#It's all About Forgiveness Mike (04-06-24) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mikefrawley · 1 month

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It's all About Forgiveness Mike (04-06-24)

I'm not quite sure why just yet, but today for me was my first ever be good to Mike Day. It was a beautiful Spring Day here in South Florida and I just knew it was time to spoil myself, which is an action I haven't taken in a very long time. Before I get into this story too deep, I want to pause a moment and thank my many friends for your love and support as I've started taking baby steps on a path I've been afraid to walk and addressing some inner child issues which have troubled me for most of my life, Okay, back to spoiling myself, but first I really want let all of you know just how much I love and appreciate you. Thank you! So, where was I? It was early Saturday Morning and I took a nice leisurely drive to the nicest Publix in town for my weekly shopping, and I realized that it was time to stop living like an active addict who can barely pay the rent and enjoy life a little bit. So, aside from the usual groceries I also bought some gourmet k-cups of coffee to share with my friends at work and took a different way home so I could tryout a new Starbucks which is my weekly splurge. Then armed with my Vanilla Latte I returned home and relaxed for a bit. At home I wrote a new poem which as is the case with many of us here is my true love. After finishing I just felt like getting out of the house and enjoying my day. I haven't bought a new book for myself in well over twenty years, so I decided to take a mini road trip to Barnes and Noble. After leisurely browsing a bit, I grabbed an excellent book by my favorite teacher, author, and poet, Thich Nhat Hanh, or Thay (teacher in Vietnamese) as he is known. The title is ZEN AND THE ART OF SAVING THE PLANET. After that I must confess I did go over the top a bit and stopped by a second Starbucks which was right next door and treated myself to another fancy coffee. Hey, as I said, it was be good to Mike Day. Sunday I leisurely sat outside reading my new book, meditating and just enjoying the moments as they passed. Please forgive me if this is a bit boring but my wish is that someone else suffering with self-destructive thoughts and feelings, may realize that they too are good enough and very much worthy of love. Well I guess that's enough (too much), but please do remember that you are indeed much loved!

#prose #personal #self love #be good to you #books #Starbucks #you are good enough #It's all About Forgiveness Mike (04-06-24)

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thotsonthebible · 6 years

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Dance for Joy

Luke 6.23

'On that day, be glad and dance for joy; for assuredly you have a rich reward in heaven; in just the same way did their fathers treat the prophets.'

Have you noticed the growing anti-Christian sentiment in our society and throughout the world? Along with anti-Semitism, hatred and scorn for Christians is growing in modern society.

A few weeks ago, I watched a documentary about a research team in the Himalayas. Before they entered the treacherous terrain of the high mountains, the team stopped at a Buddhist temple to receive the blessing and prayer of the high priest for that region. The scientists sat there soberly and respectfully while the old man performed his occult ritual. If a Christian leader had offered to pray for the team before they ventured forth into danger, would he have received the same respect?

How many of you are familiar with Survivorman, Les Stroud? In a number of episodes, he submits to tribal chants, body painting, and pagan rituals intended to bring him luck and safety. Yet he scorns Christianity and ridicules prayer to the Most High God.

Our Savior has told us we should rejoice when unbelievers mock and ridicule us.

--’Blessed are you when people hate you…' —Luke 6.22 (ESV)

The women of ABC News' 'The View' took a shot a Vice President Mike Pence’s Christian faith on Tuesday, mocking the former governor of Indiana for talking to Jesus and even calling it a 'mental illness.'… —Fox News, 02/13/2018

--'…when they exclude/ostracize you…' —Luke 6.22 (ESV)

Facebook has removed the Christian ministry 'Warriors for Christ' page, saying the page violated community standards on bullying and hate speech. —www.christianheadlines.com/blog, 01/09/2018

Col. Leland Bohannon has been suspended from his command and denied a promotion to a one-star general for his belief that marriage is between one man and one woman. —www1.cbn.com, 10/20/2017

The sign was not very hard to miss: 'ANY AND ALL CHRISTIAN MUSIC IS BANNED.' That message was posted on an organ located in a commons area of Cambridge House, a condo building in Port Charlotte, Florida… Residents were also allegedly told they could no longer host a weekly Bible study in the commons area, according to a Fair Housing complaint filed with the Department of Housing and Urban Development. —townhall.com, 03/08/2018

--'…when they insult you and scorn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man.' —Luke 6.22 (ESV)

Michael Gove is right – Christianity has become a laughing stock

Christianity, he says, is now regarded in England with condescension or dismissal when not with active hostility. To say that you are a Christian is 'to declare yourself intolerant, naive, superstitious and backward'. —www.theguardian.com, 04/02/2015

A venerable Christian ministry based in Fort Lauderdale recently saw its name listed on a CNN map of 'all the active hate groups where you live,' as well as in local news reports as the No. 1 hate group in Florida… [T]he Christian broadcaster [James Kennedy Ministries] was mapped alongside about 60 'hate groups' in the Sunshine State, using designations from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)… —www.christianitytoday.com, 08/24/2017

Regular Christians Are No Longer Welcome in American Culture.

This new vigorous secularism has catapulted mockery of Christianity and other forms of religious traditionalism into the mainstream and set a new low for what counts as civil criticism of people’s most-cherished beliefs… Some of the faithful have paid unexpected prices for their beliefs lately: the teacher in New Jersey suspended for giving a student a Bible; the football coach in Washington placed on leave for saying a prayer on the field at the end of a game; the fire chief in Atlanta fired for self-publishing a book defending Christian moral teaching; the Marine court-martialed for posting a Bible verse above her desk; and other examples of the new intolerance. Anti-Christian activists hurl smears like 'bigot' and 'hater' at Americans who hold traditional beliefs about marriage and accuse anti-abortion Christians of waging a supposed 'war on women.' Some Christian institutions face pressure to conform to secularist ideology—or else. Flagship evangelical schools like Gordon College in Massachusetts and Kings College in New York have had their accreditation questioned. Some secularists argue that Christian schools don’t deserve accreditation, period. Activists have targeted home-schooling for being a Christian thing; atheist Richard Dawkins and others have even called it tantamount to child abuse. —time.com, 06/29/2016

How are we, as Christians, to respond to society's growing scorn and mockery?

--'Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.' —Luke 6.23 (ESV)

--'If the world hates you, remember that it hated Me first.' —John 15.18 (NLT)

This is no more than we can expect in the last days. Our Lord told us:

--'You will be hated by everyone because of Me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.' —Matthew 10.22 (NIV)

An evil and sinful world persecuted the prophets and killed the Son of God. Should we expect anything better?

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Please forgive the formatting. I wasn’t able to do a double-indent here, as I did in the original article, so I had to ad-lib. I hope you have been able to read it without a problem.

#Bible #Bible study #Christianity #religion #persecution #last days #Jesus #society

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seerofmike · 7 years

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for the numbery ask, just do me a favour and answer them all. Or at least 1-35. Cheers.

oh dear. uhm,,, who dis.

I had to fuckign scroll thru my blog twice lookin for this

motherfucker

01: Do you have a good relationship with your parents?

Hell fucking no.02: Who did you last say “I love you” to?

@kittymagicite

03: Do you regret anything?

Telling my parents about The Thing, which lead to trouble at school, trouble with the family, and all the stress.04: Are you insecure?I don’t care enough to feel insecure, I guess.05: What is your relationship status?

Single and not ready 2 mingle06: How do you want to die?

I don’t. But if I had to choose…shot in the head would be the quickest.07: What did you last eat?

Tacos.08: Played any sports?

used to play baseball.09: Do you bite your nails?

I don’t know how to clip them, I bite them off.10: When was your last physical fight?

Socked a kid for using the n word against black kids as an insult.11: Do you like someone?

platonically, yes.12: Have you ever stayed up 48 hours?

48 hours is weak.13: Do you hate anyone at the moment?

My parents, pretty much every waking moment.14: Do you miss someone?

My stepdad, and also my best friend.15: Have any pets?

Literally every pet I’ve ever had has run away or we’ve had to give away.16: How exactly are you feeling at the moment?

a bit annoyed.17: Ever made out in the bathroom?

ive never even made out18: Are you scared of spiders?

burn them19: Would you go back in time if you were given the chance?

Pretty much every waking moment, I wonder, what if I hadn’t done The Thing? Where would my life be now?20: Where was the last place you snogged someone?

in my dreams21: What are your plans for this weekend?

Watch snk ep4 and bnha ep4, probably start watching clockwork planet and re-reading homestuck.22: Do you want to have kids? How many?

no kids I hate kids23: Do you have piercings? How many?

I used to have an eyebrow piercing, but not anymore. currently have 024: What is/are/were your best subject(s)?

I mean my statistics on my reading STAAR said I did better than 93% of everyone in my district, and I got commended and mastered the subject. Been this way ever since we started taking STAAR.25: Do you miss anyone from your past?

Up until I was 6, my best friend was one of my distant cousins. We literally did everything together. Took baths, snuck out at night to build sandcastles in the sand of the horse-run…thing.26: What are you craving right now?

like 70 cans of root beer27: Have you ever broken someone’s heart?

everyone who’s ever read my angst fics28: Have you ever been cheated on?

nah29: Have you made a boyfriend/girlfriend cry?

ye but it was tears of laughter30: What’s irritating you right now?

I have 4 projects due31: Does somebody love you?

Does somebody love me?32: What is your favourite color?

red.33: Do you have trust issues?

there’s maybe 2 people I trust with my life.34: Who/what was your last dream about?

I had a really weird dream that my stepmom saw a black guy at the store and said, ‘well, I guess he’s attractive for a black dude’ and we went out into the parking lot and I opened some random black guy’s car door and slid into his passenger seat and said “i just want to tell you that I think all black people are really attractive” and then I got in trouble for getting into someone else’s car

I don’t get the point of this dream35: Who was the last person you cried in front of?

probably when I was a kid and didn’t know better. I have this thing about crying in front of people.36: Do you give out second chances too easily?

if it something major, you fuck up, you fuck up and no second chances.37: Is it easier to forgive or forget?

Forget.38: Is this year the best year of your life?

No.39: How old were you when you had your first kiss?

never been kissed.40: Have you ever walked outside completely naked?

aforementioned cousin and I often stripped down to run through the sprinkler in our back yard.51: Favourite food?

Wings and spaghetti. Separately, of course.52: Do you believe everything happens for a reason?

No. Things happen at random because everything sucks.53: What is the last thing you did before you went to bed last night?

Read a chapter of To Kill A Mockingbird for school. Currently on the part where Jem is reading to Mrs. Dubose.54: Is cheating ever okay?

Cheating is a touchy subject right now.55: Are you mean?

In my personal opinion? yes.56: How many people have you fist fought?

Maybe 3 or 4.57: Do you believe in true love?

no.58: Favourite weather?

Cold and mildly windy days.59: Do you like the snow?

No.60: Do you wanna get married?

Fuck commitment.61: Is it cute when a boy/girl calls you baby?

No.62: What makes you happy?

when other people care about other people or things63: Would you change your name?

I’d change it to maybe Mike or Jaxs or Dorian64: Would it be hard to kiss the last person you kissed?

it would be hard to kiss nobody, yes65: Your best friend of the opposite sex likes you, what do you do?

‘sorry I’m gay’

66: Do you have a friend of the opposite sex who you can act your complete self around?

@iamasharkgirl @kittymagicite

67: Who was the last person of the opposite sex you talked to?

my teacher.68: Who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with?

@shizzfizzjizz69: Do you believe in soulmates?

No.70: Is there anyone you would die for?

@iamasharkgirl @kittymagicite

#demanded questions have been answered #shut up mike

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gramilano · 4 years

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Giselle, Birmingham Royal Ballet © Dasa Wharton 2019

There’s a spate of Giselles about at the moment, radical reinventions of the 1841 ballet from Akram Khan for English National Ballet, and South African choreographer Dada Masilo, drawing on modern class and gender politics to rewrite the Romantic heroine for our times.

But if you prefer your Giselle with original spirit intact, then Birmingham Royal Ballet is the one for you. – Guardian

Giselle, Birmingham Royal Ballet

01 Giselle, Birmingham Royal Ballet, with Samara Downs © Dasa Wharton 2019

04 Giselle, Birmingham Royal Ballet, with Momoko Hirata © Dasa Wharton 2019

06 Giselle, Birmingham Royal Ballet, with Kit Holder, Samara Downs © Dasa Wharton 2019

08 Giselle, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Samara Downs © Dasa Wharton 2019

09 Giselle, Birmingham Royal Ballet © Dasa Wharton 2019

An audience’s full enjoyment of Giselle depends on a few things beyond, of course, good dancing: how involved you get with the story, and how atmospheric, spooky even, the production makes Act II.

Birmingham Royal Ballet’s 1999 production triumphs on all counts. The work of the company’s former veteran director David Bintley and its Russian former prima ballerina Galina Samsova, it remains faithful to Petipa’s 19th-century choreography and removes subsequent additions. In doing so, it provides new clarity and focus. – Teresa Guerreiro, CultureWhisper

13 Giselle, Birmingham Royal Ballet, with Yaoqian Shang © Dasa Wharton 2019

14 Giselle, Birmingham Royal Ballet, with Mathias Dingman,yaoqian Shang © Dasa Wharton 2019

David Bintley and Galina Samsova unveiled their production in 1999 (choreography by Petipa after Coralli and Perrot with additional choreography by Bintley), but this was the first time it had been performed in the capital for almost 20 years. It’s a beautifully shaped drama, one in which grace and generosity bring the story home to maximum effect. Love, betrayal and forgiveness — the emotions are as real as the charming dances of the first half and the poetic majesty of the second… The whole BRB company shone. The Times

21 Giselle, Birmingham Royal Ballet, with Delia Mathews © Dasa Wharton 2019

22 Giselle, Birmingham Royal Ballet, with Tyrone Singleton © Dasa Wharton 2019

24 Giselle, Birmingham Royal Ballet, with Delia Mathews © Dasa Wharton 2019

This Giselle is not flashy, not trying to be relevant or shake things up. And it doesn’t have the emotional transcendence of the great Giselles. But it is danced with diligence, attention and sensitivity. It may not go down in history, but it brings history alive in the present. – Guardian

The production was originally created in 1999 with designs by Hayden Griffin. Most of these are wonderfully effective; in the first act we have a detailed medieval Rhineland village, with the vines growing on the hillside and a waterfall evoked in the distance. But there is the occasional lapse: the lurid costume for the Master of the Hunt almost induced giggles, like something from the dressing up box, and the white horse for Bathilde’s entrance is an unnecessary distraction. However, Griffin’s design for Act 2 redeems all, a stunning ruined gothic church where Giselle is buried in unhallowed ground. Everything comes together well here. Subtle lighting by Mark Jonathan provides atmospheric moonlight and finally dawn breaking through the crumbling windows. – DanceTabs

I was once scolded by a friend about seeing the same ballet so many times. Of course, one never sees the same performance of any ballet more than once, but I can never tire of Giselle. The more interpretations, the merrier for me; but – for tradition and clarity – few are ever likely to match this excellent production, which was developed with thoughtful purpose to enrich the whole genre of this ballet. – Graham Watts

Giselle, English National Ballet

Thanks to DVDs, broadcasts and ENB’s tireless touring, more than 300,000 people are thought to have seen this show – a giddy figure for a dance work that’s just three years old – and most critics showered it with superlatives too. – The Telegraph

This is a powerful and stunningly staged reimagining, set in our own times. Khan preserves the essential elements of love, betrayal, death, forgiveness — along with the presence of the supernatural — that are the stuff of the 19th-century original. But instead of the medieval peasants and aristocrats, the divided society that Khan depicts comprises “the outcasts”, dispossessed migrant garment-factory workers, of whom Giselle is one, and their heartless exploiters, the landlords.

That much is clear, though there are other matters in Khan and the dramaturge Ruth Little’s complex concept that require recourse to the programme notes. But in atmosphere and dance images, the work packs a big theatrical punch. – The Sunday Times

Tamara Rojo, who as ENB’s artistic director commissioned this work, danced Giselle in the opening cast of this revival: a characterisation combining defiance and vulnerability, and how eloquent she is even when standing still. James Streeter was her ardent, two-timing then remorseful lover, Albrecht, and Khan’s choreography in their duets is subtly affecting. Jeffrey Cirio, as Hilarion, was intense and athletic in a dramatically puzzling role; while Stina Quagebeur, as Myrtha, led her Wilis, the vengeful ghosts, with chilling force — one of the best things in the show. – The Sunday Times

Khan’s most inventive choreography is for the corps, full of machine-like syncopations, Karthak-inspired gestures and knotty interactions. His wilis – stuttering on pointe – are the stuff of nightmares. ENB’s corps danced with breathtaking energy.

It helps that Vincenzo Lamagna’s score is so brilliant, peppered with industrial, percussive power – although over-miked here – and cleverly referencing Adolphe Adam’s Romantic score. Gavin Sutherland and the English National Ballet Philharmonic balanced rhythmic drive in the ensembles with quiet eloquence in the duets. They should commit Lamagna’s to disc; I’d buy it. – BachTrack

It is no surprise to learn that Akram Khan’s Giselle is a sell out wherever it is performed. Not only is the ballet a global success, but it’s become English National Ballet’s signature piece. There is much to admire, most obviously, the choreography and dancing, but also the elements of collaboration, which make this such a rewarding experience. Tim Yip’s heavy-looking revolving wall, which separates the ‘outcasts’ from the ‘landlords’, is as much a part of the action as the figures it dominates. Vincenzo Lamagna’s haunting score and sound design, with its references to Adolf Adam’s original, poignantly draws the story with extraordinary clarity. Gavin Sutherland’s magnificent orchestration, alongside his conducting of English National Ballet Philharmonic is equally impressive. With Mark Henderson’s evocative lighting design and Ruth Little’s dramaturgy, it leaves you wanting for nothing. – DanceTabs

Certainly, there was, and still is, plenty to admire about it. It was a smart, tragically topical and entirely original idea of Khan and dramaturge Ruth Little’s to recast the doomed romance between the villager Giselle and the two-timing nobleman Albrecht (originally playing out in the Rhineland of the Middle Ages) as being between one of the rich “Landlords” and a member of a disfranchised community of migrant workers from a now-defunct branch of the garment industry. Similarly, Khan here deploys his signature Kathak/contemporary choreographic style (with added dashes of classical ballet) to constantly startling effect: by turns furiously aggressive, eye-poppingly amorous, and as mechanical-looking as an enormous industrial loom. – The Telegraph

Giselle, Birmingham Royal Ballet – backstage

Photo Album of Two Giselles: English National Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet There’s a spate of Giselles about at the moment, radical reinventions of the 1841 ballet from Akram Khan for English National Ballet, and South African choreographer Dada Masilo, drawing on modern class and gender politics to rewrite the Romantic heroine for our times.

#Akram Khan #Birmingham Royal Ballet #Dasa Wharton #David Bintley #English National Ballet #Giselle #Tamara Rojo

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