is getting too tired and I am sure he would appreciate someone young and strong to give him a hand…”
When I mentioned her suggestion to Vytautas, he exploded:
“Tell your beloved Rev. Mother that I am not here for her service! She already overworks you without proper pay, she has turned Arūnas into the convent’s messenger boy, she sees me and already thinks how to make use of an extra pair of hands. No, thank you! I already have a full-time job and try to do things around the cottage to make it more comfortable for us and am not here to improve the convent’s property value!”
I started to remind him I did not teach without pay, but was actually paying for the cottage and Rasa’s school and that Arūnas had got a bicycle from bringing in the convent’s mail. But he did not listen.
“All right, all right. You must enjoy being exploited. But please don’t involve me.”
Vytautas very early made contact with all the Lithuanians working and living in Sale. Most of them were our generation and very friendly people. They met often, most worked at the hospital. They visited one another at their places even if only one family had bought a house of their own. So, we too met with them and often had visitors coming after work to our cottage. When Adolfas Eskirtas bought a truck on Saturdays we went as a group to explore the area outside Sale, to have a picnic, talk, sing together well-known Lithuanian songs, watched the children play together. It was the early life of a national community abroad.
THE THREAT
I was called to Rev. Mother’s one lunch hour.
“Sorry to interrupt your lunch, Madame, but I thought you should know. The school is getting ready next month for its yearly inspection. It is quite important for us to maintain our rank in the system of secondary private schools. Please think about it and prepare to impress!”
“Reverend Mother, what should I do to impress? I thought I was doing my best, spending a lot of time preparing my lessons, learning them by heart…I know I haven’t much English yet, but I am trying so hard and the pupils are very attentive and very well-behaved. What can I do more?”.
“Well, I hope we pass the inspection. Keep up the good work.”
I held back tears because lunch hour was ending and I had a class waiting. It was a small year eleven class with whom we were studying a French poem. The girls read it beautifully, the conversation flowed in French, my inadequate English was hardly needed. Let them listen to that! I thought with pride.
Vytautas had an early shift and was already changed and had rested for a few hours when I got home after school. He listened patiently to all the details of my conversation with the Superior and commented:
“So, why are you worried? Think of the results you are getting from your pupils! How could you do anything more or better?”
“What if the inspectors fail me and they fire me?”
“They won’t fire you! It was so difficult for them to find a teacher before the beginning of the school year. Where would they find one now in the middle of the year? Don’t even think about it.
“But, what if…”
“It’s not a death sentence is it? You would find another place, you are getting experience, your English is coming along very well and quickly…”
“I’ll never get another place…”
“The we would survive without it. You are a free person without a contract. You could look for a different job.”
“Where would we live?”
“We would find something, like everybody else who is new here”
“What would I do?”
“Be a lady of leisure for a change. Look after your family.”
End of conversation. I did not add: “But I love teaching, I love doing what I am good at, I love the pupils…”
Next Sunday I decided to spend at home and work on preparing something different and interesting for each of my classes keeping in mind the inspectors. I had apologised to the Henneberries from the school phone a few days earlier, Vytautas took the children to the lake to see the black swans and left me to have time to myself.
From that time on this pattern repeated itself and so we removed ourselves a little from Henneberries although our relationship with them remained as warm as before except that we visited them less frequently. Perhaps, it was time anyway as we could not possibly return their hospitality and I began to feel that we were exploiting them. They found ways to show their support and friendship which did not diminish as long as we lived in Sale and Hilda, the youngest remained close even after we left Sale. ........ (2b cont) .....
------------------------ JESUS ✝️ SAVES -------------------------
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, FOREVER! Through Faith in Jesus!
10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️ ✝️ ❤️
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My sincere THANK'S to all those who have taken the time to view, fave and or comment on my photo's. I really do appreciate it! ❤️
JESUS ❤️ SAVES
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, FOREVER and EVER.
10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.
My THANK'S to all those who have taken the time to view, fave, comment or share my photo's with others. I really appreciate it! ❤️
------------------------ JESUS ✝️ SAVES-------------------------
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, FOREVER! Through Faith in Jesus!
10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.
My THANK'S to all those who have taken the time to view, fave, comment or share my photo's with others. I really appreciate it! ❤️ ✝️ ❤️
youtu.be/0fjJ0Yi-2F8 Trailer Updated
The Mutara Nebula battle is perhaps the greatest space battle in all of cinema.
www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GPzE7...
Starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Ricardo Montalban, Walter Koenig, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, Bibi Besch, Merritt Butrick, Paul Winfield, Kirstie Alley, and Ike Eisenmann. Directed by Nicholas Meyer.
The year is 1982. It has been thirteen years since the original Star Trek has gone off the air. Three years ago, Star Trek: The Motion Picture hit and while it was a financial success, it was grossly over-budgeted ($46 million) and criticized for being too long, too boring, and too god damn weird.
So they slashed the budget down to a quarter of the previous film and removed Gene Roddenberry from the lead creative role. Instead, they made Harve Bennett, a new Paramount producer who had never seen an episode of the original series, the figurehead in getting a second Star Trek movie off of the ground. What we have here is a perfect storm of things that should create a terrible movie.
So it’s no small miracle that Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is not only good, but is easily the best Trek movie that’s ever graced the screen. Bennett threw out a lot of the esoteric trappings of the first film and the team brought on board, including director Nicholas Meyer, were also unfamiliar with the Trek universe. Gone were the kitschy 60s/70s outfits (many of the costumes from The Motion Picture were altered and dyed to make the new uniforms). Also gone were the abstract threats. Pulling out a villain from seemingly random in the original run of the show, Wrath of Khan was going to be as direct and reductionist a sequel to the show as was possible.
This new look of the concept of Star Trek recast the Federation as a much more military organization. The uniforms were more naval. The ships more complex and more delicate. The Enterprise became cramped and bustling, crawling with incidental crewman running a myriad of tasks. What Wrath of Khan did was turn Star Trek into a naval warfare movie in space.
I imagine most people are already familiar with the basic plot of Wrath of Khan. Khan Noonian Singh (a chesty, magnificently hammy Ricardo Montalban), a genetically altered egomaniacal superman from Earth’s distant past, has been marooned on a planet for 15 years after a run in with Kirk and company during the original run of the show. The USS Reliant, looking for a barren planet to test a new terraforming device (sprearheaded by an old flame of Kirk’s and his heretofore unknown son), encounter Khan and his crew of survivors who quickly proceed to capture the Reliant and use it to exact revenge on Kirk.
What happens next is a series of intricate cat and mouse submarine battles cast in a sci-fi setting, great Shakespearean scenery chewing by one of film’s greatest sci-fi villains, and a great personal sacrifice by one of the most enduring pop culture characters. It’s great stuff, full of high drama and brilliant character beats, serious but not ponderous, clever by not showy, the textbook case of less is more.
What other movie has the gall to cast its two opposing leads in a situation that never brings them face to face? Kirk and Khan taunt and challenge and curse each other from across the reaches of space but never share a single scene. What other movie has the restraint to limit itself to the quiet predatory climax in an obscuring nebula? Both ships blindly gliding by each other in silence, one mistake away from annihilation? Wrath of Khanis as tense as any thriller, cast in a familiar franchise turned into something vital and exciting by fresh talent and fresh ideas.
But you know all this, so let’s start at the beginning, where the truly special ideas in Wrath of Khan lie. From the start we’re introduced to a younger group of Starfleet cadets, competent and ready, in a training simulation of the infamous no-win Kobayashi Maru scenario. Saavik (Kirstie Alley before she became a lazy tabloid joke) is being groomed as Spock’s protegee, commanding the Enterprise in this simulation, causing everyone aboard to die by her actions.
James Kirk, now an admiral and instructor, chides Saavik about her approach to the scenario. Kirk is, to date, the only cadet who ever defeated the test, meant to train cadets the reality of sacrifice when command leads you to no sure victory. Kirk’s legacy is already well established as the man who has cheated death countless times, a man who doesn’t believe in no-win scenarios.
Yet we open on a Kirk in darkness. He’s bored and aging at the academy. He accepts gifts from his closest friends begrudgingly on his 50th birthday. To Kirk, all this is a defeat, a quiet retreat from the adventure he always considered his right. Which is why when the Enterprise receives a distress call while on a training mission, Kirk takes control of the ship and steers her towards the science outpost where Khan lays in wait.
What the film so carefully does is lay open the truth that Kirk isn’t quite the man he used to be. He’s not as fast, but he’s not as rash. Confronted with a son he didn’t know he had, he’s left to wonder just how many opportunities his lifestyle has made him forsake. As much as command is about making the decisions day to day, it is about the decisions left at the wayside.
It is when all hope is lost that Kirk reveals to Saavik how he beat the Kobayashi Maru–he reprogrammed the scenario to allow him to win. Saavik protests that it was cheating, Kirk retorts with the fact that he got a commendation for creative thinking. And in the depths of the battle between Kirk and Khan, spanning across space between two men wrapped up in their own legacy, Kirk cheats his way to victory again.
But this time he doesn’t escape cleanly, as the victory costs him the life of Spock. For Kirk, who had the galaxy as his plaything for decades, the realities of the choices, the realities of life looming behind all the adventures, come crashing down around him. When asked after Spock’s burial among the stars how he feels Kirk replies “I feel … young.” It is the risk and the finality that provides the spark of life, not the adventure itself.
What Wrath of Khan manages to do is to humanize what was quickly becoming remote and abstract. Star Trek was never about the aliens or the adventure so much as it was about what it means to be human. At the best of times it remembers its better self, and brings that to the forefront, and becomes something more than the fandom or the slightly silly space western it was originally conceived as. That is what makes Wrath of Khan so singular, and so special.
This is the Nikon D7000 16.2MP camera with the Nikkor 200-500mm zoom lens. I don't care how much money you spend, you aren't going to get a clearer more tack sharp photo with anything else in my humble opinion.
Having said that as soon as they came out, I bought the NEW Nikon D7200 with a whooping 24.2MP rating and yes, it did taken even better pictures if you can imagine that? Then of course they had to come out with the D7500 which boasted 20.9MP, did it take better pictures? I don't know, I never bought one. Hard to believe isn't, but I didn't, because I was taking such amazing pictures with the D7200 I had no desire to go backwards. I love the D7000 series of camera's. With any 300mm Nikkor lens. What a combination.
So, buy used and save money on both the camera and lens, if the previous owners weren't using the stuff for a hammer you're going to be glad you did.
------------------------ JESUS ✝️ SAVES -------------------------
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, FOREVER! Through Faith in Jesus!
10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️ ✝️ ❤️
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CLICK THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.
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Architectural Intervention : Working Collage for Glass
Fetal Medicine Centre
Prosound SSD-5000 V4
ALOKA
Astronomical Mapping/ Birth Scan
Scale, Interior, Time, Spatial Presences, Human Becoming,
------------------------ JESUS ✝️ SAVES -------------------------
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, FOREVER! Through Faith in Jesus!
10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️ ✝️ ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.
My THANK'S to all those who have taken the time to view, fave, comment or share my photo's with others. I really appreciate it! ❤️
Oil on Canvas
28 x 48 inches
As I was painting this I had my “spiritual” channel playing on Pandora. Lots of Catholic choirs, chants, etc. It was quite an ethereal experience painting the young Annie Darwin, apple of her father’s eye, knowing that she’s up in heaven now, despite the finality her father felt after her passing. It got me to thinking about how peaceful death must be to the person who has passed. No more worrying, fussing, dealing with one’s foibles and hang-ups. It’s really only painful and sorrowful for those left behind—those who loved the person.
At any rate, I felt great peace painting this. And I felt comforted that Darwin’s daughter was at peace, despite how much it pained him to see her suffer and pass.
Lanner Falcon, they're from England in Sherwood Forest area.
------------------------ JESUS ✝️ SAVES -------------------------
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, FOREVER! Through Faith in Jesus!
10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️ ✝️ ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.
My THANK'S to all those who have taken the time to view, fave, comment or share my photo's with others. I really appreciate it! ❤️
This vehicle, an old Dodge truck, is decaying. Very evidently. Because of what you see on it, this decay has ben going on for years, maybe decades. If you return to it in say 100 years, you will find a very evident and much increased level of decay. Such is the way of all things on earth, man,material, mammal,etc. The process is destroying the truck, slowly but most certainly. Everything about the truck is being attacked by this inevitable process. No one in their right mind would say that as a result of this process one day many eons from now, if you you were to return to the truck, you would find a revised, reinvigorated, and vastly improved and superior truck before you. Evolution though, says this very thing. In spite of a very evident process which breaks down and destroys things. This kind of thinking says that somehow this destructive process is actually, in the end, a creative process. That in breaking down it is but a preparation for phase two, creation or re-creation.. Not only so, but that what drives this process is not anyone or anything that can be defined or explained. Rather, it is simply a wonderful mystery. If I say I believe in a God, which I do,a creator of all things including man, by some who believe in the other point of view, I invite the accusation that I have lost control of my reasoning, amongst other things.
But the nature of spiritual blindness is to not only become blinded in one's spirit, the unseen part that is different from the mind and it's ability to process...but in the ability to reason. Because when you can have an evident process of decay in front of you and all around you everywhere, never creating but always destroying, and yet call that same process the great birthing and creative process behind the existence of man and the whole universe...you have a deep blindness that has penetrated the reasoning ability. Where the obvious is misconstrued and reinterpreted, frankly into nonsense. A person should reason, by all means. But we should also always make sure reality lines up with our reasoning and vice versa. We can be wrong, about many things. And as we get older, if we humble ourselves to admit it, we see how often we have been wrong about so very many things in life.
39 years ago, nearing 40 soon, I had an experience which changed my life. I was not a believer in God at the time, nor did I come from a religious background in my family while growing up.I was actually stoned at the time, a part of the story I used to leave out because I believed it would cause people to discredit my story about what happened to me. Then I realized a number of years ago that it was important to tell it as it happened rather than leave out a fact, whatever anyone would think. I was a pot smoker over the course of fourteen years. Sometimes I smoked pot daily for a length of time, sometimes it was periodic and not daily. Suffice to say I was a seasoned and experienced pot smoker. I know well where pot took me in the experience of smoking it. Sometimes it could be a powerful mystical experience, so it seemed when you are high....other times not so much. Like anything, you get used to it. Getting used to it, well like anything, it erodes the original thrill of the experience. You get stoned, sure, but its not brand new anymore. I found that the 'best' high was always in the morning, after that, it was all downhill the rest of the day. wouldn't use that word to describe pot anymore, not just because of a faith in a God, but because my experience with it eventually led to seeing a dark side to it. I used to love pot, the smell of it, smoking it, the experience it took you into. It amazes me today that I now see a true darkness to it, something I no longer want any part of. Anyone who wants to praise pot to me, to argue for it's 'harmlessness'....now....I say they are either naïve, they don't really know what they're talking about. Or they are not being honest. Whatever pot 'gives' you, in the experience, it takes more from you. Simply put, it is destructive to your heart and mind. I know that from experience.
All that being said, smoking a joint or two back in the day with a couple of other people never put me out of my mind, out of control, or in some delusional state. As some who know next to nothing nothing about it might assert or think. Sure, you would be 'stoned'. Just like some folks might be a little drunk from three or four beer. But in neither condition do most people lose their grip on reality. I certainly didn't back then.
One day in the latter part of February in 1981, I got stoned with two other people behind the student residence building at the University of Victoria campus in Victoria, B.C. In Canada for those who wonder. We smoked two joints, No big deal. Was I stoned? Yes. Was I incapable of forming thoughts therefore, conversing,etc? Absolutely not.
Now I didn't feel good about this particular getting high once we were finished and I began to walk the short walk back home where I as a college student was renting a room in a basement along with three other university students. Why? Well, about six moths earlier I had genuinely prayed to to God, alone by myself, asking Jesus Christ to come into my heart. Someone I worked with that previous summer was a Christian, and not afraid to talk about God, Jesus, or the bible. I remember his name, it was, for me at least, an unusual name: Maylan Antrum. Maylan was a serious but straight forward guy. We were car pooling. One day 5 or 6 of us were returning home. Maylan began to ask a couple of of guys what they thought of the bible,then he asked me. I answered that it was a good history book. That was a dishonest answer, I knew nothing about the bible. His reply I remember: Oh, it's much more than that. After listening to the continuing conversation in this vein, I then asked a genuine question:how do you become a Christian? I knew zero about the bible, about God, I had no real clue what a Christian was, how one became one.
To this question he replied explaining, that God created everything, that sin was in all people, that Jesus died on his cross for all sin, that he also rose from the dead, and that to become a Christian I must receive Christ's forgiveness thru hius death for me, as well as Christ himself as not only saviour but Lord. I didn't really understand what accepting Jesus as Lord meant except on a very basic level of what word 'Lord' meant to me...but I did think it a bit strange to make someone who died, and I guess in my mind,still dead, my 'Lord'. I was okay with everything else, but though he told me Jesus rose from the dead, it was like I really didn't get the implication of that, as monstrously large as it was. It's important to know that though I came from no religious background, no religious upbringing, I had still developed some thoughts and feelings about reality and existence from an early age, and one of the things I concluded by age 16 or 17 was that you don't live life, come to it's end, and then cease to be. It would be just as accurate to say, after me thinking about it consciously and clearly, that I refused to accept that that was how things worked. I 'felt' that was not and could not be true. my feeling was based on this thought: if that's how life ends, what is the point? I certainly couldn't see one if it simply ends permanently and completely. Some of the same people, not all, who believe the process of decay and disorder brought about the whole physical universe, might think someone like me is a bit loose in the head for not accepting the finality of death. I have already explained why I think these people are not in a position to make such a claim. So I had had thoughts, feelings, experiences, even formed some conclusions about life and reality long before I ran into someone like Maylan Antrum. When I came across him, and some other folks that summer of 1980, for the first time, I actually paid attention to Christians and what they had to say. Prior to that I neither cared nor knew anything them, the bible, God, and Jesus.
After thinking about what he said, I decided I wanted to become a Christian. Something about it felt right, and true, to me in my heart. One day, not long after that conversation in the car, I prayed a prayer to God while alone in my parent's home where I lived downstairs that summer. I admitted or confessed that yes, I was a sinner and had sin in me, and I asked God to forgive me and asked Jesus to be my saviour and Lord. It would be an understatement to say that inside I was really hoping, not necessarily expecting, some sort of cataclysmic experience to occur as a result of my prayer to God.It would also be an understatement to say I was disappointed, to say the least, when I felt nothing happen during or after my prayer. Though somewhat disappointed, this did not diminish my belief that this stuff about God and Jesus and his death on a cross, even his rising from the dead, was true. I now believed I was a Christian, and I began shortly thereafter to read the bible, starting the new testament.
The summer ended, and not by original plan, I ended up in Victoria that fall at a local college. Many things occurred over the next almost 6 moths. One of them was the urge to occasionally smoke some pot, have a few drinks, and enjoy my youth with other people of my age. I never felt good about this when it occurred, as it occasionally did over the next six moths. I felt guilt in my conscience, believing it wasn't right in God's eyes. Fast forward to
JESUS ❤️ SAVES
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, FOREVER and EVER.
10 The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:10)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so they might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.
My THANK'S to all those who have taken the time to view, fave, comment or share my photo's with others. I really appreciate it! ❤️