Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

-----

Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Frank Schaeffer tells "How God Wins" in Fundamentalist Language




The Missionary Kid Goes on “Vacation” and Winds Up “Witnessing” to a VERY LOST Italian in a VERY SMALL Bathing Suit!
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/frankschaeffer/2014/07/the-missionary-kid-goes-on-vacation-and-winds-up-witnessing-to-a-very-lost-italian-in-a-very-small-bathing-suit/

by Frank Schaeffer
July 24, 2014

In 1947 my family moved to Switzerland from the U.S. as missionaries to the Swiss, whom they rarely converted since neither of my parents could speak anything but English. Dad never learned to speak any other language notwithstanding his forty-year sojourn in Europe.

So my parents ministered to American tourists and other English-speaking visitors. Then in 1954—after yet more splits with the home mission board—Mom and Dad were “led” (another way of saying they had to figure something out when they were kicked out of their mission over a theological dispute) to start their own ministry. They called their work L’Abri Fellowship. (L’Abri means “shelter” in French.)

My parents theoretically acknowledged that there were other Real Believers, but (many church splits later) there seemed to be no one besides our family that they wholeheartedly approved of. We were different and (at least in the early fundamentalist incarnation of our family) sometimes smug in the rightness of our difference.

Since our family and my parent’s ministry—the work of L’Abri—represented the only truly theologically “sound” configuration of believers this side of Heaven, my sisters stuck around L’Abri even after marriage. Priscilla and her husband, John, returned to us from seminary when I was ten years old, and none of my sisters left home for good until many years later after L’Abri split up along the lines of various personality clashes. My three sisters encouraged their husbands—who had wandered into L’Abri as young men, got “saved,” and married a Schaeffer daughter—to join “The Work.”

Our family thrived on a somewhat hysterical diet of “miracles” that provided a constant high. Mom and Dad never asked donors for money, and yet—miraculously—the Lord “moved people’s hearts” and we were sent gifts to “meet our needs.” So we knew that From Before The Creation Of The Universe God had planned that in 1954 the Schaeffer Family would found the American mission of L’Abri, located in Huémoz, Switzerland, conveniently near the ski slopes of Villars and the tearooms of Montreux and only five hours by train from Portofino Italy. That was where we vacationed each year.

The rest of the time we lived in the Alps enjoying stunning views of the towering mountains in every direction, which Mom said God had created expressly for our pleasure. Mom said that our job, and thus the reason for both L’Abri’s and our existence, was to “prove the existence of God to an unbelieving world.” We Schaeffers did this by praying for the gifts needed to run our mission. God provided the exhilarating life-affirming “proof” of His being out there somewhere by answering our prayers and sending us just enough money—no more and no less—so that His Work might go forth and so that I’d grow up eating cheese and various other ingredient-stretching casseroles to sustain my life while praying for red (or any) meat!

Sacrificing-For-The-Lord was a pride-filled way of life. No owner of a new home, car, or yacht was ever prouder of his or her venal material possessions than we Schaeffers were of not achieving our fondest dreams. Mom’s father spoke five languages and “could have taught in a secular college, even at Harvard,” Mom said. But he didn’t teach at Harvard; rather, my grandfather taught in a series of small impoverished Bible schools after he returned from China, just like Dad didn’t pastor a huge church, “even though Fran’s a far better preacher than most,” as Mom claimed.

What we didn’t do suited us Schaeffers fine (even if some of us sighed from time to time over missed opportunities). We prided ourselves on how much our family had “given up for the Lord.” So Mom didn’t dance and instead had married a short man after the Lord showed her that together they could Save The Lost, even though “many tall handsome poetic men were interested in me,” Mom said. But as Mom also always added with (yet another sigh) when telling me what she’d given up for the Lord, “Worldly success is not what counts.”

When I compared what I thought of as Normal People to my family, I envied them. They smoked, drank, laughed, never witnessed to anyone, and sometimes even danced to the music from the snack-bar jukebox on the beach when we were in Italy on vacation. Mostly they didn’t seem haunted by the idea that they were foot soldiers in a war between God and Satan.

In The Battle Of The Heavenlies, much was expected of Us Real Christians when it came to doing our bit. This ongoing contest was won or lost one person at a time. The outcome of every battle depended on whether or not the Souls of the people we converted (or didn’t convert) went to Heaven or Hell. It also decided their fate after the Resurrection: to burn forever in the “lake of fire” or to enjoy their indestructible bodies for eternity, doing who knew what.

“Mom?” the ten year-old version of me asked one night after Mom had read me the creation story (again) and Eve had (again) been tempted by Satan, sinned, and taken us all down with her (again).

“Yes, Dear?”

“Why did God create Satan?”

“God did not ‘create Satan,’ my Dear!” said Mom, and she shot me a hurt glance as if to say that the phrasing of my question had been needlessly unkind to both God and to her. “He created lovely angels, and one of them was Lucifer, the highest-ranking angel. Lucifer didn’t want to serve God. But Satan can’t change God’s Divine Purposes! Meanwhile, we have to bring people to Christ to help God win. Do you understand?”

“But, Mom, what I don’t understand is why Jesus doesn’t just bring everyone to Jesus?”

“Then they’d have no choice, and He doesn’t force anyone.”

“But Dad says we’re elected.”

“Yes, and that because God knows what will happen, Dear, but we still choose.”

“How?”

“Because as it says in the Bible, ‘All things are possible with God.’”

“It seems like a lot of bother,” I said.

“It’s God’s Plan, Dear,” said Mom in a tone that clearly indicated that, while she welcomed all questions about the Lord, I should nevertheless not question to a point that seemed to open the door to the sort of doubts that can lead us far from the Lord. Mom’s tone softened as she added, “Darling, we’re finite, so we just can’t finally explain these things.”

“But, Mom, why do we have to tell people about Jesus when God already knew who will be saved before He made them, and why did He make anyone to be Lost anyway?”

“Because, Dear, that way we get to participate in His Plan and also show that we love Him.”

“But it seems so dumb!”

“No, Darling,” said Mom, shooting me an alarmed look and beginning to speak rather quickly. “There’s a difference between asking legitimate questions and questioning God in a way that makes it seem as if we’re rebelling against Him. I’d be careful if I were you about using the word ‘dumb’ in this context, and for another thing, that’s such an American word and not terribly sophisticated, and to use that word is not the sort of use of vocabulary that I know that you know, Dear, which is the reason I only read good books to you, so please say, ‘I don’t fully understand,’ or ‘That concept seems contradictory’ but avoid the sort of words that make it sound as if you’re being raised by ordinary American Christians who derive their tragically limited vocabulary from what they hear Billy Graham say, read on cereal boxes, and see on television!”

I grew up feeling that Mom, Dad, my sisters, and I were a separate species from the Normal humans I would see going about their business as if there were no Battle Of The Heavenlies.

We were Set Apart From The World. We had no TV and no American cereal boxes either. And we’d done it to ourselves—on purpose! God wanted us to walk among Normal People as His Chosen Outcasts.

By the time I was eight or nine, the only conversations I felt comfortable having with strangers were those that happened out of my parents’ and sisters’ earshot. When they weren’t around, I could temporarily pretend to join the human race. Lying was necessary because otherwise I’d attract The Look and The Uncomfortable Silence that always followed any truthful answer to the question “So what does your father do?”

If my sister Susan was there, or worst of all Mom, I’d have to mumble something truthful about being missionaries and Dad being a pastor, and then I’d pray Mom wouldn’t launch into the explanation of how God had called our family “to live by faith alone,” otherwise known as “The L’Abri Story.”

“But what do you live on?” a perplexed British vacationer on the beach near Portofino might ask the cringing eleven-year-old version of me after hearing Mom talk about “living by faith.”

“People help out,” I’d mutter, while scanning all possible escape routes.

If Mom were within earshot, in other words anywhere within a mile or so, she’d offer a glowing and animated explanation: “The Lord answers our prayers as a demonstration of His existence to an unbelieving world. We live by faith alone!”

“So strangers send you money?”

“Yes, as the Lord moves their hearts!” Mom would say.

The listener, who had been expecting something like “We’re living in Switzerland while Dad’s on business” would give me The Look and sidle off. If the listener didn’t sidle off while the going was good, Mom might pull out a witnessing aid or a tract and share the Gospel right then and there.

This sharing of Jesus with strangers would be done to some inoffensive agnostic, Anglican, Catholic, or Jew—in other words, to someone of a different (or no) religious persuasion. The target might have been on the way to the snack bar for a slice of pizza and an espresso and instead would end up pressed into a one-on-one Evangelistic rally as her reward for politely remarking on the fine weather.

Sometimes Mom brought her Gospel Walnut and/or “The Heart of Salvation” booklet along to the beach, and she’d use those on The Lost. The witnessing aid was an actual walnut hollowed out and packed with a long strand of ribbon: black for your heart filled with sin, red for Jesus’ blood, white for your heart once it was washed of sin, and gold for Heaven, where you’d be headed provided you prayed the Sinner’s Prayer right then and there and asked Jesus to come into your heart and to be your Personal Savior, while Mom acted as a midwife for your second birth before the pizza oven exploded and killed you (or you got cancer—whatever) and it was “too late.”

“Mom, can you be saved after you die?” the five-, six-, seven-, and eight-year-old versions of me repeatedly asked, rather hoping that you could so that there would be less pressure to save everyone right now, not to mention that I would get more time, too.

“No, Dear, the Bible is very clear. Hebrews 9:27 says we’re ‘destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.’ Another passage that tells us there’s no chance after death in Luke 16. The parable is about that rich man who died and went to Hell. He’s told a chasm separates Heaven and Hell. Difficult as it is to fully understand, we know there’s an Eternal Separation as the Punishment for people who won’t accept Jesus Christ while they have the chance right now.”

“What about the ones that never hear the Gospel?”

“They’re all Lost, so that’s why we have to always witness!”

Because there were no more chances after death, we Schaeffers were responsible for Every Lost Person we ever encountered—including all the Italians we met, except for Dino and Lorna in Milan because they’d come to L’Abri and already been saved. Dad said, “They’re probably the only Real Christians in Italy, but they don’t count because Lorna is English.”

Sometimes Mom would leave the Gospel Walnut in her room and bring along “The Heart of Salvation” instead, a booklet about ten inches by ten inches cut out in a heart shape and made of five pages: black, red, white, gold, and green. Mom had taught my sisters and me a cheerful little ditty to sing as she turned the pages:

The Heart of Salvation

“My heart was BLACK with sin, until the Savior came in!
His precious RED blood, I know, has washed it WHITE as snow!
In His Word I am told, I’ll walk the streets of GOLD!
A wonderful, wonderful day, He washed my sins away!”

The props for witnessing that Mom carried were in her gospel-sharing repertoire only until the early 1960s. My parents had deployed witnessing aids in their ministries back in the States, but I caught only the tail end of Mom and Dad’s fundamentalist incarnation. Once a bit of European sophistication rubbed off on my parents, their witnessing methods changed. They became more subtle.

The Gospel Walnut was retired and replaced with conversations about philosophy, art, and politics. But these “conversations” were then steered and inevitably ended with a consideration of the Meaning of Life. And THAT, of course, led to a “discussion” about that “feeling of guilt we all have” and you can guess Who the only Answer to that feeling was…

Anyway, once our “The Heart of Salvation” song ended, we’d add,

“Green is the color that shows how a child who loves Jesus will grow.”

I don’t know why the explanation of the green page had to be delivered as a brief soliloquy after the song. But the recipient of our serenade never asked about that, mostly because by then his eyes had glazed over, and he (or she) was backing away and/or rooted to the spot in a horrified Normal-Pagan-and/or-Theologically-Confused-Liberal-Vacationing-Anglican-caught-in-the-headlights-of-an-oncoming-Born-Again-Express-Train sort of way.

If the recipient of the Schaeffer family’s attentions happened to be a forty-year-old Italian businessman, standing barefoot on the cracked sandy concrete floor of the snack bar terrace while clad only in a Very Small, “tragically immodest” Speedo bathing suit, chest hair black and oily against his leathery tan chest, redolent and glistening with the tangy extra-virgin olive oil he used as suntan lotion, a cigarette in one hand and a glass of Campari in the other, the bulge of his genitals outlined in startling detail as he casually adjusted them by scratching, then shifting his generous package while reaching within his Speedo while we sang, the scene would become surreal.

Here was the epitome of The World, a caricature of Fallen Humanity being confronted not just by The Gospel, but also by four (or post-Priscilla-leaving-home three) Very Virtuous Women and one little boy. The women were radiating disapproval of the man’s Speedo and his clearly visible genitals—balls to the left, penis folded to the right—while also exuding a severe love for his Soul. The little boy was thinking of bolting for the water and swimming to the horizon.

As Mom would turn the pages while we sang, she’d point to her heart and then to the man’s heart, tapping him firmly on his chest, thereby making his Pagan Saint Medallions and assorted gold charms, including his cornuto (an inch-long horn-shaped amulet carved from red coral to protect against the evil eye), to bounce. After we sang, the Lost Italian (who could not understand English) would nevertheless clap while smiling at us children, especially at my “developing” sisters. Perhaps all American families burst into songs as a way to greet strangers. “Congratulazioni!” he’d exclaim somewhat nervously, then try to turn away.

The Pagan Symbols dangling around his Lost Oily Neck were all the proof we needed—his alcoholic drink, cigarette, and penis wrapped around his thigh aside—that our target was Very, Very Lost. Had he been even moderately born again, he’d long since have tossed out his “Catholic trinkets.” When Israel committed spiritual adultery, God called His people “whorish women” and accused them of fornication (Ezekiel 16:26–32 and Jeremiah 3:1–25). And we knew that the Roman Catholic Church was even worse than Israel when it chased after False Gods and Strange Women!

If on the off, off chance the Lost Italian showed interest and—after changing into born-again modest boxer-type swimming trunks—wanted a longer answer as to why he should take off his Pagan Saint Medals, Mom would have said, “What does the Bible say about Your Catholic Idols, you ask? That little horn miniature carrot thing you wear was once sacred to worshipers of the Moon Goddess! In your Catholic heresy, these awful things relate to the Virgin Mary standing on a lunar crescent! So turn with me to Exodus 20:4–5. Here let me show you! As you grow in the Lord, you’ll get more familiar with your Bible! Here it is! ‘Thou shalt not MAKE unto thee ANY graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not BOW DOWN thyself to them nor SERVE them.’ Don’t you Catholics MAKE graven images? Don’t you then serve the moon goddess?”

“Io suppongo di sì.” (I suppose so.)

“Don’t Catholics KNEEL down to statues of Mary?”

“Io penso di sì.” (I think so, yes.)

“Don’t Catholics SERVE Mary?”

“Ovviamente.” (Obviously.)

“Don’t Catholics BOW DOWN and kiss the foot of the pagan god Jupiter, which was renamed St. Peter?”

“É vero.” (Yes, that’s true.)

“Then turn with me to Leviticus 26:1. Susan, please show this poor man where it is. See? ‘You shall make you NO IDOLS nor GRAVEN IMAGE,’ and THAT INCLUDES CORAL CARROTS, OR WHATEVER IT IS YOU CALL THAT SILLY THING! ‘Neither rear you up a STANDING IMAGE. Neither shall ye set up any IMAGE OF STONE in your land to bow down unto it.’ Don’t Catholics rear up STANDING IMAGES?”

“Io non lo so.” (I don’t know.)

What do you mean ‘I don’t know’? Don’t Catholics set up IMAGES OF STONE?! Haven’t you ever been to St. Peter’s Basilica? Turn with me to Deuteronomy 4:16. No, no, my poor Dear man, it’s in the Old Testament! Here, Debby, you show him! He’s obviously never even seen a Bible! ‘Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and MAKE you a GRAVEN IMAGE, the similitude of ANY FIGURE, the likeness of MALE or FEMALE.’ Don’t you Catholics make graven images of MALE and FEMALE?”

“Non importa.”

“Debby, what did he say?”

“I think he said it doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, Dear, haven’t you heard anything I’ve been telling you? Turn with me to Deuteronomy 16:22. Here I’ll show you. ‘Neither shalt thou SET thee up ANY IMAGE: which the Lord thy God HATES.’ Don’t Catholics SET UP ANY IMAGES? Yes! Doesn’t God HATE those IMAGES?”

“Io non lo so.”

“Don’t you know what God hates?”

To which our Italian might have answered “Si!” and torn off his wicked trinkets and been saved or kept his trinkets and muttered “Vaffanculo!” and remained as Lost as ever.

But this never happened. In all the years of witnessing, while on vacation we never saved one cornuto-wearing Italian, though several Italians, including the aforementioned Dino (and Lorna if you count English wives married to Italians), did come to L’Abri and returned to Dark, Lost Italy and started a home church in Milan. “But, sadly,” as Mom once said, “even Dino still wears a medallion of some ‘saint,’ so I’m not entirely sure about him.”



Amazon Link


Tuesday, July 22, 2014

UNICEF & Katy Perry - Loving Unconditionally Those with HIV





Katy Perry's 'Unconditionally': A music video for #ShowYourLove




Published on Jul 19, 2014
Subscribe to UNICEF here: http://bit.ly/1ltTE3m

We brought a group of young people together - both HIV positive and HIV negative - and watched some heartwarming moments unfold!

Join UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Katy Perry and #ShowYourLove for all the adolescents facing stigma. Adolescents are the only age group in which AIDS-related deaths are increasing, and stigma -- in many forms - is an immense barrier to HIV testing, care and treatment. Let's work together to end the discrimination associated with HIV!

For more about UNICEF's work on AIDS, visit:http://www.unicef.org/aids/


* * * * * * * * * * * *




Katy Perry, UNICEF Inspire Us To 'Unconditionally' Show Love For Those With HIV
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/21/hiv-aids-unicef_n_5605755.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000051&ir=Religion

The Huffington Post | By Robbie Couch
Posted: 07/21/2014 4:23 pm EDT Updated: 07/21/2014 6:59 pm EDT

Knowing you are loved -- no matter what -- can make a world of difference to those living with HIV/AIDS and battling hurtful stigmas associated with the virus.

A new video by UNICEF is promoting unconditional acceptance for HIV-positive people with lots of warm hugs, tear-streaked faces and wide smiles. The video's message, spreading online through the #ShowYourLove hashtag, features young people writing encouraging messages, like "Love is everything," "Positive sympathy," and "Survivor," on chalkboards for the world to see. Other messages, such as "#GetTested" and, "If you love me, use condoms," highlight the realities of HIV in the 21st century.

It's no coincidence that the video, featuring Katy Perry's "Unconditionally," is targeting a younger audience. A study released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the annual diagnosis rate more than doubled for young gay and bisexual males over the last decade, Bloomberg Businessweek reported.

"There’s a new generation that comes up, and many don’t have firsthand experience with the devastation we saw in the earlier years," the study's author, Amy Lansky, told the news source, referencing the AIDS crisis of the 1980s.

Although significant work is in order to reverse recent trends, the study also highlighted major progress within other demographics: Overall rates of new HIV infections in the U.S. dropped 33 percent over the same time period, with better screening and prevention initiatives largely to credit for positive strides.

To learn more about UNICEF's work combating HIV/AIDS, visit the organization's website.




HIV Virus

HIV Virus

HIV Virus

HIV Virus


* * * * * * * * * * * *


HIV VIRUS

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a lentivirus (a subgroup of retrovirus) that causes the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS),[1][2] a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive. Without treatment, average survival time after infection with HIV is estimated to be 9 to 11 years, depending on the HIV subtype.[3] Infection with HIV occurs by the transfer of blood, semen, vaginal fluid, pre-ejaculate, or breast milk. Within these bodily fluids, HIV is present as both free virus particles and virus within infected immune cells.

HIV infects vital cells in the human immune system such as helper T cells (specifically CD4+ T cells), macrophages, and dendritic cells.[4] HIV infection leads to low levels of CD4+ T cells through a number of mechanisms, including apoptosis of uninfected bystander cells,[5] direct viral killing of infected cells, and killing of infected CD4+ T cells by CD8 cytotoxic lymphocytes that recognize infected cells.[6] When CD4+ T cell numbers decline below a critical level, cell-mediated immunity is lost, and the body becomes progressively more susceptible to opportunistic infections.


* * * * * * * * * * * *


HIV/AIDS Disease
- Wikipedia

Human immunodeficiency virus infection / acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a disease of the human immune system caused by infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).[1] The term HIV/AIDS represents the entire range of disease caused by the human immunodeficiency virus from early infection to late stage symptoms. During the initial infection, a person may experience a brief period of influenza-like illness. This is typically followed by a prolonged period without symptoms. As the illness progresses, it interferes more and more with the immune system, making the person much more likely to get infections, including opportunistic infections and tumors that do not usually affect people who have working immune systems.

HIV is transmitted primarily via unprotected sexual intercourse (including anal and oral sex), contaminated blood transfusions, hypodermic needles, and from mother to child during pregnancy, delivery, or breastfeeding.[2] Some bodily fluids, such as saliva and tears, do not transmit HIV.[3] Prevention of HIV infection, primarily through safe sex and needle-exchange programs, is a key strategy to control the spread of the disease. There is no cure or vaccine; however, antiretroviral treatment can slow the course of the disease and may lead to a near-normal life expectancy. While antiretroviral treatment reduces the risk of death and complications from the disease, these medications are expensive and have side effects. Without treatment, the average survival time after infection with HIV is estimated to be 9 to 11 years, depending on the HIV subtype.[4]

Genetic research indicates that HIV originated in west-central Africa during the late nineteenth or early twentieth century.[5] AIDS was first recognized by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 1981 and its cause—HIV infection—was identified in the early part of the decade.[6] Since its discovery, AIDS has caused an estimated 36 million deaths worldwide (as of 2012).[7] As of 2012, approximately 35.3 million people are living with HIV globally.[7] HIV/AIDS is considered a pandemic—a disease outbreak which is present over a large area and is actively spreading.[8]

HIV/AIDS has had a great impact on society, both as an illness and as a source of discrimination. The disease also has significant economic impacts. There are many misconceptions about HIV/AIDS such as the belief that it can be transmitted by casual non-sexual contact. The disease has also become subject to many controversies involving religion. It has attracted international medical and political attention as well as large-scale funding since it was identified in the 1980s.[9]


World Vision to aid unaccompanied children fleeing violence


Children are fleeing Central America and going to the United States because of violence and poverty.
World Vision is preparing to respond to the crisis. (©2012 Heidi Isaza/World Vision)




World Vision to aid unaccompanied children fleeing violence
http://www.worldvision.org/news-stories-videos/central-america-child-trafficking-border-crossing

As the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border intensifies, World Vision is providing essential supplies through partner organizations to help unaccompanied minors in transition centers across the United States.

By Lauren Fisher, World Vision U.S.
Updated July 10, 2014 at 08:30am PDT


More than 52,000 unaccompanied minors — most from Central America — have entered the United States since last October seeking refuge from violence and oppressive poverty in their nations.

That’s twice the number from the previous 12 months.


A desperate escape from violence

Heedless to the dangers involved, these unaccompanied children crossed vast distances with little protection or resources, arriving in the United States with the clothes on their backs and little else.

Nearly 60 percent of young people cite gang warfare and escalating violence in their homelands as the primary reasons for their exodus, according to a U.N. studyExternal Link (pdf).


Providing necessities for unaccompanied children

The plight of children at the border is causing an escalating humanitarian crisis.

As this emergency intensifies, World Vision is poised to provide essential supplies through partner organizations to help unaccompanied children being sheltered in locations across the United States.

World Vision is working with the churches and community partners at 13 locations throughout the country, including California, Texas, Florida, and New York, to supply unaccompanied children with items such as:
  • Clothing
  • Shoes
  • School supplies 
  • Activity kits
  • Backpacks
We are also furnishing cleaning supplies, paper products, and other materials to equip the local centers that are hosting children.


Addressing the root causes

In Central America, World Vision has worked in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras for decades to address the crisis’ root causes like poverty and the threat of exploitation that cause children to flee.

In El Salvador, programs like urban and rural children’s clubs give kids positive role models and a place to escape the violence. Throughout Central America, projects address the lack of economic opportunities — another factor that causes children to flee — by providing savings groups, vocational training, and other livelihood assistance.

Groups of parents and community leaders are trained to spot child protection issues and advocate for reforms to benefit children on a local and national level.


Learn more

How you can help
  • Pray for unaccompanied children. During the arduous journey north, they are separated from their parents, far from home, and vulnerable to violence, abuse, and other dangers.Use our prayer pointsExternal Link to help guide your prayers.
  • Make a one-time donation to help care for unaccompanied children in shelters across the United States. Your gift will multiply 8 times in impact to help provide interventions like clothing, shoes, hygiene kits, school supplies, activity kits, and other essentials, as well as cleaning supplies, paper products, and other materials to equip local centers that are hosting children.
  • Advocate.External Link Join us in calling on the governments in Central America and the United States to do more to protect children from violence.













Being is Becoming by Un-Becoming...






And you learn that love, true love,
always has joys and sorrow,
seems ever present,
yet is never quite the same,
becoming more than love,
and less than love,
so difficult to define.

And you learn that through it all,
you really can endure,
that you really are strong,
that you do have value.

- Anon


"Not unlike mankind in general, but especially for the Christian who is blood-bought through Christ, and indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God, the process of "putting off" the ills and harms and toxicities of this life must be compensatory. Without the living God exploding the inner worlds of our former unrepentant self there can be no becoming. What stubbornly wishes to remain is the unrepentant "old man" of our former self living with its uncrucified lies and misspent beliefs before the saving God of grace who must be allowed in to cut out our prideful passions and idolizing sense of self and being.

"The Christian life then, is ultimately one of growth through difficult personal struggles against the lies we have grown up with about ourselves and others. Of un-becoming what once was in order to realize, or become, the child of God in the image of Christ, our Lord and Savior. It is a lifelong process that is as hard as it is fulfilling. As difficult to let go of the "old man" as it is difficult to put on the "new man." But we are empowered by the Holy Spirit of God who wishes to cleanse all that we are as blood-bathed sacrifices, and holy altars, or temples, to the living God. Who are become the body of Christ, the bride of the Lamb, and redeemed of the Lord. Eh, verily, Lord, come."

- R.E. Slater, On becoming a "New Man"

---

"The ontic sense of being is not static but ever changing, or moving, towards something, or away from something, in the present tense of time. With time and distance one's being may be discerned as to its change and movement from what once was to what now is

"There is no future sense of being without the accompanying movement of becoming (either less or more from something or towards something). And if there is no becoming than there can be no being. This is as true for God in relationship to His creation as it is for man himself in relation to his Creator.

"The sense of redemption in this world then is the sense of becoming and not static being. It carries both heaven and hell in its epistolary movement either towards the Creator-God or away from the Redeemer of mankind, and even this world itself."

- R.E. Slater, A Sense of Self

---

In philosophy, the concept of becoming was born in eastern ancient Greece by the philosopher Heraclitus of Hephesus, who in the Sixth century BC, said that nothing in this world is constant except change and becoming. - Wikipedia

---

Clemens Alexandrinus (Stromata, v, 105). Similar: Plutarchus (De animae procreatione, 5 p, 1014 A) concerning Heraclitus: This universal order, which is the same for all, has not been made by any god or man, but it always has been, is, and will be an ever-living fire, kindling itself by regular measures and going out by regular measures. -Wikipedia

---

German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that Heraclitus "will remain eternally right with his assertion that being is an empty fiction".[3] Nietzsche developed the vision of a chaotic world in perpetual change and becoming. The state  of becoming does not produce fixed entities, such as being, subject, object, substance, thing. These false concepts are the necessary mistakes which consciousness and language employ in order to interpret the chaos of the state of becoming. The mistake of Greek philosophers was to falsify the testimony of the senses and negate the evidence of the state of becoming. By postulating being as the underlying reality of the world, they constructed a comfortable and reassuring "after-world" where the horror of the process of becoming was forgotten, and the empty abstractions of reason appeared as eternal entities. - Wikipedia



* * * * * * * * * * *


Popular Quotes on Becoming
http://thinkexist.com/quotes/with/keyword/becoming/


“Meeting you was fate, becoming your friend was a choice, but falling in love with you I had no control over.” - Anon

“He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues it possesses” - Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes (American Poet, Lecturer and Essayist, 1803-1882)

“The American lives even more for his goals, for the future, than the European. Life for him is always becoming, never being.” - Albert Einstein quotes (German born American Physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921.

“You must constantly ask yourself these questions: Who am I around? What are they doing to me? What have they got me reading? What have they got me saying? Where do they have me going? What do they have me thinking? And most important, what do they have me becoming? Then ask yourself the big question: Is that okay? Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.” - Jim Rohn quotes (American Speaker and Author. He is famous for motivational audio programs for Business and Life. )

“Nothing is, everything is becoming.”Heraclitus of Ephesus quotes (Greek philosopher remembered for his cosmology, 540-480BC)

“Success means doing the best we can with what we have. Success is the doing, not the getting; in the trying, not the triumph. Success is a personal standard, reaching for the highest that is in us, becoming all that we can be.” - Zig Ziglar quotes (American motivational Speaker and Author. )

“When you meet someone better than yourself, turn your thoughts to becoming his equal. When you meet someone not as good as you are, look within and examine your own self.” - Confucius quotes (China's most famous teacher, philosopher, and political theorist, 551-479 BC)

“There is no knowledge of true being. The world is fundamentally in a state of becoming.” Friedrich Nietzsche quotes (German classical Scholar, Philosopher and Critic of culture, 1844-1900.)

“I've always thought respectable people scoundrels, and I look anxiously at my face every morning for signs of my becoming a scoundrel.” - Bertrand Russell quotes (English Logician and Philosopher 1872-1970)

“Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.” Anais Nin quotes (French born American Author of novels and short stories, 1903-1977)

“Any time you sincerely want to make a change, the first thing you must do is to raise your standards. When people ask me what really changed my life eight years ago, I tell them that absolutely the most important thing was changing what I demanded of myself. I wrote down all the things I would no longer accept in my life, all the things I would no longer tolerate, and all the things that I aspired to becoming.” - Anthony Robbins quotes (American advisor to leaders)

“If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe quotes (German Playwright, Poet, Novelist and Dramatist. 1749-1832)

“Most success springs from an obstacle or failure. I became a cartoonist largely because I failed in my goal of becoming a successful executive.” - Scott Adams quotes (American Cartoonist, b.1957)


And you learn that love, true love,
always has joys and sorrow,
seems ever present,
yet is never quite the same,
becoming more than love,
and less than love,
so difficult to define.

And you learn that through it all,
you really can endure,
that you really are strong,
that you do have value.

- Anon

“I'm becoming more and more myself with time. I guess that's what grace is. The refinement of your soul through time.” - Jewel quotes (American Singer, Songwriter and Guitarist, b.1974)

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming more interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get people interested in you” - Dale Carnegie quotes (American lecturer, author, 1888-1955)

“What is passion? It is surely the becoming of a person. Are we not, for most of our lives, marking time? Most of our being is at rest, unlived. In passion, the body and the spirit seek expression outside of self. Passion is all that is other from self. Sex is only interesting when it releases passion. The more extreme and the more expressed that passion is, the more unbearable does life seem without it. It reminds us that if passion dies or is denied, we are partly dead and that soon, come what may, we will be wholly so.” - John Boorman quotes (British motion-picture director, b.1933)

“We are becoming the servants in thought, as in action, of the machine we have created to serve us” - John Kenneth Galbraith quotes

“''Reason'' is the cause of our falsification of the evidence of the senses. In so far as the senses show becoming, passing away, change, they do not lie.”Friedrich Nietzsche quotes (German classical Scholar, Philosopher and Critic of culture, 1844-1900.)

“Be what you are. This is the first step toward becoming better than you are.” - Julius Charles Hare quotes


go to this link here for more sayings and quotes on becoming

go to this link here for bible verses on becoming