A Change of Habit: 7 Secrets to Guilt-Free Living

Lately I've been aware of a shift in faith in earlier and even later generations. There has been a turn toward finding God through yourself and your own faith and against the actual institute of Religion. Patty Kogutek is another prime example. She was a Catholic Nun for seven years and is now turning toward a new idea of faith; a faith that is not dependent on guilt or suffering, but living with God without the influence of an institution. Actually, her number one secret is "don't let religion get in the way of your relationship with God." While in the convent, Patty was faced with the challenges of always making the right decision, even if it went against her gut feeling. She was trying to please everyone else with her decision making and totally removing herself from the equation. With this she came up with secret number four: Don't worry about making a good decision, just make a decision good. While umping back into a secular life, her disappointment took a toll because she was facing two failed marriages: one in man and one in God. It was this self destructive behavior that brought Patty to secret number five: Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement. Then came secret number seven which is a basic summary of what she has learned, happiness is not a gift, but a skill. 

Educating the Heart: The Dalai Lama's Message to the Students of Hawaii

To welcome the 14th Dalai Lama, who is the spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism and Nobel Peace Prize winning activist, to Honolulu, the students involved in Pillars of Peace put on an opening act of break dancing girls and boys as well as ukelele playing Jake Shimabukuro, who talked about how the Dalai Lama has inspired him by his message of simplicity. He played his ukelele with only three strings showing that there was a lot he could do with just these three and that his music playing came from within him. As Pam Omidyar introduced the Dalai Lama, she reminded the high-school audience that when the Dalai Lama was their age, he had already been exiled from his own country as well as receiving a Ph.D. in Buddhism. As he came onto the stage, he bowed humbly. He had been draped with leis, but said that they were too heavy on his shoulders and took them off except for one. He explained to the students that there are two levels of compassion: the biological compassion that we feel for our family, our friends, and our loved ones; and then the more substantial compassion which you can extend it to strangers and then to even your enemies. He also talked about educating the heart, we must educate our heart as well as our mind. 

As Death Grows Nearer, Belief in God Grows Stronger

Religiousness is the highest among older people, and researchers at the University of Chicago are associating this with their realization that death is getting closer. The statistics are astounding; 43% of people aged 68 and older are absolutely sure God exists. With that said, only 23% of people aged 27 and younger said they firmly believe in God. Israel, Slovenia and Russia were three examples where belief in God had grown. For instance in Russia, non-believers who became believers outnumbered by 16 percent those who had lost their belief in God.Belief was highest in strongly Catholic countries such as the Philippines, at 94 percent, and lowest in Western Europe, with only 13 percent of former East Germans believers. In the United States, 81 percent of people surveyed said they had always believed in God, and 68 percent support the concept that God is concerned with people in a personal way. 

Easter At The Mosque

For twelve years, the Spirit Life Church has been holding their Easter service at Pioneer Christian Church, but this year their lease was up. They had very little time to try and find a place for the 500 members that were expecting this service for Easter. Reverend Michael Moran didn't know where to hold the service, until the title in a newspaper "Easter at the Mosque" was seen in a dream of his one night. The next morning, although feeling dubious, called Mr. Metwalli Amer to ask permission to use the Sacramento Mosque for his Easter Christian gathering. After talking to the Board of Trustees, they agreed to let them have their Christian service in the Mosque on Easter. This set a precedent, as no non-muslim group has ever been allowed to worship inside the mosque. Mr. Metwalli commented on his advocacy toward interfaith religion and reminded us that this act of kindness represents the true state of Islam. This "Easter at the Mosque" attracted so many of the Christian followers at the church that they had to conduct two services. Moran said he was overwhelmed with joy at how everything seemed to workout effortlessly and thanked the people of the Islamic church.

Unexplained Changing Frescoes

About two-thirds of Macedonia's 2.1 million people have been baptized Orthodox Christian and there is now a big stir up in one of the churches that is unexplainable. Thousands of Orthodox Christian worshippers from across Macedonia are lining up to visit a church where a cleric says frescoes of saints have begun to appear brighter in color without any obvious explanation. Father Zoran of Saint Dimitrija church in Skopje, the capital, said Monday that the murals, long obscured by the residue of candle smoke, began to appear clearer over the weekend, with red and gold colors becoming more noticeable. That has prompted worshippers to flock to the church for Orthodox Easter last Sunday.

Vatican-Approved Exorcist Featured In New Documentary

A new documentary is coming out called "The Exorcism of the 21st Century." It follows the story of a Roman Catholic Priest from Spain, Jose Antonio Fortea, as he travels to enlighten the faithful people of Spain about exorcism and demonic possession. He is the only Priest who is ordained by the Vatican to preform exorcisms. He takes us on a journey of the prolific steps in order to release a demon from someone's soul who is possessed. The film's intent does not appear to be either to validate or discredit exorcism, but rather to capture the powerful impact that faith has on people. In this sense, Akselsen's film has more in common with a documentary like "Jesus Camp" than it does with various exorcism "mockumentaries" that have been released in recent years such as "The Last Exorcism"and "The Devil Inside".

To watch the trailer Click Here.

Resurrecting the Cause for Which King Died

Martin Luther King Jr. is known for trying to create a vast equality for not only all races, but all people. There is one thing that should be looked at again as well, his mission for economic justice. The very week he died, he was in the process of planning the Poor People's Campaign to go to Washington, D.C. to document that poor people in this nation are citizens just like everybody. He was reminding us about the Constitution of the United States that talked about inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and all God's children ought to have food to eat and clothes to wear. They ought to have jobs and opportunity and some place to stay. All God's children have a right. He was organizing to come to Washington and he said we will tie up the legislative process--we will bring white poor people from Appalachia, Latinos from the border states, bring poor people from the urban centers and say to our nation, "We are Americans too and we have a right to all of the wonderful bounty which God has bestowed on our great nation."

On April 4 this year, a group of us leaders on the Upper West Side of Manhattan are convening a coalition of local and national legislators; interfaith, labor and civil rights activists and leaders; and an esteemed panel of journalists and newsmakers for a symbolic evening of history, re-enactment, riveting discussion and healing songs. Our dedicated interfaith, inter-disciplinary group will pick up the piece of King's mantle that people have let die -- jobs. With more than 12.8 million Americans unemployed, jobs, economic freedom, living wage and worker justice remain the greatest challenges this country faces.

7 People Dead In Incident At Christian University In Oakland

One L. Goh, 43, from South Korea,  was a disturbed individual who had been expelled from the small Christian University in Oakland, who was looking for the female administrator that made the final decision to expel the man. Supposedly he had been planning this shooting for many weeks, and may have also been because people were making fun of the way Goh spoke english. He busted into the building looking for the administrator who was not there, and instead opened fire on the people inside the building. He killed six students, a secretary, and injured three other people. He surrendered to officers about three miles away in a supermarket parking lot.

Watch the news broadcast here.

One Million Hijabs For Shaima Alawadi: Women Wear Hijabs In Support Of Slain Iraqi Woman

Like Trayvon Martin, Shaima Alawadi was killed for the way she looked. Sadly this is becoming more prominent in our society and now people are finally doing something about it. Shaima was an immigrant from Iraq, who like most Islamic women, wore a hijab. On the morning of March 24, 2012, Alawadi took her last breath, fighting for life for nearly two days preceding from being beaten because she was Islamic. It is said that the crime was a hate crime and her killer has not been found yet. With current prejudice against muslims in America, it's hard to find a way to make it come to an end. People are trying their best. Scared that this hate crime will be swept under the rug, US citizens are coming together to wear a hijab not only to remind people of what had happened, but to get a personal experience wearing one and finding out what it's like to be in the shoes of someone who wears a hijab. People who have already done it, said that it amazed them the looks that they got. It just goes to show what we need to continue to fix in our society. 

To read the full article, click Here.

Anti-Semitism On The Rise In Europe

There is a recent study that reports there is growing anti-semitism in Europe and especially in France. This report was published three days after the unidentified gunman in France killed three children of a Jewish school as well a rabbi of the school. After surveys in January and February it is now known that 24% of the French population holds anti-semetic views and that is an increase to 2009s 20% view of anti-semitism in France. It is also reported that four out of ten Europeans think that violence against Jews is a direct result of anti-semitism and anti-Israel views. "Those increases are all the more disturbing in light of the shooting attack at the Jewish school in Toulouse," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL national director of the Monday shootings in France.

Dutch Roman Catholic Church Castrated Boys As 'Treatment' For Homosexuality

Shocking reports and new evidence has found that at least ten boys had been castrated during the 1950s in the Dutch Roman Catholic Church. Castration was used as a "treatment" for homosexuality. Henk Heithuis was one of these castration victims. He was being sexually abused by one of the priests in his church while living at the church's boarding home and reported it to the police. Although the priest was charged for the abuse, Henk was taken to the Catholic hospital to be cleansed of homosexuality by surgical castration and also as a punishment for tattling on the clergy. The reports also uncovered minutes of official meetings held in the 1950s, which revealed directors of the Catholic institutions deciding parents did not need to be involved in decisions: even with minors, Dutch News reports. They also proved government officials were present in meetings where the castrations were discussed.

Did Jesus Exist?

There is a new, small group emerging called the mythicists, claim that the most influential person in every aspect of the word, never existed. Yes, we are talking about Jesus Christ and this group of writers and bloggers are stating that Jesus was invented for evil purposes and that they stole the idea of Jesus from pagan divine men who also performed miracles and was born from a virgin. Out of the small group of maybe a thousand, only two are known to have Phds and very few have any schooling in religion, history, or the languages that the bible was originally written in. These views are extremely unconvincing and go against 99.9% of religious experts, so why is mythicism growing? This may be because going against the existence of Jesus is in turn going against the existence of religion which is becoming more popular with this day and age. There is too much overwhelming evidence that Jesus existed and even though there is no account in the Roman texts that he existed, or that there is biased and problematic information about Jesus' life, there is no denying that he actually existed.

Read the article HERE.

5 Insights From the World's Religions

Religions have so many contradicting aspects to each other. They start war, justify terrorism and discriminate against minority groups. They believe that only their way of viewing the world should be the path to salvation, but in all reality if God is ineffable, then a religion practiced by imperfect humans could never hope to portray him completely or accurately. I like how the author, Jeffery Small, used a prism as a metaphor to describe religion. When we look into a prism we might see blue or red or any of the colors of the rainbow for Ultimate Reality. They are true but they are also incomplete in infinite contradiction; each color was a part of the white light in which it was created by. Each one of us has been molded differently through culture, our upbringing and even our  genes. Maybe if we looked into the perspective of other religions we could learn a thing or two. Here is insight discussed through five major religions: Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity. The short excerpts have been turned into a one sentence summarization as follows:

Judaism: Monotheism
God cannot be defined or contained.

Hinduism: View of the Soul
On the surface, we are individual, finite creatures, but our true natures are part of the ultimate divine, infinite and eternal reality.


Buddhism: Nature of Human Suffering
We are impermanent, and yet we resist this impermanence and the end of suffering comes from acceptance of this fundamental truth.


Islam: Peace Through Surrender
We find peace through a complete surrendering of every aspect our lives to this greater truth and source of the universe. 



Christianity: Love 
Agape is unselfish love. It is a love without bounds or conditions, a love that doesn't require reciprocity. 

Russian Orthodox Church Urges 'Gay Propaganda' Ban

A leading official in the Russian Orthodox Church has urged federal lawmakers to adopt a bill outlawing what he called the promotion of homosexuality among minors. Similar legislation approved late February in Russia's second largest city, St. Petersburg, mandated fines of up to $33,000. Father Dmitry Pershin, head of the church's youth council, said Monday in a statement that the law should be applied nationwide "without delay." Gay rights activists say the law could be used to ban any public demonstrations by Russia's embattled gay and transgender community. Homosexuality was decriminalized in Russia in 1993, but anti-gay sentiments remain strong. The Orthodox Church, which was heavily suppressed in Soviet times, has exercised a growing influence on public policy in Russia. Watch the video HERE. 

Iran Claims Youcef Nadarkhani Will Not Be Executed

Youcef Nadarkhani has been imprisoned in Iran for three years for apostasy. It was planned that he be executed for this crime. The refutation came after human rights investigator Ahmed Shaheed delivered a report to the U.N., which, in addition to citing Iran's "striking pattern of violations of fundamental human rights guaranteed under international law" and the country's "maltreatment of prisoners, dissidents, minorities and women," called for the release of Nadarkhani, FOX News reports. Iran called this report biased and manipulated by Western culture. Although Iran insists that they will not execute Christian pastor Nadarkhani, it is an ongoing legal nightmare and Iran has gone as far as to accuse him of rape and extortion. The chair of U.S. Commission International Religious Freedom states that Iran's court proceedings cannot be trusted. 

FiFA To Test Hijabs For Female Muslim Players

Female soccer players that are Muslim and wear Hijabs are extremely excited to hear that the International Football Association Board is allowing them to test out a new Hijab with velcro instead of pins. Formally, the muslim soccer players were not allowed to play with their head coverings because they were a danger on the field due to pins that held the Hijab together. FIFA has been prohibiting these scarves since 2007, but now may be overturned because of the new safety feature, velcro. Even Iran's women soccer team was banned from this Summer's 2012 Olympic games in London because the players showed up with Hijabs before a match against Jordan in the previous year. But now, they are pushing to lift the ban. Other sports do in fact allow the wearing of headscarves, such as in the 2008 Beijing Olympics when Roqaya Al-Gassra reached the semifinals in the 200-meter sprint. 

Saint Laurence O'Toole's Ancient Heart Stolen From Dublin Cathedral

In Dublin, Ireland an ancient artifact was stolen from the Dublin Cathedral. In fact, it was the heart of Saint Laurence O' Toole's which was displayed inside a wooden heart shaped box and then inside a metal cage. Officials are perplexed and saddened by this mysterious robbery. It's been in the Cathedral since the 13th century and no one knows who or why anyone would want to steal it. It has no economical value, but is priceless in the Church because that Cathedral was dedicated to Saint Laurence.

Watch the Video Here.

Gay Catholic Music Teacher Fired

Al Fischer, a gay Catholic Music teacher was fired from his Music Director position in the Catholic church for rumors of him planning to marry his life partner. A priest from the St. Rose Philippine Duchesne Catholic Church in Florissant, Missouri told Fischer that his soon to be marriage became "too public of an issue." Al has held the position for several years and he used this position as a second form of income as well. Not only was he fired from his job at the Church, he was also relieved from his music teaching job at St. Ann Catholic School in Normandy. Supposedly at both St. Ann and St. Rose upon taking up the position he was asked to sign a "Christian Witness Statement" that stated he should not publicly go against the Catholic church in anyway, but Fischer says he had to sign no such document at St. Rose Catholic Church. I think this is sad because he wasn't doing anything wrong, like preaching to be pro-gay or advocating it in anyway. Word happened to get around that he was getting married, but Al and his partner were already seen as a couple in the Church anyway.

Seeing the Dead

The article starts off with this story: 

As the preacher-man got up to leave, the widow put her hand on his arm, saying, "Don't go, I got one more thing." The kitchen quieted. Her boy said, "Ma, don't tell him." The preacher-man said, "Don't tell me what?" Ma whispered, "Last night, 'bout midnight, I heard a noise in this here kitchen, and so I come in to take a look around. I flicked on the overhead light, and right there front of the sink, right there, standing looking right at me, big as life -- was my dead Stan, the love of my life. He always washed the dishes after supper. I know he's dead, but it was him. He was looking at me with those lovin' eyes, and smiling, like he was telling me he was OK. That's the warm feeling I got -- that he's OK. He's OK. Isn't he? Preacher? He was smiling so sweetly, and I felt loved and good. My kids think I was either dreaming or crazy. Sadness can make you crazy. I read that. I ain't never seen nothin' like that, preacher. Nothin'."The preacher-man stilled himself and said, "No, you're not crazy, Mrs. Kolinsky. Can't tell you how many times I've heard similar stories on days like today, sitting around kitchen tables just like this, talking about death and funerals. What you saw happens to many people, all types of people, only people don't talk about their experiences publicly, except to folks like me, because it sounds crazy, but it's common. It's a gift, Mrs. Kolinsky. Stan was telling you he's OK. And so are you."

The author of the article was the preacher-man. He has also come into contact with his deceased family members as well. His dad once saw his Grandmother sitting at the foot of his bed, and ran over to her house and found out that she had died. These occurrences happen frequently, but are rarely said to anyone besides a preacher or their close family because they are afraid they will be seen as crazy. The preacher says it's amazing to see the look on the people's faces when they see their loved ones and they know that it is ok and really start to believe for the first time that there is an afterlife. The preacher says he now knows that the soul is as real as any physical part of the body, but it's up to you to decide whether it is fact or fiction. 

Youcef Nadarkhani, Iranian Pastor, May Face Execution For 'Apostasy From Islam'

In 2010, Youcef Nadarkhani was found guilty of apostasy and sentenced to be executed because he refused to give up his Christian faith. In Iran, the national religion is Muslim, and over 98% of the population is in practice of this religion. Youcef has been practicing Christianity since he was a teenager and is now being persecuted for it. Now he is one step closer to being executed. "A death sentence that has been sent for implementation by the judiciary would suggest the person is at imminent risk of execution. If it has been sent to the implementation department, that is very troubling." The United States is in full support of stopping this hatful execution and there is now even a Facebook support group trying to get as many members as it can to help stop this horrible execution. To join the Facebook group click the link below. 

http://www.facebook.com/groups/nadarkhani/