last night i attended the Feast of Tabernacles!

it's outside the Alabaster House and spilled over to the parking lot. i was at the right place at the right moment, standing inside the main area as 5 shofars all around me blew. surround sound! it was such a good time of food, worship, and celebration. gave me a better understanding of what the israelites/israelis do on this festival. so much worship and dancing, rejoicing before the Lord. with e setting sun as the backdrop it was a beautiful pic! wished i had my camera with me. 1st time hearing 2 Spirit-filled Rabbis! i m so happy! Praise God!

these 2 days are really nice, restful, fruitful, worshipful ones. i love it! (didnt have sch cos it's retreat week. we take turns in groups to go)

will be going on school retreat thurs-sat.

tomorrow, we'll be blessing the 1st years' socks off! haha!

update on 911 quran burning event: CANCELLED!!!!! YAY!!!!

Florida pastor calls off Quran burning

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/11/florida-pastor-calls-off-quran-burning/

(CNN) - The pastor of a Florida church says his congregation has decided to call off the burning of the Quran that was to be held Saturday - the ninth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attack on the United States by the al Qaeda terror network.

"We will definitely not burn the Quran," the Rev. Terry Jones told NBC's "Today" on Saturday "Not today, not ever." The burning had been planned for 6 p.m.

Jones arrived in New York late Friday night and was working to set up a meeting with the imam in charge of the Islamic center planned near ground zero. The planned meeting, Jones had said, helped persuade him to halt the burning.

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but no such meeting took place in the end.

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here's what i thought is ridiculous. (i m against being ecumenical) Jesus said, "I am the way, the Truth and the life. no one comes to the Father except through me." we should stop swinging to the other end in reaction to some err we want to counteract!

Churches read from Quran in face of proposed Quran burning

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/13/churches-read-from-quran-in-face-of-proposed-quran-burning/

Journalist Amy Zerba filed this report from Gainesville, Florida:

Rev. Larry Reimer says there's a simple message at the core of his faith: people have more in common than they have in conflict.

It's one reason he chose to have a passage from the Quran read at the United Church of Gainesville, part of the United Church of Christ, on Sunday.

And he wasn’t alone.

More than 20 religious leaders from Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim backgrounds around Gainesville had the same Quran passage read - along with Christian and Hebrew scriptures– at their congregations over the weekend. Local synagogues made it part of their Rosh Hashanah celebrations.

It was a sign of unity after weeks of talk by a Florida pastor who threatened to burn the Muslim holy book on 9-11 but who ultimately cancelled the event.

“It just seemed that the reading of Quran was the most affirmative thing we can do,” said Reimer, who has served at the United Church of Gainesville for 36 years. “You might say (we) befriended the Quran and brought it into everyone’s framework, everyone’s point of view.”

Reimer came up with the idea a few days after he learned of the planned Burn A Koran Day from worried parishioners. He approached local religious leaders to join him in reading common Hebrew, Christian and Muslim scriptures at their Sabbath services.

The response from the community was overwhelming positive, he said.

Shanna Johnson, 40, a member of the United Church of Gainesville, said the proposed Quran burning forced the Gainesville community to talk “rationally” with others about different faiths.

“The things that we have in common can really come out in this type of situation,” Johnson said.

Reimer plans to continue connections with clergy from other faiths. A group of religious leaders will meet in October in Gainesville to try to improve interfaith relations.

“My whole ministry, my whole faith is designed around the sense that we have much to learn from each other that we are a common family and that our division is not among religions but it is among fanatics and extremists on both sides that we have to overcome,” Reimer said.

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"Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons, a professor of religion and African-American studies at the University of Florida, read from a Hebrew Scripture (Deut 6:4-5); a Christian scripture (Matt 22:34) and from the Quran (Aal 'Imran 3:64) during a Sunday service at ehe United Church of Gainesville in Folirda. the common message between the 3 passages was "one God," she said.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so, these 3 religions are mono-theistic. so? does that mean it's the same?

Microwaves Myths

Source: http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/food/6-biggest-lies-about-food-busted-2391419

Myth: Microwaving zaps nutrients.
The Truth: This is misguided thinking, says Carol Byrd-Bredbenner, Ph.D., R.D., professor of nutrition at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Whether you’re using a microwave, a charcoal grill or a solar-heated stove, “it’s the heat and the amount of time you’re cooking that affect nutrient losses, not the cooking method,” she says. “The longer and hotter you cook a food, the more you’ll lose certain heat- and water-sensitive nutrients, especially vitamin C and thiamin [a B vitamin].” Because microwave cooking often cooks foods more quickly, it can actually help to minimize nutrient losses.

Myth: Radiation from microwaves creates dangerous compounds in your food.
The Truth: “Radiation” might connote images of nuclear plants, but it simply refers to energy that travels in waves and spreads out as it goes. Microwaves, radio waves and the energy waves that we perceive as visual light all are forms of radiation. So, too, are X-rays and gamma rays—which do pose health concerns. But the microwaves used to cook foods are many, many times weaker than X-rays and gamma rays, says Robert Brackett, Ph.D., director of the National Center for Food Safety and Technology at the Illinois Institute of Technology. And the types of changes that occur in microwaved food as it cooks are “from heat generated inside the food, not the microwaves themselves,” says Brackett. “Microwave cooking is really no different from any other cooking method that applies heat to food.” That said, microwaving in some plastics may leach compounds into your food, so take care to use only microwave-safe containers.

it is sad that a 50-member church (Dove World Center Outreach in Gainsville, Fla) and a revengeful pastor (terry jones) can hijack the media and thousands of minutes of airtime. and organise a burn the quran day "in the name of Jesus." whatever happened to turn the other cheek?

just as the Filipino hostage situation involving a bus load of HK tourist should have had a media black out, similarly this burning of the quran event should have. the former resulted in 8 deaths. the latter would bring much more.

if the media has not fanned the flames of this runaway spark, it will not have turned into such a huge worldwide religious fire that is so hard to put out. we cannot continue to sacrifice peace and social harmony, international relations and inter-personal decency on the altar of sensationalism. it is time to call the media to attention and to hold them to good journalism and worthy news coverage. it is time we should re-think how our media function such that a delinquent minority will not waste the time and resources of the majority and that their lame causes not be inflated above and beyond that they are.

ever since the media caught wind of this, it has blazed the world over and this time round the fire is being flamed by the church in Germany that Pastor Jones has founded. that church has disowned and renounced Jones in 2008 but now felt need to voice their disapproval of Jones' antics to the world. the Church (note capital letter 'C') need to live not in reaction, not in retaliation but in reconciliation and for restoration. we are ambassadors for Christ (1 Cor 5:20), we are called to be witnesses (Acts 1:8). Jones in his call to burn quran to send a message to the muslims is doing so in retaliation. the church in germany, and all the world around are reacting, and thus give rise to probable more escalated reaction on the recipients' part and over-correction of a minority's error by government or society.

quoting Jason V: you have hope of fully solving your problem if it's 100% your fault.

it's a good one to remember that you have to own your problem.