24 September 2016. A Thought from Bob Marley

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12 June 2016. Bob Marley and Muhammad Ali: The Antipoliticians

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I saw this on FB… it doesn’t need my two cents:

The two most recognisable figures in the entire world are Bob Marley and Muhammad Ali. People in almost every country on every continent know who Bob Marley and Muhammad Ali are. Their lives, their messages, and their meaning resonated with people of all races, all religions, and all walks of life. They changed the consciousness of humanity… uplifting the downtrodden, inspiring the hopeless, bringing joy to the sorrowful, and spreading faith in the Creator through their actions and words. They were two transcendent artists who spoke to the collective heart and collective soul of the human race… two people who sacrificed and suffered for the truths they held dear, two charismatic figures with irrepressible spirits that proved that life has meaning and purpose.

Bob Marley and Muhammad Ali were the antithesis of politicians who always calculate their actions to enhance their own personal power and prestige. Unlike the Clintons, Trumps, and Obamas of the world, Bob Marley and Muhammad Ali followed the Creator and not the corruption and compromise of political expediency and personal profit. Moreover, that’s why they resonated so strongly with people across the globe. They were truly revolutionary figures because they were truly authentic and truly genuine souls. They both were flawed and fallible, broken and fragile; yet, they were always able to transcend negativity and failure through positivity and faith. They showed us that strength isn’t the absence of weakness, but the courage to persevere in spite of weakness.

Bob Marley and Muhammad Ali proved that the most profound spiritual and social impact comes not through voting, running for office, winning elections, or accumulating power and wealth. Rather, they demonstrated that one achieves real and lasting revolutionary change through lives devoted to peace, love, justice, and faith. They taught us that a single soul filled with divine conviction can transform the world more positively and effectively than all armies, congresses, and governments combined. Bob Marley and Muhammad Ali illuminated the universe with redemptive truth and revolutionary love. Their light will never go out.

Gebre Menfes Kidus

4 April 2015. You Can Learn a Lot from a Singer…

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I think that you can guess that I’m a big-time Bob Marley fan from WAY BACK… however, Don’t Worry, Be Happy wasn’t Bob’s… that was Bobby McFerrin. Most people associate that with Bob, but it isn’t his. Bob was a serious Rastafari, and he accepted baptism in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church before his death… that makes him part of the Orthosphere. Remember, that’s a sociological, civilisational, and cultural category, not a statement about who’s in communion with whom… so, Orthodoxy (both Eastern and Oriental) is as one from that POV. God willing, we’ll be able to surmount the theological problems someday… we’re already one in a secular sense.

BMD

16 February 2014. All Around the Orthosphere: Bob Marley… Orthodox Christian

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Many of you know my of my neologism, the “Orthosphere“… that is, the lands where Orthodoxy (both Eastern and Oriental) maintains either a majority or strong presence. The Orthosphere is a sociological/philosophical/intellectual/cultural construct… it’s NOT merely religious. Ergo, people not “in communion” in the religious sense ARE “in communion” in a cultural sense. Confused? Let’s make it murkier, kids… Uniates “look” Orthodox, but they’re NOT part of the Orthosphere. That’s because they’ve sold out completely to the papist mindset. Ergo, even though we’re not “in communion” with Copts, Armenians, and Ethiops, we ARE part of a unified Christian worldview with them, neither Papist nor Protestant. Even though the Uniates “look like us”, they’re NOT of us… they’ve sold out to the West and to its blandishments. Remember our history… how Russia aided the Assyrian Christians in World War I and how Russian officers served alongside Ras Makonnen in whipping the Italians (especially, Nikolai Leontiev of the Kuban Cossack Host).

Bob Marley joined the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church before his death… that makes him “one of us”. Here are some images from his museum in Nine Mile (Saint Ann Parish), Jamaica, his hometown. The Orthosphere is our true “home”… and it’s all ours… or none of it’s ours. Keep it focused…