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"For one carved instant as they flew,
The language had no simile --
Silver, crystal, ivory
Were tarnished. Etched upon the horizon blue,
The frieze must go unchallenged, for the lift
And carriage of the wings would stain the drift
Of stars against a tropic indigo
Or dull the parable of snow.
Now settling one by one
Within green hollows or where curled
Crests caught the spectrum from the sun,
A thousand wings are furled.
No clay-born lilies of the world
Could blow as free
As those wild orchids of the sea."
-- E. J. Pratt / Seagulls
Grace appears in the midst of friendship. The past is prelude, the future beyond reach. This is now, and all is well again.
My friend Ed, a poet, shared with me a little parable he wrote for his sons when they were young. It concerned the wonders that arose from an unlikely friendship between a field mouse and a disfigured purple pumpkin with a boundless empathy.
I have tried to capture the spirit of them in a couple of illustrations.
Ball filter (free!) at dumpr.net
www.dumpr.net/amazing-circles.php
Based on this image:
www.flickr.com/photos/galleryofsloth/6475324745/in/photos...
"Parable In Autumn" from Seattle sculptor Buster Simpson's "Parable."
“There is in the sacred heart the symbol and express image of the infinite love of Jesus Christ which moves us to love in return.”—Pope Leo XIII
“Through my love for you, I want to express my love for the whole cosmos, the whole of humanity, and all beings. By living with you, I want to learn to love everyone and all species. If I succeed in loving you, I will be able to love everyone and all species on Earth… This is the real message of love.”—Thich Nhat Hanh
“God is the indivisible oneness devoid of all boundaries or separation.”—Amma
“All are but parts of one stupendous Whole: Whose Body Nature is, and God the Soul.”—Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man
“But I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.”—Vincent van Gogh
“Every happening, great and small, is a parable whereby God speaks to us, and the art of life is to get the message.”—Malcolm Muggeridge
“God enters by a private door into each individual.”—Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Keep close to Nature's heart... and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”—John Muir
“The amount of happiness that you have depends on the amount of freedom you have in your heart.”—Thich Nhat Hanh
بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ
Allâh is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The parable of His Light is as (if there were) a niche and within it a lamp, the lamp is in glass, the glass as it were a brilliant star, lit from a blessed tree, an olive, neither of the east (i.e. neither it gets sun-rays only in the morning) nor of the west (i.e. nor it gets sun-rays only in the afternoon, but it is exposed to the sun all day long), whose oil would almost glow forth (of itself), though no fire touched it. Light upon Light! Allâh guides to His Light whom He wills. And Allâh sets forth parables for mankind, and Allâh is All-Knower of everything.
-Surah An-Nur-35
August - Divers 2020
'The Parable of the Good Shepherd' (engraving)
'We chose to work on a detail of the engraving depicting the shepherd with a sheep on his back. The idea is to transpose the shepherd's pose with a fox on his back. This central character of the fresco refers directly to the Rue des Renards (foxes) in which the fresco has been produced. It is also a nod to this rather lively neighbourhood populated by bars and a fun-loving population. The shepherd is watching over you. From a rendering point of view, we blend styles between realistic depiction, Bruegel-like backdrops and contemporary motifs. It's another way to express the cosmopolitan side of the neighbourhood.'
Farm Prod
Parcours Bruegel
Bruegel meets street art
visit.brussels, together with the Brussels collective Farm Prod and with the support of the City of Brussels, has developed a 'PARCOURS Street Art' tour honouring the great Flemish master Pieter Bruegel in the heart of the capital. No less than 11 frescoes now adorn a number of facades in the Marolles district.
Link : parcoursstreetart.brussels/en/parcours/parcours-bruegel/
Photos of August 2020
Photos de aout 2020
( Diverses photos prisent en 2020 sans sujet reel.
Various pictures taken in 2020 without real subject. )
God’s Work, God’s Disposition, and God Himself III
www.holyspiritspeaks.org/gods-work-gods-disposition-and-g...
".......
Next we’ll take a look at a parable told by the Lord Jesus in the Age of Grace.
3. The Parable of the Lost Sheep
(Mat 18:12-14) How think you? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, does he not leave the ninety and nine, and goes into the mountains, and seeks that which is gone astray? And if so be that he find it, truly I say to you, he rejoices more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray. Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.
........"
Terms of Use en.godfootsteps.org/disclaimer.html
Explore.
Retrato robado con la colaboración del Zuiko 7-14mm..
Salida con La Banda del Charco a Nou Barris.
A Parable of Immortality - Henry Van Dyke.
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch until at last she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says, "There she goes!"
Gone where? Gone from my sight ... that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says, "There she goes! there are other eyes watching her coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"
Just sayin'.
Well, well hello, Dolly
Well, hello, Dolly
It's so nice to have you back where you belong
You're looking swell, Dolly, (wow)
We can tell, Dolly, (wow)
You're still glowin', you're still crowin'
You're still goin' strong
Dolly, lost for years, became an artist, collaborating with the likes of Duchamp and Joyce. He/She/They is reportedly still alive (unconfirmed), and living somewhere on the European continent.
Bernie (Ingrid Jones), the shepherdess, since infrathinned to another plain, where she, apparently (if surprisingly), can still draw a crowd.
(Continuation. See the texts of the earliest images of this series. I've uploaded the whole series on insta, but without this texts)
The whole world is trying hard to solve the riddle: “How you stop the madman with the red button?”. Well ok not all the world. There’s this tribal thing which I’ve mentioned in my previous letters… What could be your guess? I have my own of course. Or maybe two.
To be continued…
I want to speak about these dark times, to show, to see and to learn more. To do something together to get out of them. Preferably alive and sane. Now my photo art become the “photo-diary from the other side”. I’m very welcome you to stay in touch with me on Insta, which now turned to the main site of the Digital Resistance in Russia in spite of becoming the outlaw social media or maybe partly because of that.
For the special tribute issue of BusinessWeek that is coming out tomorrow, I tried to honor Steve Jobs in a small way with my memories of the NeXT days.
Here is the version I wrote (the print edition has several sentences edited out) with some italics added to summary sections:
-------------------------------
The book of Jobs, a parable of passion
Steve Jobs was intensely passionate about his products, effusing an infectious enthusiasm that stretched from one-on-one recruiting pitches to auditorium-scale demagoguery. It all came so naturally for him because he was in love, living a Shakespearean sonnet, with tragic turns, an unrequited era of exile, and ultimately the triumphant reunion. At the personal and corporate levels, it is the archetype of the Hero’s Journey turned hyperbole.
The NeXT years were torture for him, as he was forcibly estranged from his true love. When we went on walks, or if we had a brief time in the hallway, he would steer the conversation to a plaintive question: “What should Apple do?” As if he were an exile on Elba, Jobs always wanted to go home. “Apple should buy NeXT.” It seemed outrageous to me at the time; what CEO of Apple would ever invite Jobs back and expect to keep their job for long?
The Macintosh on his desk at NeXT had the striped Apple logo stabbed out, a memento of anguish scratched deep into plastic.
The NeXTSTEP operating system, object-oriented frameworks, and Interface Builder were beautiful products, but they were stuck in what Jobs considered the pedestrian business of enterprise IT sales. Selling was boring. Where were the masses? The NeXTSTEP step-parents sold to a crowd of muggles. The magic seemed misspent.
Jobs was still masterful, relating stories of how MCI saved so much time and money developing their systems on NeXTSTEP. He persuaded the market research firms IDC and Dataquest that a new computer segment should be added to the pantheon of mainframe, mini, workstation, and PC. The new market category would be called the “PC/Workstation,” and lo and behold, by excluding pure PCs and pure workstations, NeXT became No. 1 in market share. Leadership fabricated out of thin air.
During this time, corporate partners came to appreciate Steve’s enthusiasm as the Reality Distortion Field. Sun Microsystems went so far as to have a policy that no contract could be agreed to while Steve was in the room. They needed to physically remove themselves from the mesmerizing magic to complete the negotiation.
But Jobs was sleepwalking through backwaters of stodgy industries. And he was agitated by Apple’s plight in the press. Jobs reflected a few years later, “I can’t tell you how many times I heard the word ‘beleaguered’ next to ‘Apple.’ It was painful. Physically painful.”
When the miraculous did happen, and Apple bought NeXT, Jobs was reborn. I recently spoke with Bill Gates about passion: “Most people lose that fire in the belly as they age. Except Steve Jobs. He still had it, and he just kept going. He was not a programmer, but he had hit after hit.” Gates marvels at the magic to this day.
Parsimony
Jobs was the master architect of Apple design. Often criticized for bouts of micromanagement and aesthetic activism, Steve’s spartan sensibilities accelerated the transition from hardware to software. By dematerializing the user interface well ahead of what others thought possible, Apple was able to shift the clutter of buttons and hardware to the flexible and much more lucrative domain of software and services. The physical thing was minimized to a mere vessel for code.
Again, this came naturally to Jobs, as it is how he lived his life, from sparse furnishings at home, to sartorial simplicity, to his war on buttons, from the mouse to the keyboard to the phone. Jobs felt a visceral agitation from the visual noise of imperfection.
When Apple first demonstrated the mouse, Bill Gates could not believe it was possible to achieve such smooth tracking in software. Surely, there was a dedicated hardware solution inside.
When I invited Jobs to take some time away from NeXT to speak to a group of students, he sat in the lotus position in front of my fireplace and wowed us for three hours, as if leading a séance. But then I asked him if he would sign my Apple Extended Keyboard, where I already had Woz’s signature. He burst out: “This keyboard represents everything about Apple that I hate. It’s a battleship. Why does it have all these keys? Do you use this F1 key? No.” And with his car keys he pried it right off. “How about this F2 key?” Off they all went. “I’m changing the world, one keyboard at a time,” he concluded in a calmer voice.
And he dove deep into all elements of design, even the details of retail architecture for the Apple store (he’s a named patent holder on architectural glass used for the stairways). On my first day at NeXT, as we walked around the building, my colleagues shared in hushed voices that Jobs personally chose the wood flooring and various appointments. He even specified the outdoor sprinkler system layout.
I witnessed his attention to detail during a marketing reorganization meeting. The VP of marketing read Jobs’s e-mailed reaction to the new org chart. Jobs simply requested that the charts be reprinted with the official corporate blue and green colors, and provided the Pantone numbers to remove any ambiguity. Shifted color space was like a horribly distorted concerto to his senses. And this particular marketing VP was clearly going down.
People
Jobs’s estimation of people tended to polarize to the extremes, a black-and-white thinking trait common to charismatic leaders. Marketing execs at NeXT especially rode the “hero-shithead rollercoaster,” as it was called. The entire company knew where they stood in Jobs’s eyes, so when that VP in the reorg meeting plotted his rollercoaster path on the white board, the room nodded silently in agreement. He lasted one month.
But Jobs also attracted the best people and motivated them to do better than their best, rallying teams to work in a harmony they may never find elsewhere in their careers. He remains my archetype for the charismatic visionary leader, with his life’s song forever woven into the fabric of Apple.
Jobs now rests with the sublime satisfaction of symbolic immortality.
----
It was daunting to reflect on such a great man, from a refined set of exposures... but he was my childhood hero, and I convinced him to let me do a study of his management style while a lowly employee at NeXT. Nevertheless, I wondered if I captured his essence in those years of exile from Apple. So, I was floored when the BW editor wrote back "I think this piece is one of the best things I have ever read about Steve." :))
Artist: Simon Liddiment
Title: Parable
Materials: traffic signs
Snape Maltings
Snape, Suffolk, England, UK
The parable of the prodigal son is the subject of this 1719 painting by Roland Johansson Öberg in Ulvö chapel in Ulvöhamn on Ulvön Island, Sweden.
The Parable of the Rich Fool
Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”
Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”
And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
“Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’
“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
“This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”
[Luke 12:13-21 NIV]
5 MORE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW:
1. Like it or not, we are ALL sinners: As the Scriptures say, “No one is righteous—not even one. No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God. All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one.” (Romans 3:10-12 NLT)
2. The punishment for sin is death: When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned. (Romans 5:12 NLT)
3. Jesus is our only hope: But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. (Romans 5:8 NLT) For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23 NLT)
4. SALVATION is by GRACE through FAITH in JESUS: God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. (Ephesians 2:8-10 NLT)
5. Accept Jesus and receive eternal life: If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9 NLT) But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. (John 1:12 NLT) And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God’s Son does not have life. (1 John 5:11-12 NLT)
Read the Bible for yourself. Allow the Lord to speak to you through his Word. YOUR ETERNITY IS AT STAKE!
.. but only if they are of European backgrounds, preferably Nordic or Germanic.
Once again I can't fantom how the Bible thumpers can stomach him and his policies, at what point did they abandon the moral high ground? I can get where the congress and senate folk agree with every new depth, they are a spineless lot only looking to cover their own assorted backsides.
"Jesus spoke the following parable to some people who prided themselves on being virtuous and despised everyone else: ‘Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood there and said this prayer to himself, “I thank you, God, that I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous like the rest of mankind, and particularly that I am not like this tax collector here. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes on all I get.” The tax collector stood some distance away, not daring even to raise his eyes to heaven; but he beat his breast and said, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” This man, I tell you, went home again at rights with God; the other did not. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the man who humbles himself will be exalted.’"
- Luke 18:9-14, which is today's Gospel at Mass (30th Sun in Ordinary Time)
Stained glass window from Most Holy Redeemer church in Detroit.
On this scotland trip the wind was a faithful companion. He often worked in our favor, when he granted the rain blew away and give the sun and the blue sky a short appearance. Just such a moment I had here. The wind magically build delicate waves on the water surface this showed at the correct angle sky reflections. I have had taken a whole series, with all kinds of lighting situations. This picture I've made my decision because the foreground and the loch is in the shade. I think this gives the best impact for the water reflection. The light in the background draw the eye into the distance. In selecting the section I specifically paid attention to the outline of the loch. The placement of the island, I could not place in the middle because I wanted to have also the right slope as a counter shape to the loch. The line of clouds in this image is a random play along, because the clouds were moving very fast here.
The parable of those who take protectors other than Allah is that of the spider, who builds (to itself) a house; but truly the flimsiest of houses is the spider's house;- if they but knew.
(Al-'Ankabuut 29:41)
Exif : -
Location : Pasir Panjang, Negeri Sembilan
Camera: Canon EOS 50D
Lens: Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8
Filter: - ND 10 stop + GND 0.9
Focal Length: 11mm
Shutter Speed: 90 sec
Aperture: f/9
ISO/Film: 100
Taken: January 19th 2013
Copyright: Fared Shamsuddin
Straying gets a bad rap. Re-thinking the 'Parable of the Lost Sheep', even, in a 'clone me and make me write bad cheques' sort of way.
There was something about that Bernadette broad, the way she used to gaze up into the sky all spiritual-like, before she sent us all off to the slaughterhouse.
Tending to her flock, how are you?
"And he spake this parable unto them, saying, What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing." (Luke 15:3-7 KJV)
Dolly was out of there, post-haste. That staring longingly skywards was a major red flag.
So Jesus called them over to him and began to speak to them in parables: “How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house without first tying him up. Then he can plunder the strong man’s house. 28 Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.”
[Mark 3:23-29 NIV]
5 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW:
1. Like it or not, we are ALL sinners: As the Scriptures say, “No one is righteous—not even one. No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God. All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one.” (Romans 3:10-12 NLT)
2. The punishment for sin is death: When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned. (Romans 5:12 NLT)
3. Jesus is our only hope: But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. (Romans 5:8 NLT) For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23 NLT)
4. SALVATION is by GRACE through FAITH in JESUS: God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. (Ephesians 2:8-10 NLT)
5. Accept Jesus and receive eternal life: If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9 NLT) But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. (John 1:12 NLT) And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God’s Son does not have life. (1 John 5:11-12 NLT)
Read the Bible for yourself. Allow the Lord to speak to you through his Word. YOUR ETERNITY IS AT STAKE!
Sheesh, it's been ages since I've uploaded a photo.
I wish I could say that I've been lazing about on a remote tropical island somewhere, but alas, I've just caught the reading bug. And since I've caught every other bug this winter, a reading bug is rather nice, so I thought I'd just go with it.
The Preiser couple are reading a SF novel called 'Spin' by Robert Charles Wilson. Quite entertaining.
PARABOLA DISCENDENTE...........
a proposito di POST-PRODUZIONE
www.flickr.com/photos/leosagnotti/ - ha elaborato questo mio scatto, rendendomi pan per focaccia, lo propongo nella sua veste ridotta.
Matthew 13.
Jesus “Now listen to the explanation of the parable about the farmer planting seeds: 19 The seed that fell on the footpath represents those who hear the message about the Kingdom and don’t understand it. Then the evil one comes and snatches away the seed that was planted in their hearts. 20 The seed on the rocky soil represents those who hear the message and immediately receive it with joy. 21 But since they don’t have deep roots, they don’t last long. They fall away as soon as they have problems or are persecuted for believing God’s word. 22 The seed that fell among the thorns represents those who hear God’s word, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the worries of this life and the lure of wealth, so no fruit is produced. 23 The seed that fell on good soil represents those who truly hear and understand God’s word and produce a harvest of thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times as much as had been planted!”
More on Shi Chung Branch School, 1880 here
teochiewkia.blogspot.com/2009/03/shi-chung-branch-school....
“The present life of man upon earth, O King, seems to me in comparison with that time which is unknown to us like the swift flight of a sparrow through the mead-hall where you sit at supper in winter, with your Ealdormen and thanes, while the fire blazes in the midst and the hall is warmed, but the wintry storms of rain or snow are raging abroad. The sparrow, flying in at one door and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry tempest, but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, passing from winter to winter again. So this life of man appears for a little while, but of what is to follow or what went before we know nothing at all.”
A parable on enlightenment technique from the Lotus Sutra.
Built with 40 of Tom Hull's PHiZZ units, each from a single uncut square of two-color kami; no adhesives. Composition, color design, unit variation, folding, and assembly by me.
Is education a social ladder to personal and professional success in China? Here in Chinatown from Paris
OVERVIEW
The 20 year-old sock factory worker, Liu Yong, wants to save money to study anything that she wants. Her dream is to get an education and become a doctor. A disabled migrant worker in the episode "Getting Rich" states, "My son is three years old. No matter what, we want him to get some education when he gets older. I don't want him to go out to work somewhere else. I have high hopes for my son." How can these migrant workers and other economically disadvantaged groups in China change their lives and destinies through educational reform? Is education a social ladder to success? In the following discussion, we provide some background introduction about the Chinese tradition of selecting civil servants through examination as well as current problems that exist in education and society. The discussion questions will lead students to explore the many sides of these issues.
ISSUES FOR EXPLORATION
Education has been regarded as a ladder of social ascendancy in China since ancient time. The most famous saying about "study" in China is from a poem in Song Dynasty (960-1279) by Wang Zhu, literarily translated as "The emperor values heroes, book can teach you (how to be). Everything else is low-grade, only study is above all." This poem has been considered as the golden rule in China for hundreds of years. It encourages people to study. But why is "study" so important? There is also a poem persuading people to study from the Song Dynasty that says, "In the book, there is a lot of food, a house made of gold, and a pretty girl." It implies that studying can make you have enough to eat, a fancy house, and a beautiful woman. But what makes education so powerful in Chinese society? The imperial civil service examination is the answer.
The imperial civil service examination began in 605 AD in Sui Dynasty, developing and maturing in the Tang Dynasty and Song Dynasty, and continuing to the Qing Dynasty, and lasting continuously for 1300 years. The imperial civil service examination had a huge influence on Chinese society. Even China's neighboring countries such as Japan and Vietnam imported this system. The civil service personnel examination in modern times also evolved from this system, although recent scholarship suggests that the civil service examination was less of a social ladder than an earlier generation of scholars believed. This imperial civil service examination selected officials for government. If a person studied well, he could pass the examination, and would have a chance to be selected to an official position. If someone became an official, he would receive respect from others as well as obtain the power and fortune from the position. So, the person's whole life was changed. Therefore, many poor scholars studied for years and years in the hope of passing the examination and obtaining a coveted official position. There were numerous stories about how the scholars worked very, very hard, and finally passed the examination and succeeded in getting official positions. These stories encouraged generations of generations of youth in China to study hard, making it into a tradition. The higher level examination that one passed, the higher official position one got. As a result, more power, more respect, and more fortune one would have achieved. The system became a social ladder. In Tang Dynasty, 80% of the prime ministers were from Jinshi (a successful candidate in the highest imperial examinations). In 320 years time, Song Dynasty held 118 Imperial Civil Service examinations with more than 20,000 people passed the highest imperial examinations becoming Jinshi. In the 277 years of Ming Dynasty 89 examinations were held with 17,000 people passed the highest imperial examinations becoming Jinshi. In the 267 years of Qing Dynasty 120 examinations were held with 26,000 people passed the highest imperial examinations becoming Jinshi.
Although the imperial civil service examination has been abolished for over a 100 years, its influence on Chinese culture, education, people's behavior and thinking still exists. The college entrance examination in China now can be seen as extension and variation from the imperial civil service examination. Every summer the whole country holds the college entrance examination with the same examination questions of the same subjects on the same three days. If one gets a higher score, he or she can go to college. If one fails to pass the examination, he or she has to wait for a year to take the examination again or loses the chances of studying at a college. Whether one can enter a college to receive formal higher education becomes a bridge to a successful life for high school students in China. It is the symbol of success in the 12 year's basic education. It has become consensus of most of the high school graduates and their parents that getting into a famous university through college entrance examination is the way to obtain a high pay and dignified job nowadays.
Though it is every government's goal, providing Education for All is a tall order for the world's most populous nation. Despite pledges by the Chinese government that mass education is one of their priorities, after half a century of the People's Republic, China continues to be a country governed by a tiny educated elite while university education remains a dream for the greatest majority of population. In a country of 1.3 billion people, there are just 2.5 million university places. Only three or four of every 100 Chinese pass the entrance exams. Things were getting better in the past few years with all the universities and colleges having expanded enrolment, but the expansion was far from enough. Because of a high barrier at the university level, students compete to get into high schools that offer the best preparation. This determines a child's future from an early age. Severe competition begins at elementary school where children under 10-year-old struggle to get the best grades, spending long hours over school lessons and homework in order to get better grades. Only better grades in elementary school can make children remain in the competition from the starting points, and have the chance to get into a good high school, then from high school to college. School children in China have no leisure time to play in their childhood.
Noticing this problem, the Ministry of Education announced that primary school students were not going to get homework in the coming semester in 2005. The announcement that schools would boldly experiment with new teaching methods aimed at raising ''well- rounded'' individuals. It should have been a cause for jubilation but it made hundreds of Chinese parents worry. They feared their children might not get into high school and university. Moreover, they dreaded that new reforms would handicap their sole offspring for life, depriving them of the potential to get well-paid jobs. Educational reform needs to take many different aspects into consideration. The ease of educational burden must begin at the university level admission, noting that if the teaching process is to be made more humane, the educators should stop relying solely on the grades when admitting students to colleges. A research team with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences recently reported on social mobility in contemporary China has grabbed a lot of public attention. The report says social groups occupying higher positions on the social ladder have had a better chance of passing their title and positions to their children since the 1980s. At the same time, children from less advantaged classes are facing tougher and tougher challenges to make their way into these positions. These emerging trends in social mobility in China need to be taken seriously.
Social mobility, people's ability to move from one social stratum to another - which is mainly reflected in their economic status - is an index that gauges a country's social justice and openness. In developed countries it is relatively easy to become more affluent, and move up a class or two. In China this ability to move has radically changed over the last half century. Before the country embarked on its reform and opening up policy more than two decades ago, China's social mobility was political. Anything political - such as political leanings, political identity - at that time could have a deciding say on people's social status. When the reform and opening-up policies were launched, China shifted its focus to economic development. The move has meant that a person's occupation has replaced their political status in determining which stratum they belong to. Merit also has an increasingly important role in how a person's social status is fixed. The ideal social mobility pattern is one in which more and more farmers and workers switch to other higher social groups, increasing the middle class. Only after such a pattern is properly in place can China become a truly just and open society. To achieve this goal, educational reform is needed. China's wealth gap between urban and rural communities is among the highest in the world now. There exist the serious imbalances between primary and higher education in China. Efforts must be made to give top priority to primary education, particularly for the rural population. Currently, this has become the government's policy being applied in the poverty stricken rural areas in middle and western China and continued efforts are being made to improve primary and middle schools. Improving the educational level of farmers plays an important role in raising their skill levels and ultimately their incomes. Educational institutes should make the curriculum and the education system more relevant to the demands of the labor market, the establishment of community colleges for vocational training to disadvantage groups and enterprise training.
China's imperial civil service examination played an important role in Chinese history of education. It created a group of well educated officials serving the country. The system encouraged thousands of youths from both rich and poor families to study, to work hard in order to achieve success in career and life. It created comparatively equal opportunities and competitions in official selections. Modern civil service system and college entrance examinations still have a lot to learn from the old system. However, with social changes and economic reform continuing, new problems appeared. A new educational system is needed to meet the challenge of the modern society. We should think how to fill the wealth gap between urban and rural communities, how to help more and more farmers and workers switch to other higher social groups, increasing the middle class; and how educational reform can help people like the sock factory and motor factory workers in "China Rises" and thousands of migrant workers and their children to reach their dreams in getting better education, finding secured jobs and living a good life.
ON THE HORIZON
1. Questions about the imperial civil service examination and ancient view on "study": How does the imperial civil service examination affect Chinese society?
• What do you think of the imperial civil service examination? Is it a good or bad system? Why?
• If the imperial civil service examination is a good system, should China restore it in modern form? Why?
• If the imperial civil service examination is a bad system, what bad result did it make?
• Do you agree that the imperial civil service examination encouraged students to work harder? Why?
• Do you agree that in general Chinese students study harder than American students because of the influence of the saying
"Everything else is low-grade, only study is above all."
• Do you agree with the above old saying? Tell your reason.
• What can we learn from the imperial civil service examination system in modern time?
• Explore what systems were used to select officials in ancient China before the imperial civil service examination began.
• Find stories about how ancient Chinese scholars studied painstakingly to prepare for taking the imperial civil service examination.
2. Questions about the college entrance examination in China: How does the college entrance examination affect modern China's education?
• Compare the college entrance examination in China with the imperial civil service examination. Find similarities and differences.
• Compare the college entrance examination in China with the college admission process in the U.S. Find strong and weak points of each system respectively.
• Do you think the college entrance examination in China is fair for all the students? Why?
• Do you think the college entrance examination in China provides equal opportunities for all the people who want to get higher education?
• How to improve the college entrance examination in China?
• Can the college entrance examination help China to fill the economic gap between urban and rural area? Why?
• Did the college entrance examination help people to obtain the ability of moving from one social status to another? Why?
• After studying about Chinese imperial civil service examination and the college entrance examination, please tell your view on what is an examination system with fair competition.
3. Questions about current educational reform: How can educational reform help create a fair, open and harmonious society in China?
• What are the major problems in China's educational system, those cause the imbalance in education between urban and rural areas?
• How can education help the economically disadvantaged group in China to change their life?
• In the past the Chinese believed that "Everything else is low-grade, only study is above all." Do you think it works in the same way in modern China as in ancient China? Why?
• With current educational system in China can the migrant workers and their children make their dream true to get a better life through education?
• What is the priority for educational reform in China?
• Are there any good points in the American educational system that the Chinese can learn?
• If you were the minister of education in China, what would you do to reform the educational system to help create a fair, open and harmonious society in China?
• If you were the minister of education in China, what would you do to change the educational policy to help create a fair, open and harmonious society in China?
• Imagine that you are in a small mountainous village to set up a Hope Elementary School. You are the only teacher with a group of 25 kids aging from 6 to 12. What do you plan to do to help these kids get equal education?
archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/ref/college/coll-chin...
Many families see school as the place where every child has an equal chance to learn, grow, and access future opportunities. We hope classrooms will open doors, nurture potential, and prepare children for a bright future. Yet conversations around the US education system suggest a more complicated reality. Schooling is not only about learning—it can also reflect deeper social structures, sometimes acting as an informal screening tool tied to social class.
Understanding how these dynamics work doesn’t mean losing faith in schools. Instead, it helps families make informed decisions, advocate effectively, and create richer educational experiences for their children at home.
Introduction
While schools aim to provide equal access to learning, the path through the system is not the same for every child. Differences in funding, curriculum decisions, available programs, and family resources mean that educational experiences can vary widely from one community to the next.
Exploring these complexities allows families to better support their children. This article outlines how and why the US education system sometimes functions as a sorting mechanism—and what families can do to navigate it more confidently.
The Dual Role of Schools: Learning Environment and Sorting System
Schools are designed to promote knowledge, critical thinking, and personal development. Ideally, every child would receive the same encouragement and tools needed to thrive. But in practice, schools often serve another function: sorting students into different academic or social pathways.
Researchers describe this sorting process as part of social stratification—a system where individuals are organized into layers based on factors like wealth, access, or opportunity. In schools, this can happen through the availability of resources, placement into certain classes, or access to extracurricular programs. Over time, these differences can influence a child’s future academic and career options.
How the US Education System Shapes Social Mobility
Social mobility refers to the ability to move up or down the social ladder. Education is widely viewed as the key driver of upward mobility. However, certain features of the US school system can unintentionally limit this movement—especially for students in under-resourced areas.
Funding disparities and resource gaps
Public school funding in many states is tied to local property taxes. Schools in wealthier neighborhoods benefit from higher revenue, which can translate into:
Smaller class sizes
Higher teacher salaries
Updated facilities and technology
More varied electives and advanced courses
Stronger college counseling or enrichment programs
Schools in lower-income neighborhoods often operate with fewer resources, affecting the depth and quality of educational opportunities available to their students.
Access to libraries, science labs, arts programs, or even full-time counselors can differ dramatically, shaping both academic preparation and long-term confidence.
Curriculum tracking and its influence
“Tracking” groups students into different academic levels—such as honors, AP, or general education. While the intention is to tailor instruction, placement can sometimes reflect more than academic ability. Socioeconomic background, early childhood opportunities, and even unconscious biases can influence track placement.
Once a student is placed on a particular track, it can be difficult to move to a more rigorous one. This can affect access to competitive colleges, scholarships, and advanced study.
Standardized testing: helpful measure or barrier?
Standardized tests are used to compare student performance, evaluate schools, and guide decisions like college admissions. However, these tests may reflect inequities in:
Access to tutoring
Test preparation materials
Enrichment programs
Early literacy or numeracy experiences
Critics note that standardized tests can unintentionally favor students with greater resources. Families can read more about the development and debates surrounding standardized testing on Britannica.
www.thethinkacademy.com/blog/edubriefs-unpacking-the-us-s...
'Seoul Learn' is a project that provides equal educational opportunities to the vulnerable population that has difficulties in accessing educational resources due to socioeconomic reasons. Educational inequality in Korea has been identified as the main culprit behind generational poverty. The project offers various educational services via public platforms to prevent education from causing inequalities.As the Covid-19 pandemic widened the educational gap, educational inequalities emerged as a serious social issue. At the same time, educational inequality has been identified as the main culprit behind generational poverty. Such disparity in education arises from unequal access to education and highly differs according to parents’ economic status. There is a deepening educational gap due to socioeconomic background, degree of private education outside of school, and support and educational resources provided by parents. Families earning 8 million won or more every month spend 5.1 times more on monthly private education per person (593,000 won) than those earning less than 2 million won (116,000 won) (Statistics Korea, 2021). Children of parents with fewer assets and education tend to underachieve (OECD’s PISA, 2018). '
Seoul Learn' is a welfare policy that provides various complimentary educational services to the vulnerable class through public platforms to prevent education from causing inequalities.The Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) is pursuing three goals and following basic plans that were set while establishing 'Seoul Learn' policies:
Creating “a fair city of education” by focusing on supporting low-income families and tackling educational disparities induced by income levels
Creating “a sustainable city of education” by offering educational content customized for each life cycle
Creating “an innovative city of education” by building innovative educational platforms that combine different educational technologies
Prior to the project, the SMG evaluated the pre-existing online learning environment for teenagers from low-income families to achieve a practical outcome. It verified that underprivileged students had received learning devices, such as tablet PCs and Internet services from the city government and the office of education. The SMG and the office of education cooperated in providing the necessary support to those students to have seamless remote education amid the pandemic. When students needed additional support, Seoul introduced them to the “PC of Love” distribution project and ensured that they had immediate help.
After confirming that the physical environment was ready, Seoul prepared an administrative foundation by revamping related city ordinances. Then, it gathered together with the like-minded office of education and businesses to launch the website of Seoul Learn on August 27, 2021 and started to provide educational services.
Teenage Seoul citizens belonging to a vulnerable group (children of low-income groups, school dropouts, children of multicultural families, and others) can take an online qualification test and join Seoul Learn. Member students can choose up to three educational content providers (1 regular school subject, 1 language and certificate, and 1 reading) and enjoy all of their content without any limits. In addition, members can apply for 1:1 online and offline mentoring services affiliated with prestigious universities in Korea. Mentors from each college are helping teenage students with their learning plans, emotional stability, and career design. Private companies are also joining the project by providing learning materials, such as textbooks, as part of their corporate social responsibility activities.
Seoul aims to develop the website of Seoul Learn into an educational platform combining educational technologies by July 2023. This will allow the SMG to manage learning history, make it into data sets, and provide tailored education. The city government also plans to prepare interactive, hands-on remote educational programs.
oecd-opsi.org/innovations/seoul-learn-for-restoring-educa...
"Then, leaving the crowds, he went to the house; and his disciples came to him and said, ‘Explain the parable about the darnel in the field to us.’ He said in reply, ‘The sower of the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world; the good seed is the subjects of the kingdom; the darnel, the subjects of the evil one; the enemy who sowed them, the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; the reapers are the angels. Well then, just as the darnel is gathered up and burnt in the fire, so it will be at the end of time. The Son of Man will send his angels and they will gather out of his kingdom all things that provoke offences and all who do evil, and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth. Then the virtuous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Listen, anyone who has ears!’"
– 13:37-43, which is part of today's Gospel at Mass.
Stained glass detail from a window in the National Cathedral in Washington DC.
"This is the story of a man named Stanley. Stanley worked for a company in a big building where he was employee number 427."
"‘You, therefore, are to hear the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom without understanding, the evil one comes and carries off what was sown in his heart: this is the man who received the seed on the edge of the path. The one who received it on patches of rock is the man who hears the word and welcomes it at once with joy. But he has no root in him, he does not last; let some trial come, or some persecution on account of the word, and he falls away at once. The one who received the seed in thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this world and the lure of riches choke the word and so he produces nothing. And the one who received the seed in rich soil is the man who hears the word and understands it; he is the one who yields a harvest and produces now a hundredfold, now sixty, now thirty.’"
- Matthew 13:18-23, which is part of today's Gospel at Mass.
Stained glass window from Canterbury Cathedral
Ivatt 2-6-0 46521 has frightened a Deer which in turn rather startled me as it was heading right for me. The "Mickey Mouse" has just left Gotherington en route to Winchcombe.
… A Parable in Pictures. “A melancholy argument against annihilation, The Last Flower is on the short list of books worth clutching to your chest as the world is destroyed.”—-DAVID REES, author, Get Your War On
From the dust jacket::
Originally published in November 1939, two months after Germany invaded Poland and World War II officially began, James Thurber's parable in pictures--a graphic novel ahead of its day--about the eternal cycles of war, peace, love, and the resilience of one little flower remains as relevant today as it was then. The NYTIMES called it "at once one of the most serious and one of the most hilarious contributions on war." E.B. White wrote, in his obituary of Thurber for TheNewYorker, "In it you will find his faith in the renewal of life, his feeling for the beauty and fragility of life on earth."
Civilization has collapsed after World War XII, dogs have deserted their masters, all the groves and gardens have been destroyed, and love has vanished from the earth. Then one day, "a young girl who had never seen a flower chanced to come upon the last one in the world." Written amid the sorrow and chaos of war, dedicated to his only child "in the wistful hope that her world will be better than mine," Thurber's THE LAST FLOWER is a wise and loving testimony to the salvation found in nature. This 2007 edition features new scans of Thurber's original 1939 drawings.
Note: I discovered James Thurber when I was in high school and worked in the children's library of the Mobile Public Library., His book MANY MOONS, the story of a princess who wanted the moon, captured my fancy, That was in 1953. In my senior year, I wrote to him requesting permission to adapt that story as a radio script for a creative writing class. The response came on TheNewYorker letterhead, signed in the heavy pencil the artist used to draw his cartoons. I kept it, framed, envelope included, through all the stages of my life, a treasure.
My 2007 edition of The Last Flower is autographed by his daughter Rosemary A Thurber.
I'm not sure if the world KNEW we were beginning all out war back in 1939 when this was first written. I was only two years old then. Just like today, with the invasion of Ukraine so fresh in current events. Are we on the cusp of a WWIII? It is a thought which brings me to my knees, hands clutched in prayer that it ends with peace restored. We are punishing the Mother Earth so much already, forcing climate change with no concern for future generations. Selfish, greedy, grasping, no concern for total devastation. For annihilation.
That LAST FLOWER is precious indeed.
Die Antoniuskirche in Castrop-Rauxel (NRW), Ortsteil Ickern, ist eine der wenigen Parabelkirchen in Deutschland. Sie wurde in den Zwanzigerjahren von dem Essener Architekten Alfred Fischer entworfen. Aufgenommen am 09.09.2007 anläßlich des Tages des offenen Denkmals. (Es wird Zeit für ein Sigma 10-20mm...)
The Antonius church in Castrop-Rauxel is one of the few parable-churches in Germany. It was build in the 1920s by the architect Alfred Fischer. (It´s time for a Sigma 10-20mm...)