thegoodfellas/blogset-br huggingface dataset:
in the world - a good conversation with a friend, a cool drink in a summer day, a beautiful sunset, a good book, family. However, he will not endlessly pour into our days all the blessings we hope to have less we forget the true Source of all joy. Pain, suffering, frustration and failure often are ways in which we can grow closer to God and for him to make us holier. But not only that, even if while on earth we were to reach perfect holiness, we still would not be exempt of suffering any more than Jesus was. We also do not have to play the 'I'm a Christian and my life is perfect' card, as he showed. He experienced negative emotions too. He showed fear in the Getsemani (Luke 22, Matthew 26). I also think that there is some irritation/frustration when he curses the fig tree for it not having fruit, even though it was not season of figs (Mark 11.12-14). He shows anger against the people dishonouring the Father in the temple courts (Mark 11.15-17). But ultimately, he remained faithful and obedient in spite of all this. He did not start listing things he should be doing differently in order to bargain with God and receive blessings; he never questioned God's goodness; he never asked 'why me?'. He did not necessarily want to go through carrying the sin of the world and being crucified (Luke 22.42), but we cannot wait to feel like we want to go through such things: obedience is only obedience when you do not necessarily want to do something. Otherwise, it is only doing what you would be doing anyway. If we continue to believe that we need earthly blessings to know that God loves us, cares for us and is pleased with us, while we may be not be any less Christian, we may be stagnant in an immature state of relationship with God. We may never understand him, his character or will in more depth. We will be the two year old who is so distracted with the shiny gifts from the father (or distracted and worried why we did not receive the gifts from the father), that we miss out on the gift that the father is himself. Our hearts will be prone to wander and our faith weak. We are not called to health, wealth, happiness and perfect families. We were not called to have the right feelings all the time and to just go with them. We are not called to results, successful stories, crowds of people who love us. Our lives have the purpose of glorifying God as the Son did, and the best way to do so is to do his will: "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." - Micah 6.8 We are called for obedience in - even if it costs us all of those other shiny things we love so
"So... all I need to do to get all the desires of my heart is to take delight in you and you'll just give them to me? Cool!" That is always the imaginary dialogue with God whenever I read the verse from Psalm 37.4:"Take delight in the Lord,and he will give you the desires of your heart."However, realistically, whenever I look at the lives of people who truly took delight in the Lord, that verse seems to be plainly wrong. I don't imagine that any of the people whose story is in the Bible had being slaughtered, persecuted, cut in half, crucified or had their limbs ripped from their body because of their faith as one of the items on the list of 'desires of your heart'. In fact, whoever decides to really take Christianity seriously have lives that look pretty grim and undesirable. Christ himself said that "You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved." (Matthew 10.22) and showed by example that the one who truly loves as he did ends up being hated, flogged and killed. So... how do we understand the verse from the Psalm? Was David wrong? I don't think so. The dialogue I had imagined - not very different from the negotiation you can find in a market - shows quite clearly I initially understood the verse as being a bargain, I realised that I was looking at my faith through the eyes of a capitalist consumer. I imagined it all as being a cosmic bargaining with the sovereign creator of the universe - which, let's be honest, is pretty pathetic. So to try to understand it I decided to put aside the very exciting 'getting desires of the heart' to start from the beginning: Delight in the Lord. What does delight in the Lord actually mean? Does it mean leaving all my possessions, going up into the mountains, living of the land and never being reinserted to society? Does it mean being happy all the time? Firstly, something that God is not saying: 'act like you like me', or 'serve me human'. He is not asking for an action. He is asking for a response. Suppose I have made a batch of cookies. The house smells great as you walk in and I say: if you enjoy cookies, I will make you happy by giving you more cookies. I don't think that God is saying something entirely different in this verse. Taking delight means enjoying God himself, which I do not think is something to be belittled or dismissed. The point is: to know if we delight in or enjoy something, we have to try it first. "Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him." (Psalm 34.8). We are invited to try him! And the only way to do so is the same way we do to get to know people: spending time with him, listening and talking to him, essentially... building a relationship.
Generally we tend to see God as a means of getting [insert here something you want such as health, money, comfort, security, love], not very unlike a teenager that is happy to be kind to their parent on the days preceding asking for money to take a trip. But being invited to take delight in him is an entirely different picture. When you take delight in someone, you spend time with them because of them. You enjoy their company, even if sitting silently in the same room. Sometimes they may even give you council, words of wisdom, a present, but you're not there for that. You're there for them. The thing is, any relationship which is successful ultimately changes you the more you enjoy each other and the more time you spend together. You start liking the same things, your opinions often begin to align. The way you talk, act and dress is mutually influential. With God it is not different. When we take delight in the Lord, it is not that we are buying him or making him just shrug and say "Fine, I'll give you the things you want now". We are not changing God. It is He who is changing us. Our will and desires are transformed as our relationship with God deepens, grows and we learn to love and delight in him. Our hearts become in tune with his, and so the things our heart desires are things that he would like to give us. A parent is much more likely to want to give an apple to satisfy the hunger of their child than a rock - even if the child asks for a rock. However much a parent loves a child, he will not give it a rock to eat even if the child desires it more than anything. It is not that the parent is being cruel by not giving it, but exactly the opposite. He is not satisfying the child's wish out of love. Once the child learns that rocks are not edible, but that apples are very much edible, the parent will far more often be able to give the child what they desire. Similarly, as we are shaped by God, he will give us the desires of our heart, because they start to become in tune with his own desires for us. Therefore, in one sense, even if you decide to pursue the self-seeking path to get what you want in the end, seeking the Lord for that, you might end up being quite surprised if you truly succeed. You may find that in the midst of delight in him, either the desires of your heart have been already satisfied by his nature or... are really not that important at all. "Master they say that when I seemTo be in speech with you,Since you make no replies, its all a dream One talker aping two.They are half right, but not as theyimagine; rather, ISeek in myself the things I meant to say,And lo! The wells are dry.Then, seeing me empty, you forsakeThe
listeners role, and throughMy dead lips breathe and into utterance wakeThe thoughts I never knew.And thus you neither need replyNor can; thus while we seemTwo talking, thou art One forever, and INo dreamer, but thy dream. C.S. Lewis"
Many times, I need to use the subway or the bus in Sao Paulo, and this experience frustrates me greatly. Firstly because there is a high concentration of people, generally in closed, hot and confined spaces. Secondly, because it's mentally stressful to be a young person on public transportation because, even if there are seats marked different colours especially because of them being priority seats, very often I have seen young people occupy such seats and either blatantly ignore older people, or act like they are distracted and never see the person. This irritates me profoundly. Therefore, I try to take it upon myself to give my seat - if it is reserved or not for priority groups - but this means there is no such thing as an easy relaxed trip even if I am sitting. I remember laughing very much when I tried to offer my seat to an old asian man in the subway, but he kindly shook his head and pointed to the seat he was standing beside - a priority seat, occupied by a young man that had not given up his seat. The asian grampa smiled and waited patiently until this young man gave up his seat. Eventually, the young man gave up and gave his seat and the grampa gave me a huge smile as he sat again, and we silently shared a laugh. However, the fact that this type of thing happens is only symptomatic of a social condition which is a whole lot worse.While in many cultures people who are older are respected and cared for, the western culture has little to show in this regard. It is somewhat a despairing thought to imagine one's self perhaps becoming older in this society that ceases to give value to those who cease to be productive. Once a person has reached a certain point in which they do not work, earn or produce, it is like they are no longer necessary and are essentially waiting for their last years to pass by and are little more than an annoyance to much of society. Especially in big cities, it is a very lonely place to be of age. There are little to no activities the person can do alone - not even go for a walk or buy something they need - and so they are trapped within the place where they reside. Very few older people are able to live their entire lives alone, and when they need care, they are sent to a home because any sons and daughters have to 'get on with their lives'. There is no time to stop for the other. It is better for people to pay for others to care of their parents than it is to do it one's self. This is not something unique to the treatment of old people, but also of children. I came from a culture in which when I went to visit my friends in their houses, I never met their mothers - I met only their nannies. The mothers were always
working. Although at times this is a necessity due to a financial condition, many times the money the mother earns at work is entirely spent on the nanny and the housekeeper that are artificially playing the role of a mother, but without the emotional bond or freedom to discipline. Children are raised by creches, schools, television and internet because at some point women saw that those who were recognised most in society, were those that were part of the machine of production and profit, allied to the feeling of need of independence, we have entered the workforce. I am not against this - this has saved may women from abusive relationships, and even my own mother worked throughout my childhood in a part-time job for us to manage to make ends meet financially, but she put a great deal of effort into being able to juggle all this. But what I many times see is that, many men were initially wrong in not taking up any role whatsoever in parenting and women, rather than bringing this forward to such an extent that they should fulfil this duty, women started to do the same thing as men: If working out of the house means I do not have to care for a child, then I will do so too! And in this sense "equal rights" ends up becoming something more like "equal wrongs" - and so children have been the ones who have suffered the blow of not having an identity within a family and have outsourced parenting. These children are now growing up. These children have never been taught to build relationships. These children have no idea who in the world they are if not doing what they saw their parents doing all their lives: working. We have come to the point that the question that follows "What is your name?" is "What do you do?" and the answer to what we do is our job description, because that is what ultimately we do. We do not love, laugh, spend time with our ageing parents, listen to the stories of our grandparents - what we do is our job, the rest fits around the corners. What we do is give profit to a company, what we do is we research for the desperately corrupt pharmaceutical companies that leave aside treatment that cures to be able to continue selling (and profiting) with treating symptoms, rather than solving underlying causes. What we do is we teach classrooms full of students whose names we may never know for them too to be part of this system, and will use the tools handed to them in university or school to neglect those they love. Of course, this seems a very pessimistic view of the world. There are many good things one can do with work, and we were commanded to work by God in Genesis - work in itself is not the problem, but the fact that it scales up the list of priorities silently and swiftly knocking down other people and things that should not
be below it. Before work was mentioned by God, relationships were established. Reading Genesis 1 and 2, God did work to make all of Creation, but he worked so that these relationships could be established and thrive: the relationship of God and man, of man and nature and men amongst themselves. The entire basis of the system God elaborated and constructed to work harmoniously is relationships. However, it is becoming progressively more normal to entirely eliminate this aspect of life in favour of shallow relationships to give space to work. We have ceased working to survive, and we are now surviving to work. Our lives become empty of meaning, and we feel we lack in value when we cease to be productive. I have just spent the last 4 months away from working and studying, and I honestly was almost driven to madness because it was like I "had" to work, produce and do something to be useful to the world and not a waste of space. Instead, God answered every time I was frustrated about this by reminding me that the significance that I invested in and could achieve in this time not working was far greater away from salaries or lab countertops. It was in the home, nurturing relationships, spending time with my family, listening to my grandmother's missionary stories, writing letters and visiting people I love, or even doing things for loved ones though they were far. And, in fact, ultimately, it is through these relationships that we find our true meaning. I have found how out of practice I was for the art of being idle, and just how very draining and even much more challenging it is to build such meaningful relationships. It is much easier to slice tissue, follow an immunohistochemistry protocol or plot data than it is to yield to another person's will, to be silent when you disagree, to be patient when you are tired. We may be PhDs for a great deal of things, but we are barely in primary school when it comes to being a sibling, friend or parent. At the end of the day, with our fancy jobs, diplomas and all that money can buy, we are still miserable people. A great deal of the population suffers from depression, addiction, and multiple other disorders. We are fearful, and though we have never been so many, we have never been so alone. We seek love and approval in ways money can buy - because even with all this money, we still are not happy or fulfilled. But we can't fix it. Not by money, science or cleverness. The only logical way to start fixing it is going back to when things were actually working for work and relationships, in Genesis: Reestablishing the first relationship, of God and man. This is where the necessary healing begins such that from there. Christ came to reconcile in himself all things, and through him the relationships broken by beliefs that our value is in producing rather than in Christ dying for our sins can be
mended. Hearts and minds wounded by a lonely society and an inhuman profit machine can be truly healed. We can perhaps then describe ourselves not anymore as engineers, scientists or psychologists - but as mothers, daughters, sons, fathers and friends. And this will have more value than any imaginable number of digits of a salary.
forma de transporte preferido: Rocket QueenSeu melhor amigo: Mr. BrownstoneVoce e seu melhor amigo sao: Riad n' BedouinsQual e o clima: November rainSe sua vida fosse um programa de TV, como seria chamado: Ain't it FunO que e vida para voce: Reckless Life Seu relacionamento: Used to love herSeu medo: Buick MakaneQual e o melhor conselho que voce tem a dar: Don't cryPensamento do Dia: Move to the cityMeu lema: Welcome to the jungle
Entao pessoas, eu nao morri, so estou estudando agora, vou voltar a postar juro xDD Entao eu nao quero viver nesse futuro #fato A postagem de agora, vai ser algo que eu vou fazer muito pouco no meu blog. E um resumo da vida de um cara, que apesar de admirar seu trabalho, eu nao sabia muito da sua vida e curiosidades interessantes para qualquer Gunner, fa de Hard Rock, de guitarra ou de musica em geral. Com voces o resumo da vida de Jeffrey Dean Isbell, mais conhecido como...Izzy Stradlin, nome artistico de Jeffrey Dean Isbell, (Lafayette, 8 de abril de 1962) e um dos guitarristas originais do Guns N' Roses, ao lado de Axl Rose, e compositor de boa parte das musicas da banda.BiografiaInfluenciado por Alice Cooper, Led Zeppelin , pediu aos pais para comprarem uma bateria. Foi baterista ate 1983, quando a trocou pela guitarra. Izzy aprendeu os primeiros acordes da guitarra tocando musicas dos Ramones. No ensino medio fundou uma banda com amigos de Lafayette, entre eles Axl Rose. Depois de sua formatura se mudou para Los Angeles. La tocou bateria e baixo em algumas bandas e iniciou uma trajetoria musical que o tornaria conhecido em todo o planeta.Hollywood RoseEm Los Angeles, atraves do amigo Traci Guns, Izzy conheceu o guitarrista californiano Chris Weber, e junto com ele e Axl Rose, formou a banda Rose, que depois mudaria de nome para Hollywood Rose. Izzy era um dos compositores do Hollywood Rose e tinha um estilo "speed metal", com riffs poderosos. A banda chegou a gravar algumas musicas proprias em estudio, entre elas musicas que depois seriam regravadas pelo Guns N' Roses como "My Way Your Way" (que recebeu nova letra e foi rebatizada de "Anything Goes"), "Wreckless Life" (regravada como "Reckless Life", sem o terceiro verso da letra original), "Shadow of Your Love" e "Back off Bitch" (regravadas pelo Guns N' Roses na integra). Outras musicas compostas pelo Hollywood Rose nao foram aproveitadas pelo Guns N' Roses e permaneceram desconhecidas por praticamente duas decadas, sendo reveladas por um(a) fa do Guns N' Roses que comprou uma fita original da banda contendo quatro musicas e a divulgou na internet e, posteriormente, com o lancamento do disco "Hollywood Rose - The Roots of Guns n' Roses", que continha as ate entao ineditas "Rocker" e "Killing Time". Izzy se separou do Guns N Roses depois de uma discussao com Axl Rose que queria reavaliar o seu contrato.Guns N' Roses: principal compositor junto com AxlEventualmente o Hollywood Rose acabou, mas e Axl e Izzy voltaram a tocar juntos novamente no Guns N' Roses. Diversos musicos passaram pela banda, mas a formacao se estabilizou com Axl Rose, Izzy Stradlin, Slash, Duff McKagan e Steven Adler. Apesar de Slash ser sem duvida o guitarrista mais conhecido da banda, Izzy Stradlin pode ser considerado o principal responsavel pela composicao das musicas do Guns N' Roses. Uma historia curiosa que comprova isso e sobre a composicao de "Sweet Child o' Mine", um dos maiores sucessos do Guns N' Roses. Slash estava tocando o riff de abertura
da musica "de brincadeira" e Izzy comecou a acompanha-lo. Slash pediu para Izzy parar, dizendo algo como "voce nao quer fazer uma musica com esse riff, nao e?". Izzy disse que sim, que o riff era muito bom e insistiu para que ele tocasse novamente.A banda tornou-se celebre em 1986 no circuito de Los Angeles, passando rapidamente de desconhecida para principal atracao de bares como Roxy, Whisky a Go Go, Troubadour e outros clubes da famosa "Sunset Strip", em Hollywood. Izzy era uma especie de mentor da banda nessa epoca, e defendeu fortemente que o Guns N' Roses adotasse o visual "glam" fortemente inspirado na banda Hanoi Rocks. Em 1986, o Guns N' Roses lancou um EP intitulado "Live! Like a Suicide", que apresentava quatro gravacoes de estudio com som de audiencia sobreposto na gravacao para simular um show ao vivo. Nao se sabe qual a opiniao de Izzy a respeito desse "engodo".Em 1987, o Guns N' Roses lancou Appetite for Destruction, com 12 faixas, pela Geffen Records. Em uma entrevista sobre o album, a banda identificou a musica "Think About You" como "a musica do Izzy", provavelmente porque Izzy havia composto a musica inteira antes de apresenta-la a banda. A banda saiu em turne pelos Estados Unidos para divulgar "Appetite..." e tambem fez uma mini turne pela Europa com shows na Inglaterra, Alemanha e Holanda. Apos um ano de turne, a banda tornou-se mundialmente conhecida com os hits "Sweet Child o' Mine", "Welcome to the Jungle" e "Paradise City".Em 1988 a banda lancou seu segundo album, que seria chamado "The Sex, The Drugs, The Shocking Truth", mas eventualmente teve seu nome mudado para "GN'R Lies". Esse disco continha as quatro musicas lancadas no EP "Live! Like a Suicide" e outras quatro musicas acusticas, incluindo a polemica "One in a Million". A balada "Patience", maior hit desse album, foi praticamente escrita por Izzy Stradlin, e Axl Rose fazia questao de dizer isso em praticamente todos os shows da banda. Naquele ano, a banda seguiu em turne pelos EUA abrindo shows para bandas como Aerosmith e tambem tocou no Japao e na Australia.Ao final de dois anos de turne ininterrupta para promover "Appetite for Destruction" e "GN'R Lies", Izzy e seus companheiros de banda haviam chegado no topo do rock n' roll. O Guns N' Roses podia entao bancar uma vida de excessos regada a muito sexo e drogas. Izzy se tornou usuario de cocaina e desenvolveu vicio por heroina.Em 1989, Izzy realizou um sonho de sua vida quando o Guns N' Roses abriu quatro shows em Los Angeles para os Rolling Stones. Naquele mesmo ano, Izzy realizaria um sonho ainda maior ao tocar com seus idolos no palco. Izzy e Axl tocaram a musica "Salt of the Earth" em dois shows dos Rolling Stones em Atlantic City. Um detalhe extremamente curioso e que Izzy teve que ensinar seu idolo Keith Richards a tocar a musica pois fazia anos que ele nao tocava e ja nao se lembrava mais dos acordes. Apos os shows com o Rolling Stones, o Guns N' Roses entrou