Spring Bible Study

Topic: Spring Bible Study

Time: This is a recurring meeting Meet anytime

Next Meeting: 5 May 2020 - Looking at Gospel for 10 May (5th Sunday of Easter)

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Gospel of John 14:1-12
(Questions will be posted by 3 May 2020

GospelJN 14:1-12“Do not let your hearts be troubled.
You have faith in God; have faith also in me.
In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.
If there were not,
would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?
And if I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come back again and take you to myself,
so that where I am you also may be.
Where I am going you know the way.”
Thomas said to him,
“Master, we do not know where you are going;
how can we know the way?”
Jesus said to him, "I am the way and the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me.
If you know me, then you will also know my Father.
From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
Philip said to him,
“Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”
Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time
and you still do not know me, Philip?
Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.
How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?
The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own.
The Father who dwells in me is doing his works.
Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me,
or else, believe because of the works themselves.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
whoever believes in me will do the works that I do,
and will do greater ones than these,
because I am going to the Father.”
Jesus said to his disciples:

The Last Rite

Inside the accidental chapel,

linked to monitors and IV tubes,

the sacred Host reposes

in a living tabernacle

young, pale, fragile.

Masks and gloves and aprons keep

germs of humanity from

weakening her further -

if that matters anymore.

The demon crucifies her flesh and bones,

pins arms and legs

to the mattress of a metal bed

where sores and aches

afflict her Lazarus body

beneath its leaden weight.

Her eyes say

she will seek her

Passion, add substance to the

theories we received.

With trepidation she awaits

the unrelenting emancipation

(so hopeful, so beautiful amid such gravity,

one must believe).

Oil of God is spread upon her pallid brow,

transcendent words usher her

towards the deep unknown.

She turns her fretful, hopeful mind towards

the dread cacophony that utters night,

awaits the dawn that from on high shall break

upon a better place

of enduring peace.

From T.S. Eliot's 'Little Gidding'

“You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid.”

Falafel sandwich and Turkish Coffee at 'The Mediterranean' in Concord, CA. Also, my view of Carquinez Bridge in Benicia, CA - we were reading on a bench under a shady eucalyptus tree.

An Evening After Work

In a feral garden
behind the market
jasmine wings beat
breezes
over an orange and green
petal-leaf sea.

Day’s pains gained
pilgrim memories
of battles waged:
neuron to synapse
sheathed in conflict
and misdirected
intention.

Comma,
interlocution,
temporal juncture
transcendent,
immanent:

Remand one for the other,
the pounding, the thrumming;
rise naked, unashamed
in still, silent
care-less breezes:
no where,
soul-will
breathes dream
irreducible
in heart not mind
reaching
no thing but
only
one thing.

No void,
wholeness of
oneness with
purpose in
origin;
of quiddity,
what is to be
loved for
Love’s sake:
all-encompassing,
sensing,
affecting
infinite stillness by
insignificant movement.

In this span of transition,
dream of jasmine,
stand,
release what never was
yours to grasp.

Raymond the Alien

Raymond nearly alien
rubs his ancient feet;
head down, blanket-wrapped,
rests on a ledge by the street.

Present but invisible
to commuters driving fast:
do you count the hours that pass?
or ask yourself of what value is
a life that neither takes nor gives
but only shakes a weary head
at what has never been?

There’s food around the corner
and shelter from the rain.
You are detached, ignore
the rising sun that births the day
and offers you another way
to overcome the vagaries
of likeness and conformity
among your fellow men.

What are we to do with you,
stranger from another world?
Can we heal your hurts?
Can we befriend
this lonely man
who offers only misery,
the pains of God
Who hung upon a tree?

International Films

Following is a list of most of the international films I've watched, mostly since mid-August, 2009. A few were seen earlier. Not all are necessarily recommended.

Mexican
El Mariachi (February 3, 2010)

Swedish
The Seventh Seal (Bergman) (Dec. 22, 2009)
Babette's Feast (Sept., 2010)

Italian
La Dolce Vita (Fellini)( mid-October, 2009)
8 1/2 (Fellini)
Amarcord (Fellini)
And the Ship Sails On (Fellini)
Caterina in the Big City
Juliet of the Spirits (Fellini)
Night of the Shooting Stars
Planet of the Vampires (made 1965)


Spanish
Eskalofrio (Dec. 17, 2009)
Pan's Labyrinth

Japanese
Ping Pong (watched 10/29/2009)
Welcome Back, Mister McDonald (watched mid-October, 2009)
Andromedia
Aragami: The Raging God of Battle
Cafe Lumiere (one of my favorites)
The Dimension Travelers
The Family Game
King of Beggars
Linda Linda Linda
Paprika
Taste of tea
The Twilight Samurai
Zebraman
Zeiram
Zeiram 2

Chinese (Mainland, Taiwan, Mandarin, Hong Kong)
CJ7
Re-cycle (10/21 - Hong Kong and Thailand)
Stolen life
Mercury Man*

Thai
Chocolate

French
Flight of the Red Balloon (August, 2010)
Mon Oncle


*=presently watching