Jim Ching's principal school counsellor wants him to represent the San Francisco Chinese Community in the Festival of Man. Counsellor Snyder refers to "'Your people...'" (p. 59) Jim replies, "'My people?'" (ibid.) He happens to have inherited Chinese facial features.
Lancaster celebrates Chinese New Year. A Chinese postgraduate student at Lancaster University, whose name I cannot yet pronounce, has started to attend our Zen group and is a fascinating source of information about Chinese popular religion: the Jade Emperor; Kanzeon; other gods etc. He might be learning Zen from our group because apparently popular Buddhism in China is Pure Land or Tibetan whereas Chan is in the monasteries. A thousand years ago, there was a "Three Teachings in One" movement, aiming to combine Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. I had never heard of it.
We learn all the time.
We should have a Festival of Mankind but it should not be against extraterrestrial influences which is definitely how it comes across in the propaganda quoted by Jim.
Ad astra.
6 comments:
From Sean M. Brooks (Part I):
Kaor, Paul!
Before I start seriously trying to fix why I have been having so much trouble uploading comments at the PA blog, I've been wanting to say something about the recent death of the Pope. The text quoted below came from the opening pages of Chapter I of Morris L. West's THE SHOES OF THE FISHERMAN (1963). I can't trust, as of now, being able to upload these quotes as a combox comment. The death or abdication of any Pope always reminds me of these bits from West's book.
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THE SHOES OF THE FISHERMAN, by Morris L. West
THE POPE WAS DEAD. THE Camerlengo had announced it. The Master of Ceremonies, the notaries, the doctors, had consigned him under signature into eternity. His ring was defaced and his seals were broken. The bells had been rung throughout the city. The pontifical body had been handed to the embalmers so that it might be a seemly object for the veneration of the faithful. Now it lay, between white candles, in the Sistine Chapel, with the Noble Guard keeping a deathwatch under Michelangelo's frescoes of the Last Judgment.
The Pope was dead. Tomorrow the clergy of the Basilica would claim him and expose him to the public in the Chapel of the Most Holy Sacrament. On the third day they would bury him, clothed in full pontificals, with a mitre on his head, a purple veil on his face, and a red ermine blanket to warm him in the crypt. The medals he had struck and coinage he had minted would be buried with him to identify him to any who might dig him up a thousand years later. They would seal him in three coffins--one of cypress, one of lead to keep him from the damp and to carry his coat of arms, and the certificate of his death; the last of elm so that he might seem, at least, like other men who go to the grave in a wooden box.
The Pope was dead. So they would pray for him as for any other: "Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord...Deliver him from eternal death." Then they would lower him into the vault under the high altar, where perhaps--but only perhaps--he would moulder into dust with the dust of Peter; and a mason would brick up the vault and fix, on a marble tablet with his name, his title, and the date of his birth and his obit.
From Sean M. Brooks (Part II):
The Pope was dead. They would mourn him with nine days of Masses and give him nine absolutions--of which, having been greater in his life than other men, he might have greater need after his death.
Then they would forget him, because the See of Peter was vacant, the life of the Church was in syncope, and the Almighty was without a Vicar on this troubled planet.
The See of Peter was vacant. So they struck two medals, one for the Camerlengo, which bore a large umbrella over crossed keys. There was no one under the umbrella, and this was a sign to the most ignorant that there was no incumbent for the Chair of the Apostles, and that all that was done had only an interim character. The second medal was that of the Governor of the Conclave: he who must assemble the Cardinals of the Church and lock them inside the chambers of the Conclave and keep them there until they had issued with a new Pope.
Every coin new minted in the Vatican City, every stamp now issued, bore the words sede vacante, which even those without Latinity might understand as "while the Chair is vacant." The Vatican newspaper carried the same sign on its front page, and would wear a black band of mourning until the new Pontiff was named.
Every news service in the world had a representative camped on the doorstep of the Vatican press office; and from each point of the compass old men came, bent with years or infirmity, to put on the scarlet of princes and sit in conclave for the making of a new Pope.
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There will be some changes, of course, depending on whatever instructions a Pope might leave as regards his funeral and burial. Not all deceased Popes were interred in St. Peter's Basilica. E.g., Pius IX asked for his body to be buried in St. Laurence-Outside-the-Walls.
Ad astra! Sean
Thank you, Sean.
The sky is the limit for combox comments. Believe it.
Sean,
Three coffins sounds a lot.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I'm sure there were symbolic or practical reasons for that, but I don't know what they were. I might google for that.
Egyptians pharaohs had far more elaborate and multiple coffins, including coffins made of solid gold.
Hope this uploads.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I did look up the custom of popes being buried in three coffins, and this is what I found: the cypress wood coffin was a gesture of humility, zinc liners (which has replaced lead) are meant to help preserve the bodies of the deceased, and the last would be from a strong wood like elm, to show the strength and endurance of the Papacy.
Testing.
Ad astra! Sean
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