Showing posts with label favor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label favor. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Mediate

8.22.19
Ark of the Covenant

Mediate
Profit
调解利润 
Tiáojiě lìrùn
利益を仲介する 
Rieki o chūkai suru
ps131, 132
Mediata prodest

The priest is not proud
when with objectivity endowed.

The cleric is a detective
when research is the objective.

Simple expression is the task that matters
to explain the elements of the pattern.

"I still my soul to make it quiet.
I release my thought for mental silence.

"My soul is made quiet with this request
like a child upon its mother's breast."

Wait upon the test of science
to show the way to self-reliance.

Remember what the priest endured
to show how hardship made the feast secure. 

The horse ran to overcome the halter.
It passed the inn. It did not falter. 

The elder made a promise that he vowed to keep.
He would not allow his eyes to sleep.

"I will not lay my head on my pillow to rest
until I find the place to build a temple to be divinely blessed." 

We heard that the ark of the covenant was in a fruitful place.
We found it in the fields of the forest in a beautiful state.

Let us go stand near the symbol of the divine presence
that we may enjoy the feeling of the essential essence.

Arise to shine on your resting place
between the wings of the cherubim by your grace.

The wings have become an open book
where those who seek faith may come to look.

Let your pastor be clothed with the rightness of faith.
Let your faithful people sing with joy in the sacred space.

Do not turn away the face of your Anointed.
The love of the beloved uses oil as the ointment.

The beloved was true to the law insofar as he was able.
He did not punish non-lethal sin in a way that was fatal.

The humble citizen defended himself against charges that were false.
Success detained him without cruelty to check reports for embellished faults.

The Lord has sworn an oath in faith to love
for those who are true to the spirit of the dove.

Love God with your heart, understanding and strength.
Love your relations as yourself with attention to length.

You are not far from the kingdom of heaven in law.
Your faith is the leaven to overcome difficulty caused by flaws.

The fruit of your labor 
will be seen with favor
as long as it serves
the network of nerves.

If your children keep my covenant
with the testimony of love in it
they will retain your power in governance
for strength in sustenance.

Zion is the sacred space between the wings of the pages.
It is the habitation for which we sing with the sages.

"I will delight in this place forever.
I will dwell in this state with pleasure."

The economy will be blessed with employment.
Earned income will be by self-appointment
in the service of public enjoyment.

Your priesthood will be clothed with salvation.
The faithful will help to build a productive nation.

The fruit of the harvest will bless the table with provision.
The light for the Anointed is prepared to share wisdom.

Those loyal to the royal priesthood will shine.
Their achievement will be a share in the divine.

--------------------------

Psalm 131

Domine, non est
Dominated, is not

1 O Lord, I am not proud;
I have no haughty looks.
2 I do not occupy myself with great matters,
or with things that are too hard for me.
3 But I still my soul and make it quiet,
like a child upon its mother's breast;
my soul is quieted within me.
4 O Israel, wait upon the Lord,
from this time forth for evermore.

132 Memento, Domine
Remember, Dominated

1 Lord, remember David,
and all the hardships he endured;
2 How he swore an oath to the Lord
and vowed a vow to the Mighty One of Jacob:
3 "I will not come under the roof of my house,
nor climb up into my bed;
4 I will not allow my eyes to sleep,
nor let my eyelids slumber;
5 Until I find a place for the Lord,
a dwelling for the Mighty One of Jacob."
6 "The ark! We heard it was in Ephratah; (fruitful)
we found it in the fields of Jearim. (forest)
7 Let us go to God's dwelling place;
let us fall upon our knees before his footstool."
8 Arise, O Lord, into your resting-place,
you and the ark of your strength.
9 Let your priests be clothed with righteousness;
let your faithful people sing with joy.
10 For your servant David's sake,
do not turn away the face of your Anointed.
11 The Lord has sworn an oath to David;
in truth, he will not break it:
12 "A son, the fruit of your body
will I set upon your throne.
13 If your children keep my covenant
and my testimonies that I shall teach them,
their children will sit upon your throne for evermore."
14 For the Lord has chosen Zion;
he has desired her for his habitation:
15 "This shall be my resting-place for ever;
here will I dwell, for I delight in her.
16 I will surely bless her provisions,
and satisfy her poor with bread.
17 I will clothe her priests with salvation,
and her faithful people will rejoice and sing.
18 There will I make the horn of David flourish;
I have prepared a lamp for my Anointed.
19 As for his enemies, I will clothe them with shame;
but as for him, his crown will shine."

-------------------------

Shimei- my reputation
Gera- dove
Abishai- father of a gift
Zeruiah- pain

2 Samuel 19:18b-23

Shimei son of Gera fell down before the king as he was about to cross he Jordan. He said, 'May my lord not hold me guilty or remember how your servant did wrong on the day my lord the king left Jerusalem. May the king not bear it in mind. Your servant knows that I have sinned. I have come this day, the first of the house of Joseph to come down to meet my lord the king.'

Abishai son of Zeruiah answered, 'Shall not Shimei be put to death for this because he cursed the LORD's anointed?' David said, 'What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah, that you should today become adversary to me? Shall anyone be put to death in Israel this day? Do I not know that I am this day king over Israel?' The king said to Shimei, 'You shall not die.' He gave him his oath.

-------------------------

The beloved was true to the law insofar as he was able.
He did not punishment non-lethal sin in a way that was fatal.

===================

Felix- lucky
Lysias- destroyer

Acts 24:22-23

Felix, who was rather well informed about the Way, adjourned the hearing with the comment, 'When Lysias the tribune comes down, I will decide your case.' Then he ordered the centurion to keep him in custody, but to let him have some liberty and not to prevent any of his friends from taking care of his needs.

-------------------------

The humble citizen defended himself against the charges as false.
He was detained without cruelty to check reports for embellished faults.

===================

Mark 12:32-34

The scribe said to him, 'You are right, Teacher. You have said that "He is one. Beside him there is no other" and "love him with all the heart, the understanding and the strength" and "love one's neighbor as oneself." This is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.' When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, 'You are not far from the kingdom of God.' After that no one dared to ask him any question.

-------------------------

Love God with your heart, understanding and strength.
Love your relations as your self with attention to length.

You are not far from the kingdom of heaven in this law.
Your faith is the leaven to overcome difficulty caused by flaws.

===================

German idealism lent itself to socialism. American idealism has been used for what is right about capitalism.

Devaluations

Max Scheler
b. 8.22.1874 Munich, Germany
d. 5.19.1928 Frankfurt, Germany

Max Ferdinand Scheler was a German philosopher known for his work in phenomenology, ethics and philosophical anthropology. He developed the method of the founder of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl.

Martin Heidegger praised him with Ortega y Gasset as "the strongest philosophical force in... contemporary Europe" after his death in 1928.

Karol Wojtyła, later Pope John Paul II, defended his doctoral thesis in 1954 on the evaluation of the possibility of "Constructing Christian Ethics" based on the system of Max Scheler.

Munich

Munich lies on the elevated plains of Upper Bavaria. Bavaria is in the southeastern corner of Germany. The city is about 50 km (31 mi) north of the northern edge of the Alps at an altitude of about 520 m (1,706 ft) above sea level. The local rivers are the Isar and the Würm. Munich is situated in the Northern Alpine Foreland.

It is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, the second most populous German federal state. It is the third-largest city in Germany with a population of around 1.5 million. It comes after Berlin and Hamburg in size. It is the 12th-largest city in the European Union. The city's metropolitan region is home to 6 million people.

The name of the city is derived from the Old/Middle High German term Munichen, meaning "by the monks".  The Benedictine order ran a monastery at the place that was later to become the Old Town of Munich. A monk is depicted on the city's coat of arms.

The city became the capital of the new Kingdom of Bavaria in 1806. The state's parliament (the Landtag) and the new archdiocese of Munich and Freising were located in the city.

Landshut University was moved to Munich 20 years later. Many of the city's finest buildings belong to this period. They were built under the first Bavarian kings.

Ludwig I rendered outstanding services to Munich's status as a center of the arts. He attracted numerous artists and enhanced the city's architectural substance with grand boulevards and buildings.

Ludwig II came to be known the world over as the fairytale king. He was mostly aloof from his capital and focused more on his fanciful castles in the Bavarian countryside. His patronage of Richard Wagner secured his posthumous reputation, as do his castles, which still generate significant tourist income.

Max Scheler

Max Scheler was born in Munich, Germany on 22 August 1874 to a Lutheran father and an Orthodox Jewish mother.

He was not a particularly strong student, but he showed an interest in the works of Nietzsche. He identified himself as a social democrat and an enthusiastic Marxist.

He turned to Catholicism as an adolescent. He became non-committal prior about 1921. He disassociated from Catholicism and the Judeo-Christian God in public after 1921. He chose to invest in philosophical anthropology.

He started to study medicine at the University of Munich in 1894. He enrolled at the University of Berlin in 1895 for the philosophy and sociology. He attended the lectures of Dilthey and Simmel.
Berlin is 585 km (365 mi.) north of Munich.

Dilthey’s research interests revolved around questions of scientific methodology, historical evidence and the science of history. His view contrasted with the idealism in Germany at the time by his experiential reference differed from British empiricism in basic assumptions. He drew his references from German literary and philosophical traditions.

Simmel was a first generation German sociologist. His approach was neo-Kantian. It laid the foundation for his sociological anti-positivism. He asked the question ‘What is society?’ as a reflection of Kant’s question, ‘What is nature?’ Individuality was a fragmentation of social identity.

The cultivation of individuals through the agency of external forms was conducted by the course of history. He was a forerunner to the structuralist style of reasoning in the social sciences. Urban sociology, symbolic interactionism and social network analysis contributed to the formation of the metropolis.

He transferred to Jena in 1896 to finish his studies with Eucken.

Jena is 260 km (160 mi.) southwest of Berlin.

Eucken advocated for ethical activism as the application for practical idealism. The philosophy of life is for the development of a new culture, not mere intellectualism. It is an application of vital religious inspiration to the practical problems of society.

It was Eucken’s ideas regarding the inner quest for a spiritual life of every human being that drew Scheler’s attention.

It was through this interest in practical idealism that Scheler developed a relationship with the American pragmatism of William James. The two exchanged letters in correspondence.

Scheler received his doctorate on the determination of the relations between logical and ethical principles at the University of Jena in 1897. He worked for his habilitation there as well.

He took a trip to Heidelberg in 1898 and met Max Weber. Weber had an impact on his thought.

Scheler met Husserl at a party in Jena in 1901. He read Husserl’s Logical Investigations a year later. The remainder of this life would be dedicated to the progress of phenomenology.

Scheler was reading French philosophy during this period. He was a major factor in introducing Henri Bergson’s work to German intellectual circles.

Scheler moved his family to Munich in 1906 to start his position there as Privatdozent. A number of students working with the psychologist Theodor Lipps at the University of Munich had founded the Psychologische Verein ("Psychological Association") in 1895.

Lipps was known for the theory of aesthetics that framed the concept of empathy. His work opened a new branch of interdisciplinary research in psychology and philosophy.

Psychology was a discipline on the rise at the turn of the 20th century. The relation between philosophy and psychology was intensely debated. The debate concerned whether psychology is a philosophical discipline or whether philosophy is based on psychology.

The position that logical concepts are psychological have been labeled as “psychologism.” The logical law of the excluded middle has to be interpreted in terms which state that it is impossible for a subject to judge at the same time that p and not-p are true.

Psychologism was contested by a competing approach within the “anti-psychologist” strand.  There are different views as to how logical concepts and laws have to be positively defined. They agreed that logic does not depend on psychology.

Husserl's Logical Investigations (1900/01) was critical of the psychologism. A number of participants in the Psychological Association at Munich decided to align themselves with Husserl. They became the Munich Circle of phenomenologists. Scheler joined this group.

The Munich circle included students from both the Psychological Association and the phenomenological group.

A number of Lipps' students followed the lead of Daubert in 1905. They left Munich for the University of Gottingen to work with Husserl. The arrival of students from Munich eventually led to the establishment of a similar student group in Göttingen circa 1910, known as the Göttingen Circle.

Scheler taught at the University of Munich from 1907 to 1910. He lost his teaching privileges due to controversies surrounding the separation from his first wife and reported affairs with students.

He earned his living as a private scholar, lecturer and freelance writer from 1910 to 1919. He  joined the circle after the invitation in 1912 to give private lectures in Göttingen.

He was forbidden to teach at a German university so his lectures would often have to be held in hotel rooms rented by his close friend Dietrich von Hildebrand.

The first volume of the Yearbook for Philosophy and Phenomenological Research appeared in 1913. Scheler was a co-editor with 3 others and Husserl.

He published major works such as Phenomenology and Theory of the Feeling of Sympathy and of Love and Hate (1913), Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Value (Part 1 1913, Part 2 1916), The Genius of War and the German War (1915).

Scheler conceptualized the nation as an intellectual collective entity, which discovers and recognizes itself through war in his famous 1915 essay. The German nation, purified through the war, had the political mission of pushing Russia back into Asia and unifying Europe.

He tried to demonstrate a fundamental difference between Europe and Asia by analysing music, language, religion, gender roles and thought.

He attempted to explain this phenomenon of an all-pervading hate towards Germany in a lecture in Frankfurt in 1916. This prompted his essay “The Causes of Hatred Against Germans”, which was first published in 1917 and again in 1919.

The strongest motivation of the hate laid in the newly established unique German work ethic. The ethic was intensified by political, economic and social requirements. The ancient characteristic pursuit of the infinite which expressed itself in idealism coalesced with the work ethic.

Transcendental phenomenlogy posited a necessary correlation between reality and consciousness. A thing in itself is never one with which consciousness has nothing to do.

Edith Stein became a student of Husserl. She wrote her dissertation on the problem of empathy. It was finished in 1916. She became his teaching assistant.

Scheler had voluntarily enrolled to serve in the war for the airship battalion of the reserve in Cologne, but was not accepted due to his astigmatism. The State Department  sent him to Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands from 1917 to 1918 to influence Catholic circles. He was to give lectures to sick and wounded German soldiers, interned in the neutral Netherlands.

This phase of his war philosophy coincided with the period in which the philosopher developed his theory of value. This theory proceeds on the assumption of the existence of an objective hierarchy of values which can be accessed through intentional feeling of values.

Scheler also composed several articles next to his book on formalism. He was accepted into the Catholic Church. He worked on the prominent Catholic magazine Hochland.

He finally took a strong position against nationalism entirely and committed himself to Europeanism in his lecture “On Europe’s Cultural Reconstruction” in 1917-1918. His Europeanism primarily encompassed continental Europe, but he suggested that England should also be included. This new Europe should be open towards Asia culturally.

Europe was now a “community of intellect and love” in his definition of nation. The unity of Europe was the reference point for a post-war order. He used the term “Europeanism” in an affirmative manner to show a third possibility of forming unity beyond nationalism and internationalism.

Europe was not defined by its geography. It was a concept that connoted a unified, spiritual structure. The collective enemy was the capitalistic, liberal, bourgeois, nationalistic and imperialistic ethos. Europeanism and anti-capitalistic criticism can be identified as constants in his war philosophy.

Scheler received an invitation in 1918 to join the faculty of the newly founded research institute for the social sciences in Cologne. He became professor of philosophy and sociology at the University of Cologne.

He wrote his major work on religion, On the Eternal in Man (1921) during his time at Cologne. He stayed there until 1928.  He accepted a new position at the University of Frankfurt early that year.

Scheler was the only scholar of rank of the then German intelligentsia who gave warning in public speeches delivered as early as 1927 of the dangers of the growing National Socialist movement.

'Politics and Morals' and 'The Idea of Eternal Peace and Pacifism' were subjects of talks he delivered in Berlin in 1927. He argued that capitalism was a calculating, globally growing 'mind-set', rather than an economic system in his analysis.

While economic capitalism may have had some roots in ascetic Calvinism, its very mind-set had its origin in modern, subconscious angst as expressed in increasing needs for financial and other securities for protection and personal safeguards as well as for rational manageability of all entities.

The subordination of the value of the individual person to this mind-set was sufficient reason to denounce it and to predict a whole new era of culture and values which he called 'The World-Era of Adjustment'.

Scheler advocated for an international university to be set up in Switzerland. He was at that time supportive of programs such as 'continuing education' and of what he seems to have been the first to call a 'United States of Europe'.

He deplored the gap existing in Germany between power and mind, a gap which he regarded as the very source of an impending dictatorship and the greatest obstacle to the establishment of German democracy.

He died in Frankfurt, Germany at the age of 53 on 19 May 1928. The Nazi dictatorship (1933–1945) suppressed Scheler's work 5 years after his death.

The Germans were like the French in their idealism. They were for socialism in that it was opposed to British and American capitalism. They started to criticize Marx, but they maintained his criticism against Adam Smith.

Marx had used the prediction of proletariat revolution to deflect attention from national dependence upon socialist government. Labor had made such progress in gaining benefits that they had a better quality of life than much of the middle class.

Now socialists subscribe to populist media stories in order to suggest that there is unity in opposition to economic success.

The middle class still has a presumption of professionalism with education for business enterprise. Socialist government was subverting the value of education by the implication that the applicants for higher education had to support the criticism of capitalism. 

Liberals made funding for research look like it was entirely dependent upon the government as a source. This lent itself to the perception that the intellectual had to blame the success of the business world for economic inequality.

Capitalism maintains a position for the production of value for the public with products or services. Education and the limitation of political overreach contribute to the production of value.

Organization can be developed when liberals in the national government are not claiming to be the answer to things like gun violence, racism, sexism and capitalism with legislation and increased taxation.   

Max Scheler
S. 马克斯舍勒
T. 馬克斯舍勒

马  Ma    horse                   馬 ba         horse                     Ma  まっ  マッ          Maeg  맥  vein   
克  ke      gram                   克  koku   overcome               ku    く       ク             seu     스  s         
斯  si        this                     斯 shi        this                        su     す      ス             Chel   첼  cell     
舍  She    house                 舍  seki     inn                         She  しぇ  シェ           leo     러   naughty
勒  lei      to force               勒   roku   halter                     ra     ら-   ラ-                         

-------------------------

The horse ran to overcome the halter.
It passed the inn. It did not falter.

===================

wiki Max Scheler
SEP Scheler
SEP Phenomenology
wiki Munich

Absolute Self

Kant was Prussian. His philosophy has been used to promote universal disarmament. It is too idealistic in this regard.

Berkeley used the concept of the immaterial as a contrast to material reality. His idealism was conditioned by the search to define knowledge. He was opposed to the liberal implications of Locke's empiricism.

Consider the use of the term absolute with respect to objective judgment. When judgment is restrained by reason to realistic truth, it is guided by impartial considerations. It is not subjectively for prejudice.

The sun shines and the rain falls on people irrespective of prejudiced beliefs conditioned by race, creed or color.

Thursday, July 11, 2019

Walk

7.11.19

Sela Ward

Walk
with
Joy
高兴地走着 
Gāoxìng de zǒuzhe
喜びで歩く 
Yorokobi de aruku
ps1
Ambulate in gaudium

Walk with joy.
It's not a ploy.

There is an end for the one who follows a path.
Rambling without purpose is a loss as long as it lasts.

If you look for truth as an exclusion of you       
you will be removed by your search for what's true.              

I meet truthfulness everywhere I walk.       
I am in it to win it, but it speaks when I talk.

If you understand yourself in this way 
you will merge with the way that things play.

This union between the earth and sky
is grounded in love with wings from on high.

Dance and sing with the strength that you may
help us to enjoy the light of the day.

The darkness of the earth is a source for mirth and great girth.
The length of light from the sky lends grace and favor to warm worth.

The earth writes trees upon the sky.
The forest is a poem of power for the stately eye.

The daughters of dawn dance to the end of the world.
They stop to watch as the wind swirls
in the early summer breeze. The weather starts to unfurl
in their veins as wonder for the pleasure of their curls.

Wearing the tiara in the color of hair,
light is reflected for the cause of the fair.

Wisteria grows wild in the field outside the city.
The flower rises with love, sorrow and the beautiful lily.

Standing still in wonder, a brother stands outside the forest shadow
to act as a witness to nature's joy as nature nurtured and hallowed. 

The canopy of forest courses with the air
as a crown that reaches wide above the height of stairs.

Devils Millhopper, Gainesville, FL

The leaves wave as the robust virtue of trees.
The heart of the moment is happily seized.
Thousands of moments wave in the breeze.
Words fail only to describe the majesty of what was seen.

Beauty reveals herself as though she were hidden
by the ordinary form of the forbidden as bitten.

The sons of the summer sun assemble in a different way.
Their assembly is on a court with a level lay. 
A ball is at the center of their play.

The courage of creativity 
gives conscience conscious virility.

The constellation of clouds speak of star dusted constellations
steeped in an indigo gown that conceal or reveal consolation
sequestered over the sea of cultured imagination.

This is a gift from the universe.
The gift gives from his excess to reimburse
loss for the privilege of the privy purse.

The right to vote makes the state a republic. 
Democracy is something the economy must stomach.

Government can't afford to favor the rich or the poor.
Land lies in the distance between shores.

The power to declare war has been used to undermine rights.
The inception of the conception has caused many fights.

Racism is bad. Sexism is as well. 
Sectarian religion promotes strife as an earthly form of hell.

Profit from violence undermines authority more than power. 
Credibility glowers as the force of law sours by the hour. 

When war is declared or enacted without tact
rights are diminished beyond recognition in fact.

Outlaw invasion to preserve the representation of rights. 
The public will be seen as it is, made by billions of lights.

When the death penalty is used for oppression by terror, 
justice is pushed out of the legal system's stately stride for progression in error.

Reduce the death penalty to convictions of murder actually proven.
Protect justice in the legal system to make the state more human and less gruesome.

Counter-terrorism has to deter terrorist acts
to protect security in fact.

Morality has regarded racketeering as illegal.
This view sees law as regal as an eagle.

Plutocracy takes too much from everybody
and gives more to those who use it to lobby.

Rights are the fruit of power. 
Power is the product of labor by the hour. 

We pay for government with our taxes.
We have the right to free trade that waxes
as prosperity for the wealthiest relaxes. 

We have the right to liberty in the law with justice.
The charge for our security cannot bust us.

Happy are those who do not choose
the will to power over others by making them lose.

Happy are those who do not use 
death or damage for profit profuse.

We delight in moral law.
Scientific goodness as defined by needs is raw.
Science leads perception into objective perspective for all.

The crowd tried to touch the healer Jesus Christ.
Power had gone out to heal consequence from sacrifice.

Christ has been raised from the dead.
He is the first fruit for those who by faith have tread.

Personal perspective goes gonzo 
when prejudice drives action with bongos
to follow fake news into discrimination as a motto, 
but happiness rules when objectivity values virtue for the cosmos.

Abstraction with respect for kind leads to generalization.
It is not a claim to the infinite extension of sensation.

An object is not just a line, length, surface or solid. 
The perception is an extension for knowledge.

That which is common is alike in all.
The detection of reflection distinguishes big from small.

Cry out for insight to understand what's odd
to find knowledge with faith in God.

Blue is not green, red, yellow, white or black.
It is a color with a specific word attached.

If you are neither male nor female, free nor slave, one color or another
then you are defined as a kind with respect for difference in others.

A tree planted by the water is blessed.
The roots are by moisture in the soil caressed.

When heat comes, it produces fruit.
After winter has gone, green leaves still shoot.

We are like trees planted by the water.
We bear fruit in due season with our alma mater. 

Our leaves do not wither when nurtured by our kind mother. 
We prosper with achievement in performance for sister and brother.

Wisteria grows wild in the field outside the city.
The flower rises with love, sorrow and the beautiful lily.

Christ has been raised from the dead for us.
He is the first fruit for those who by faith have tread over root and ruts.

Our legacy will not be blown away.
Unlike dust in the wind, we will stay. 
Judgment will have mercy for the merciful day. 

Fortune will favor the mind 
that prepares a place for love in time.

Count the cost for your intent before you start to work
to avoid the ridicule bent to make you feel like a jerk.

Work and study produce efficient practice
for kindness in rank and restraint in the tactics of status. 

The way of the righteous is known to be shown
that wickedness may falter, fall and fail, not grow.

Walk in faith with joy for civility.
Your mobility in ability will increase your utility.      

Walk with confidence in joy.
Bad feelings will be destroyed.                                                                 

joy
喜悦  xiyue
喜び yorokobi

------------------------

1 Beatus vir qui non abiit
Happy are those who have not walked

1 Happy are they who have not walked in the counsel of
the wicked,
nor lingered in the way of sinners,
nor sat in the seats of the scornful!

2 Their delight is in the law of the Lord,
and they meditate on his law day and night.

3 They are like trees planted by streams of water,
bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither;
everything they do shall prosper.

4 It is not so with the wicked;
they are like chaff which the wind blows away.

5 Therefore the wicked shall not stand upright when
judgment comes,
nor the sinner in the council of the righteous.

6 For the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked is doomed.

--------------------------
Proverbs 2:3,5

If you cry out for insight
and raise your voice for understanding;
then you will understand the fear of the LORD
and find the knowledge of God.

--------------------------

Cry out for insight to understand what's odd
to find knowledge with faith in God.

===================
Luke 14:27-29

Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
Which of you with the intent to build a tower does not first sit down and
estimate the cost to see whether he has enough to complete it?

Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all
will ridicule him by saying, "This fellow began to build and was not able to
finish."

--------------------------

Count the cost for your intent before you start to work
to avoid the ridicule bent to make you feel like a jerk.

===================

The Call

Benedict of Nursia
b.  c. 3.2.480  Norcia, Umbria, Kingdom of Odacer
d.  c. 3.21.547 Monte Cassino, Kingdom of Ostrogoths.

Benedict of Nursia was the founder of the Benedictine monastic system. He founded twelve communities for monks at Subiaco, Lazio, Italy. The location is about 40 miles (64 km) to the east of Rome. He moved to Monte Cassino in the mountains of southern Italy later.

The Benedictines are not an "order" as commonly understood but merely a confederation of autonomous congregations.

The "Rule of Saint Benedict" was his main achievement. It contains a set of rules for his monks to follow. The rule was heavily influenced by the writings of John Cassian. It shows strong affinity with the Rule of the Master.

There is also a unique spirit of balance, moderation and reasonableness (ἐπιείκεια, epieíkeia). This persuaded most Christian religious communities founded throughout the Middle Ages to adopt it. It was not restricted to Roman Catholicism after the Reformation.

His became one of the most influential religious rules in Western Christendom as a result. Benedict has been regarded as the founder of Western Christian monasticism for this reason.

Nursia

Norcia is traditionally known by the Latin name Nursia. It is a town in northeastern Umbria. It is located in a wide plain abutting the Monti Sibillini.

The monti is a subrange of the Apennines. Some of the highest peaks are near the Sordo River. The river is a small stream that eventually flows into the Nera. The town is associated with the Valnerina, the valley of that river.

The area is known for its air and scenery. People use it to mountaineer, hike and hunt. Wild boar are hunted there.  Sausage and ham are made from wild boar. Such products have been named after Norcia. They are called norcineria in Italian.

The town's known history begins with settlement by the Sabines in the 5th century BCE. The Sabines were a tribe that moved nomadically in the Apennines.  The settlement was conquered by the Romans in the 3d century BCE.

It was an ally of Rome during the Second Punic War in 205 BCE. It was known as Nursia then. The earliest extant Roman ruins date from around the 1st century.

Benedict

Benedict and his twin sister Scholastica were born in Nursia in 480. They were the children of Roman nobles.

The Roman Empire was disintegrating during his youth. The Italian peninsula was the scene of constant war between barbarian tribes.

The young Benedict moved from his birthplace to Rome for his education. He soon abandoned the "eternal city" when he became disgusted with the paganism and immorality he saw there. He abandoned his studies and left Rome in 500.

He does not seem to have left Rome for the purpose of becoming a hermit. He only wanted  to find some place away from the life of the great city. He took his old nurse with him as a servant. They settled down to live in Enfide.

The tradition of Subiaco identifies Enfide with the modern Affile. It is in the Simbruini mountains about forty miles from Rome and two from Subiaco.

A short distance from Enfide is the entrance to a narrow, gloomy valley. The valley penetrates the mountains and leads directly to Subiaco. The path continues to ascend from the entrance. The side of the ravine on which it runs becomes steeper until a cave is reached. The mountain now rises almost perpendicularly.

It strikes in a rapid descent on the right down to where 500 feet (150 m) below, lay the blue waters of the lake. The cave has a large triangular-shaped opening about ten feet deep.

Benedict met a monk on his way from Enfide. Romanus of Subiaco had a monastery on the mountain above the cliff overhanging the cave. Romanus had discussed with Benedict the purpose which had brought him there.

He had given him the monk's habit. Benedict became a hermit and for three years by his advice.  He lived in this cave above the lake unknown to men.

An ancient account of Benedict is found in the second volume of Pope Gregory I's four-book Dialogues (593). The description provides a spiritual portrait of the gentle, disciplined abbot.

Gregory did not set out to write a chronological, historically anchored story of Benedict. He based his anecdotes on direct testimony. Gregory explained that his information came from a handful of Benedict's disciples who lived with the saint and witnessed his various miracles.

Constantinus succeeded Benedict as Abbot of Monte Cassino. Valentinianus and Simplicius bore witness. Honoratus was the abbot of Subiaco when Gregory wrote his Dialogues.

History was not recognized as an independent field of study in Gregory's day. It was a branch of grammar or rhetoric. Historia was defined as 'story.' The story provided a basis for the consideration of reason in experience.

Gregory speaks of Benedict no longer as a youth (puer), but as a man (vir) of God. Romanus served the young man every way he could. The monk apparently visited him frequently. He brought him food on fixed days.

Benedict matured both in mind and character during his three years of solitude. He grew in the knowledge of himself and his fellow man. He secured the respect of those who lived near him.

When the abbot of a monastery in the neighborhood died, the community came to him and begged him to become its abbot. Benedict was acquainted with the life and discipline of the monastery. He knew that their manners were different from his. They would never be able to agree on how to live as a community.

He consented despite his prediction. The experiment failed. The monks tried to poison him. The legend goes that they first tried to poison his drink. He prayed a blessing over the cup and the cup shattered. He forgave them, but left the group. He went back to his cave at Subiaco.

Monks sought him out again. He had established 12 monasteries with 12 monks in each before long.
One of the local clergy, Florentius, was so envious of his reputation that he put poison in a loaf of bread for him. When Benedict prayed to bless the bread a raven swooped down and took it away.

He left Subiaco in about 530 to avoid further temptation. He founded the great Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino. The residence lies on a hilltop between Rome and Naples.

The emperor Justinian I of the Byzantine empire attempted to reclaim land that had been taken by the Ostrogoths from the western Roman empire. This resulted in the Gothic War between 535 and 554 on the Italian penisula and in surrounding areas.

Totila was the king of the Ostrogoths from 541 to 552. He reversed the tide of the Gothic war. He recovered almost all the territories in Italy that the Eastern Roman Empire had captured from his Kingdom in 540 by 543.

Totila's meeting with Benedict of Nursia at Monte Cassino occurred either before or soon after the siege of Naples in (543). Totila had ordered his sword bearer Riggio to dress in royal robes to see if the abbot could tell if he was an imposter. The impersonation was detected.

When Totila met with Benedict he was rebuked for his cruelty towards the conquered. Benedict told the king that it was time for his iniquity to cease. Totila asked Benedict to remember him in his prayers and departed. His cruelty toward conquered people was converted to clemency.

Benedict drew up a rule of life for monastics largely from the work of John Cassian and his own experience. He called it "a school of the Lord's service. " The hope was to order nothing harsh or rigorous.

The Rule gave instruction for how the community was to be organized. It  stressed communal living, physical labor, common meals and the avoidance of unnecessary conversation.

A division of time was drawn. An average day included about 4 hours to be spent in liturgical prayer in the Divine Office, 5 hours in reading and study, 6 hours in labor, 1 hour for eating and about 8 hours for sleep. The Book of Psalms was to be recited every week as a part of the Office.

A Benedictine monk took vows of obedience, stability and conversion of life. He vowed to live in accordance with the Rule, not to leave his community without grave cause and to seek to follow the teaching and example of Christ in all things.

A prospective monk would spend a week at the monastery as a visitor. He could apply to become a postulant. A postulant agreed to stay for 6 months. He could not leave without the consent of the abbot.

The postulant could leave or apply to become a novice for a year. The novice could leave or ask to become a brother for 3 years. The brother could leave, take a vow for another 3 years or take a vow for life as a monastic.

He is believed to have died of a fever at Monte Cassino not long after his sister, Scholastica. He was buried in the same place as his sister. This occurred on 21 March 547 according to tradition. He was named patron protector of Europe by Pope Paul VI in 1964. Pope John Paul II declared him co-patron of Europe, together with Saints Cyril and Methodius, 1980.

The chief source of power in Benedict's time was muscle, whether human or animal. Labor could always be done by oxen or slaves. Monks were both scholars and workers. A monk was likely to think, "There must be a better way of doing this" after spending a few hours doing some laborious task by hand.

The result was the systematic development of windmills and water wheels for grinding grain, sawing wood, pumping water, and so on. The rotation of crops (including legumes) and other agricultural advances were also originated or promoted by monastic farms. The monks taught the dignity of labor and the importance of order and planning by example.

An oratory was built so pilgrims could pray at St. Benedict’s birthplace in the 8th century. Monks traveled to Norcia in the 10th century. Contemporary monks care for the Monastery of St. Benedict, built over the Roman ruins of the house of Sts. Benedict and Scholastica.

The effect of the monastic movement was enormous. The preservation of the Holy Scriptures and other ancient writings was due in large measure to the patience and diligence of monastic scribes.
The life of Benedict of Nursia is celebrated on July 11 in the Anglican Communion.

Prayer

Gracious God, whose service is perfected with freedom and in whose commandments there is nothing harsh nor burdensome, grant that we with your servant Benedict may listen with attentive minds, pray with fervent hearts and serve you with willing hands so we may live at peace with one another and in obedience to thy Word, Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Benedict Nursia
S. 本尼迪克特·托尼亚
T. 本尼迪克特·托尼亞

本  Ben   source               本  hon      book             Be   べ      ベ             Be  베  the                         
尼  ni       nun                   尼  ni         nun               ne   ね      ネ              ne  네  yeah             
迪  di       enlighten          迪   teki     path              di    でぃ  ディ         dig  딕  Dick         
克  ke      restrain             克   koku   kindly           ku    く       ク           teu   트  the                 
特  te       unique               特  toku    special          to     と       ト           Nu    누  fistula       
托  Tuo    base                  托  taku     entrust         Nu    ぬ     ヌ              si     시   city           
尼   ni       nun                  尼   ni        nun               ru     る      ル            a       아   ah         
亚  ya       second             亞   a          rank             shi     し      シ                   
                                                                                 a        あ     ア             

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Work and study produce efficient practice
for kindness in rank and restraint in the tactics of status.

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Lectionary Benedict of Nursia
wiki Benedict of Nursia