Tolerance and Holocaust

Hello all and forgive me for my extended absence, I was in Brazil to spend festivities with my mother. My father died recently and I thought she needed me beside her.

I arrived in the UK a week ago and I have been quite low as I feel very deeply when I have to leave my mother and my country. One thing is certain, we can't deny our roots, they are very strong.

This is only a prelude for this post. As I mentioned, being a bit low and lonely I wasted my time on Facebook, getting entertained with the posts and lots of pictures from my Brazilian friends and also my English friends.

Yesterday there were lots of posts about tolerance and holocaust. It is the holocaust day, let's be tolerant. All those posts were well intentioned, I suppose, and everybody seemed to think this is a good idea: tolerance.

I have the bad habit to question everything, things that seem good and things that seem bad. Are they that good? Are they that bad? This is why I have tried to understand without judgement, tried to experiment (to a degree of safety), tried to learn. I am very scared of cast in stone certainties people seem to have: I am a communist, I am a socialist, I am a mormon, I am... I am... Who am I? I am myself, or at least I try to be. No big ideologies can take me away from myself and what I am first: a human being, with pulse, with joys and pains, with love and sometimes anger, sometimes I am giving, sometimes I am selfish, sometimes I am understanding, sometimes I am judgemental. I try my hardest to become better, more forgiving, more understanding, more loving... Some days I am low as low can be, somedays I am happy, more than happiness itself. When I am at my darkest moments I try to ask myself why? I am Baroque, not Classic. I have shadows and light and in my moment of darkness I try to take from the inside what is hurting and try and elaborate and understand...so much understanding can come out of pain! I do not deny my feelings, I let the come, I greet them. Only by getting in touch with our feelings we can be real and truthful to ourselves. There is no shame in hurting, as the song says: everybody hurts!

So, I referred to the dictionary and looked for the definitions of tolerance, tolerate, holocaust...where do those words come from (you will find the definitions at the bottom of the page). What do they mean? Words are so much taken from granted but they have evolved and they have been engrained in our cells. Their meaning are powerful and nowadays the majority of people seem to waste them and banalise them. I keep thinking about the bible: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Has anyone thought about the meaning of this? The word is the essence of creation itself. By saying things we are creating a whole universe around us. Words seem to be misused and wasted and also used with little discerning about them.

Back to the meaning of the word tolerance: To tolerate means to tolerate the existence of opinions that differ from your own. Ok, what is to tolerate then? To tolerate is to allow the existence. It is not because someone thinks different from you that you are going to torture or kill them.

My first question is: are we really tolerant? Some people inside despise all the people that disagree with them, they hate them on the inside but they are not going to act on behalf of this hatred. They refrain themselves from the explicit violence, but their souls are corroded with it. They won't say the word, they won't perform the aggression, but they will have those thoughts in their minds. It might take one crazy dictator like Hitler to unfold these thoughts and take them into action and in fact, they will be deeply satisfied with it. They might not confess it, but deep down they will feel very contented. How dangerous! We can sensor words and actions but nobody can look in our minds and really know what we think. People can perceive what other think, but not know for certain.

Tolerance is then, allowing people to think differently from you. This allows people to coexist in, if not perfect harmony, at least some kind of peace. Or maybe veiled violence? A violence that remains in the mind but not in action?

I agree, this is better than going around killing everyone that disagrees with you, but is this enough? In my opinion, this is not enough. This is still putting ideologies above the human being. I read the bible. I know, most people think the bible is outdated, it is an instrument of control. I do agree that churches and institutions are to blame for this situation as they have used the bible, very often, as an instrument of power and control. We can only take power from something that is powerful. Power from wisdom and from words passed over thousands of years from generation to generation.

The bible says: 'A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.'(John 13:34)

It does not say: 'tolerate each other', It says: love each other! What is love then? Everybody talks about love as a common idea, yet the Greeks had 4 meanings for love. Let's start with the dictionary: a strong feeling of affection. I think this is the most common idea of love, but I believe the meaning in the bible is more ample than that. Love is the absolute respect for the other living creatures, for their every cell and right to live, breathe, exist. think and for their integrity. It is much broader than simply tolerate, it is acceptance, it is even more than acceptance, it is embracing it and acknowledging that their lives are as importance as your own, and above it all, it is try to understand why they are who they are, what they think. I believe that most people's creeds are their beliefs about what is best. Everyone thinks they are right because they are right for what their reality is, for what they have lived, where they were born, what they have seen and experienced. They develop their creed based on the interpretation of their own reality, but there is a much bigger reality, bigger then the individual realities of each one of us. The reality that we are all in the world, together and we shall learn that, unless we respect, love and help each other, our own realities will collapse, simply because they do not exist, they are just a perception. All human beings are like little cells of humankind, which is one. A fabric made by colourful different fibbers (how boring is a grey piece of cloth) with different textures and shapes. There is nothing about you, that makes you better than someone else, not your colour, not your hair, your house, your car, your ideas. You are one cell of a big tissue. One fibber of a cloth, a little tiny piece of humankind, which is a privilege and a responsibility. Fearing the other is fearing the collapse of your own ideas, creeds. Your little world makes you feel safe, in what you have seen, eaten, believed your whole like. That is why people get so attached to them. The collapse of them might represent the collapse of a world that seemed so sure. Well, nothing is sure. Everything moves, everything changes, your whole body changes every 5 years, your cells die, you are actually a new person everyday. If we are not afraid to embrace the changes, embrace the differences, embrace the pains and sorrows as well as the joys, we can call our little existence a LIFE. Otherwise we will only keep breathing in a cold sea of stale ideas. Keep re-inventing yourself, better still, keep embracing the new person that is born everyday. Let go...

There is only one thing that never changes, never dies and never ages: LOVE.

More than tolerate: Love

Even your enemies, even those who hate you, because love is stronger than hate, than indifference, than any ideology. So simple yet to complicated! Sometimes ideologies only mask the lack of love there is in the world.

I will finish this with the letter of Corinthians 13:

1 Corinthians 13 >> New International Version 1984

---

1If I speak in the tongues^a of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,^b but have not love, I gain nothing.

4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

This is so beautiful. And so simple.

All my love to you

Gisele

tolerance

Pronunciation: /ˈtɒl(ə)r(ə)ns/

Translate tolerance | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish

Definition of tolerance

noun

• 1 [mass noun] the ability or willingness to tolerate the existence of opinions or behaviour that one dislikes or disagrees with:the tolerance of corruptionan advocate of religious tolerance

• 2the capacity to endure continued subjection to something such as a drug or environmental conditions without adverse reaction:the desert camel shows the greatest tolerance to dehydration[count noun]:various species of diatoms display different tolerances to acid
• diminution in the body’s response to a drug after continued use:the body’s tolerance to Ecstasy builds up very quickly

• 3an allowable amount of variation of a specified quantity, especially in the dimensions of a machine or part:250 parts in his cars were made to tolerances of one thousandth of an inch

Origin:

late Middle English (denoting the action of bearing hardship, or the ability to bear pain and hardship): via Old French from Latintolerantia, from tolerare (see tolerate)

tolerate

Pronunciation: /ˈtɒləreɪt/

Translate tolerate | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish

Definition of tolerate

verb

[with object]

• 1allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of (something that one dislikes or disagrees with) without interference:a regime unwilling to tolerate dissent
• accept or endure (someone or something unpleasant or disliked) with forbearance:how was it that she could tolerate such noise?

• 2be capable of continued subjection to (a drug, toxin, or environmental condition) without adverse reaction:lichens grow in conditions that no other plants tolerate
  
  

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A Harlem's prayer

As dictated to me

I will serve the Lord until my last breath
and with His breath of life
I will sing and praise His glory
Even if many voices try to silence mine,
Even if the whole world weighs upon my shoulders
I will fly
For the Lord has provided me with spiritual wings,
For the Lord has given me a voice
To speak on behalf of the angels
To speak for Him and share His great love and compassion
with my fellow brothers.

I can bend but won't be broken
I can weep but my spirit will rejoice
For the Lord is my shepherd and his pastures will forever be
To quench our thirst
To feed us with the richest food
And fulfil us in our earthly journey.

Amen

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Jamie Oliver - Forums / Jubilee Romania (charity to keep girls off streets) Gisele & Jamie - beta

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Is Charity a hypocrisy?

Hello,


I have just arrived home and I had to write in this blog quickly before I forget the ideas in my head. I was listening to BBC radio 3 in the car and they were discussing abuse, pedophilia, hypocrisy and other related subjects. They were talking about institutions lying to protect themselves and about the lying about charity.

Right, let's start with the most attacked institution of them all: Christian churches, especially Catholics. We live in a world whose idea is that every single priest is a pedophile. I know catholics and catholic priests, I know other christian churches and their ministers and most of them are honest, loving, dedicated people. It would only take 2-3 'wrong' ones to attack the whole of the institution. They were saying that institutions protect themselves and try and hide the shame, I am not saying that it would be right to do so but I think it is only human. Institutions are not made by perfect people as there isn't such a thing as perfect people, but sometimes they deal with the problem within themselves, that is true.

We target the INSTITUTIONS: teachers, priests, those who are in contact with children in order to educate and orientate them. There are also private individuals that can be abusers. Oh yes, the other target are parents and families. Another INSTITUTION. Is the aim of the BBC (is the BBC and institution by the way?) to attack and destroy every institution, which seems to be the aim of society nowadays: destroy the institutions that are the base of society itself. When anyone tries to say: there are gay men that can be pedophiles, it is ruled out straight away as discrimination. Maybe the target of this attack it is not to protect the innocent victims, but to undermine society itself.

The easy and simple principle in life is that there are good and bad people everywhere. There are good and bad parents, good and bad teachers, good and bad priests, good and bad straight people. gay people, white people, black people, everyone. By labelling and targeting people and institutions, this is another form of discrimination. There is no safe place to be but also, we should not spend our lives fearing abuse, fearing institutions and fearing everything. The modern world tries to isolate people from each other in a way of controlling them. I think what we should fear is the media, that gives us a distorted sense of the world by constantly broadcasting disgrace over good, abuse over love, making us believe we live in a much worse world that we actually do and focusing in matters of little importance for our everyday lives.

If we were in a shack, in the middle of a forest with no internet, radio, TV and other means of communication we would probably be very happy people, living our lives and occupied with our little everyday concerns, instead of sheltering ourselves from a hostile world that might not be as hostile as we think.

When I lived in Sao Paulo, Brasil, all I saw in the morning going to work was people ready to go to work. Most people are honest, have jobs, work hard. Most people are just trying to live their lives and survive, bad people, abusers, thieves are still minority or this world would have exploded many centuries ago.

Parents are not the enemy, nor priests, or teachers. The enemy is fear of each other. The enemy is indifference.

By fearing abuse, honest people are scared of giving love to children. Teachers are scared of comforting children, priests are scared of nurturing children. We all need love, touching, affection, comfort, we are distorting everything that is good and pure in the name of a civilisation that is getting sicker and sicker, more and more scared of each other and perfect kind people do not know what to say and what to do. They are scared they will say the wrong thing and be accused of discrimination or touch the wrong way and be accused of abuse. Who misses out in all of this? Children, that are forced to grow up too quickly and are instructed to fear and distrust anyone and everyone.

I believe that there is inner good and kindness in every human being but fear is an instinct that generates aggression as a defence mechanism. If we believe we are constantly under attack, we are going to become more and more aggressive, is only nature's law.

Then, in the other hand, we have the children, that are learning to play the abuse card as a game. We don't like our math's teacher? Let's say he touched us the wrong way and many teachers have been unfairly prosecuted and cast away. Have you watched a film called the witches of Salem, where teenage girls find it funny to accuse women of witchcraft and many were burnt at the steak? The modern witches are priests, teachers and parents.

We need to stop twisting society, instead of pointing the bad in people, try to find the good in them, Instead of focusing in abuse and aggression, focus on love and affection, try to understand that we adults, are leading those children into tomorrow's world. What a sad world we are showing them. Those children are so confused, scared, lost. They don't know what's right or wrong and in who or what to believe.

I have a friend and she said she asked her 10 year old boy to get milk in a corner business, in a very small village, on a Sunday morning. He asked: Will I be ok? Will I end up like April, mum? Did you worry about that when you were a child? I didn't. I played in the streets, I went to the bakery, I walked to school. Are we thinking about the world we are showing our children?

Are there problems in the world? Many! I think most of them are drug related and drugs are definitely ruining the world. Then if we dig deep, under the influence of drugs, alcohol and other worse drugs, people can loose control and do bad things because they are not in full possession of their faculties. Who does anything about the drug problem? Nobody does, because drugs are big business and many people make a lot of money with it, including authorities, police, politicians, you name it.

In the world we live, the real enemy is greed. We are turning into a savage capitalist world where money rules and lives of individuals are numbers. Instead of turning the public attention to scares and fears to distract them, how about tackle the real world problems?

1. Drugs, alcohol
2. Excess debt and consumerism - how to only buy what you need
3. Lack of education and importance of knowledge and culture
4. Importance of honesty and hard work
5. Solidarity
6. How to be a citizen and contribute to your community
7. Hunger, should so many people starve to death?
8. Social injustice
9. Heath system and people dying where there is no need to
10. How to love

Instead, we are all focusing on discrimination and destruction and those would never exist if we focused in the good and right things. When people join their efforts for a greater good those things are irrelevant. War times are horrible but those are times when people focus in what is important. When someone is dying next to you, would you bother asking: are you gay, christian? You would probably be busy keeping his heart beating. This is real human solidarity. A human life is precious, the rest is talk, sickness and distraction. This is manipulating public opinion in order to deviate them from the truth.

Going back to charity work. I was one of the people that thought people only did charity to look good. It is true, that are people that do that, but they are again, minority. Most people want to do good to others. I started doing charity work myself. It is quite hard work. I have to go shopping, plan menus, get people over for dinner, spend 6,7,8 even 10 hours cooking, washing up, cleaning the kitchen, it probably takes up to 12-15 hours of my time and I get no money for it when I could be working for myself and getting myself money.

I need to advertise it because the more people know about it the better it is for raising money and for those girls. I raised enough money in 2 months to keep one girl for 5 months. It is a small, private initiative and I feel it has made a difference in someone's life.

By targeting charity now, saying that people do charity for themselves, maybe they want this to stop too and make this world more selfish, more uncaring, more unloving. I really blame the BBC for that stupid speech and I would like to know what does the BBC and other media channels do to help the world instead of broadcasting sensational news to sell and distracting people with rubbish. Oh, back to panis et circensis! The media is, as everything else, big business! I would say, the biggest, media and entertainment is a billion dollars industry.

My advice is: Do not pay too much attention to the media. It is not because someone says something on the TV and radio that it is the absolute truth. Refer to your childhood, refer to your human instincts of right and wrong. We all know it. We all know what solidarity, love, companionship, generosity, compassion, affection are. Do not let media, society, big companies, dictate how you should think, what you should wear, where you should spend your money with things you do not need, what you should say.

You are free, you have free will. You are free to love, feel and think. Even if the world makes you too scared and lonely to believe you are.

My message from today is: love one another. This is all we really need to know while we are on this planet.

Much love,

Gisele

Monday, monday again

Hello

Monday, raining day, I am again facing the cleaning dilemma. I have made a good start by clearing the living room and I guess today I can have it done in a couple of hours, bedroom excluded.

Tomorrow I have  job interview and am quite relaxed about it although I do not know which song would be the best to teach. Oh yes, I forgot to mention it is an interview to get a job to start choirs in schools. I do not know if I am gifted enough for that or even if I can adapt to this new learning world where teachers have no say anymore.

I have Classic FM on as always and here it is all peace and quiet. This is a corner of heaven in a world of chaos, my cat, myself and Classic FM.

I forgot to mention that after many months without climbing on my lap my cat has finally decided to lay on it and spent several hours on my lap, purring away. I adore this cat, she is clever, loving, sweet... Nothing like a pet to make you feel loved and appreciated, especially when you feed them!!!

I am finding it quite hard to be alone in the house without my husband, even though we might argue at times, it is better arguing with someone else than with yourself, isn't it?

I really don't fancy cooking for myself so yesterday I had all my meals out. At lunch time I met a friend, David Holland, a pianist and we went for a simple roast dinner in a very popular pub around the area where they do a roast for a fiver. You can imagine how popular this place is for offering a roast with such reasonable price so the place was very crowded but David managed to find us a small table.

Then we had a coffee and cake and then we went to the pub for the club 60/80 as it is mostly men around that age (I am not a man and not yet that age). I came back home around 9 P.M. and couldn't sleep so spent some time on the computer and watching Strictly come dancing I had previously recorded, the show and the results. It was about 4 am when I finally got to sleep with my cat. I am finding it hard to adapt being on my own in this house, although it is quiet, it is very empty.

Well my friends, enough time wasted, back to the nitty gritty now.

Gisele