Declaration of self-respect

Dear readers. Today I will talk about a subject which is on the media all the time (especially in womens magazines) but I think that there can never be enough encouragement for self-respect for women in this world as everybody knows how poor and inequal status our sisters are in developing countries in and how media drags womens healthy self-esteem with surreal demands on beauty and pressure for sexiness. I am not saying that it is turning down everyone but unfortunately it still has effect - But also thank God for those strong women who already know who they are and will not be turned down so easily and so can stop reading this post right now if willing. But for those insecure, fragile sisters over there who are still searching for themselves, I dedicate this post and I hope this will help you to love yourself the way you are and will encourage you to not to give in. I am with you, because in the name of honesty I have to admit that I am one of those sisters myself and this post is as much for you as this is for myself. The next that I will write I would teach also for my own daughter and God bless one day soon I really will.


1. YOUR BODY - TEMPLE OF GOD.

Look back to my post Wisdom behind beauty and creation where I remind how you are precious piece of art made by God to His image. No matter about your genes - if you have red hair, black hair, blonde hair, brunette, curly or straight, long or short or bold, blue or even green - or blue, brown, gray, black or even green eyes with or without glasses - God loves you the same and I think that from celebrities Anastacia is a great example of how you can be cool and beautiful even with glasses. Or whether your skin was white, red, yellow, chocolate or black or even if you had piercings or tattoos or freckles - God loves you. Child, youngster, adult or senior, healthy, sick or disable. Tall or short, slim or chubby, trendy or not - for God you are always unique and beautiful the way you are, you are sheep of the Good Shepherd and child of Heavenly Father. God lives deep inside your soul and heart as His Spirit. Your body is His temple and He has known every bit of your heart, soul and body even when you still were inside your mothers womb. He even knew your name before He let your parents realize it. You are a beautiful girl but God wants you to use your beauty right, to respect your body. I am not actually forbidding you but I am just asking you to think twice before having sex before marriage or admiring modelling. Why should you envy models or want to be like them. Showing your body and surface for the world can be one kind of self-respect but it depends how you do it. Even modelling can be good if you do not take nude or porn photoshoots - even underwear and swimming-suit models are a bit cheap. God likes it the best when you justly keep your clothes on. And no matter if you follow fashion or not, because God cares only about fashion of your heart. For more encouragement about this subject I recommend listening to soul sisters Mary J Blige and Mandisas soul and rnb.


2. KEEP YOUR COOL - KEEP STRONG WILL


Kindness is beautiful and Jesus appreciates it, but I am sure that he does not want you to suffer from it, to be kind until martyrdom despite he did it himself. Once again if you are a strong woman reading this post you probably fulfill this characteristic already. So with keeping up strong will it is easy to begin with saying no, no, NO. I mean if you are too kind you easily forget your own will and because you do not want to hurt your fellowmans feelings you say yes to almost everything he or she asks you. So you please your friend rather than yourself and I am telling you that will not do for long! It can get humiliating you know. So if your conscience says that something is wrong or just does not feel good say it. You do not have to do anything that does not feel like yourself whether it is wearing certain clothes, smoking, drinking, overdone generosity, beginning sexual intercourse etc. You know the best who you want to be, you know your worldview, moral and values so just keep on the good spirit! No one is higher than you nor below you so you have right to say and represent whatever you want. Remember, whoever tries to influence you or control you on Earth, is powerless. Firstly, your true boss is your heart and also your sense, secondly your only true Master and Commander is God. I believe that when you follow these two you are walking on a safe path and you cannot do wrong. And I also want to add to strong will fighting for your dreams - when you really, really want something but you fail first time achieving that goal do not give in but try again until you reach it.

3. ALLOW YOUR FEELINGS

You're human not an angel. Only angels are in state of perfect bliss feeling only joy. So don't feel ashamed or sorry about your tears and anger, they purify your heart and lighten your burden. Besides, by every tear you're closer to God and closer to Jesus Christ as he can heal the broken heart. If you're sometimes angry let it out, because God is forgiving and He created you to be like this. When we ate the Forbidden Fruit we weren't in angelic state anymore but the moment we ate the first bite God gave us this various range of human feelings. Even though anger hurts for a while, in anger there lies your sense of justice. You get angry if someone mistreats you and the others. Jesus accepts your anger, because He followed the paths of justice: Just remember how he became angry when Lord's temple was full of merchants and bankers. "You make a cave of robbers of Lord's temple!" and he overturned the booths and drove off the merchants. That was righteous anger and your anger can be righteous as well if you use it right. I mean God of course doesn't accept such extreme manifestations of anger such as violence in all its forms.

Individual and cultural fasting

Now that we're having the second day of muslims annual fasting month Ramadan, I decided to dedicate one post for the subject as fasting is touching Christians as well. And because my fiancé comes from Islamic culture I'd like to highlight Ramadan especially today to respect him and his friends. Anyway, fasting was set to Christianity for 40 days before Easter in 300 AC and before that we used to do it also on Wednesdays and Fridays. We Protestants do it seldom anyway, but Roman Catholics and Orthodox still practice it. In Orthodox Church fasting means avoiding certain food ingredients and avoiding to hurt others by words and deeds. It also means separating from those ways and manners that separate human from God. They do it for spiritual growing and achieving similarity to God. They fast also when preparing themselves for a great churchy celebration. In Catholic Church fasting means days when according to church they must decrease their daily eating for one full meal and to two small ones as a separation from abstinence which means refusal from eating meat especially on Fridays before Easter. Because the reformation of Luther criticized fasting as an outer action that can't cause salvation we Protestants don't do it often, at least not for religious reasons. In Judaism they fast in seven days of Jewish calendar and five of them are so called "smaller fasting days". The holiest day of Judaism is jom kippur and it's the second of those most important fasting days. In Buddhism there's no actual fasting but in the monasteries of some schools they eat only one meal a day and after noon they don't eat anything. In the greatest days of celebration laymen following these trends don't eat after noon. They want to set the all afternoon free for practising religion. In Hinduism they practice religious fasting in ekadasi which is the 11th day of every Moon's half section. In strictly followed fasting time they don't eat or drink and it begins from the sunset of previous day until the sunrise of the next day.

Ramadan

Ramadan is the 9th month of Islamic hijra calendar. Its most important event is religious fasting, saum , during which healthy adult muslims eat only in the dark daytime. Even drinking, smoking and sexual interaction is forbidden at light time. Fasting during Ramadan is one of the 5 pillars of Islam so it's one of the most important ways of practicing religion. When fasting muslims gets closer to God by giving up things they enjoy. This brings out their stable devotion to God. Believers know that God loves them when they're ready to give in earthly pleasures for God. Fasting is also more than refusal of food and drink: it also means giving up falsic words and deeds, inappropriate talk, arguing and fighting. So fasting helps to improve good behavior. Fasting teaches also feelings of brotherhood and solidarity when muslim experience how does it feels like being in lack and hunger as his brother. During Ramadan muslims usually work only in forenoon. After the end of fasting they'll celebrate Id al-Fitr feast which takes place in the next sawwal month's 3 first days. During the celebration they may hand gifts for friends and relatives, visit friends, buy a new dress and eat good food. Because Islamic calendar isn't a clear moon calendar Ramadan doesn't take place every time in the same season but in 30 years it will circle around all the seasons. This year Ramadan started in the August 11th and will end at September 9th.

Health causes of fast

The medical pros and cons of fasting aren't well-known but it's said to have beneficial influence on intestines' action. For example in Europe and USA we fast for health reasons more than spiritual ones as we want to stay in good fit and control overweight. But for remaining results you should have permanently healthier and lighter diet. Even before important medical operation you have to fast, because it effects crucially in the results. So what happens in our bodies during fasting? The body uses first as its sources of energy glycogen storage of muscles and liver and fat. If fast is a longer-term one body begins first to produce ketone compounds from fat for nervous system and begins to disperse muscles' protein for a source of energy. Fasts held for healthy reasons are usually water, juice or soup fasts. Water fast is the worst possible option from health's point of view, because body bears it healthy just few days. Otherwise from juice and soup fasts body gets anyway some sugars and other nutrients too to survive. Fast isn't recommended for old people, expecting mothers and small children.

Wisdom behind beauty and creation

Today I got inspired about a subject concerning both religion and philosophy: creativity. My beloved ones know that I'm a creative and thoughtful person so that is no surprise I found aesthetics, a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, taste, creation and appreciation of beauty of interest. Creativity is usually linked with artistic gifts such as painting, writing, doing handicrafts or composing music. So I attached to this post one of the world's most famous paintings, Sixtus chapel or Adam's Creation, by one of the world's most famous artists, Michelangelo, who has commemorated in his work God, the first artist of the world's history doing His work. And behold! He created us, the people, as the first piece of art in the world's history. And He created man and woman as his picture - and we truly are, because He gave us this wonderful power of creativity that He has as well. My readers, you truly are pieces of art and beautiful in your own unique ways!

Plato's ideas of beauty and inspiration

Plato thought that cuteness is a criteria of good poetry - whatever it means, because we everybody have our personal ideas of beauty. He also said that "all creation whether it's mental or physical cheating or giving birth happens only in touch with beauty; in connection with ugly there can't happen creation." By 'mental cheating' he means ideas that are pre-stages of deeds (of course). And everybody who has read Plato's philosophy know that his worldview is based on idea doctrine which means that ideas are the most real and sure in the world and sense notices are unreliable. So according to his ideaology he explained sources of pleasure are beautiful colours and shapes and most scents and tones and usually that whose absence doesn't bring suffering but whose presence makes pleasant feelings. He doesn't mean beauty of those shapes that people usually see in animals and paintings but something linear and circular and according to this surfaces and pieces made by turning on a lathe or with help of a ruler or a corner ruler are beautiful, because they're beautiful by themselves - not in relation to something else. He said that they make peculiar pleasure to themselves and it's far from tickling and he compared it to white colour. So the idea of beauty is abstract, undefined and colourless. He also thought that idea of beauty by itself can't be a target to be achieved by poets and artists. His another definition of beauty is that it's something that causes pleasure or benefit or both whether it was human body, colour, shape, voice or action. I love his ideas of beauty because according to them anything or anyone can be beautiful and he's right, because beauty is a question of taste. His another qualification of beauty is more concise:" Arts are mixture and if they lack right measure and relations it destroys the mixed ingredients and itself and then that's a mess. Because right measures and relations are always also beauty and goodness. So art is good with beauty, right relations and truth." This explanation brings to my mind the classic sculptures of Antique: the perfect shapes and details of human body; they wanted them to look realistic but they were more like dreams of ideal human body. This ideal human was later pictured also in Renaissance art such as my example Creation. And what sculptors of Antique pictured to their work has become ideal beauty of today: we want firm bodies, men want to be muscley etc. And I think the modern Miss competitions and modelling are based on similar criteria.

And what especially interests me is Plato's thought of true source of inspiration: He said that poets are interpreters of gods; Each poet has been made ecstatic by the god in whose possession they are. For example I worship Jesus and according to this theory He speaks by my mouth in my writings and by them we shall hear His voice. So all my inspiration is from God. So according to Plato writers, artists and musicians aren't intelligent or talented but God takes our sense away. Even though I believe in God I'm not convinced about this theory, because musicians need much mathematic intelligence when composing their songs. So he said there can't happen creation with sense but I'm sure he was wrong. I agree with him though that our creativity is a divine gift. He justified his theory by that poets can do only one kind of literature, the one that God has given them inspiration for and nothing else. Because if they had talent talking about one subject they could talk about everything else as well. Once again he's wrong: even though I've been now writing lyrics for pretty long time I've got lots of inspiration for prose as well.

Kahlil Gibran: Christian poet, artist and philosopher

I've been reading lately some production of Kahlil Gibran and now I'd like to share you some of his quotes about creative people and just in the name of comparison to Plato also his idea of beauty:



"Beauty is what attracts your soul and for beauty it's more important to give than take. When you face Beauty you feel how hands deep inside you stretch to receive and convoy it to the throne of your heart. Beauty is glory that sorrow and joy create together. It's Invisible that you see, Incomprehensible that you understand and Silent that you hear - it's The Holiest that begins in yourself and ends there where your earthly imagination can't reach."


"The most sensual creatures on Earth are creative people, poets, sculptors, artists, musicians... and it has been so from the beginning. Making love is for them a beautiful and noble gift; it's always beautiful and always tender."


"Isn't it true that always when we're portraying the Beauty we get a step closer to it? And every time when we write the Truth, we become one with it? Or are you going to silence poets and artists? Isn't realizing oneself a deep need in human soul?"



"Are you a writer that keeps oneself more noble than great audience though her/his sense is deep in the hole full of past's everlasting useless waste? In that case you're like a standing pool. Or are you an intense thinker who explores one's soul and prunes what's useless, overworked and bad but saves useful and good? In that case you're semolina for hungry and cool, bright water for thirsty."



"God created music for common language of people. It inspires poets, composers and architects. It tempts us to look for meaning for our souls from mysterious writings of ancient books."



"Are you a poet full of noise and meaningless words? In that case you're a swindler who makes us laugh when crying and when laughing makes us cry. Or are you a talented soul for whose hands God has set a violin to calm spirit with heavenly music and accompany others close to Life and Life's Beauty? In that case you're a torch enlightening us on our road, the sweet longing of our hearts and the divine revelation of our dreams."



"Poetry, my dear friends, is a holy incarnation of smile. Poetry is a sigh that dries tears; it's a spirit living in soul that gets its nourishment from heart and its love from wine. Poetry that doesn't appear in this form is a wrong Messiah."



"Art must be direct talk between artist's imagination and audience's imagination. Therefore I'm trying to avoid too many details so the viewer could extend one's imagination widely and far away. Art has been made to create material forms: they got to be beautiful; Unless art doesn't serve its purpose."



"I'd be a deceiver of my art if I had to borrow my model's eyes. Face is an unbelievable mirror that reflects most faithfully the inside of soul; Artist's job is to see it and paint it; unless he couldn't be called an artist."