Mark 12:30-31
"'And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."
“Work is love made visible. And if you can't work with love, but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of the people who work with joy."
Patience is a hard discipline. It is not just waiting until something happens over which we have no control: the arrival of the bus, the end of the rain, the return of a friend, the resolution of a conflict. Patience is not a waiting passivity until someone else does something. Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present to the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are. When we are impatient we try to get away from where we are. We behave as if the real thing will happen tomorrow, later and somewhere else. Let’s be patient and trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand.
Down by the water's edge I see through the trees while the rain mists down. The sky reveals itself and in a moment I become breathless, hoping and praying to be swallowed up by the cold. There is no silence in this still, sudden solitude but I hear only waves, softly singing to my soul.
I'm not going to be long on this subject: Jesus isn't a very condemning person. How do I know this? Because He says so. Jesus was brought a woman caught in the act of [sin] adultery, (see: Exodus 20:14 = “You shall not commit adultery." That's one of the top 10, mind you.) and he says, ultimately, "I don't condemn you."
See that? Fairly simple analysis. I'm not going out of context, making wild statements, or anything.
HOWEVER, if you notice, he is still going ahead and calling it sin: "From now on sin no more," Jesus says.
And that's the thing: sin is still sin. Sin is a problem for us. Sin & sins will keep us from God. But Jesus isn't going to condemn us. I'll go out on a limb and say sin(ning) condems ourselves.
Still, there seems to be one last clear point: "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." Only if you have NO SIN do you get to condemn/throw stones. And Jesus said this to the religious superstars of the time. What happened? THEY WALKED AWAY. They left.
Why did they leave? BECAUSE THEY MUST HAVE REMEMBERED THAT THEY HAVE SOME SIN IN THEIR LIVES, TOO.
And Jesus didn't condemn them for it, but he sure seemed to remind them.
In conclusion:
1) Jesus doesn't condemn us, we do it to ourselves.
2) It's not our right or place to condemn or judge others, because we're not perfect, either.
3) Sin is still not good. It's important not to ignore it. And it's really important to stop doing it once we know about it.
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John 8: 3-11 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery.5 Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?”6 This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”8 And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground.9 But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”
It's shocking to me that people think it's ok to consume candy upon ice cream upon cookies upon chips with no sense of discretion or limit.
1) there are billions in this world starving while people consume tons of junk food.
2) these companies now have the money and marketing to sell their garbage TO the starving billions
And the downward cycle continues.
What's funny to me is that all the ads & magazines push for perfect bodies: sculpted, athletic & healthy-diet bodies, and yet people complain how hard it is to achieve that WHILE CONSUMING MASS QUANTITIES OF JUNK FOOD (not the least to say mass quantities of food, with portions set at ginormous sizes probably double or triple or more what is needed to consume in one sitting).
I know because I was one of them. I still struggle at times, but when I was a kid i'd ballooned up to 265 pounds of flab. It was when i started eating less desserts/highly-salted carbs and exercised more (cardio & weights - never crazy weights b/c i just didn't have the time or commitment for it) that i dropped to 200 +/-10 pounds for most of my post-high-school life.
But it's when i'm not feeling healthy, or a little more pudgy around certain areas that i'd like, that my first checkmark is to cut back on any candy, cookie, or sugar. And as i stare at my cup of coffee, I probably need to go black or just goto tea (b/c i can't drink coffee black...).
At 95 years old, Nelson Mandela—an incredible human being, icon of peace and inspiration to untold millions—has passed away. "This is the moment of our deepest sorrow. Our nation has lost its greatest son," South African President Zuma said. RELEVANT will have a full look at his life and legacy shortly, but in the meantime, please read his powerful, moving statement at the opening of the defense case in his trial ...
"...because I wanted to say: "I've crossed oceans of time to find you." It was worth playing the role just to say that line.
We all look for that other half, that partner. I mean, wouldn't it be great to say that line to someone and mean it?"
Oldman has made a career of being the guy you remember more than the protagonist. He's the lead in the new Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
What other people think of me is none of my business.
Acting is living truthfully under imaginary circumstances. An acting teacher told me that.
You choose your friends by their character and your socks by their color.
"Fuck 'em." Shortest prayer in the world.
A lazy man works twice as hard. My mother told that to me, and now I say it to my kids. If you're writing an essay, keep it in the lines and in the margins so you don't have to do it over.
I wanted to play Dracula because I wanted to say: "I've crossed oceans of time to find you." It was worth playing the role just to say that line.
We all look for that other half, that partner. I mean, wouldn't it be great to say that line to someone and mean it?
There's 99 percent crap across pretty much everything. And then there's that one plateau where I want to be.
You ever go into a house, see a light switch, and it's slightly crooked? Drives me crazy. Crazy.
There are bass players who know when not to play. I don't know if that can be taught.
Bernie Taupin! My hero growing up! His lyrics are cinematic.
You can make a performance better in the editing, but you can sure tear passion to tatters with the scissors.
What would you do if you were a painter, and you gave your painting over to someone, and then you saw it in an exhibition and they'd cut seven inches off the top of it? And the corner was painted red. We thought it would be better red. But that wouldn't happen.
I enjoy playing characters where the silence is loud.
The phone call is often the best part of it. Your agent says, "They want you to play Hamlet at the Old Vic." And you go, "Holy shit! Hamlet at the Old Vic! Wow! God! Fantastic!" Then you hang up and it's "Fuck, I'm playing Hamlet."
The lights go down. What do you got?
When you meet someone, you can get something out of him like when you first look at a painting.
I'm almost incapable of lying. I'd be a terrible spy.
New York is London on steroids.
Downtown L. A. looks like they started to build Chicago and then gave up ... and let it become a sprawling suburb.
I never moved here. I came here to make a film. I've lived in America now for nearly twenty years.
You're tired? Have a baby, then come back and tell me how tired tired is.
There's no handbook for parenting. So you walk a very fine line as a parent because you are civilizing these raw things. They will tip the coffee over and finger-paint on the table. At some point, you have to say, "We're gonna have to clean that up because you don't paint with coffee on a table."
You don't step straight up to the front of the ATM line. You don't cut in front of people at the ticket desk. You take your turn. You can learn great life lessons from board games.
My kids are my greatest achievement.
They're proud of what I've done, but wonderfully underwhelmed.
I don't bring the work home. That's because I do the work up front. I prepare. Once you find the character and take it around the block a few times, the engine will always be warm. You just need to rev it up. You're not turning the key cold. You can finish a day, leave it at work, go home, and help the kids with their homework.
I never thought I'd see the end of celluloid in my lifetime, but it seems to be one amazing deal away.
By the way, the Harry Potter series is literature, in spite of what some people might say. The way J.K. Rowling worked that world out is quite something.
A few years ago, my mother asked what I'd like for my birthday. I had enough socks, slippers, and ties. So I said: "I don't know, get me a ukulele." It kind of fell from the sky into my head. And she got it for me. I started playing it and now my kids are into it. So we've gone ukulear in the house.
I don't pursue things. They come to me. They come through the letter box. People get an idea in their heads. "What about Gary Oldman?"
A director expects you to come in, open your suitcase, and say, "Okay, here's my stuff, guv'nah."
