There is a BlogRunner in your cup!

Blogrunners collects and links to blogposts on specific themes and even from NYTimes.

I'm game, so I went to NYTimes to see what they have to say today and was astonished to find out that their main concern is not the Middle East, neither the Disengagement from Gaza, nor the growing poverty here and not even the last gem of this or that rabbi now submerged in politics.

They are still relating to Pope Benedict XVI, known before his anointing as Cardinal Ratzinger.

An interesting article, with some astounding revelations, which made me once again realize why I could have never become Catholic:

"Once, about 10 years ago when I was visiting him in Rome, he told me, 'I have my personal sense of freedom, my sympathy for freedom. I have to keep it to myself. I have to obey the pope. The pope told me that it is my biggest religious obligation not to have my own opinions.'

"Ratzinger told me this after I hadn't seen him in a long time and he felt the need to explain to me why he is so strict," Professor Seckler continued..."

"Kill" me, but my biggest religious obligation was/is/will eternally remain, to have my own opinion.

So, sadly, I had to give up on Catholicism. Or, for that matter, any institutionalized religion whatsoever.

International Action Alert and The Greatest Enigma

I've just received in the mail this disturbing message from Gush Shalom.
It touches me in person, as I well remember the time when Rumanian soldiers presented my mother with a similar letter back in 1943.

I well know that some people, instead of confronting the issue at hand, will jump to evade it with: "Do you compare to the Holocaust?"
No, I do not compare to the Holocaust. Does it translate into belittling suffering which does not reach the Holocaust magnitude?
No, and never.

Does it, should it translate into sensitivity to The Other's anguish?
Yes, and always.

In my eyes, the greatest enigma remains: Why have we come to be divided into two groups - the ones who close their eyes and hearts and go forth unheeded and the ones who wish all those deeds done in our name were just a nightmare, and then wake up, frustrated, to send another e-mail, like passing on a glimmer of hope that none of us is ever alone.