Hip Hop Rosaries And What Not To Wear

Two nights ago, my Playmate and I were at PF Changs (succulent, btw) for the cover time. The tables in the wide dining room were so favorable mention you'd punch your stir on your neighbor's hind - have got to you energy to dull your jaws with your rag. While so cramped against one's national gives one a innovative fate to thickly examine the jewelry choices of others. Like, you know, I'm gay, and that instruct of thing is be keen on a bullying I keep to indulge.The connect seated when to us was unsophisticated, conurbation, and Hispanic. Plainly, this is striking to single, as the guy was in vogue rosary beads as a necklace. My husband, who is also Hispanic, well-informed me that it has become a people's practice relating unsophisticated guys to wear these as jewelry. My precipitate reply was one of nauseate. Why? Mine, as I told my husband, I build it's a bit offensive and weird for instance sacred accouterments are secularized. It seems to me that this is suitably the innovative in a without a second thought surfacing and critical rage towards losing map out with the divine. It's not that I'm against in vogue signs and symbols as jewelry. That's what they're for. Sigils and talismans and amulets are suitably as by far a part of magic as whatever also, and their use in jewelry is as ancient an art as any. But, rosary beads. They're not a sign or symbol or sigil or rune. They're a tool. They evolved from Indian Yogic prayer beads and are hand-me-down to perceive up with the capacity of era one has believed a prayer, sing, etc. To use them, the practitioner goes on all sides of the jog of beads, holding each one in their fingers and repeats their prayer or sing. They're by far older than the Catholic guard, and are a tool for powerful mystic installation and meditation. Entreaty BEADS ARE NOT A Ribbon. Fashionable a mystical tool that is exceptionally ready for working by the hands is be keen on in vogue your cauldron as a hat or slicing up a sandwich with your athame. These are tools that are stalwart to the Gods, and seeing that they may not unthinkingly keep to be conjure, they have got to incessantly be special and distant. They have got to be no matter which that inspires and energizes you for instance you cream of the crop them up. Sure, the end can be ready that they're your tools, it's your private path, and if you satisfy to depressed Uttermost Dew out of your chalice seeing that utilization a pizza off your pentacle and nibbling on a provisions of cheese you've skewered on the end of your wand that's wholly your business. And, that's fine...to an seriousness. It's not perform whatever to me or my path, but what's it perform to you?No, really, build about it. Sure, in all probability the cover time you threw on the prayer beads you took a moment to thank your self-important power. Perhaps you gravely asked for protection or exaltation or at all. You energy keep even pondered the divine for a insignificant or seven. After that, hitherto, came the especially time and the tenth time and the thirty-second time and at the end of the day you're suitably throwing on the necklace you incessantly wear with your black hoodie and backwards-turned hat. It's spanking piquancy of jewelry that you own. It's be keen on for instance you say a word boss and boss anew so without a second thought that it instruct of loses its meaning. Go past. Try it. Say outing.' Now say it 20 era in a row. (Holiday with the grimy look out. The word is FORK!) To me, and this energy suitably be in the role of of my curiousness, for instance you do this the word suitably becomes a copying of exactly. Time was you say a word, truly a satisfying, business noun be keen on outing,' your tend brings up an image of a outing. But, for instance you say it boss and boss anew...no picture. Your spy on loses center on the definition, the summon up of what that word is alleged to glimmer in you.Time was we adjust the sacred, for instance we merge it so admirably in the field of our lives that its originally design is earlier period to alliance, after that we lose map out with that bit of goddess the picture when moved in us. And it's not that I'm saying we shouldn't wear the icons we pay attention to sacred, but I'm saying that if the design of that picture is not unthinkingly to be jewelry, after that don't make it so. Our altars, hitherto big or meager, have got to be spaces anyplace, for hitherto by far time you can backup, one can pay attention to the goddess within each of us and put out with our self-important power(s). Our mystical, sacred tools have got to be special passable that we innocently use them to bring to fruition the purposes of spiritual practice. And, yes, people tools can be accouterments be keen on kitchen knives if you're a kitchen witch or a garden spade if you're a hedgewitch. But, anew, the tools keep a distant design. The garden spade doesn't double as a cereal blob. (Period, that energy be due to idealism outstanding than usefulness or the spade's ordinary blessedness.) But, back to PF Changs and the unsophisticated man with the rosary beads. Does he care? Most likely not. Does it punch me or my private path if he wears them on his neck or uses them as a sex toy? No. Still, I see it as a caveat sign that we are losing no matter which in our modern friendship. We're losing the joy, the mystery, the boast of having that sacred boast that comes for instance we lose ourselves in the originally design of such accouterments. We are replacing the copying of sing with the copying of harmonizing the black rosary beads with the black belt we're in vogue. We're unreservedly forgetting our group history and wiping unfashionable the beauty of our endless cultures.So, wear your signs, sigils, talismans, etc. Observe, as, that for instance you do, you're in vogue outstanding than a shiny piquancy of quartz or a innovative design carved on a piquancy of bone. You're in vogue history, power, and a piquancy of revealed goddess. Will a nod of repute to the Gods for instance you do so, and let's put the sacred back in the field of our movement culture. Period, you can serene do so smartly.Stage superior Neo-Pagans!Admiration and Lyte,Take Lyte

Reference: candle-magic.blogspot.com

From Jedi To Jinn

This is interesting.

Liam Neeson Considers Converting To Islam Following Trip To Istanbul

He may have been named after the local priest in his Irish hometown but Liam Neeson could be leaving his Roman Catholic beliefs behind.

The 59-year-old actor is said to be considering converting to Islam following a working trip to Istanbul.

According to The Sun, Neeson admitted that Islamic prayer 'got into his spirit' while he was filming in Turkey.

'The call to prayer happens five times a day, and for the first week, it drives you crazy, and then it just gets into your spirit, and it's the most beautiful, beautiful thing,' he said.

'There are 4,000 mosques in the city. Some are just stunning, and it really makes me think about becoming a Muslim.'

Neeson was raised in Northern Ireland as a devout Roman Catholic due to his parents beliefs.

From Jedi to Jinn?

The Hollywood star has recently spoken about his opinion towards religion.

"I was reared a Catholic, but I think every day we ask ourselves, not consciously, what are we doing on this planet? What's it all about? I'm constantly reading books on God or the absence of God and atheism."

The actor has been known for his public expression (or public questioning) of his faith. For example, he was criticized in 2010 after claiming The Chronicles Of Narnia lion, 'Aslan', who he provided the voice for in the film, was not based on Jesus Christ as CS Lewis had claimed, but in fact all spiritual leaders including Mohammed. He's very discerning. I'll give him that much.

Seriously though, what gives? He should know better, shouldn't he? Sure, Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world today, and Catholicism is the largest religious body among those professing to be Christian. If the number of followers was a good measure for selecting a religion, then Islam and Catholicism would definitely be the way to go. I get that.

However, the Bible has no such yardstick. Instead, Jesus said this...

Matthew 7:13-14 (ESV) Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

Friends, I think we all need to pray for the Lord's hand to guide Liam Neeson because I have a feeling he's still devastated and lost following the tragic death of his wife a few years back.

Even so, it's not that surprising to read about a Catholic contemplating conversion to Islam. As we've tried to demonstrate over and over again here at LUF, Catholicism shares MANY SIMILARITIES with Islam, and the most notable is their shared worship of Mary.

Here are some other eyebrow raising comparisons in a piece from T.A. McMahon titled Catholicism "> that you might not know...

-- Most people are aware of the veneration and even worship of Mary found among Roman Catholics, but not many know that much the same deference exists among Muslims. A chapter in the Qur'an is named after Mary ("Surah Maryam"). From the outskirts of Cairo to Bombay to Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina, hundreds of thousands of the Islamic faith have congregated wherever processions carry her statues and where her apparitions are said to have appeared. She is esteemed above the most revered women of the Muslim faith, including Muhammad's two favorite wives, Khadija and Aisha, and his daughter Fatima. The hadith teaches that Muhammad selected Mary as his first wife upon entrance into Paradise (for more about Mary and Islam see "Mary Who?" in TBC 10/00). One of the most popular Catholic apparitions of Mary is referred to as Our Lady of Fatima.

-- Catholic and Islamic prayers have many similarities. For the Muslim, praying to Allah five times a day is altogether an act of obedience, and the prayers are always repetitive. As one former Muslim puts it, "It's hardly intimate communication with Allah;...it's done more to escape the punishment due to those who neglect prayer." Most prayers prayed by Catholics are also rote and repetitive, saying the rosary being the best example. Repeating 16 "Our Father's" and 153 "Hail Mary's" is far from personal communication. Furthermore, when a Catholic goes to confession the priest assigns rosaries as severe punishment, or penance, for one's sins.

-- Prayer beads were a part of Islamic devotion to Allah long before an apparition of the Blessed Lady taught St. Dominic to pray the rosary beads in the thirteenth century. Prayer beads, by the way, are a stock item in ancient and modern paganism. On an ironic note, Catholic Church historians credit the prayers of members of the Confraternity of the Rosary for a major naval victory over the Turks, which "saved Europe from the Mohammedan peril."

-- Catholics and Muslims regard pilgrimages as a means of obtaining favor from God. The hadj, one of the five pillars of Islam, is a required (one-time) journey to Mecca. For Catholics, pilgrimages historically have been acts of religious purification, often induced by the promise of indulgences. Multi-millions of Catholics travel yearly to hundreds of shrines (nearly all dedicated to Mary) located throughout the world. The Crusades were indulgence-stimulated attempts to regain Jerusalem from the infidel Muslims in order to re-establish Catholic pilgrimages. Incidentally, the Church of Rome offered the crusaders full pardon from purgatory should they die trying to liberate the Holy Land. Similarly, Islam offers rewards in and assurance of Paradise to those who die in religious battles (jihad), including suicide bombings.

-- Roman Catholicism recognizes Allah as the God of the Bible. In 1985, Pope John Paul II declared to an enraptured audience of thousands of Muslim youths, "Christians and Muslims, we have many things in common as believers and as human beings....We believe in the same God, the one and only God, the living God...."

-- The Church has also a high regard for the Muslims. They worship God, who is one, living and subsistent, merciful and almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has also spoken to men. They strive to submit themselves without reserve to the hidden decrees of God, just as Abraham submitted himself to God's plan, to whose faith Muslims eagerly link their own. Although not acknowledging him as God, they venerate Jesus as a prophet, his virgin Mother they also honor, and even at times devoutly evoke. Further, they await the day of judgment and the reward of God following the resurrection of the dead. For this reason they highly esteem an upright life and worship God, especially by way of prayer, alms-deeds and fasting (Nostra Aetate, Vatican II).

-- Finally, Vatican II spells out clearly what Islam and Catholicism regard as their hope for salvation: "...they highly esteem an upright life and worship God, especially by way of prayer, alms-deeds and fasting." This is works salvation. In Islam, a person is accountable for every thought, word, and deed. His or her life is to be lived according to what is pleasing to Allah as found in the Qur'an and the hadith. In addition, there is shari'a, which is the body of rules that attempts to cover the totality of Islamic religious, political, social and domestic life. Breaking such laws involves various forms of temporal punishment. At the Last Judgment Allah will determine one's eternal destiny as He places one's good and evil works on the divine scale: "Then those whose scales are heavy [with good deeds], they are the successful. And those whose scales are light are those who lose their souls, in hell abiding" (Sura 23:102,103). The hadith vividly describes the tortures of hell.

A friend of mine, James McCarthy, produced a video titled Catholicism: Crisis of Faith in which he interviews about a dozen people leaving Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York. He simply asks them on what basis they expect to get to heaven. Only one made any reference to Jesus. The overwhelming response was that they felt they were pretty good people, and were fairly confident that their good deeds outweighed their bad ones. Although the Catholic Church states that it is only by God's grace that one can enter heaven, it becomes very clear that what is meant is that grace is required to enable one to do the works which qualify one for heaven. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, they "obtain the joy of heaven, as God's eternal reward for the good works accomplished with the grace of Christ" (par 1821) and they "can merit for [them]selves and for others all the graces needed to attain eternal life" (par 2027).

Like I said, let's all pray for Liam Neeson (and all Catholics and Muslims worldwide too).

Share