We Are His Workmanship

Mississauga City Hall Clock Tower
[Photo By: KPA]

Ephesians 2:10 King James Version (KJV)
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

The Mississauga Civic Centre: Photo Exhibit

Here is my most recent exhibition at the Mississauga Central Library,as well as my previous two.

All posted at Ontario Views

The World According to Greta

I imagine that Greta must be really difficult to get along with. Her sense of importance, her grandiose view of herself, must distance her, and even ridicule her, in the eyes of her contemporaries (that is other sixteen-year-olds).

Sure, she has been abducted by nefarious and evil adults, who will toss a child to Moloch's grasping octopus arms. But she also set the stage.

People are often too ready to excuse children.

By age seven or eight, there is already an established sense of right and wrong, even in children who were raised otherwise.

God's word, God's message, is an intuitive message. Right and Wrong are certainly culturally learned, but they are also innate to all human beings, and I believe as young as seven, and even younger.

Ask a child if he has lied, and he will go through a whole convoluted theatrics of "No! He hasn't!" with the incriminating evidence right beside him. It may be the degree of sophistication that is different between adults and children, but not the knowledge itself.

So, Greta, now no longer the eleven-year-old child who "started" this movement but a young sixteen-year-old woman, may be surrounded by hordes of malevolent adult allies, but she alone comes up with the Truth herself.

Her "climate change" message has NOT resonated with the political and cultural elite. Television shows are mocking her, and she is under no "youth" protection to NOT be mocked, having put herself in that limelight.

And even the Nobel Prize which she lost, and which I think digs much deeper than she lets on, is better off without her. And perhaps her continued perseverance, her insistence, was spiked by this loss. "The World Hates Me And Here's The Proof."

The Nobel Prize for Peace winner, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, has been thankfully removed from the spotlight because of this narcissistic young woman and her entourage, and he can continue the serious matter of leading his country removed from the malevolent eyes of the Western world, whose communist/liberal leaders would sabotage his Meddemer movement if they weren't so skillfully distracted by this new "religious" icon.

Do not be afraid to critique, and to criticize, "young" children. The normal step would be of course to remove them and put them in the proverbial corner, or mete out some other appropriate punishment.

But in our Brave New World, shine the light on Greta's narcissistic needs and let her lead those marches, allow her to speak in her disjointed language, permit her to proclaim rude messages to world leaders.

Meanwhile, an important revolution is happening at the other end of the world, which Greta in her arrogance has dismissed. After all, who cares about Africa when there are real global climate issues to contend with.

This, as usual, is the disguised racist stance of Western countries, mostly liberals, who will tag on religiously to a fraudulent icon while dismissing the lives and hopes, and dreams of change of a country far away in the dark continent of Africa.

Greta is cleverer than you think, and she is out to get what she wants. We are not quite sure what that is...yet.

Good Vs. Evil

Call Me Jen

Reclaiming Beauty has always been about popular culture, as a non-elitist stand which pulls ordinary people, and others, into a world of beauty, culture, and society, that aims to prevail over the nihilism that is (I believe deliberately set-up) part of our contemporary world.

So, let's go into the real pop culture, a world which the Walmart checkout lines display in full view. Where young women scan assiduously as they get ready to buy the next edition of InStyle for the exorbitant price of a book - that's $9 Canadian for me.

One of my favorite actresses, Jennifer Aniston, is back into the real world.

She suffered a lot. Her husband, the handsome Brad Pitt, and by all accounts the love of her life, abandoned her for that evil woman, Angelina Jolie. You don't believe me? Then look at what Jolie is up to these days (image courtesy of the movies), in her new movie Malfecent: Mistress of Evil.


Angelina Jolie in the second edition of the movie Maleficent, with her Devil's horns

Jennifer was engaged to someone else - a second-rate actor, nowhere near the talent of Pitt (at least in his pre-Jolie, pre-global adoption years) - but apparently broke it off.

She is now back on track, looking as young and fresh as Rachel Green, in her Friends days, a show of which I was a great fan, only to see what was the latest outfit that the photogenic and charismatic Rachel (aka Jennifer) wore.



Poor Rachel. She was cast with these wimpy, erratic men, more "female" than her. But she, in her wisdom, never outshone them unless it was in dress or in her ability to get out of their pathetically induced difficult situations. Jennifer ALWAYS came out on top.

Now, Brad Pitt is back in the market. I think he's super handsome, which may have been his Achilles heel. He was in some late night talk show recently, and he did pretty well.



Jennifer can win him back. Cleverly, and with femininity.

She is, after all a Single Woman, and he an eligible (divorced/separated) bachelor.

And Jolie, against whom Aniston never uttered a SINGLE malevolent word, is out making her witching tale, conniving with the Devil and his horns, and a new edition of her film franchise Malefecent.

I hope her Ethiopian adopted daughter turns to Pitt (her adopted father), and to Jennifer, for her salvation.

Blasphemy With the Poor

Matthew 26: 6-11

6 Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper,

7 There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat.

8 But when his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To what purpose is this waste?

9 For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor.

10 When Jesus understood it, he said unto them, Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon me.

11 For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always.

12 For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial.

13 Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her.

Zanele Muholi (South Africa)
Miss D’Vine II, 2007
From the series Miss D’vine
Chromogenic print

The image above is from the exhibition The Way She Looks: The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture, a photography exhibit on photographs by and of African women at the Ryerson Image Centre (RIC).

The exhibition's photographs were assembled from the Walther Collection

RIC Facebook page here
RIC web page here

A perverted, selected, imagery of African Women

Real Beauty
From the exhibition: The Way She Looks
At the Ryerson Image Centre

The gyrating "African Woman," exploited by those who claim to be on her side, but who voyeuristically inspect her every fold of fat, which feed in nicely into their "African Woman as Our Savior" discourse.

"He has made everything beautiful in its time"

Fall Leaf Patterns
[Photo Collage By: KPA]

Ecclesiastes 3:11
He has made everything beautiful in its time.

African Woman

Jodi Bieber
Babalwa, from the series Real Beauty
2008, pigment print

Above image from the Ryerson Image Centre exhibition: The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture, on view also at the RIC website, and other publications such as Canadian Art. More information at the RIC Facebook page.


African Woman,
Dj Shimza (South Africa)

Paul Edward Costa: Mississauga Poet Laureate

A Line of Poets
By: Paul Edward Costa

A baton touches my hand when it swings back
and in an instant
I’m not a solitary runner on a cracked desert;
it slowly dawns on me that I never have been,
I’m linked to a train
reaching from the cool, steady hand
passing this position to mine,
all the way back to poets who set
the vivid life of city states into history and permanence,
cast lassos in the air,
caught ethereal spirits and emotions
floating above the heads of people
in squares of celebration
and set them into the shapes of runes lighting up
when you read them and see a sensation you’ve always felt
but never had verified
by the reality of a concrete shape.

I pray I leave behind
not just a record of words
but a poetic spark in more souls
than those who know they have such a lightning inside them,
that I hope grows into a fire of minds
fiercely expressing their free identities
and setting lines of future poets aflame
with the responsibility of their art’s capacity
for commemoration,
celebration,
reminding,
remembering,
and encapsulating the dynamic realities of this place,
this time.

The Monarch

[Photos By: KPA]

I've been dormant for a while.

I am back!

A lot has been going on. Mostly character building.

Here are photographs of the Monarch Butterfly, which is leaving us (Canada). I caught its fluttering wings in the beautiful Jubilee Garden in Mississauga a couple of days ago. It was a stroke of luck. The whole garden was full of these butterflies, which seem to like yellow: I was guaranteed to find several on the yellow flower.

I went a couple of days later, and the garden was eerily quiet. Although the butterfly flutters were silent, their sound was left to my imagination. I could still hear them.

The monarch is a metaphor, a butterfly that endures thousands of miles to get to the place where it wishes to remain to regain strength for a journey back to its home.

It is also about the intertwined history, culture and nature of Canada and America, something which I have always believed, and always written about.

I will follow the monarch's treacherous path path in my blog, as I always have, through my posts, views, opinions, perspectives and writings.

And how can I resist regaining, refueling, my blog by announcing this unexpected, and regal visitor.

The monarch becomes a metaphor for endurance, principle, and a goal to be accomplished.

All that Reclaiming Beauty is about.

Truth

1 John 4:6

We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.

Black is Blurry

It's extraordinary that a black woman would depict herself in this manner.

Images below are from the current Art Gallery of Ontario exhibition: Sandra Brewster Blur, and Brewster's web page.

Art of the Gimmick Khee / Lee

Khee Lo - using a windshield wiper to produce circular "radials

Similar to Chinese brush painting where the wrist pulls paint across

Same with

Hyeran Lee's Eleventh Correlation "with it's generous sweeping brushstrokes"

View this post on Instagram

Sunset

A post shared by Reclaiming Beauty (@reclaimbeautyk) on Jun 30, 2019 at 5:21pm PDT

Beautiful Logo

The beautifully designed "tail wing" logo of the Ethiopian Airlines

Magnolias at the City Centrr

[Photo By: KPA]

Spring's Around the Corner

Spring's around the corner
Magnolias blooming in Mississauga's Jubilee Garden -
[Photo By: KPA]

Happy Easter

Easter Sunday 2019

Post from GalliaWatch (I've omitted her photos and posted mine of Notre Dame):

Easter Sunday 2019



Many Catholics believe this is a sign. A representation of Christ’s suffering on the Cross. And with that, inevitably, a resurrection of life, and of faith in life. In an age where programmed death of unwanted persons such as the unborn, the newly born, the aged, those who still adhere to the moral codes, religious and secular, of the past two thousand years, has become the essential principle of progressive anti-white, anti-Christian politics, this image of the transept engulfed in blood-red flames comes as a riveting reminder that there is meaning everywhere, even where death, destruction and annihilation appear to have the upper hand.

Fire both destroys and cleanses.

Most people have now forgotten the sight of an iron cross emerging from the rubble of Ground Zero. We took it then to be a “sign” of something. But we had to endure sixteen years of blunders and willful cultural ethnocide from the stubbornly incompetent Bush and the gleefully revengeful Obama. What then did that cross mean? We can only hope that eventually, long after we’re gone, a righteous desire to rebuild and restore will inflame the hearts of Americans and that the country will once again thrive - not just economically, but spiritually, aesthetically, and culturally.

France had one of the most seductive, addictive, and stimulating cultures in Europe. An agricultural and culinary heaven, a center of art, music, opera, poetry, literature, and ideas (good ones and bad ones!), it seemed eternal. The eldest daughter of the Church had to be eternal.

But we learn nothing on earth is eternal. At first the changes were “cosmetic”, imported from America: neon lights, expressways, crap-music piped in everywhere, infiltration of the French language by English words having no clear reason for being there since French has the means to express everything worth expressing. Then it became patently clear that something else was going on. The population was changing. Newcomers from North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, Pakistan, Afghanistan, made life miserable for everyone. In so many ways. Educational standards plummeted; dress codes encouraged slovenliness, tattoos, pierced noses, black nail polish for girls who want to be vampires; crime became endemic: gang rapes, beatings of the elderly, and eventually beheadings, and bodily tortures of indescribable barbarity, became regular occurrences. The successive governments did nothing except appease the killers, mostly Muslims, because the governments were terrified and at the same time beholden to the European Union, a latter-day KGB writ large, that dictated the opening of all borders to allow in the barbarians, and simultaneously, the agenda to turn Europe into an Islamic empire. In this way, they would annihilate Christianity, confront the United States, and make billions on the backs of the former Europeans, now slaves, who would do the work.

The most beautiful of civilizations became the ugliest. The most seductive of life-styles turned into the most repugnant. The new god was political correctness, a term imported from America, where the taboo on freedom of speech began. It began HERE, in the classrooms, on the campuses and in the media, in the land of freedom of speech, the land of the First Amendment. All the while claiming to be individualistic and superior to Americans, the French have slavishly imitated the worst - the absolute worst - of American culture.

Let’s hope and pray that the better side of the French nature, the robust, Gallic, self-confident, human side of French culture, the rational, Catholic side of the French mentality will somehow rise from these embers and turn against the adversaries of France, in an apocalyptic battle that must not be dubious, but clearly oriented toward redemption and salvation of what was once so obviously eternal. An uneven battle of David and Goliath, for the good are few in number and the corrupt pullulate.

Happy Easter

Notre Dame
[Photo By: KPA]

Time

2 Peter 3:8

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

[Photo By: KPA]

2 Peter 3 King

1 This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance:

2 That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour:

3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,

4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:

6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:

7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,

12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?

13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

14 Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.

15 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;

16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.

17 Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness.

18 But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.

Sunday Dawn

[Photo By: KPA]

Psalm 130:6

My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.

Psalm 130

1 Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.
2 Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.
3 If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?
4 But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.
5 I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.
6 My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.
7 Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.
8 And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

Red Bird

Red Bird
(Cardinal)
[Photo By: KPA]

Lake Ontario Sparkles

Lake Ontario Sparkles
[Photo By: KPA]

"The time of the singing of birds is come"

"The time of the singing of birds is come"
Song of Solomon 2:12
[Photo By: KPA]

Let's Talk

"Blessed Are The Meek"

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
[Photo of Niagara Falls: By KPA]

---

Matthew 5

1 And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:
2 And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,
3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
13 Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
21 Ye have heard that it was said of them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:
22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.
23 Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee;
24 Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
25 Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.
26 Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.
27 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
29 And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
30 And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
31 It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement:
32 But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
33 Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths:
34 But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne:
35 Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King.
36 Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.
37 But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.
38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:
39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.
41 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.
42 Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.
43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.
44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?
47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?
48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

Spring Swirl

Peach Swirl
[Photo By: KPA]

Daylight Saving: After

[Photo By: KPA]

Day Light Saving: Before

[Photo By: KPA]

Negative Space

Negative Space
Marc Cain Mannequin, Square One Shopping Centre, Mississauga
[Photo By: KPA]

The Last of the Snow

Song of Solomon 2:11

For, lo, the winter is past

The Last of the Snow
[Photo By: KPA]

Song of Solomon 2

I am the rose of Sharon,
and the lily of the valleys.

2 As the lily among thorns,
so is my love among the daughters.

3 As the apple tree among the trees of the wood,
so is my beloved among the sons.
I sat down under his shadow with great delight,
and his fruit was sweet to my taste.

4 He brought me to the banqueting house,
and his banner over me was love.

5 Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples:
for I am sick of love.

6 His left hand is under my head,
and his right hand doth embrace me.

7 I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem,
by the roes, and by the hinds of the field,
that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please.

8 The voice of my beloved!
behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains,
skipping upon the hills.

9 My beloved is like a roe or a young hart:
behold, he standeth behind our wall,
he looketh forth at the windows,
shewing himself through the lattice.

10 My beloved spake, and said unto me,
Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.

11 For, lo, the winter is past,
the rain is over and gone;

12 the flowers appear on the earth;
the time of the singing of birds is come,
and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;

13 the fig tree putteth forth her green figs,
and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell.
Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

14 O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock,
in the secret places of the stairs,
let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice;
for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely.

15 Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines:
for our vines have tender grapes.

16 My beloved is mine, and I am his:
he feedeth among the lilies.

17 Until the day break, and the shadows flee away,
turn, my beloved, and be thou like a roe
or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether.

Yellow

Yellow
[Photo By: KPA]

Ash Wednesday

I was in the lovey department store Simons today, and was glad to see that they had put aside the winter items (some at exorbitant sales prices) and replaced them with the cheery patterns of spring.

But a young girl reminded me of the real occasion.

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent in the Catholic calendar. The girl (in her twenties) had the charcoal cross on her forehead to signify this liturgical date.

She must have gone to mass to have that cross marked on her forehead by a priest. And in the morning too. I saw her around noon so she could have been on her lunch break. At first I thought she was a salesgirl.

"Good girl!" I said to her, and spoke with her (and her friend) for a couple of minutes before I went on my way (she is part Portuguese and part Polish).

It was a powerful and beautiful thing to see, the simple, crudely drawn cross on a young girl's forehead in the middle of a crowded mall.

It is with small steps like this, innocent, genuine, humble, and unaggressive, that we regain Christ's presence in this world.

This image was all the more powerful because of the jarring multicultural world that Mississauga has become. And in fact, only a few minutes after I left the store, a couple of men came behind me, walking very close behind me, talking loudly and unperturbed in Hindi.

I stopped and let them pass before I resumed my itinerary.

Blowing In The Wind II

Blowing In The Wind II: Square One
[Photo By: KPA]

Blowing In The Wind I

[Photo By: KPA]

Reflection

Mississauga City Hall and Ice Skating Rink
[Photo By: KPAk]

2 Corinthians 3:18

But we all, with unveiled face seeing by reflection the glory of Lord, are transformed into the same likeness from glory to glory, just as from the Spirit of Lord.

Strokes of Light

Light Strokes
[Photo By: KPA]

Billow: Winter Gust

Billow: Winter Gust
Photo By: KPA

Picnic in the Snow

Picnic in the Snow
[Photo By: KPA]

What is Writing?

Below is an excerpt from a post I wrote in 2013 about writing:

---

"What is Writing?

Half, maybe most, of writing is finding faults in one’s own writing, and fixing them, until one finds nothing more to fix. It is an immersion in one’s own flaws, and a constant, unyielding effort to ameliorate them." Lawrence Auster: March 18, 2013

This is the same with all art. Artists will say that once an idea has emerged, one has to fix it until there is nothing more (humanely) possible to fix.

That is the joy, and agony, of art. It is a ruthless companion. It doesn't suffer laziness. Yet, that is how beauty is born.

Trinity

Trinity in the Snow
[Photo By: KPA]

Dies Irae

I have a theory that Canada's cities will implode. I have written about this in many posts (see my "multiculturalism" and "immigration" categories). Multiculturalism, which was supposed to bring people together and form one happy utopian global family, has alienated people altogether. Offspring of immigrants (those "Canadian-born" hyphenated Canadians) on whom great hopes were bestowed to build that wonderful multicultural utopia, are clinging together, since on personal cultural levels they have nothing to connect them to the "main" culture.

I recently sent bold and frank letters to relatives that they return to their homeland to live authentic and happy lives AS ETHIOPIANS, rather than in this forced cultural hot pot. My message has actually resonated.

So what happens when this stewing war starts to boil over, in five years, thirty years? I bet on sooner than later.

Mississauga and Toronto are now cities of enclaves. People gravitate to neighborhoods of their own ethnic makeup. And those who have settled in some multicultural hub do so because of mortgage commitments, or their children's high school, or simply because the neighborhood appears to be nicer, cleaner, more convenient, with attractive parks and convenient shopping centres.

In our building, there is no cheerful "Good Morning" or "Good Evening" as one enters the slow and often crowded elevator. What occurs is silence broken by some cell phone conversation in Urdu or Cantonese, often loudly, and clearly showing the cell phone converser couldn't care less about the rest of the elevator's riders. They don't understand what he's saying anyway, and he shuts them out of his radar and continues with his uncouth, careless behavior.

And it is the same with actual conversations, when they do occur. Those talking to each other do so in their country of origin's language, loudly and without regard for anyone else. For example, I could be between such two people, and rather than move to get closer to each other, they will talk over me loudly and confidently, as though I don't exist.

And the same with apartments units. The building was built about twenty years ago when Mississauga was erecting high rises to accommodate a greatly increasing immigrant influx and was choosing Mississauga for the much touted "farmland" and open space.

Walls are cardboard thin, which makes these sound insensitive residents' telephone conversations from China or India all the more grating. These calls are often during the evening hours (time difference?) when one would expect one's home to have some peace and quiet in preparation for the long night of sleep ahead.

Air conditioning and heating systems are dated and archaic (and badly constructed) that they churn out air through groaning turbines. Ventilation is ineffective in neutralizing the heavily spiced foods that permeate through the hallways. And structures both superficial (wall paper) and internal (the heating system) are deteriorating, despite the regular maintenance that takes place and which constantly disrupts life in the apartments and the building as a whole.

At one point I blamed the inhuman multicultural system that made Canada (and Mississauga) into this ghettoized Gomorrah.

But the residents are fully to blame.

There is something profoundly opportunistic about people who moved thousands of miles away to come and live in the land of plenty: in Canada. They left relatives, a cultural network, familiar landscapes, their gods and idols to live in a country which gives them much in material goods and benefits. Their children can go to school for free in some of the best educational institutions in the world. They can shop in clean and fully stocked grocery stores where fresh produce is available year round. And if they have monetary problems, and most are likely to, even extending to their "educated" children, there is a generous welfare system to hand out their monthly dollars as it takes the funds from the society's purse.

How long will this last, is the question.

I predict not for long.

Perhaps God's wrath will manifest itself as it periodically has. We might get a flood of Biblical proportions.

Or there might simply be an internecine warfare, slow at the beginning until it explodes into something big and destructive.

We have already started this warfare, if behavior in elevators is any indication. And I think it IS an indication.

And God might be preparing us for that clean slate, a new beginning, to rebuild a city, a land worthy of His name.

We should, we must, prepare.

Zephaniah 1

1 The word of the Lord which came unto Zephaniah the son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hizkiah, in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah.

2 I will utterly consume all things from off the land, saith the Lord.

3 I will consume man and beast; I will consume the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and the stumbling blocks with the wicked: and I will cut off man from off the land, saith the Lord.

4 I will also stretch out mine hand upon Judah, and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place, and the name of the Chemarims with the priests;

5 And them that worship the host of heaven upon the housetops; and them that worship and that swear by the Lord, and that swear by Malcham;

6 And them that are turned back from the Lord; and those that have not sought the Lord, nor enquired for him.

7 Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord God: for the day of the Lord is at hand: for the Lord hath prepared a sacrifice, he hath bid his guests.

8 And it shall come to pass in the day of the Lord's sacrifice, that I will punish the princes, and the king's children, and all such as are clothed with strange apparel.

9 In the same day also will I punish all those that leap on the threshold, which fill their masters' houses with violence and deceit.

10 And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord, that there shall be the noise of a cry from the fish gate, and an howling from the second, and a great crashing from the hills.

11 Howl, ye inhabitants of Maktesh, for all the merchant people are cut down; all they that bear silver are cut off.

12 And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settled on their lees: that say in their heart, The Lord will not do good, neither will he do evil.

13 Therefore their goods shall become a booty, and their houses a desolation: they shall also build houses, but not inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, but not drink the wine thereof.

14 The great day of the Lord is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the Lord: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly.

15 That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness,

16 A day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers.

17 And I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord: and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung.

18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord's wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.

Dies Irae, from Mozart's Requiem in D Minor (Text)
La Chapelle Royale Collegium Vocale
Orchestre Des Champs -Élysées
Philippe Herreweghe

Valentine's Day

1 John 4:19 -

We love Him, because He first loved us.