Today is Sunday [Bugün Pazar] | Nazim Hikmet
Today is Sunday.
Today they took me out in the sun for the first time.
And I just stood there, struck for the first time in my life
by how far away the sky is,
how blue
and how wide.
Then I respectfully sat down on the earth.
I leaned back against the wall.
For a moment no trap to fall into,
no struggle, no freedom, no wife.
Only earth, sun, and me…

I am happy.

In the Original Turkish:
Bugün pazar.
Bugün, beni ilk defa
Güneşe çıkardılar.
Ve ben, ömrümde ilk defa
Gökyüzünün
Bu kadar benden uzak,
Bu kadar mavi,
Bu kadar geniş olduğuna şaşarak,
Kımıldamadan durdum
Sonra, saygıyla toprağa oturdum,
Dayadım sırtımı duvara.
Bu anda;
Ne düşmek dalgalara,
Bu anda;
Ne kavga, ne hürriyet, ne karım.
Toprak,
Güneş ve
Ben…
Bahtiyarım…

I was reading the bible and ran across these verses:

“Truly my soul silently waits for God;
From him comes my salvation,
He only is my rock and my salvation;
He is my defense;
I shall not be greatly moved.”

Psalm 62:1-2 New King James Version

“My soul, wait silently for God
alone,
For my expectation is
from Him.
He only is my rock and
my salvation
He is my defense;
I shall not be moved
In God is my salvation and
my glory;
The rock of my strength
and my refuge, is in God. “

Psalm 62:5-7, New King James Version

I read this last week when I wasn’t feeling that great. Something ticked me off that day and I just felt like crying. I don’t know why. I kept telling myself, I shouldn’t be upset, I should not want this, I should not be angry. Whenever my mom tells me to do the dishes, I get this weird feeling in my stomach, something akin to anger, dark and curling in its own fire. It tells me not to do it. But I breathe, I count to 30, wait 5 minutes and then I do my own dishes. After she yells at me a few more times for not doing it quickly enough, I count again and breathe. I wait a few more moments and then finish the rest. I ask God to give me patience and kindness and through him, I can swallow my anger. I can do the dishes.

Why does this happen? I don’t know. I mean, I don’t even do the dishes very often. I do the dishes when it’s my responsibility, but it’s not. I hate gloves so I wash the dishes with my hands. But my eczema gets worse and I get a rash. Gloves or eczema?

But everything is good now.

http://www.opendemocracy.net/home/chinapower/china.jsp

Other related links:

http://www.globescan.com/news_archives/GS_PIPA_EU.html

http://www.opendemocracy.net/

Kerry Brown: Read what Brown has to say

“Like it or not,” says Brown, “some of the names on this list should be household names outside of China. They really do have the power to affect the lives of citizens around the world, and we need to know much more about them.”

It’s part of the website openDemocracy and Think Tank is part of the the London-based international-relations institution Chatham House

I was also looking at Times magazine’s website and saw this article I liked a lot…well, at least the beginning. Here’s an excerpt:

 “Worlds do not go gently. When the kings of Bali saw in 1906 that they could no longer fend off the Dutch army, they chose an ending both glorious and horrific–the now legendary puputan. They ordered their palaces set alight. Then, clad in ritual white and armed only with spears and sacred knives, the ranks of the nobility hurled themselves against Dutch rifles until a thousand Balinese lay dead against the soft, green earth. Much else was shed with their blood: one of the last obstacles to full Dutch mastery of the Indies, but also, more imperceptibly, a world beholden to rajahs and viziers, and an Asia that could not but appear to the world as magical and archaic and doomed.” -“Asians of the Century” by NISID HAJARI

Other quotes I like:

Thomas D’s and my friend Charmaine’s quotes on facebook. I don’t know what version Thomas is using but I like the passage anyways. It doesn’t sound as cool in my bible when I looked it up.

“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you.” - Ezekiel 25:17

“A MAGICIAN CAME to entertain us, and I was mesmerized by his beautiful hands, his fluid, round gestures. I couldn’t stop watching his hands. They were better than any of his tricks. He pulled a bouquet of paper flowers out of the air and gave them to me with a courtly bow, and I thought love was like that, pulled out of the air, something bright and unlikely.” ~White Oleander

When Moses conversed with God, he asked, “Lord, where shall I seek you?”
God answered, “Among the brokenhearted.”
Moses continued, “But, Lord, no heart could be more despairing than mine.”
And God replied, “Then I am where you are.”
[abu'l fayd al-misri]

[good will hunting]

“So if I asked you about art, you’d probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written.  Michelangelo, you know a lot about him: life’s work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right?  But I’ll bet you can’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel.  You’ve never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. If I ask you about women, you’d probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites.  You may have even been laid a few times.  But you can’t tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. 

You’re a tough kid.  And I’d ask you about war, you’d probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, “once more unto the breach dear friends.”  But you’ve never been near one.  You’ve never held your best friend’s head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. 

I’d ask you about love, you’d probably quote me a sonnet.  But you’ve never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable.  Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you, who could rescue you from the depths of hell. 

And you wouldn’t know what it’s like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there for her, through anything, through cancer.  And you wouldn’t know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms “visiting hours” don’t apply to you. 

You don’t know about real loss, ’cause it only occurs when you’ve loved something more than you love yourself.  And I doubt you’ve ever dared to love anybody that much.”

When I was reading http://2besureofwhatwehope4.blogspot.com/ and found the quote below:

“At the time of his death, my father remained a myth to me, both more and less than a man. He had left Hawaii back in 1963, when I was only two years old, so that as a child I knew him only through the stories my mother and grandparents told. They all had their favorites, each one seamless, burned smooth from repeated use… That’s how all the stories went – compact, apocryphal, told in rapid succession in the course of one evening, then packed away for months, sometimes years, in my family’s memory…”-Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father