A holy place

I dropped into a run-of-the-mill Chinese take-out restaurant today, in the shabby strip mall near my house, to order dinner. My attention was immediately captured by a huge picture on the wall, in a stainless steel frame, of the place that you see above. I looked at it for several minutes while the pseudo-Chinese food I had ordered was being prepared. I wondered about the characters on the brilliant blue background at the top of the building -- what they meant. But most of all, I wondered what this building was.

If you already know, then congratulations, you are smarter or at least more geographically knowledgeable than the average bear.

I imprinted its distinctive design in my mind, then chafed for several hours until I could get home and open up one of my literary treasures: The World's Greatest Architecture.

And there it was: The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, in the Temple of Heaven, Beijing, China. According to my book, it is "probably the most familiar building in China."

According to a website about the place:

"Construction of the Temple of Heaven began during the reign of Emperor Yongle and was completed in 1420. It was used by all subsequent Emperors of the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

The Chinese Emperor ruled "All Under Heaven" by divine authority. The Temple of Heaven was central to his authority as he prayed for blessings for his people.

In imperial China, the emperor was regarded as the Son of Heaven, the intermediary between Earth and Heaven. To be seen to be showing respect to the source of his authority, in the form of sacrifices to heaven, was extremely important. The Temple of Heaven was built for these ceremonies.

The most important ceremony of the year took place on the winter solstice, when the emperor prayed for good harvests. After three days of fasting, the emperor and his entourage, wearing splendid robes, would make their way to the park on the day before the solstice. It was forbidden for the commoners to catch a glimpse of the great annual procession; they had to bolt their windows and remain in silence indoors throughout the event.

Upon arrival at Tian Tan, the emperor meditated in the Imperial Vault, ritually conversing with the gods on the details of government. He then spent the night in the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests."

Spring will bring Byzantium

I got down on my knees this morning and examined a bit of ground near my house. Sure enough, the first tight tips of crocus buds have pushed up into the light and in a few weeks, these pioneers of the spring season will bloom.

Winter storms may still come, but they will go, too, and the seasons will change. My family members who have lost jobs in this ruined economy, will survive, with our arms of support wrapped around them. My grandmother, who fell and badly hurt herself this month, may yet have a few joyful years left with us.

I read through Gnosticism this winter and do not regret the time spent on it, though it was terribly hard to understand. Now I am reading the very last of the "pagans" before I enter the literature of the Byzantine Empire, prelude to the Middle Ages.

This weekend, I read Longus' "Daphnis and Chloe." After the Nag Hammadi library, this book seems almost unbearably simplistic.

More later.

A win for Women and all people

It is wrong to pay a Woman less than a man for doing the same job.

This seems to me to be so commonsensical as to hardly be worth discussion. It is also wrong to pay an equally qualified Hindu, or a Texan, a Toyota driver, a redhead or anyone with the middle initial J. less for doing the same job.

And if you keep this discrepancy hidden from the employee against whom you discriminate, you still deserve to be punished, regardless of how long it takes to discover your wrong-doing. If you don’t like that, then play fair, pay fair, and it won’t be an issue for you, will it?

Finally, the United States is coming to its senses in this regard, with passage in Congress this week of the so-called Ledbetter bill.

Miss Ledbetter was a Goodyear worker who of course was not told, for years, that She was making less than Her male colleagues. That’s not exactly information that employers make available to their employees. Yet She was expected to figure it out within a certain “statute of limitations” – the onus was on Her, in other words, to play detective.

And, in other words, since the company failed to do what was right within a certain of time, the company – and our government, until now -- felt as if Ms. Ledbetter should be the one punished.

That seems to me to be nonsensical as to hardly be worth discussion.

I am very conservative in most of my politics. I find that supporting this bill does not violate my conservative viewpoint at all. If you do the same job, having the same levels of expertise, educational degrees, whatever, then you deserve equal pay regardless of whether you wear boxers or panties under your uniform.

It is all up to Her

Meditation upon Youth:

They will ask Her:

So, what do you want to do with your life?

Become a lawyer? Scientist? Teacher? Veterinarian? Chef? Librarian? Soldier? Minister?

Perhaps an auto mechanic? Model? Bank teller? CEO? Concert pianist?

Maybe a writer? Waitress? Airline pilot? An actress?

Ever thought about becoming an artist? A doctor? A dancer? A union organizer?

When their chatter ceases, ultimately,

the decision is Hers to make.

All the world is open before Her

like a soft, spring field

in whose soil Her feet have yet to leave a print.

Sadness in Happy, Texas

By chance I flipped to a movie on television last night of which I had never heard.

It promptly put my Beloved to sleep but I watched it to the end.

"Happy, Texas" is the tale of two escaped cons who steal an RV belonging to two gay men and end up hiding out in Happy, Texas, pretending to be those two guys. Unfortunately, those two guys had just been hired to help a class of little girls win some regional talent show. Obviously, it was supposed to be a comedy and it was funny, in parts.

Imagine a guy who is as hetero as can be, having to pretend to be someone completely different -- and pulling it off so well that it inspires a certain town resident to come out of the closet -- with him.

Yeah, funny so far -- mistaken identities have made people laugh since the beginning of time.

For me, however, the discomfort began at that moment and peaked when the con finally told that poor man to get lost. For several minutes, the movie shows the man in emotional agony, crying his eyes out, utterly heartbroken.

If this pain was supposed to be taken seriously, it didn't feel well with the comedy of the rest of the movie. If we were supposed to laugh at what was portrayed as very real heartbreak, I just can't do it.

Hearts are hearts, gay or straight.

You are beautiful!

Oh, that this website I have found, could be viewed by every Woman and Girl on Earth!

What an awesome concept! My deepest admiration goes out to the exemplary Ladies who have created it!

http://iambeautiful.com/

Their credo: "Our mission is simple: to create a world in which every woman and girl can proudly proclaim, "I Am Beautiful!"

"How do we redefine feminine beauty to make it more inclusive? How do we combat the damaging media messages and distorted cultural ideals about women and beauty? How do we show our daughters, sisters, friends, mothers and grandmothers the power in naming their own beauty?

Self-acceptance is the first step.
That is what the I Am Beautiful Project is all about: self-esteem through
self-discovery!"

And They even quote the delightful Audrey Hepburn, one of my most favorite people, who was and eternally will be beautiful in body, mind and soul:

"For attractive lips, speak words of kindness;
for lovely eyes, seek out the good in people;
for beautiful hair, let a child run her fingers through it once a day."