February – Page 4 – every day's a holiday!

February 15, 2012February 25, 2012

Nirvana Day

February 8; February 15

All beings by nature are Buddhas,
As ice by nature is water.
Apart from water there is no ice,
Apart from beings, no Buddhas.

— Hakuin Ekaku, Zen Buddhism

Even though today marks the death of one of the most revered figures in world history, Nirvana Day (or Parinirvana Day) is a celebration. Buddha’s death in the 5th or 6th century BCE is seen as the release of Buddha from his earthly body into a state of pure Nirvana.

* * *

Gautama Buddha first achieved enlightenment, or Bodhi, at age 35, while sitting beneath what is now the “Bodhi Tree” in Bodh Gaya, Bihar, in India. Buddha means “One who has achieved Bodhi,” or “the Awakened One.”

He spent the next 45 years traveling the countryside teaching the Dharma and practices of what came to be known as Buddhism, a revolutionary religion which had no caste system, nor discrimination based on race or class.

* * *

Buddha was 80 years old when he ate his last meal, in the mango grove of Cunda the Blacksmith. Months before his death Buddha had forewarned his disciples:

“My years are now full ripe, the life span left is short…”

After the meal that Cunda had prepared, the Buddha became ill.

“…dreadful sickness came upon the Lord. But nature’s pangs he endured. ‘Come, let us go to Kusinara,’ was his dauntless word.”

Buddha and his disciple Ananda carried on, until the weary Teacher asked to rest by the side of the road. They took shelter beneath a tree.

At the Kakuttha River, Buddha bathed and drank, lay down on his right side and told his chief lieutenant Ananda:

“It may come to pass, Ananda, that someone will cause remorse to Cunda the metalworker, saying: ‘It is no gain to you, friend Cunda, but a loss, that it was from you the Tathagata [Buddha’s name for himself] took his last alms meal, and then came to his end.’

Then, Ananda, the remorse of Cunda should be dispelled after this manner:

‘It is a gain to you, friend Cunda, a blessing that the Tathagata took his last alms meal from you, and then came to his end. For, friend, face to face with the Blessed One I have heard and learned: “There are two offerings of food which are of equal fruition, of equal outcome, exceeding in grandeur the fruition and result of any other offerings of food. Which two?

The one partaken of by the Tathagata before becoming fully enlightened in unsurpassed, supreme Enlightenment; and the one partaken of by the Tathagata before passing into the state of Nirvana in which no element of clinging remains…”

The last days and teachings of Buddha are described in the Maha Paranibbana Sutta, parts of which are recited on Nirvana Day:

“And what, bhikkhus, are these teachings? They are the four foundations of mindfulness, the four right efforts, the four constituents of psychic power, the five faculties, the five powers, the seven factors of enlightenment, and the Noble Eightfold Path.

“These, bhikkhus, are the teachings of which I have direct knowledge, which I have made known to you, and which you should thoroughly learn, cultivate, develop, and frequently practice, that the life of purity may be established and may long endure, for the welfare and happiness of the multitude, out of compassion for the world, for the benefit, well being, and happiness of gods and men.”

DN 16: Maha-paribbana Sutta

Commonly celebrated on February 15 by Mahayana (Northern) Buddhists, it is alternatively celebrated on February 8.

February 14, 2012February 25, 2012

Would the real St. Valentine please stand up?

February 14

Valentine #1:

Valentinus was born in Africa around 100 AD. He was schooled in Alexandria, and was taught by a disciple of St. Paul named Theodas.

Valentinus was a Gnostic Christian who taught that God could not be known directly and was neither masculine nor feminine but a combination of both.

The teachings of Valentinus directly contradicted Orthodox Christianity, but he garnered a large following when he moved to Rome around 135 AD.

“Valentinus, the Gnostic who almost became pope, was thus the only man who could have succeeded in gaining a form of permanent positive recognition for the Gnostic approach to the message of Christ.”

Stephan A. Hoeller, A Gnostic for All Season

Valentinus died around 170 AD. The Catholic Church (literally “universal” church) declared Valentinus’s teachings heretical and all its writings were destroyed. Everything we knew about Valentinian Theology came from his detractors until the Nag Hammadi scrolls, discovered in 1945, were translated in recent decades.

Valentine #2:

But it’s unlikely that the Catholic Church would declare a Saint a man whose teachings it deemed heretical. Another candidate for the real St. Valentine is:

Valentinus of Interamna (Turin), a bishop and martyr who miraculously healed the deformed son of Craton, a Greek rhetorician in Rome.

Valentine #3:

Encyclopedia Britannica acknowledges a third Valentinus, who was a Christian priest in Rome with miraculous healing powers. He was imprisoned for teaching Christianity. While in prison, the jailer, hearing of Valentinus’s abilities, asked if he could cure his daughter of blindness. Valentinus did so using a special crocus. According to legend, Valentinus and the jailer’s daughter fell in love, and the last note he left to her before his execution (on February 14 of course) was signed “From your Valentine.”

Valentine #4:

The most popular candidate may be #4, whose legend is often merged with #3. Both were said to be Christian priests in Rome and share the same date of execution, February 14, during the short reign of Emperor Claudius II. (268-270)

During Claudius’s reign, Rome was fighting enemies on all sides, and the Emperor was having a tough time restocking the army with fresh recruits. So he temporarily banned marriage, thinking men without families would be more likely to fight in the army.

Valentinus defied the Emperor by conducting wedding services for couples in secret. Valentinus was found out, and was tried and beheaded–like #3–on February 14, 270.

There’s no actual evidence #4 existed as a separate entity from #3. Long before any of the Valentinuses, Romans associated the middle of February with love between the sexes. They celebrated Juno Februata on February 14 and Lupercalia on February 15. As Valentinus’s Saint Day happened to fall right in the middle of the pagan celebrations, it replaced the festivals in name, though not in practice. Over the centuries Valentinus’s legend may have been “spiced up” to explain why we associate this Roman bishop with all things romance.

February 14, 2012February 25, 2012

Love in the Time of V.D. (Valentine’s Day)

February 14

Between Lincoln’s and Washington’s Birthdays in February comes another birthday, one that has been celebrated far longer than either President, but for a man whose life is all but unknown.

The awakening of spring has always been associated with the blossoming of love. In the Roman calendar February was the last month of the year, a time of purification before the new agrarian planting season.

Lupercalia commemorated the She-wolf that suckled the babies Romulus (founder of Rome) and his brother Remus in a cave on the site of the future capital. On February 15 each year a group of priests known as the Brotherhood of the Wolf, or Luperci, would strip to their birthday suits and sacrifice a dog and goat at the cave. Then they’d put on loincloths of the goat’s skin and go about the streets of Rome smacking women on their backsides with an animal skin lash, known as a februa (from the Latin februare, meaning “to purify”) in a ritual intended to promote fertility and ease the pangs of childbirth.

Romulus, Remus, & Ma Wolf — Romulus, Remus, & Mama Wolf

The Romans celebrated another festival in mid-February: Juno Februata. On the 14th of February eligible young men and women would participate in Roman Spin-the-Bottle. Boys would draw the names of eligible girls and ‘couple up’ during the festivities, sometimes for the entire year.

Around 496 AD Pope Gelasius banned the old pagan rituals and introduced the Festival of the Purification of the Virgin on February 14, which was later moved to February 2. The Church tried to replace to earlier rituals by having boys and girls draw the names of a saint and emulate the life of that saint. For whatever reason, that zany tradition never caught on with the same vigor as the Roman one.

Some scholars say that St. Valentine’s Day was a minor feast with no connection to romance or couples up until the 14th century. It was then that writers such as Chaucer and his contemporaries began referring to it as the day that birds chose their mates.

Chaucer wrote “The Parliament of Fowls”—referring to birds, not the English governing body—in tribute to Richard II’s engagement to Anne of Bohemia in 1381.

”[it] was on seynt Volantynys day
When euery byrd comyth there to chese his make.”
(It was sent on Saint Valentine’s Day,
When every bird comes there to choose his mate…)

It was a common writing device for poets to link certain events with the saint whose feast was observed that day. However the Valentine Chaucer referred to was the one whose feast was celebrated on May 3, for May 3 was the date of the King’s engagement. Chaucer describes conditions common to late Spring. (Chaucer and the Cult of Saint Valentine.)

The marriage of the royal 16 year-olds Anne and Richard was one based in love rather than politics. It ended with Anne’s death from plague 12 years later. Richard was never the same after her death, and was deposed and killed in 1400…on February 14.

Nearly a dozen ‘Valentines’ were canonized in the first centuries of the Christian Church, and to this day no one really knows which one we celebrate on February 14. (Would the Real Saint Valentine Please Stand Up)

[Others say Valentine’s origin is a case of semantics. That Valentine comes from the Norman-French term galantin, meaning something like “woman-lover” in a chivalrous sense. It’s where we get the words “gallant” and “gallantry”.]

February 13, 2012February 13, 2012

Dresden

February 13

When I first visited Dresden in the mid-1990’s, to my eyes it looked like the city had just stepped out of World War II, even though, in retrospect, it must have undergone a great deal of renovation by that time.

Dresden miraculously survived the first five years of World War II intact, having dodged the Allied bombings that destroyed much of Berlin, Hamburg, and other German cities. Many Germans felt that the city had developed a de facto immunity, perhaps because of Dresden’s cultural significance, the beauty of its historic buildings, churches, and neighborhoods, and its diminished value as a military target.

For this reason, in early 1945 refugees streamed into the safe haven of Dresden from all directions. By February of that year, things were looking bleak for Germany; the Russians were closing in from the East, the British and Americans from the West. As stories of Russian atrocities filtered in from refugees from the East, Erika Dienel, a 20 year-old typist in Dresden, recalled the feeling on February 13:

“[W]ith a small ration of red wine, we brewed a hot punch and talked about where we would go should the Russians overrun us. But the Americans were also not too far away, and we only hoped they would come first.

World War II: The Allied Counteroffensive, 1942-1945

The Americans did come first, but hardly in the way the residents of Dresden could have imagined.

When the air-raid sirens began that night at ten minutes to nine, Erika and her family headed down to the cellar.

25 minutes later, approximately 250 British and U.S. planes unleashed over 800 tons of explosives and incendiaries. The largest bombs weighed two tons and were called “block-busters” because of their capacity to take out a city block.

When Dresden residents came out of the basements to see their city in flames, they thought the worst was over. They were wrong.

Around 1:20 am, just as crews were trying to put out the flames, a second wave of over 500 bombers arrived, dropping 1,800 more tons of explosives on the city. Because the first bombs had destroyed the city’s air-raid siren system, most received no warning of the attack.

By the morning of February 14 the entire center of the city was engulfed in a firestorm. Waves of bombers continued. Just when survivors would think the bombings had ceased, they would begin again. The temperature in the center of the city reached 1600 degrees Fahrenheit. Thousands of families who sought shelter in their cellars suffocated to death as the oxygen was sucked up by the massive fires.

The bombings continued until February 15. Erika Dienel survived like many others by diving into the Elbe River:

“Dresden was to burn for seven nights and days…In the centre there was no escape. The town was a mass of flames. People, burning like torches, jumped into the Elbe on this cold February night…

Every house we passed stood in flames; under our feet there were bodies, nothing but bodies.”

Kurt Vonnegut was an American POW in Dresden during the attack. His experiences there inspired the novel Slaughterhouse V in which the main character, Billy Pilgrim, is part of a squad of prisoners whose job is to remove countless corpses from destroyed buildings and shelters.

The Dresden death toll will never be known because the city at the time housed hundreds of thousands of uncounted refugees. The lowest estimates are in the tens of thousands. The highest are around a quarter million

The following year Dresden residents held memorial ceremonies on February 13, but the Soviet-occupied territory was under strict supervision:

“Anything that makes 13 February appear as a day of mourning is to be avoided…It is the mayor’s opinion that if a false note is struck when 13 February is commemorated, this could very easily lead to expressions of anti-Allied opinion. This is to be avoided under all circumstances.”

Dresden, Tuesday, February 13, 1945

Now however, Germans young and old gather in Dresden on the evening of February 13 and remember the lives lost here, known and unknown.

I was in Germany in March 2003, with a friend from East Germany, and learned Dresden was again a cultural landmark, “Paris of Germany” they called it, rebuilt like a Phoenix, except for the Dresden Church that remains as a reminder of the bombing.

That evening we turned on the TV see another city on fire. U.S. planes had just begun bombing the city of Baghdad.

My friend translated the reporter:

“Shock and awe.”

February 12, 2012February 25, 2012

Lincoln’s Birthday

February 12

If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?

Abraham Lincoln

There are only two Americans remembered with a federal holiday: George Washington and Martin Luther King Jr.

That’s right, Abe Lincoln, considered by many to be America’s greatest President, didn’t make the cut.

It’s true that many states celebrate ‘Presidents Day’ in honor of both Washington and Lincoln, while others celebrate Lincoln’s Birthday separately.

But on the national level ‘Presidents Day’ was never officially adopted. There were movements in Congress to create a new holiday on Lincoln’s birthday, or, since it was only 10 days before Washington’s birthday, celebrating the two on a single ‘Presidents’ Day. However the change never took effect. Though the date was changed, and the holiday is commonly called ‘Presidents Day,’ by the media and public, the Monday federal holiday is still officially “Washington’s Birthday.”

Here we have one of the earliest writing samples of Abraham Lincoln, when he was a young child:

Abraham Lincoln is my nam
And with my pen I wrote the same
I wrote in both hast and speed
and left it here for fools to read

Abraham Lincoln his hand and pen
he will be good but god knows When

My favorite Lincoln story stems from his Illinois lawyer days when he was defending a client by the name of Melissa Goings in the town of Metamora.

The 70 year-old Goings was accused of killing her husband, a well-to-do farmer, though she claimed she acted in self-defense. Her husband was known to be abusive and drink heavily. In her statement Mrs. Goings said she had wrested loose as he choked her, and struck him in the head with a stick of firewood, fracturing his skull. He died three days later. His last words were, “I expect she has killed me. If I get over it, I will have revenge.”

Even though Mrs. Goings’ story was consistent, awareness of domestic violence was not as broad as it is now, and Lincoln knew there was a good chance of her conviction.

Melissa posted her own $1000 bail. However, on the day of her trial she had a short conference with Lincoln, her lawyer, after which she walked out of the courthouse and was never seen again.

The court bailiff was angry with Lincoln. Unable to locate Mrs. Going, he accused Lincoln of “running off” the defendant. Lincoln denied the charge. “I did not run her off,” Lincoln insisted, “She wanted to know where she could get a good drink of water, and I told her there was mighty good water in Tennessee.” (Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years)

Links:
http://www.factmonster.com/spot/washington1.html

February 12, 2012February 13, 2012

Lincoln & Darwin: 200

[published Feb. 12, 2009]

Susannah Wedgwood and Nancy Hanks had little in common. They grew up on separate continents. Susannah was the first of seven children in a well-to-do English family and married a wealthy doctor named Robert Darwin. Nancy was the bastard daughter of Lucy Hanks and an unknown father, born in a cabin in rural West Virginia. She married a struggling Kentucky drifter by the name of Thomas Lincoln.

What Susannah and Nancy did have in common was that two hundred years ago today, on February 12, 1809, just hours apart, each of them gave birth to a son who in very different ways changed the course of human history.

Charles Darwin remembered almost nothing about his mother, though a childhood friend later recalled the boy bringing a flower to school, saying: “that his mother had taught him how by looking at the inside of the blossom the name of the plant could be discovered.” Even at that age Darwin did not take accepted knowledge of the natural world for granted. He allowed his observations to form his philosophy rather than relying on a predetermined philosophy to filter those observations. (Elegy for an Age)

Susannah Darwin died in 1817, when Charles was 8 years old.

Little is known about Lincoln’s mother, or what wisdom she imparted to him in the few years they had together. She died in 1818 when Abraham was 9.

Perhaps when Nancy read to young Abe from the family Bible, she interjected her abolitionist leanings. Perhaps her unknown roots, in a world where genealogy was everything, caused Lincoln to rethink the standards and social mores of his day. What we do know is that at nine years old, Abe Lincoln whittled the wooden pegs for his mother’s coffin.

He later said, according to his law partner William Herndon, “God bless my mother; all that I am or ever hope to be I owe to her.”

Nancy Hanks Eulogy

February 11, 2012February 13, 2012

Oldest Country in the World

February 11

It’s hard to say what’s the oldest country in the world is, but the winner might be Japan twice over.

First, with an average lifespan of over 80 years Japan has one of, if not the, world’s oldest population. 25% of the population is over 60 (as opposed to 17% in the U.S.). So, along with Andorra, Japan is one of the top two “oldest” countries in the world in that respect.

In terms of the oldest sovereign nation without major border changes, many people cite the tiny country of San Marino, which declared itself a constitutional republic in 301 AD. Founded by a Christian stonemason (Marinus of Rab) fleeing persecution, San Marino lies entirely within Italy.

But a thousand years before Marinus the Mason drew his first breath, Emperor Jinmu (also Jimmu) founded the nation of Japan, making it the oldest nation in the world by many accounts.

How much of Jinmu’s story is true and how much is legend will never be known. His name means “divine warrior” and for millennia the Japanese believe Jinmu descended from the Sun Goddess through her “Heavenly Grandchild”. The Sun Goddess dispatched her Grandson to Earth with the imperative:

“This Reed-plain-1500-autumns-fair-rice-ear Land is the region which my descendants shall be lords of. Do thou, my August Grandchild, proceed thither and govern it. Go! and may prosperity attend thy dynasty, and may it, like Heaven and Earth, endure forever.”

Japanese schoolchildren learned the above declaration by heart right up through World War II.

During Japan’s modernization in the 1870’s, the Meija government (Meija means “enlightened rule”) switched the country over to the solar calendar, and calculated the date of the founding as February 11, 660 BC. Kenkoku Kinen no hi (National Foundation Day) celebrated the country’s unification 2500 years earlier and the divinity of the Emperor.

During the American Occupation, celebration of Kenkoku Kinen no hi was banned because of its glorification of the Emperor. However the ceremonies were brought back by popular demand in 1966 and carry on strong today.

Though the Japanese may no longer believe the Emperor’s blood descends from the Sun, even to this day the red sun shines front and center as the proud symbol of the Japanese flag.

Foundations of Japanese Civilization

Japanese Historians and National Myths

February 10, 2012February 13, 2012

Shipwreck of St. Paul

February 10

Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale
A tale of a fateful trip
That started from Judean port
Aboard a Roman Ship.

The weather started getting rough,
The Roman ship was tossed.
Because of the sermons of the fearless Paul
Not a single life was lost.

They splashed about for 14 days,
No sight of sun nor star.
Until they crashed upon the reef
Of Malta’s rocky shore…
Of Malta’s rocky shore.

Reminded this was nothing to
His Savior’s sacrifice
Paul introduced the pagans there
To eternal life with Christ.

Here, on St. Paul’s shore!

St. Paul (the artist formerly known as Saul of Tarsus) was one of the worst persecutors of Christians before his miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus. The former Bad Boy of Tarsus is the only Apostle never to have toured with the living Jesus; yet he has more New Testament works attributed to him than any other author. At least 7 NT books are attributed to Paul, and he’s credited with having written or inspired another 8, making him responsible for up to half of the New Testament’s 27 books.

In the late 50s AD, the Apostle Paul was nearly stoned to death by his fellow Jews for bringing Gentile into a Jewish Temple. He demanded his right to be tried before a Roman court, hence his journey across the Mediterranean around 60 CE.

Because of the shipwreck, Paul was a few years late for his court date. He continued proselytizing in the Mediterranean before being tried in Rome. He lost his head during the reign of Nero, around 64 or 67 AD.

St. Paul is the patron saint of Malta, and the bay where he is believed to have crashed still bears his name.

February 10th is celebrated in the Roman Catholic Church as the feast day of the Shipwreck of Saint Paul, and it’s a national holiday in Malta. On this day each year the statue of St. Paul is carried in a procession through the streets of Valletta.

June 29, 2008 to June 28, 2009 was declared the “Year of St. Paul” by Pope Benedict XVI.