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Word of the Week: 2/5/16 - Therevada

30/4/2016

 

“the way of the elders” a form of Buddhism.

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PictureImage: YouTube.com
Buddhism, like other world religions is divided up into a number of different sub groups, often known as denominations. The oldest of these in Buddhism, and widely practised in Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, is Theravada Buddhism.

It is the school of Buddhism that believed it is the closest to the original teachings of the Buddha, hence the name “way of the elders”. The beliefs include that there is no omnipotent creator God, of the sort found in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. They believe that the truth of reality has been revealed in the person of Siddhartha Gautama “the awakened one” who understood the realities of suffering and how to minimise the pain of life. Finally, Theravada Buddhists believe the teachings of the Buddha can help us to achieve Nirvana.

PictureImage: Wikipedia.com
Theravada Buddhism focuses on the effects of meditation to clear the mind and concentration to help the believer achieve liberation. This led to the establishment of monastic life with a distinct emphasis on Monks and Nuns - this community is known as the Sangha and many Therevadan communities have developed strict rules such as non-violence, celibacy, not handling money or eating after midday.

The texts of Theravada Buddhism were written in about 300 BC and are now known as the Tipitaka - the three Pitakas. They are written in Pali, and contain codes for monastic life, the teachings of the Buddha and other philosophical ideas. They are often learnt by heart by Monks and nuns and certainly would have originally been fully memorised by groups of Monks rather than written down.

There are of course other denominations of Buddhism such as Mahayana BUddhism, Zen, Tibetan and Pure Land, but you will have to wait for those...


Word of the Week: W/C 25/04/16 - Qibla

24/4/2016

 

Literally meaning “direction”. the direction that Muslims face when they pray; towards Mecca and the Kabba

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PictureImage: Wikipedia.com
Five times a day across the world, Muslims unite together in performing Salat, formal prayer, as they were commanded to by the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and in the Quran. Not only in the formula of prayers very organised (the words and actions) but also the direction in which they face.

There is archeological evidence that in the earliest Islamic communities that prayer was conducted facing towards Jerusalem, the Holy city of Judaism and Christianity. But seventeen months after the arrival of the prophet in Medina the orientation changed and the holy city of Mecca, and especially the Kabba, became the focus of Islamic prayer.
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PictureImage: WIkipedia
How do we know this? Mosques have as one of their features a niche or “Mihrab” that shows the direction of Mecca and thus the direction of prayer. One of the earliest mosques of Islam situated in Medina had two Mihrabs, and thus it seems very plausible that the congregation used to pray facing a different direction.

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Whist this is all quite interesting, why is it important? Well on the one hand it shows that Islam from a very early stage saw itself as a distinct religion, the completion of other the other monotheistic faiths that had come before, but also different to them. This happened surprisingly early (Christianity took at least 30 years to emerge as self-confidently distinctive) in Islam’s History. On the other hand it highlights the importance of unity and brotherhood (Ummah) in Islam; The Kabba at the centre of Mecca is a powerful symbol of how united Islam strives to be.


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Image: Pixabay.com

Word of the Week: W/c 18/04/16 - Iona

17/4/2016

 

​a small island in the Inner Hebrides off the Ross of Mull on the western coast of Scotland. It was a centre of Gaelic monasticism and place of Christian Pilgrimage for centuries

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The experience of going on a pilgrimage, of making a journey (traditionally on horse-back or on foot) to a holy place, is an experience common to many religions, and those who embark on such a journey are called pilgrims. In the past, pilgrims have journeyed to Jerusalem, Rome, Santiago de Compostela in Spain, Wallsingham in England and Kock in Ireland
 
Today, many thousands still make these journeys as pilgrims. Why? Now, as then, pilgrims make a pilgrimage to ask for some favour or blessing, or to seek an answer to a problem or difficulty, or to seek peace, healing and strength, to make new beginnings, or to express sorrow or thanksgiving.    

Over the centuries the island of Iona has been seen as a place of pilgrimage - a place where saints have lived and where prayers have been answered. Until very recently, the physical journey to Iona was a hard one - rough paths, barren moorland, small boats and uncertain tides. Although buses and ferries make it easier for today's pilgrims, the awareness of travelling is still there. No one visits Iona without a sense of being on a journey.

Watch this Video on Iona from You Tube:

Word of the week: W/c 10/4/16 - Forthtell

12/4/2016

 

To speak out against the world’s injustices; to proclaim God’s truth.
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Many people today tend to think of Prophets as being those who see into the future and predict what will occur. Certainly this has often been a feature of prophets - but a prophet is far more that just this. Often they spoke (and speak) out against the societies in which they exist. A great example of this is in the Old Testament is Amos. He criticised the leaders and people of his day for turning away from God, suggesting that they only make sacrifices to make up for bad deeds, they they did not behave justly towards the poor and that economic justice was needed. He also suggested that if Israel did not mend its ways that God would punish them.
So it is that Jews and Christians believe that a prophet is a spokesman for God chosen to preach his message to the people. They were examples of holiness, role models, scholars and often set the standard of behavior that those they spoke to were failing to meet. In the Old Testament there are 55 prophets and these are not all men; Ruth, Esther, Sarah, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah and Abigail are all female of prophets.
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Interestingly not all prophets in the Old Testament are Jewish - most notably the prophet Balaam in Numbers 22 - and some of the prophets are not sent to the Jews such as Jonah whose message is delivered to the Gentiles of Nineva.

Often prophets have a very rough time of it and are often not accepted by the people they are sent to (as Jesus says in Matthew 13.57 - "A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home."). Elijah was described by King Ahab as “the troubler of Israel” is never really listened to throughout his career. Jonah was swallowed and then spat out of a fish and forced to go to Nineveh where he did not want to go. Ezekiel was made to lie on his Left side for 390 days and then his right for 40 days - this was to make up for the rebellion of Jewish people! And Hosea was directed by God to marry a promiscuous woman, divorce her and when she has sold herself into slavery re-marry her - their children are given symbolic names such as “unloved” and “not my people”.

PictureChrist the King. Image: www.sagradoscoracoesdejesusemaria. blogspot.com
The key to understanding what is going on here is that Prophets often live out God’s message in their real lives - they don’t just speak the word, they act the word, they suffer for the word.

For Christians the culmination of all the Old Testament Prophecies was the birth of Jesus of Nazareth - the Messiah predicted by Isaiah in 9.6 as the “Wonderful,Counsellor, Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace”. That he would be born of a virgin by Jeremiah (31.22) and that he would be both God and Man (23.5-6). And finally that he would die for the sins of the world and by doing so put an end to sin and reconcile us with God (Daniel ch. 9). This is what Philip says in the Gospel of John, who told Nathanael, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote – Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (John 1:45).

Obviously this claim needs the faith of belief in Christianity to be seen as true and many would deny them - Jews that they have yet to come about and Atheists that they are just wishful thinking. Either way the prophets represent a rich vein of Philosophical and Theological material that have inspired the generations and impacted upon our literature, music and culture.

How has our modern day culture been influenced by the Prophets of the Old Testament?

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