The 2 statues at the National Archives in Washington, D. C. with a Shakespeare quote (The Tempest).

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King Felipe of Spain and Ambassador Chem Widhya

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Le Duc Anh

What these obituaries failed to mention is that he was a war criminal, mass killer and genocidaire who with Le Duc Tho masterminded and oversaw the execution of the K5 Genocide, among other mass crimes during the decade-plus long military occupation of Cambodia. In an interview conversation with a European reporter on the passing of Le Duc Anh, I mentioned how in my literature review of him (in my book collection on and relating to Cambodia), he was not often listed in the Index, and if listed, then only a scant page reference. Several reasons may account for this, mainly because he came into prominence during a period of history (i) where information was scarce due to the fact that Cambodia under occupation was effectively sealed off; (ii) the Western writers were completely fixated on the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge era and viewed everything through that lens; (iii) other more prominent Vietnamese personalities of the Vietnam War, e.g. Le Duc Tho, overshadowed him. - Theary, 25 April 2019

(AFP, 23 April 2019)

HANOI (AFP) - General Le Duc Anh, a Communist Party hardliner and former Vietnamese president who led the invasion of Cambodia which led to the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime, has died aged 99....

He is best remembered for playing a commanding role in the invasion of Cambodia that drove Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge out of Phnom Penh in 1978, earning him the nickname "Tiger of Cambodia".

Former Vietnamese President Le Duc Anh Passes Away at 99

A four-war veteran, Anh led the Vietnamese troops deployed in Cambodia after Pol Pot genocidal regime was defeated in 1979. Although Vietnam withdrew from the neighboring country in 1989, Ahn is credited with the final defeat of the Khmer Rouge in 1998.

Le Duc Anh was a Minister of Defense from 1978 to 1991 and he assumed the presidency of Vietnam in 1992, until he resigned five years later due to health problems.

Wikipedia:

From 1991 (to 1993) Anh controlled Vietnamese policy towards Cambodia and China and therefore was involved in the normalisation of Vietnam's relations with China in November 1991.

In 1981 he was appointed Deputy Minister of Defense and Head of the Political Department in the Ministry of Defense (Bộ Quốc phòng). In the same year he was appointed commander of the Vietnamese army during the occupation of Cambodia and there in 1984 promoted to general.

Read more about Le Duc Anh in Nayan Chanda's Brother Enemy, here.

The closing of Cambodia, even if the term was not uttered, was implied in the statement made in December 1984 by General Le Duc Anh, a member of the Communist party central committee and vice-minister of defense: "Since they [the Khmer guerillas] are opposed to the revolution and undermine it by force of arms, we must destroy them by military attacks, razing their bases, constructing and consolidating our lines of defense. constructing and consolidating the domination, by our friends [the Heng Samrin government], of the border regions."

[Theary: The timing of the statement, December 1984, efficiently coincided with the assassination of Chan Si who posed an obstacle to the Vietnamese genocidal vision, and opened the premiership for Hun Sen to assume in January 1985. Thereafter, the K5 Genocide, first documented and explicitly requested of then premier Pen Sovan to carry out by Le Duc Tho in 1981, exploded with a fury.]

Read the complete chapter 8: "The Vietnamese Occupation and the Resistance" in Cambodia: A Shattered Society by Marie Alexandrine Martin here.

The Vietnamese military experience in Cambodia depended a great deal on rank. For those in the central Vietnamese command, service in Cambodia proved to be a fruitful career move....

Le Duc Anh, commander in chief of the occupying Vietnamese forces, was one of the beneficiaries.... Anh served under Le Duc Tho as deputy commander of the Central Office for South Vietnam, rose to four-star general in 1974, and was eventually selected by Tho to command the invasion of Cambodia. As chief of 478, the central Vietnamese command center, he not only directed the occupation and the war against the resistance but advised the Cambodian general staff and shaped the formation of the Cambodian army.

Conservative and ideologically rigid, Le Duc Anh equated war with revolution. Speaking of Cambodia at the end of 1984 [Chan Si was killed in Dec. 1984 opening the premiership for Hun Sen and the fury of K5 Genocide], he stated that the revolution "must undergo a comprehensive struggle politically, militarily, economically and diplomatically in order to defeat the counterrevolution and protect national independence and revolutionary gains and to build the fatherland on its transitional path toward socialism." These views helped Le Duc Anh into the highest echelon of the Hanoi leadership, where he became minister of defense, Politburo member, and eventually, head of state.

Read more about Le Duc Anh in Evan Gottesman's Cambodia: After the Khmer Rouge, here.

Read more here about the Cast of Characters during the decade-plus-long military occupation of Cambodia.

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"Generous and Pornography"

Tales from The Lord Hun's Wonder Kingdoom

22 April 2019

(Warning: unfortunately, certain language is necessary)

Her name is Generous. She has passed through more than 3,300 days and 3,300 nights—but not yet 3,650—in The Lord Hun’s Kingdoom of Wonder, a once beautiful land of emerald paddies and luscious fruits and exotic birds and magical animals, like the kthing, whose horn instantly neutralizes poison from biting serpents in abundance. Serpents, revered and feared, live numerously in native soil in this Wonder Kingdoom of The Lord Hun's.

Generous popped out in a corrugated tin hut in the Mount City of The Lord Hun’s Wonder Kingdoom.

Popping out of the woman’s uterus into this Wonder Kingdoom, Generous naturally adjusted her wiggly, crinkly body to the surrounding cacophony of varying shades of noise, very harsh to her small ears, varying degrees of voluminous, pungent smells, assaulting her tiny nostrils, of faces lined and spotted, flashing smiles of chipped, rusty teeth. In the first few days, Generous bit the woman’s breast with her toothless, fleshy mouth, greedily sucking out what little nutrients the woman’s body can produce from a regular diet of mostly rice and sewage watery soup of local morning glory.

When Generous could open her little black eyes, she noticed a TV screen with little children sitting in front of it. Initially Generous could only see the glow with shadows moving about. But this TV screen is always on, glowing in the background of this tin hut that teeter totters on a body of water, the hut above putrid languid liquid and feces and urine and everyday throwaways mixing and stagnating right below Generous and the adults and the children sleeping and eating and watching TV.

It wasn’t long before Generous, less than 100 days from when she popped out of the woman’s uterus, could see more clearly the shadows in the glowing screen. Sometimes they are several adults shifting and tumbling on each other, many times violently. Generous sees and she hears. Guttural sounds. Loud bursts. Deep groaning. Heavy panting. They are often without clothes. They hit and hurt each other and play with their own and each other’s bodies. Play that is mean. Vicious. Hard. Cruel play. You can see it in their eyes and joyless faces.

Sometimes there are children in the screen. Also without clothes. With the adults. Playthings of the adults.

Generous passed through day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5 in this hut with this glowing TV screen projecting images of completely naked adults and completely naked children violently poking, playing with themselves, with each other, the heavy panting and shrieks and bursts of screams constantly piercing through the scorching tropical heat of the humid hut teeter tottering over the edge of the putrid lake. Generous watched the glowing TV screen of these moving images with her child uncle, child cousins and at times other neighboring children clustering together in this part of The Lord Hun’s Wonder Kingdoom.

Generous watched and watched and watched, day 367, day 368, day 369, day 370 of her life since that moment she popped out of the woman’s uterus in that noisy part of the Mount City of The Lord Hun’s Wonder Kingdoom.

The adults are not often in the hut, so the children are left on their own. The older toddlers have learned from regularly observing the adults where they can find the CDs, how to insert them into the CD machine and make the images and ghastly moaning and panting appear onto the TV screen.

The children mimicked what they saw on the glowing screen and made similar guttural sounds, trying as hard as they know how to mimic these sounds and expressions. Soon Generous also started mimicking the acts and sounds off the glowing screen. She intuitively know it’s safer to do the acts on herself than on other children. She felt and poked herself, when she’s inside the hut, outside the hut, as she’s talking to her relatives, as she’s talking to her adult male neighbors. While she’s helping out with dishes, while’s she’s carrying water, while she’s watching over the bubbly rice pot.

Generous passed one day to another amid the sights and sounds of these CDs playing on the glowing TV screen. Day 1,000, day 1,001, day 1,002, day 1,003. All the time, mimicking the acts on her own body.

The woman who had popped Generous out of her uterus has long forgotten about Generous and has in the meantime popped out another little girl, Have, as in to have wealth. This woman loves Have more than Generous and readily and generously told Generous as much. When this woman took another husband and moved away from the Mount City to another part of The Lord Hun’s Wonder Kingdoom, she left Generous behind; she took Have with her.

Around the time Generous approached day 1,460 from the time she popped out of the woman’s uterus—when Generous was about 4 in years—Boriteh, a woman from a far away land came and took Generous to live with her in another part of this Mount City of The Lord Hun’s Wonder Kingdoom. Boriteh is a follower of a Jew, Jesu, and likes to talk about this Jesu.

Boriteh scrubbed Generous clean of lice in the hundreds, of grub and grime that had greedily eaten into and formed a thick layer on Generous’ skin. Boriteh scrubbed and scrubbed. Generous screamed and screamed. Till Generous became shiny. Generous slept in a proper bed; she went to school; she learned English; she was intriqued by the stories Boriteh told about this Jew, Jesu. So intriqued that Generous, too, became a follower of this Jesu.

For the next 6 years, Generous passed her days with Boriteh. During those days, she was born again as a multi-language Khmer girl with beautiful dresses and pretty hair pieces and trendy sneakers, stylish shoes and fun girly purses to match her dresses, cool clothes. But on regular days, she likes her blue jeans and brand t-shirts. She goes to private schools and attends church services. Generous does not eat leftovers and Boriteh accommodates her wishes in buying mainly meat from the deli Dan’s Meat frequented by the local elites and foreigners.

Boriteh is a conscientious woman who wants to carry out the Jew Jesu’s mandate to love and care for the "least of these" with her heart, soul and mind in her role as guardian to Generous, as well as to other vulnerable children and families in shantytowns in and around the Mount City. So, Boriteh makes sure Generous is still connected to her mother and her other relatives by bringing Generous to meet and stay with them on weekends and during school holidays, and paying for the fees for transportation, food, and so on and so forth, and occasionally debts accumulated by Generous' relations--Boriteh's "neighbors"--steeped in survival mentality, debilitated by the crushing weight of poverty and physical and emotional violence.

The transformation in Generous is stark, a difference between night and day. Meeting Generous now, no one would be able to guess where she had been born and raised the first four years of her life. Generous is a new person. However, growth is often an excruciating process, even if new birth is instant. We humans are complicated creatures on a journey through a sin-stained world, the Khmers more accursed, still accursed as we traverse through the dark terrain of The Lord Hun’s Wonder Kingdoom.

Generous continues to masturbate, considerably less but still intensely when she’s anxious. And she’s still anxious often, even in her new birth. To the point where she has dark circles under her eyes from exhaustion, lack of sleep. Generous has already transferred schools twice, now in her third one, because she would masturbate during class as she’s doing her arithmetic, on the playground, openly and instinctively, to the point the teachers had to called in Boriteh to inform her of the problems to other children.

"The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, then your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, then your whole body is full of darkness. If the light within you is darkness, oh, how great is that darkness,” teaches the Jew Jesu.

Nowadays, Generous is less fluent in lying, her native language. Although no longer fluent, Generous is still proficient in her lies. Since born again, she has lied less. Considerably less. But old habits die hard, they say. And so it is. Mainly when she can’t get pretty things, for example, a promised pair of ballet shoes if she’d raise her failing grades.

Generous’ lies are cutting, dangerous: Boriteh hit me bloodied, she told her teacher who told the principal, when her grades were falling and the ballet shoes were not forthcoming. Another time, while Boriteh was cooking downstairs, Generous ran upstairs and screamed out the window, "Help me! Help me! She’s beating me!". Boriteh had to move house because her neighbors would not stop giving her mean, hard stares after they had almost called the police. Another verbal weapon Generous likes to use is the refrain, "I hate you; you’re only a foreigner and not my mother!"

These are some of Generous’ vindictive retaliations against Boriteh for disciplining her.

What is a lie, the Sunday school teacher asked? A little girl answered: An abomination to God. And a very present help in trouble. Proven true is Dallas Willard's favorite illustration.

Generous takes her anger on Boriteh when her true anger is against the woman who popped her out from her uterus into the nastiness of The Lord Hun’s Wonder Kingdoom who should be her mother but abandoned her and continues to abandon her.

Recently, Boriteh phoned this woman who now has moved on to her third husband, having popped out two more babies, and put Generous on the phone with her. "I will sell you for a hundred dollars if you don’t listen to Boriteah!" She added, to finish her thought: "Assuming you can get me even a hundred dollars!"

Generous loves Jesu. Even more, Jesu loves Generous and will not let her go. I’m pretty confident of this. But the pain is searing and the damage deep. It continues to be a fraught journey of sin and grace.

I am reminded of the Jewish proverb: Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.

Unfortunately the reverse is as true: A child is trained in the way that she should not go, even when she is older she will not depart from it.

And we know how important the first few years of life are to setting up the child for adulthood.

But praise be to God for the Jew Jesu!

Knowing the stages of neurological development can make you a better parent

Don't you wish you could predict your child's behavior with 100 percent accuracy? Any realistic parent knows it's an impossible daydream, but an appealing one nonetheless. Kids will always surprise you. There are so many factors that go into behavior, not to mention the fact that internal and external forces can sometimes make kids act out of character.

What you can do is come to understand the stages of their neurological development and what it means for their learning and behavior. Turns out, those parents who get a good grip on how we develop neurologically, are better able to guide their children toward positive outcomes. Here's a rundown of the stages of neurological development and what they mean for parenting.

The first is the sensorimotor stage. This takes places between birth and two-years. A child at this stage is getting used to experiencing the environment through their senses. Through trial and error and from experiences with objects and sensations, they begin to master the world around them. Around age one, the child learns object permanence, the concept that an object continues to exist, even when it's left the field of vision.

According to Sarah Lytle, PhD., from the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle, what many parents don't fully realize is that babies are also developing socially and emotionally. As such, they usually look to their parent for support. If you've ever engaged with a baby you didn't know, you'll notice the child usually turns to their parent to gauge how to respond. This act is called social referencing or social cognition. Be sure to be supportive when the child does this. This allows for more confidence and independence.

A child's first word is uttered around six months of age. To help a baby develop language skills further, remember that they follow your gaze. Emphasize with your eyes by moving them slowly when introducing a new word. According to Dr. Lytle, it's okay to use a baby-talk tone. We're actually genetically programmed to talk that way. But make sure you use words correctly, in full, and in complete, grammatically correct sentences.

From age two to six or seven, a child enters the preoperational stage. Here, language skills ramp up. The child can start to think in terms of symbols, develop a numerical understanding, and begin to grasp the distinction between past and future. Children at this age do well with concrete situations. Abstract concepts, however, are difficult to grasp.

It's at age two that humans become amazed by the idea that others don't see the world quite like they do. As the parents of two-year olds are all too well aware of, this self-centered viewpoint makes it difficult for the child to share and care about others. Although a 2016 poll showed that most parents think two-year olds can control their emotions, psychologists say quite the contrary. Having a toy that they love on hand to distract them when they pull a temper tantrum is probably the best strategy.

To help build empathy, parents can work at developing a child's theory of mind. This is coming to understand the perspective of others. Note this doesn't develop until the child is three or four. One famous example is the “Sally-Anne test."

Here, a child is told that Sally has a basket and Anne a box. Sally puts an object in her basket, then goes for a walk. Anne takes the object and puts it in her box. The child is asked, “Once Sally returns, where will she look for the object?" If the child understands Sally's point of view, they will say, “In the basket." Another tactic it to read them stories where they have to put themselves in a character's shoes.

From age six or seven to 11 or 12, a child enters the concrete operations stage. Seven is supposed to be the age of reason. Here, he or she can grasp abstract concepts, understand sequences of events, and empathize with others whose experiences are different from their own. Children at this stage can learn abstract mathematical concepts, but they aren't good at breaking down complex problems which require systematic reasoning. Lytle suggests keeping in mind a child's emotional development at this stage. Parents often don't realize how affected their children are by marital spats or a parent suffering something like a bout of depression.

From age 12 throughout the teen years, the child enters the formal operations stage, where he or she develops greater capacities for hypothetical thinking, abstract reasoning, and deductive reasoning. Generally, people have a good grasp of these by age 15. Moral issues like social justice and abstract ideas, such as probabilities, can be understood. Although for parents, few stages can be quite as challenging.

Teens are often moody and hypersensitive. This is usually chalked up to hormones, but it's also because their midbrain is highly active in this stage. The brain develops from back to front.

The midbrain is responsible for memory, emotion, and sexuality. It may surprise you to know that the rational part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, isn't fully developed until around age 25. This is responsible for things like decision-making, planning, impulse control, and risk avoidance.

Teens are more likely to evaluate situations with their amygdala or emotional center. This is why they tend to get overwhelmed by their emotions, but might have a hard time expressing them. It also explains their intermittent bend toward risky behavior. Make sure to talk to them often about drugs and alcohol, the risks of unprotected sex, and so on, and give them vocabulary they can use to avoid social pressures. When a teen does make a mistake, instead of scolding or lecturing, use it as a teachable moment. Walk them through it logically. Find out in their own words what they should have done differently. This can help them develop decision-making skills.

Also, work on giving them frontal lobe tasks or doing it with them. Give them opportunities to practice problem-solving, make judgment calls, or to plan things out. Do it together or debrief once they've completed the task. Sure, raising kids is far from easy, but knowing a little neuroscience can make a real difference.

យល់ អំពី ដំណាក់កាល នៃការអភិវឌ្ឍន៍ ប្រព័ន្ធ សរសៃប្រសាទ (ខួរក្បាល) របស់ កុមារ និងអ្វី ដែលប្រព័ន្ធនេះ មានន័យ សម្រាប់ ការរៀនសូត្រ និងអាកប្បកិរិយា របស់ ពួកគេ។

១. ដំណាក់កាល ម៉ូទ័រ វិញ្ញាណ (sensorimotor stage)៖ អំឡុងពេល ទារក តាំងពីកំណើត និង២ឆ្នាំ។ ក្មេង នៅដំណាក់កាលនេះ កំពុង ជួបប្រទះ បរិស្ថានជុំវិញ តាមរយៈ សរីរាង្គវិញ្ញាណ ទាំងប្រាំ (ប៉ះ, ភ្លក់, មើល, ស្តាប់, ក្លិន) របស់ ពួកគេ។

២. ចាប់ពី អាយុ ២ ទៅ៦ ឬ៧ ឆ្នាំ, ក្មេង ចូលដំណាក់កាល មុនប្រតិបត្តិការ (pre-operational stage)។ ពេលនេះ ជំនាញ ភាសា។

៣. ចាប់ពី អាយុ ៦ ឬ៧ ឆ្នាំ ទៅ ១១ ឬ១២ ឆ្នាំ, កុមារ ចូលក្នុង ដំណាក់កាល ប្រតិបត្តិការ ជាក់ស្តែង (concrete operational stage)។ អាយុ ប្រាំពីរ ឆ្នាំ ត្រូវ បានសន្មត ថា ជាយុគសម័យ នៃហេតុផល។

៤. ចាប់ពី អាយុ ១២ឆ្នាំ ពេញវ័យជំទង់, កុមារ ចូលដំណាក់កាល ប្រតិបត្តិការ ជាផ្លូវការ (formal operations stage) ដែលគាត់ មានសមត្ថភាព កាន់តែ ច្រើន សម្រាប់ ការគិត ជាឧទាហរណ៍, ហេតុផល អរូបី, និងហេតុផល សន្និដ្ឋាន។

Click here to read the complete trauma handbook in both Khmer and English.

Toddlers, Meltdowns and Brain Development

Raised Good | 4 May 2019

[excerpts]

Children “build” a brain, that’s best suited to the environment they experience. A staggering seven hundred new neural connections (synapses) are formed in the brain every single second, equating to over one thousand trillion synapses by a child’s third birthday.

But the process of brain development doesn’t end at age three; by the time children reach their teenage years the number of neural synapses actually halves from one thousand trillion to five hundred trillion in a process called neural pruning.

So why would the brain create more synapses than it needs, only to discard the extras?

The answer lies in the interplay of genetic and environmental factors. While genetics provides a blueprint, it’s a child’s environment and their experiences that carry out the construction, forming the essential wiring of the brain. Repeated use of particular pathways strengthens individual connections.

Synapse strength is vital in developing emotional regulation abilities. This is why it’s critical that we provide our children with experiences that contribute to healthy brain development. For example, a child who experiences excessive stress will develop a larger brainstem – the part of the brain responsible for the fight, flight, freeze response. These children are more likely to become adults who are overly reactive to stress. Why? Because their early experiences suggest that they need to be on high alert. That their environment is unsafe (and so are they).

On the flip side, a child who experiences nurturing and responsiveness is able to devote their energy to growing a larger prefrontal cortex – the part of the brain responsible for emotional regulation. These children are more likely to become adults who are calm and emotionally stable. Why? Because their early experiences of interdependence and responsiveness suggest that their world is safe and that they can rely on those around them.

“The word gap of more than 1 million words between children raised in a literacy-rich environment and those who were never read to is striking,” Logan said.

The word gap examined in this research isn’t the only type kids may face.

A controversial 1992 study suggested that children growing up in poverty hear about 30 million fewer words in conversation by age 3 than those from more privileged backgrounds. Other studies since then suggest this 30 million word gap may be much smaller or even non-existent, Logan said.

The vocabulary word gap in this study is different from the conversational word gap and may have different implications for children, she said.

“This isn’t about everyday communication. The words kids hear in books are going to be much more complex, difficult words than they hear just talking to their parents and others in the home,” she said.

For instance, a children’s book may be about penguins in Antarctica – introducing words and concepts that are unlikely to come up in everyday conversation.

“The words kids hear from books may have special importance in learning to read,” she said.

Logan said the million word gap found in this study is likely to be conservative. Parents will often talk about the book they’re reading with their children or add elements if they have read the story many times.

This “extra-textual” talk will reinforce new vocabulary words that kids are hearing and may introduce even more words.

The results of this study highlight the importance of reading to children.

View all 29 diagrams here

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ព្រឹត្ដិការណ៍ នៃសប្តាហ៍បរិសុទ្ធ, គឺ បុណ្យអ៊ីស្ទើរ

Happy Easter!

«កុំ​ ភ័យ​ខ្លាច​អ្វី។  ខ្ញុំ​ ដឹង​ថា​ នាងៗ មក​រក ​ព្រះយេស៊ូ ជា​អ្នក ​ភូមិ​ណាសារ៉ែត ​ដែល​គេ​ បាន​ឆ្កាង។  ព្រះអង្គ​ មិន​នៅ​ទី​នេះ​ ទេ។  ព្រះជាម្ចាស់ ​បាន​ប្រោស ​ព្រះអង្គ ​ឲ្យមាន ​ព្រះជន្ម ​រស់​ឡើង​វិញ ដូច​ទ្រង់​ មាន​ព្រះបន្ទូល ​រួច​មក​ហើយ។»

"He is not here. He has risen!"

Underpinning all this talk of divine intervention was a single image which first appeared in the Daily Mail yesterday.

I was one of the first people inside the smouldering cathedral as the worst of the fire subsided. I accompanied the French prime minister, Edouard Philippe, and a handful of aides on a preliminary inspection of the charred shell.

We found flames still flickering in some of the upper reaches and a lake at our feet. Then, through the foul-smelling miasma of smoke and hose water which filled this roofless void, we suddenly spotted an image that has come to define this near-disaster: The golden cross above the altar. How on earth had it managed to avoid the fate of everything else in the seat of the blaze, let alone remain upright?

- Robert Hardman, The Daily Mail, 16 April 2019

Many years ago when attending Fourth Presbyterian Church in Bethesda as a Georgetown student, I remember the senior pastor Dr. Norris announcing from the pulpit in his Welsh accent how an amount, say $845.27, was needed particularly and the collection from many people giving added exactly to that amount, to the exact penny.

I’ve witnessed and experienced regular “minor” miracles here in Cambodia—and become more conscious of them—in comparison to my years in the States, situations where I’ve exhausted all the possible reasons outside of the divine but ultimately am forced to conclude that it was divine, or situations that are so favorably improbable that in your heart of hearts you know it was the divine.

[Read more of the 5 March 2019 FB post]

CNN: … They were about 2 miles off shore, so Wagner didn't believe his ears at first.

Then they saw an arm flailing in the water behind them.

"It was kind of surprising we heard them. Especially when they were 150 yards away, almost 200 yards away," he said. "But it was definitely the scream that we heard, and that's why we were looking around."...

The 17-year-olds had gone swimming at Vilano Beach, near St. Augustine, to celebrate senior skip day and got caught in a current that pulled them father and farther away from land.

They were getting weaker and feared they wouldn't make it, so they started praying. "I cried out, 'if you really do have a plan for us, like, come on. Just bring something.'" Smith told WJAX.

That's when they saw the "Amen." ...

What It Means to Worship a Man Crucified as a Criminal

A God who allows suffering is a mystery, but so is a God who suffered.

Peter Wehner / New York Times | 19 April 2019

During a Christmas break while I was a student at the University of Washington, I tuned in to a show that influenced the trajectory of my faith, quite by accident. It was a broadcast of an hourlong “Firing Line” interview in 1980 between William F. Buckley Jr. and Malcolm Muggeridge, the British journalist who late in life converted to Christianity.

In the course of the interview, Mr. Muggeridge used a parable. Imagine that the Apostle Paul, after his Damascus Road conversion, starts off on his journey, Mr. Muggeridge said, and consults with an eminent public relations man. “I’ve got this campaign and I want to promote this gospel,” Paul tells this individual, who responds, “Well, you’ve got to have some sort of symbol.” To which Paul would reply: “Well, I have got one. I’ve got this cross.”

“The public relations man would have laughed his head off,” Mr. Muggeridge said, with the P.R. man insisting: “You can’t popularize a thing like that. It’s absolutely mad.”

The reaction of Mr. Muggeridge’s imaginary P.R. person is understandable. The Episcopal priest Fleming Rutledge has written that until the accounts of Jesus’ death burst upon the Mediterranean world, “no one in the history of human imagination had conceived of such a thing as the worship of a crucified man.” And yet the crucifixion — an emblem of agony and one of the cruelest methods of execution ever practiced — became a historical pivot point and eventually the most compelling symbol of the most popular faith on earth.

As a non-Christian friend of mine put it to me recently, the idea that people would worship a God who is compassionate toward us is one thing, but to worship a God who suffers and dies — as a condemned criminal, no less — is distinct to Christianity. In my friend’s understated words, “When you think about it, it is a little strange.”

Perhaps the aspect of the crucifixion that is easiest to understand is that according to Christian theology, atonement is the means through which human beings — broken, fallen, sinful — are reconciled to God. The ideal needed to be sacrificed for the non-ideal, the worthy for the unworthy.

But the cross is more than simply a gateway to the City of God. “I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross,” John Stott, one of the most important Christian evangelists of the last century, wrote in “The Cross of Christ.” “The only God I believe in is the One Nietzsche ridiculed as ‘God on the cross.’ In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?” From the perspective of Christianity, one can question why God allows suffering, but one cannot say God doesn’t understand it. He is not remote, indifferent, untouched or unscarred.

Scott Dudley, the senior pastor at Bellevue Presbyterian Church in Bellevue, Wash., and a lifelong friend, pointed out to me that on the cross God was reconciling the world to himself — but God was also, perhaps, reconciling himself to the world. The cross is not only God’s way of saying we are not alone in our suffering, but also that God has entered into our suffering through his own suffering.

Scott readily concedes that there’s no good answer to the question, “Why is there suffering?” Jesus never answers that question, and even if we had the theological answer, it would not ease our burdens in any significant way. What God offers instead is the promise that he is with us in our suffering; that he can bring good out of it (life out of death, forgiveness out of sin); and that one day he will put a stop to it and redeem it. God, Revelation tells us, will make “all things new.” For now, though, we are part of a drama unfolding in a broken world, one in which God chose to become a protagonist.

One other significant consequence the crucifixion had was to “introduce a new plot to history: The victim became a hero by offering himself as a willing victim,” in the words of the Christian author Philip Yancey. Citing the works of the French philosopher René Girard and Mr. Girard’s student Gil Bailie, Mr. Yancey argues that a radiating effect of the cross was to undermine abusive power and injustice; that care for the disenfranchised and those living in the shadows of society came about as a direct result of Jesus’ crucifixion.

Edward Shillito, a minister in England who watched waves of badly wounded soldiers return from World War I, wrote a poem, “Jesus of the Scars,” in which he said, “The heavens frighten us; they are too calm; In all the universe we have no place. Our wounds are hurting us; where is the balm? Lord Jesus, by thy scars we know thy grace.” Mr. Shillito ended his poem with this stanza, which beautifully captures what makes the cross unique:

The other gods were strong; but thou wast weak;

They rode, but thou didst stumble to a throne;

But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak,

And not a god has wounds, but thou alone.

Worshiping a God of wounds is a little strange, as my friend said. For some, it is grotesque and contemptible, a bizarre myth, an offense. But for others of us, what happened to Jesus on the cross is profoundly moving and life-altering — not just a historical inflection point, but something that won and keeps winning our hearts. As individuals with wounds, flawed and fallen, we cannot help but return to the foot of the cross.

The most important moment in my faith pilgrimage was when the cross became my interpretive prism. What I mean by this is that I was and remain a person with a skeptical mind and countless questions. There are parts of the Bible I still find puzzling, difficult and troubling. (That is true of many more Christians than you might imagine, and of many more Christians than are willing to admit.)

But I did arrive at a settled belief that whatever the answer to those questions were — answers I’m unlikely to ever discover — I would understand them in the context of the cross, where God showed his enduring love for people in every circumstance and in every season of life. I came to treasure a line from an 18th-century hymn by Isaac Watts that I have replayed in my mind more often than I can count: “Did e’re such love and sorrow meet, Or thorns compose so rich a crown?”

In response to his fictional P.R. person’s claim that using the cross as a symbol for faith would be mad, Malcolm Muggeridge replied: “But it wasn’t mad. It worked for centuries and centuries, bringing out all the creativity in people, all the love and disinterestedness in people, this symbol of suffering. And I think that’s the heart of the thing.”

It is the heart of the thing. Where some see the cross as superstitious foolery or a stumbling block, others see grace and sublime love. For us, the glory and joy of Easter Sunday is only made possible by the anguish of Good Friday.

Maundy Thursday

«ថ្ងៃព្រហស្បតិ៍ បទបញ្ជា» នៃសប្តាហ៍បរិសុទ្ធ គឺ ជាថ្ងៃ ដ៏ពិសិដ្ឋ របស់ ពួកគ្រីស្ទាន នៅថ្ងៃព្រហស្បតិ៍ មុនបុណ្យអ៊ីស្ទើរ។ វា រំលឹក ដល់ការ ព្រះយេស៊ូ លាងជើង ពួកសាវក (សិស្ស) និងអាហារចុងក្រោយ នៃព្រះយេស៊ូ ជាមួយ ពួកសាវក ដូចដែលបានពិពណ៌នា នៅក្នុងដំណឹងល្អ ព្រះគម្ពីរ (ម៉ាថាយ, ម៉ាកុស, លូកា និងយ៉ូហាន)។

វា គឺ នៅថ្ងៃព្រហស្បតិ៍ នៃសប្តាហ៍ចុងក្រោយ របស់ ព្រះគ្រីស្ទ មុនពេល ត្រូវ បានគេ ឆ្កាងទ្រង់, ហើយ ទ្រង់ បានរស់ ឡើងវិញ ដែលទ្រង់ មានបន្ទូល ពាក្យទាំងនេះ ទៅកាន់ ពួកសិស្ស របស់ទ្រង់ ថា៖

«ខ្ញុំ ឲ្យបទបញ្ជា ថ្មី ដល់អ្នករាល់គ្នា គឺ ត្រូវ ស្រឡាញ់គ្នា ទៅវិញ ទៅមក។ អ្នករាល់គ្នា ត្រូវ ស្រឡាញ់គ្នា ទៅវិញ ទៅមក ដូចខ្ញុំ បានស្រឡាញ់ អ្នករាល់គ្នា ដែរ។»

Maundy Thursday (the 5th day of Holy Week) is the Christian holy day falling on the Thursday before Easter. It commemorates the foot washing and Last Supper of Jesus Christ with the Apostles, as described in the canonical gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John).

Jesus Christ’s "mandate" is commemorated on Maundy Thursday--"maundy" being a shortened form of mandatum (Latin), which means "command." It was on the Thursday of Christ's final week before being crucified and resurrected that He said these words to his disciples:

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another" (John 13:34).

ព្រឹត្ដិការណ៍ នៅថ្ងៃព្រហស្បតិ៍ ២,០១៩* ឆ្នាំមុន, យ៉ូហាន។

Isaiah prophesied about the life, death, and life of Jesus 700 years before B.C. transformed to A.D.

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