In this page:

1. Devotions
2. Quran study
3. Finding Jesus
4. History stuff

Our Lady of Palestine

Header image is Our Lady of Palestine (8.5 x 10) by queer Tamil Shi'a Muslim artist Nabi Haider Ali on 27 November 2023:

I read recently that there are only 800 to 1,000 Christians left in Gaza, and I mention this not to favor any Palestinian community over the other but to give an example and show the extent of this genocide. I noticed some posting icons of Our Lady of Palestine, in remembrance of their ancient heritage, in memory of one of their own, a woman born in Jerusalem long, long ago. In another video, a bomb rattles the stained glass windows of a church, but the Gazan nun sitting inside with her congregation barely flinches. I hope she sees the day where this Lady of Palestine can finally use the old key she wears as a pendant. And I hope we can all bear witness to the same within our lifetimes.

Artist notes: Icon referenced from hellenic-art.com and the thobe is referenced from the Jerusalem selections in alhannounehsouq.com.

Devotions

🌹 Ya Mariamou el Bikrou foukti

c shares her morning prayer, 18 July 2024

Translation (by c, 19 July 2024)

1. O Virgin Mary, you're exalted / 
Above the sun and moon
 / And higher than all the stars of the galaxies
 / That glow in heaven (2x)
2. O morning star, shine
 / In our temples
 / And enlighten our minds, our hearing and our sight (grant us the ability to discern)
3. O Mother of Jesus / My mother / My hope my refuge / Do not forsake me when I am at fault (2x)
4. You're my refuge and support whenever my spirit has weakened / 
And a light to my heart
 / Whenever it breaks (2x)

Ya Mariamou el Bikrou foukti begins this set of longer devotions from Fairuz / Feyrouz (24:24)

🌹 Ilayki el Wardou ya Maryam

c shares offering of roses for my crush, 14 August 2024

Translation (my collage version)

For you are the flowers, Maryam
Here are the roses, Maryam
Gifts from our hands
Come and accept from us
A sure sign of love and congratulations
Certainly with congratulations

At the doors there are children
They have hopes in life
The heart melts if they say:
Hand us a favour / a mercy
That hunger is exhausting us
That hunger is exhausting us

Wars fill the earth
a distress we do not accept
We have all become sick
And there is no one (among us)
No one to heal us but You
No one to heal us but You

🌹 Fayrouz devotion, hymns of the Coptic heritage

c shared on 18 July 2024

Ya Meem Reh Yeh Meem (6:17) recorded in 2015 at a monastery in Lebanon.

🌹 Al Kindi Stabat Mater Dolorosa, Muslim and Christian Homage to Mary

c couldn't feel her legs, 19 August 2024

A clip of the full 80min performance in 2011, this point is as c says "the final melting point of the collective devotions."

Video description: A musical creation by Julien Jalal Eddine Weiss and the Ensemble Al-Kindi - Featuring: The Orthodox lithurgic Choir Tropos from Athens, Sheikh Habboush (vocal), munshid from Aleppo and the whirling dervishes of Aleppo (Syria), Dogan Dikmen, Bekir Buyukbas, Ahmet and Refik Kaya from Istanbul and the whriling dervishes of Istanbul, Rania Younes (vocal) from Beyrouth.

Quran study

Maryam's status as a guardian is exalted and she is a sign for all people.

• Remember the one who guarded her modesty. We breathed into her from Our Spirit and made her and her son a sign for all people. (21:91)
• God has also given examples of believers: Pharaoh’s wife, who said, "My Rabb, build me a house near You in the Garden. Save me from Firaun and his actions; save me from the evildoers." And Mary, daughter of Imran. She guarded her modesty, so We breathed into her from Our spirit. She accepted the truth of her Rabb’s words and Scriptures: she was truly devout. (66:11-12)
• The angels said, "Mary, Allah gives you good news of a Word from Them, his name will be the Messiah (Masîḥ, the anointed one), Jesus, son of Mary; honoured in this world and the next, and he will be one of those nearest to Allah. And he will speak to people in his infancy and adulthood. He will be one of the righteous (wamina ṣāliḥīna)." (3:45-46)

Maryam is a portal to queer our knowledge of the truth.

• Remember when the wife of 'Imran said, "My Rabb! I dedicate what is in my womb entirely to Your service (in the temple), so accept it from me. You are the One who hears and knows all." (3:35)
• When she delivered, she said, "My Rabb! I have given birth to a girl,"— and Allah knew best what she had given birth to: the male is not like the female— "I name her Maryam and I seek Your protection for her and her descendants from the rejected Satan." (3:36)

Finding Jesus

Isa, son of Maryam, was a divinely guided revolutionary political dissident who lived and died in a police state for challenging the Roman Empire.

Isho was a revolutionary who actively resisted the Roman Empire's oppressive rule. He spoke out against state violence, power politics, and the control of people by empires. His actions, such as disrupting the operations at the Jewish temple, were direct challenges to the Roman authorities, as the temple's activities were sanctioned by Rome. The Roman government viewed Jesus as a significant threat, leading to his arrest and execution by crucifixion, a method reserved for the most dangerous political criminals. His crucifixion was meant to serve as a warning to others who might challenge Roman rule.

Isho was not a white conservative. He was a political dissident and radical murdered for being an enemy of the state. Jesus was dangerous because he challenged the legitimacy of the Roman Empire. The radical aspects of Jesus’ life as a dissident against the oppressive Roman Empire closely mirror the struggles faced by those who resist modern-day police states. Just as the Roman Empire used surveillance, military force, and harsh punishments to maintain control and silence dissent, today’s governments often employ similar tactics to suppress political dissidents and activists. Jesus’ resistance to state violence, materialism, and empire serves as a timeless example of standing against oppressive systems, highlighting the ongoing relevance of his message in the face of modern authoritarian regimes.

After reading John W. Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute, When Dissidents Become Enemies of the State: From Jesus Christ to Julian Assange, 20 April 2019 fee.org

When Dissidents Become Enemies of the State: From Jesus Christ to Julian Assange

It is easy to remain silent in the face of evil. What is harder—what we lack today and so desperately need—are those with moral courage who will risk their freedoms and lives in order to speak out against evil in its many forms.

Foundation for Economic EducationJohn W. Whitehead

Jesus was a native Middle World mystic who referenced ancient sacred traditions that survived in the desert.

The Middle ‘East’ had a rich cultural and spiritual heritage long before Jesus, with many older sacred traditions influencing his teachings. The fact that Isho masterfully used many ancient sacred phrases indicates a native mystical tradition did survive in the desert throughout the rise of orthodox Judaism, Christianity and Islam. This connection to a broader mystical heritage suggests Isho was a figure deeply tied to ancient spiritual practices of the Middle World.

Because Isho and his followers spoke Aramaic, the parables of Isho make more sense when understood in their language.

Jesus and his followers primarily spoke Aramaic, the common language of their land in that time. Early Christian churches were Semitic, meaning they were rooted in the Jewish community, who also spoke Aramaic. Understanding this language and culture is key to knowing how early Christianity developed. Aramaic was the main language in the region, even though Greek was introduced by Alexander the Great. Aramaic remained important for a long time, even into the 19th century.

The structure of Aramaic allows for many meanings in one word, which adds depth to Jesus' teachings. Neil Douglas-Klotz writes in Prayers of the Cosmos: Meditations on the Aramaic words of Jesus (1990):

Furthermore, like its sister languages Hebrew and Arabic, Aramaic can express many layers of meaning. Words are organized and defined based on a poetic root-and-pattern system, so that each word may have several meanings, at first seemingly unrelated, but upon contemplation revealing an inner connection. The same word may be translated, for instance, as “name,” “light,” “sound,” or “experience.” Confronted with such variety, one needs to look at each word or phrase from several different points of view—the ones mentioned above, and possibly others. Jesus showed a mastery of this use of transformative language, which survives even through inadequate translations.

The flexibility of Aramaic helps us understand Isho's teachings better than more rigid Greek translations.

Viewing Jesus' parables in Aramaic helps us grasp their true meaning, which might be lost in Greek or Latin translations. Many of the confusing parts of Jesus' parables in Greek and Latin translations become clear when you look at them through the lens of Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke.

Aramaic doesn’t separate ideas as sharply as Greek does. For example, when Jesus talks about the "kingdom of heaven," it refers to both an inner and outer reality at the same time. The same goes for words like "neighbour" and "self."

Greek, on the other hand, tends to oversimplify and separate ideas, which can result in losing the deeper meanings intended by Jesus. Fabre D’Olivet, a Hebrew scholar, pointed out that Bible translations often miss the rich, layered meanings found in the original languages. This problem is especially true for Greek, which doesn’t capture the same depth as Aramaic. Therefore, the Greek versions of the Gospels might not be as accurate or complete as previously thought.

The Peshitta is considered the oldest and most trusted version of the Bible by the church of the East.

The Peshitta is important in Eastern Christian traditions because it is closer to what Jesus originally taught. Neil Douglas-Klotz in Prayers of the Cosmos: Meditations on the Aramaic words of Jesus (1990):

As Dr. George M. Lamsa, the pioneering Aramaic scholar of the 1930s, has pointed out in his Holy Bible from Ancient Eastern Manuscripts, the church of the East regards the Peshitta as the oldest and most authoritative version of the Bible. Peshitta means “simple,” “sincere,” or “true.” With regard to the words of Jesus, this version may be as old as the second century A.D., according to some Eastern Christian scholars. The church of the East holds that if the Peshitta does not contain the oldest version, it is still much closer to the thought forms of Jesus than any Greek version. As Lamsa points out in his New Testament Origin, there is much internal evidence to prove this. Most of the idiomatic confusions in the parables of Jesus are instantly cleared up when looked at from the Aramaic point of view. These confusions arose when translators worked from Latin versions of Greek versions that themselves misunderstood the Aramaic.

The Aramaic 'Lord's Prayer': Birthing the Cosmos and Self

tbc

History stuff

Non-spiritual notes on the consequences of the 290s

After Tamim Ansary, Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes (2009)

• Emperor Diocletian's division of the Roman Empire in 293 led to wealth inequality that plunged western Europe into the Dark Ages. The Roman Empire was too big and complicated to run from a single center. In 293, Emperor Diocletian divided the Empire into four parts for admin purposes. But this reform this ended up splitting the empire in two. Tamim Ansary: "The wealth was all in the east, it turned out, so the western part of the Roman Empire crumbled." Nomadic German tribes moved into the empire, and Europe sank into its 'Dark Ages.' Government services shrank, law and order broke down, trade decayed, schools foundered, illiteracy spiked.
• Christianity emerged as a unifying institutional force in western Europe in the collapse of the Roman Empire. When centralised governance declined, the Church led by the bishop of Rome— soon known as the pope— became the primary institution binding disparate regions together. Wealth inequality led to a poor western Europe fell into decay and illiteracy. In Roman cities like Germany, France, and Britain, society simplified down to serfs, warriors, priests.
• The Byzantine Empire of wealthy eastern Rome lasted almost a thousand years with little competition, centered in the impregnable Constantinopole. The eastern part of the Roman Empire transitioned into the Byzantine Empire. The locals still called this entity Rome. Orthodox Christianity here did not have centralised authority figure like the pope in western Europe. Cities with large Christian populations had its own bishop, a "metropolitan." Although supposedly equal, the top bishop of Constantinople was still the most powerful. Above them all stood the Emperor. The Byzantine Empire emerged from wealthy eastern Rome with Orthodox metropolitan bishops and the Emperor above all. It lasted almost a thousand years with little competition, centered in the impregnable walled city of Constantinople. Although Greek philosophers are well-known as well as figures like Caesar, Augustus, Sophocles, once eastern Rome became the Byzantine Empire it more or less passed out of Western history. Tamim Ansary: "The Byzantine Empire lasted almost a thousand years, but few can name five events that took place in the empire during all that time." By the mid-6th century, the Byzantines ruled most of Asia Minor and some of what is now eastern Europe. They were right up against Sassanid Persia, the region's other superpower.

This page is meant as a humble retreat for myself and fellow kindred. It changes as I grow my notes and attention to it.