how do you respond?

Living Life in a Fish Bowl!

I interact with numerous people throughout any given week.  Sometimes I can go from talking with someone who has just lost a loved one or lost their job to someone who just got married or just got a promotion.  

Romans 12:15 says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.”  Be careful that you don’t get that backwards and rejoice when something bad happens to someone and be sad when they get a blessing.  Jealousy is behind that line of thinking.

“So don’t lose a minute in building on what you’ve been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others. With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature…

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Tones of love!

Purplerays

♡ Ļ Ơ Ɣ Ɛ ♡

♡ Love is a canvas furnished by Nature

and embroidered by imagination….♡

~ Voltaire ~

image: tumblr photography
Text source: “Soul Healing Mystics’ Light” https://www.facebook.com/Soul-Healing-Mystics-Light-1437542323150756/?fref=photo

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May your day be wonderful!

Purplerays

Greet everyone you meet with a warm smile, no matter how busy you are.

Don’t rush encounters with coworkers, family and friends.

Speak softly. Listen attentively.

Act as if every conversation you have is the most important thing on your mind today.

Look your children and your partner in the eyes when they talk to you.
Stroke the cat, caress the dog.

Lavish love on every living being you meet.

See how different you feel at the end of the day.

~ Sarah Ban Breathnach

Photo & text source Jude Teme Adonne https://www.facebook.com/timadonne?fref=photo

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Love and Cherry Delight

Roth Poetry

“The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach!”

“The way to keep a man’s heart is through his stomach!”

Love and Cherry Delight

I know she loves me…

She made me a cherry cheesecake for Valentine’s Day!

Red is the color of love, and for me it is cherries.

Made it for me against her better judgment…

because she loves me and knows it is my favorite.

*

Love is like that you know…

Makes one do things you wouldn’t ordinarily do.

When you get to be my age love sometimes comes

in unusual ways… such as cherry cheesecake.

Though she cringes at the thought of all those calories

she knows it won’t last long.

*

So, as she enjoys squares of dark chocolate,

I savor each bite

of that delectable cream cheese and cherries…

and love her dearly as the sweet taste of love

lingers on my…

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Friendship ending in love

*
Friendship often ends in love,
but love in friendship, never.

~ Charles Caleb Colton

 

Love – by Abirami Sethumanickam

Super-Extra Abi

i look for myself, in you
as you’re suspended in air
your first sight 
your promises of forever
your blindness
your difficulty

                                 i’m convinced,
                                 you’re the answer
                                 to my fear of hating
                                 and destruction

                                                                            so i fell in love
                                                                            with the first boy that turned and looked
                                                                            with the pink that made me a girl
                                                                            with debates that made me heard
                                                                            with all the books i could never read
                                                                            with the english that taunted
                                                                            with her, and the jokes she made 


i wonder 
why you were so good to me 
when all i did
was use you
as a getaway 
                          you defined me
                                                       beyond what this
                                                       world has assigned for me 
maybe there’ll come a day
when you’ll love me less
and i’ll love more

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Right wing thinking – Christian Nationalism – Extremism – Fascism – Nazism

There are people who want us to believe there is nothing wrong with Christian Nationalism. Particularly in the U.S.A. and in East Europe (Poland and Hungary) there are many who call themselves Christian, though they do not really follow the teachings of Christ and even have another god than Christ (because they do take Jesus to be God himself and worship him even before pictures and statues, which is an abomination in God’s eyes).

Those very conservative Christians often also believe Jesus Christ was a white person, though as a Palestinian he had a light brown skin. For them, Jesus had to belong to the White Race, because only the Caucasian or Europoid, as descendants of Adam, are the ones directly created and foreseen by God. The Mongoloid, and Negroid where considered the lower sort of human beings because they arrived from the sinners and as such had to bear the consequences of their sin and thus had to come to terms with the fact that, as people of colour, they were inferior human beings.

For many Americans God has given them America. According to them, it belongs to them. They forget that the Red Indians were and still are the original and rightful residents of what is now called North America or the United States of America and Canada. They also seem to forget that God has put all things under Christ’s feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all (Ephesians 1:15-23) and that all people should become united in Christ. Those who call themselves Christian should as members of that body (Christ = the Church) should be as brothers and sisters, as siblings forming one body and one spirit, just as they were called to the one hope of their calling, not telling lies but speaking the truth in love, being prepared to let everybody grow and themselves also growing up in every way into Jesus Christ, him who is the head, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promoting the body’s growth in building itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:4, 15-16)

That community sphere and love of Christ is far to look for in many of those American churches, and certainly in those nationalist churches. Strangely enough, several Americans in such nationalist churches or conservative evangelical churches have forgotten their own family background, or simply do not want to acknowledge it, but others want to convince others that the land they live in, has always belonged to them and is a gift from God that they should protect against all strangers trying to come to nest in ‘their nation’.

Those nationalist Christians believe they have a heavenly calling to become immortal, coming to live in heaven. This heavenly goal is for them something which is received by grace and can only be received by the chosen people (they – and strangely not the Biblical Chosen People of Israel). According to them, the white man was created by God (they seem to forget that Adam means the ‘red man’ or ‘man from the red earth‘) to form families, clans, tribes and nations under different earthly governments. Nations and governments are, therefore, according to them, an absolute good and not merely a post-fall necessity of political systems. And that can only be accomplished by their society of white evangelicals making sure that their race and community shall not be polluted by mixing varieties, or coloured people and people thinking differently.

Stephen Wolfe defines Christian Nationalism as follows:

“Christian nationalism is nationalism modified by Christianity.

My definition of Christian nationalism is a Christianized form of nationalism or, put differently, a species of nationalism. Thus, I treat nationalism as a genus, meaning that all that is essential to generic nationalism is true of Christian nationalism.” {The Case for Christian Nationalism (p. 10). Canon Press. Kindle Edition by Stephen Wolfe}

One can wonder what he means by nationalism that would be Christianised. He explains:

My definition of nationalism is similar to that of Christian nationalism, though with less content: Nationalism refers to a totality of national action, consisting of civil laws and social customs, conducted by a nation as a nation, in order to procure for itself both earthly and heavenly good.” {The Case for Christian Nationalism (p. 10-11). Canon Press. Kindle Edition by Stephen Wolfe}

This for me gives the impression that man would be capable to produce heavenly good. Clearly he, like more Christian Americans does not know the Bible enough to work from those Scriptures. But that does not seem to him to be a shortcoming or problem at all, as he assumes that we may think further from the human mind and put everything in the light of the human relationship to the ecclesiastical relationship in order to be able to come to our place in the entirety of God’s work.

About his methodology Wolfe explains:

I assume the Reformed theological tradition ^{might he mean Calvinism}, and so I make little effort to exegete biblical text. Some readers will complain that I rarely appeal to Scripture to argue for my positions. I understand the frustration, but allow me to explain: I am neither a theologian nor a biblical scholar. I have no training in moving from scriptural interpretation to theological articulation.” {The Case for Christian Nationalism (p. 16). Canon Press. Kindle Edition by Stephen Wolfe}

He has a very strange idea about the unity of the church, but that is a general misconception of most American conservative evangelists. He writes:

Spiritual unity is inadequate for formal ecclesial unity. {The Case for Christian Nationalism (p. 200). Canon Press. Kindle Edition, by Stephen Wolfe.}

Though, ecclesial unity can only be formed by all those in the ecclesia willing to go for the same values and same beliefs. Without spiritual unity, based on Biblical Truth, no real good spiritual raster or framework can be built, nor shall the congregation be able to form one strong unity in Christ.

Not to fall far the trap of Christian Nationalism he is right to say

People do not suddenly speak some Gospel language and then assume a Gospel culture. The people’s way of life permeates the visible church, and it serves as an ancillary feature that makes possible the administration of sacred things (e.g., preaching in the vernacular). The administration of the Word and Sacraments require, at a bare minimum, a common language; and church fellowship requires at least a core culture serving as the cultural norm for social relations. Culturally distinct groups of Christians could, of course, start their own churches, and this would solve one problem. {The Case for Christian Nationalism (p. 200). Canon Press. Kindle Edition, by Stephen Wolfe.}

It is important to get a “Way of life” in line with the “Way of life of Christ”. And that is the main point where those Christian Nationalists go wrong. In Eastern Europe as well as in North America, those Nationalist Christians do not follow the teaching of Christ at all, which speaks of tolerance and unselfish love for all people, which is very wrong with those nationalists who exclude others, especially if they have a different colour or race, and do not think they belong to ‘their’ nation.

Many Christian Nationalists believe that it is impossible for people from other backgrounds and cultures to achieve a spiritual presence, especially if they do not speak the same language and / or use the same Bible. They actually exclude the power of God’s Work, and apparently do not believe that God can protect his own Word if it were not printed in their language. All too often we find King James Bible only by such conservatives, but also groups that give preference to the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR)  Apostles Bible. That last movement allows Pentecostal denominations and Charismatic movements to be considered as one spiritual unit or church unity. For them is the world under Satan, and it is the white people who have become Christians who have the authority as well as the duty to reclaim the world for God.

In Great Britain the Christian Nationalists may think like their American believers, but on the continent, they mostly are convinced that only the Roman Catholic Faith is the right faith, and all protestants should come back to the Papal Church, whilst all the unitarian or non-trinitarian believers should be done away with because they would be the hand of Satan.

Europe and the U.S.A may try to be a gathering of bigger places or states, also known as nations, which try to have common bonds in their legal system, their general culture of freedom of speech, even their religious attitudes and holidays, their sports, their food, their music, their movies, simply said to have a common culture. The main aim is to have a general line of common things that should bring different people in that ‘unit’ together. There is an understanding that the common bonds though there is a diversity of these cultural experiences would tear the connection apart or subtract from the strength of the “commonness” or “unity”. Variety should not mean that it would not go together and would mean division. But the nationalist Christians do not want to find a variety of ideas in their ranks. For them, equality in thinking is one of the main things to belong to the covenant.

Religion may traditionally been something that binds a people or nation together, but no group of people can force others to have their religion, and that its in a way what those Christian Nationalists want. They want everybody to think like them and to believe like them.

At no time was it ever Jesus idea that White Americans or any other group of people would be of more importance than the real original People of God, the Bnei Yisroel (people of Israel). God made it clear that Israel was His Chosen People. And it is not up to man to decide who is to be God’s Chosen People. Those nationalists should better delve into the Scriptures to see what it teaches us about our place in the world and how we have to relate to other human beings.

It looks like a lot of Christian Nationalists are afraid of what is further from their bed, instead of opening their horizons, they want to close their world in a time of globalisation.

Those who think God’s Word is only for a few are wrong. The Word of God is revealed to all mankind and calls all people, be them white or bronw, to self-denial and transformation and to unite with eachother, coming closer to God in unity and full of love. From the gospels we learn that strangers were to be loved, the same as the followers of Christ would love themselves. The law effectively speaks against the actions of the nations in preferring their own.

We should know that any form of extreme behaviour or way of thinking is contrary to the open mind Jesus wanted his followers to have. From the previous centuries we also can see how such extremism derailed and gave birth to movements we as lovers of God should avoid, because they are totally against the rules of love for the other.

Giving exaggerated attention to the country or belonging to one country has created currents in the world that excluded others, such as what Nazism did to Jews, gipsies and true God-loving persons who did not wish to believe in the Trinity. Such a cursing attitude that goes against the commandments of God should be avoided by every Christian.

+

Preceding

Evangelicals: For The Love Of Trump

Evangelicals & Seduction

++

Additional reading

1. People of God
2. The Many Faces of Extremism
3. A diluted reformation point
4. Capitalism and economic policy and Christian survey
5. About Three-in-Ten U.S. Adults Are Now Religiously Unaffiliated
6. Living with some type of physical disability in the U.S.A.
7. Less Americans interested in praying
8. The American clouds of Anti-Semitism
9. Gradual decline by American Christians
10. The Media and Democracy
11. Right-wing fundamentalist Christians to dictate the U.S.A.
12. American churches closing their doors for good
13. American secularism is growing — and growing more complicated
14. American fundamentalists win
15. Our selection of The Week’s 2nd week of August 2022
16. Reasons why Christianity is declining rapidly in America
17. How willing are people to stand up for their values and beliefs
18. What Does it Really Mean to Be a Radical Follower of Jesus?
19. Gradual decline by American Christians
20. What is happening in America to religion and to the language of faith
21. How to Save the American Church
22. Have corrupt kleptocrats and international criminals to make America great
23. A president daring to use the Bible for underlining his hate speech
24. How the term Evangelical has grown to blur theology and ideology
25. Presbyterians and Reformed Christians, membership and active involvement is part of a congregation’s DNA
26. War against deconstruction Christian movement
27. Hope For, But Not In, Evangelicalism
28. Dan Foster on what he finds the Stupidest solution to school shootings presented by a Christian Pastor
29. Christian nationalism is shaping a Pennsylvania primary — and a GOP shift
30. Does one have to be afraid of Christian nationalism
31. Our stance against certain religions and immigrating people
32. Those willing to tarnish
33. Who are the anti-Jehovah people
34. Facing Extremism
35. The Moral Character of Public Officials: Remembering January 6
36. Martin Luther King’s Dream Today
37. Joshua, a Particular Baptist his view on Nationalism

+++

Related

1. the church is the center in Christ
2. Lesson 2: The History of Church and State
3. Lesson 3: Christian Nationalism
4. Race and Nation in Latin America: Whitening, Browning, and the Failures of Mestizaje
5. Christian Nationalism, Thomas Achord and the disturbing tale of an anonymous twitter account
6. Interview with Jennifer Butler
7. The Rise of Right-Wing Wokeism
8. Thesis? – Is Neo-Calvinism a legitimate replacement theory for the more radical Christian Nationalism?
9. Book: Taking America Back for God
10. Challenge or Persuade?
11. Chris Has A [Christian Nationalist] Dream. How Does It Turn Out?
12. Racial Segregation has no place whatsoever in Christ’s Church
13. What is a Nation? Preliminary Thoughts Before Reading “The Case for Christian Nationalism.”
14. Interview with Mikey Weinstein
15. Book Review: The Founding Myth by Andrew L. Seidel
16. Teleology and a Biblical Perspective on the State
17. Christian Nationalism Debates Expose Clashing Views of Power
18. Christian Nationalism Is Cosplay
19. Show: Is Christian nationalism on the rise in the United States?
20. Christian Nationalism Might Be Cosplay: The Babylon Bee Interview
21. The Heresy of Christian Nationalism Part 1: Identity, a Historic Survey
22. The Heresy of Christian Nationalism Part 2: Rationalism and Natural Theology
23. The evil heresy of “Christian nationalism”
24. Christian Nationalism & Postmillenialism
25. God Bless America
26. The Black Man’s Mental Health
27. What would a world without “woke” culture be like?
28. What queer fans really want from Killing Eve’s final season
29. Supporting Trans People of Colour, Sabah Choudrey
30. Numair Masud: People of Colour
31. Research: Artificial intelligence can fuel racial bias in healthcare, but can mitigate it, too
32. ‘Nothing was done’: Labour members call out Starmer’s inaction on racism
33. Students are building their own support groups as universities fail to act on racism
34. The Next Needful Steps
35. The Kidnapping of Satan
36. Why the Hatred Towards LGBTQ
37. Civil Religion in Pennsylvania’s Capitol
38. Freedom – mine or ours?
39. Sermon: Die to Live to – The Problem with Nationalism
40. Sermon: Taking America Back for God?

Returning Us to Our True Nature

MIRACLES EACH DAY

“You may not feel that you have ever intended to live in fear. But the displacement of the original intent was so complete that each life has begun with fear and proceeded from this beginning continually reacting fear. While the original intent remained within you and caused you to attempt to express a Self of love despite your fear, fear has thwarted your every effort and caused the very effort that has continued the cycle of fear. To have to try to be who you are and to express who you are is the result of the displacement of the nature of love with the nature of fear. What we now are about is reversing this displacement and returning you to your true nature.” (A Course of Love, T4:3.5)

We had an “original intent” eons ago, and that was to live in love—not fear. But fear intervened, and nothing has…

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Living as Who You Are

We are not sure if Mary’s adherents will be able to do away with the old egoistic way, but only hope they shall learn a lot from the way the young girl put her own selfishness away and by accepting to bring the saviour on earth, knew this would be not an easy job, also bringing a lot of pain to her.

Those being Christian should not only look up to that incredible woman, but should try to become like her son, coming to do the will of the Only One True God, the heavenly Father, and like Jesus worshipped that heavenly Father should also worship only that God of Israel, and not the ‘Virgin Mary‘ or any other saints.

By going for the Biblical Truth people can transform themselves, to become examples and spreaders of the Good News, so that others also can transform with them the world into something much better where their love shall make the difference.

It is good to look forward to the new world. We do not have to wait before taking action. It is now already that we do have to take action and work to accomplish a better world. It is now that we do have to mould, or knead our personality and bend it to the wishes of God. We should be well aware that in this world there is still a lot of work to be done.

MIRACLES EACH DAY

The ultimate accomplishment is living as who you are within the world. But in what kind of world? This is the catch that causes feelings of purposelessness in those who are content to live as who they are within the world. Until they realize the power of reflection, they wonder why they, unlike their brothers and sisters called to ‘do,’ do not have a specific part to play in establishing the world in which all are able to be content with who they are. (ACOL, D:Day19.5)

As forerunners of the way that all of us will be later on, those living in the way of Mary, of being rather than doing, will influence all of us for the better. Jesus discusses the “power of reflection,” (D:Day19.5) which is a mighty power when under the sway of being. Those of the way of Mary will influence all of us to move…

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Borderless

Subliminal Landscapes

We know
miles and oceans
separate us
but we live in each other’s
mind.
We keep
our priced possessions here
in the soft pink boxes,
multilayered,
fragile like petals,
shielding them from
the world,
a world,
unconcerned
about the deepest feelings
of longings,
the things
that are not tangible
or measurable
and certainly ineffable.

We maybe
shores apart,
but our thoughts bloom
in the orchards
beneath our eyelids
when we dream,
lifting themselves up as
majestic birds
spreading their wings wide
when they take flight
toward the uncharted fire
of the anguish of love.
They know no distance
or maps or boundaries,
they just know
their destination.

Traversing the undulating
ripples of the mackerel skies,
they dive in deep
then rise up,
trying to pursue the way
to each other.
In that milky terrain
their amorphous forms
entwine
to become mellifluous verses
that would design
an arbor
for the rendezvous…

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Dreaming.

I dream of city lights and busy streets

crowded rooms and beautiful music

a place that never sleeps

new adventures awaiting

new adventures with you

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That Tiny Eyes Girl

ishambhavirhyming.wordpress.blog

That tiny eyes girl
Shrinks it more and stretches lips fore,
When her huge heart blooms with happiness.
In solitude!
That tiny eyes girl 
Shrinks it more and rolls down the pearl,
As the pursed pain unfurl.

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Where The Lost Things Are

Poetry from John Looker

.
Where The Lost Things Are

.
At the back of the west wind,
where the evening sun wakens a bird-rich isle:
that’s where the lost things are.

Where the hummingbird
quivers at a trumpet dripping with nectar
and clouds of scent rise over a turquoise sea,
that’s where they are, the things that can’t be found.

The golden sovereign that slipped between
the boards in the Tudor Hall; the Hall itself lost at cards
in Venice on the long Grand Tour;
they’re here; this is the spot.

Even the daughter, forswearing carriages and
pianoforte, who was carried away in steam and smoke
for love; and the son gone surfing in foreign lands;
they too are here. They all come here.

And therefore you.
You’ve raced across the foot-burning sand
to float like a starfish in the clear lagoon,
your tequila-on-ice waiting you back in the shade.

If only mine…

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The fall of love

George Shetuni

I want to travel back in time
to the best time of my life
I want to travel back in time
to the time I was young and in love

winds clearing branches of their leaves
The yellow, the red, the brown leaves
Temperatures falling,
A sign that fall again is here

it has come around again,
Just as it did when I was young and naive
It caught me by surprise and off my guard
And before I knew it, I fell hard

Fall would be the season I would fall in love
It was a regular, ordinary day like any other
Made the most significant day of my entire life
I remember the time, the place, the earth-shattering revelation

I could tell you the time, the place, the girl
But then again, why?
It was so long ago, why should I even care?
It may as well be…

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I Have

George Shetuni

I have once lived.

I have once loved.

I have once felt.

But that was a long time ago…

But what a time it was!

I have once lived.

I have once loved.

I have once felt.

But that was when I was young…

But what an age it was!

I have once lived.

I have once loved.

I have once felt.

But that was not to be…

But what a dream it was.

I have lived once.

I have loved once.

I have felt once.

I have…

And that makes me happy.

this poem was excerpted from my book Poems for a Good Occasion

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Beauty isn’t skin deep or a certain skin tone or size or specific weight

Logic tells us we are just as good as the next person.
Just as smart in our ways.
Beauty isn’t skin deep or a certain skin tone or size or specific weight.
Success isn’t defined by money alone.
Talent is a perspective.
Love isn’t the whipped cream on top of the coffee.

~  Krissy Gillaspia  {I Might Be in Love…with Myself}

Truly, Truly – a #freeverse #poem by Leona

Life and Times of a Quirky Character

Prayers my heart starts to

mumble as the dew

forms graceful drops

across the eyelashes

of the late summer trees

It sprang to mind the hopeful

and expectant posture of

a bride in waiting

calling

oil filled lanterns

how we see the changing times

only to be reminded that

in life there is death

in love there is loss

truly truly say to you

the barren garden will

blossom as the noon day

sun

creeps along the ground

there in the slanting rays

it is easy to remember that

goodness and favor

does come to those

who wait as the tides

change and the earth

shifts

Have I finally found my home?

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Strength in me

My heart is never guarded,

screw the ones who think it should be

I ache, love, and feel with such passion,

that’s the strength in me.

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Looking far at the sea reaching out for a hand of a beloved one

We all know love can be a strange thing.

Till Eternity… is a nostalgic and romantic song composed in a lush orchestral style or medium by SoundEagle🦅, and has some nice words many of us could dream of sending to our loved one.

Who does not wander through the years in search of someone we miss or would like to encounter?

Those who have the seashore nearby can go there for a walk and have many dreams of past moments but also of moments we would have wished for to happen. Then we too could remember the kiss the author of the song is talking about.

Would it be not nice if we could sing

All my life I have tried
To be one with you . . . . .

But how many of us would not have to think of the unreachable and say

Looking far at the sea
I reach out for your hand
Somewhere beyond reach you’ll wait for me
Wish I were there
To kiss you one more time
Till eternity . . . . . .

The blogger reminds us

a partnership is not the only form of love. You can love family, friends, nature, God, science, the world itself… and so much more.

Please do have a look at and listen to the music without words at: Romancing by the Beach and Sea with True Love and Reminiscence 

Sending Love to the people of Ukraine

“Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out…and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel. ..And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for ‘the universal brotherhood of man’–with his mouth.” Mark Twain – What Is Man?

Since its first season, I have been a fan of the television showDancing with the Stars, so I am pretty familiar with Ukrainian-American pro-dancer Maksim Chmerkovskiy, who appeared in many earlier seasons and recently as a judge. When the Russian invasion began, Maksim was a judge on the Ukrainian…

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