Greetings to all. I pray for all of our safety during this time in the world.

We have been arguing the fact that our Lord and Savior did not come to this world, hang, bleed and die for nothing. Our world at his time was full of evil, ugliness, meanness, ungodliness, and sin. Much like todays time.

The world and mankind were like this during Noahs time, and God sent a flood to end all humanity, with the exception of eight souls.

This new virus is a reminder that if God wanted to, he could end all humanity again just like that. I asked the members of my church a question: Who wants to go to heaven? Everybody said that they do want to go to heaven. Then I stated that you cant get there unless you die! If we are afraid to die, then we need to take self-inventory.

Get your house in order is a popular saying in our tradition, meaning you should make sure your relationship with Christ is in order so that when he comes (and he is coming again), you will be ready. No one wants to rush death, but death to truly saved people, not religious folks or churchgoers (there is a difference) is the beginning of true life.

God made a promise to never leave us nor forsake us. When Gods people who are called by his name humble themselves and pray it causes God to move. We need to be wise, cautious and concerned, true, but we must never lose faith or operate out of fear.

God is bigger than this new virus. We hear a lot every day from the president, CDC, governors, and civic leaders about how to take measures to help to stop the spread of this new strait to humanity.

Those who can go to work are going to work, but no one is wanting to go to worship, yet Jesus, who didnt die for nothing, is still the answer. The prophet Elisha called on the Lord for rain in a contest between he and 400 prophets of Baal, and he won because he called on the name of the Lord.

God is sending a warning to the whole world that he is still God, and if we as humans dont turn from our evil and ugliness towards each other, then we could be facing the end; therefore, if so, are you ready? To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

My God can do all things but fail. Hmm, havent heard of a city or state in these United States of America talking about a nationwide or statewide conference call, livestreaming, prayer call. Maybe God is calling us all at the same time using whatever social media is available to get on our knees and pray.

Wow, can you imagine all North Carolinians on a Monday afternoon kneeling down at home, work, parks, grocery stores, banks, on postal routes, pulling over off the roads and highways, construction workers, day cares, business offices, and all 100 counties governments to pray collectively to God for healing and for an end to this new strait. Luke 18 says he will move quickly if he finds such faith on Earth. Who is that he? Jesus! No, he didnt die for nothing, and if weve ever needed the Lord, we sure do need him now!

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Meditation: If we've ever needed the Lord, now is the time - Hickory Daily Record

This Portland-based progressive sludge-metal band returned from a lull last year with two new members, bassist-vocalist Alyssa Maucere (formerly of Eight Bells) and drummer Kevin Swartz (of Bottom and Forgotten Gods), and their third full-length, Mysterium Tremendum (eOne). Its beautiful, but its a concept album about deathwhich makes it either the best thing or the worst thing to listen to while staring down the barrel of a pandemic. The bands cofounders, guitarist-vocalist Erik Olsen and guitarist Chris Evans (not the Captain America guy), have both faced sorrow and tragedy in recent yearsEvanss sister suddenly passed away, and both of Olsens parents were diagnosed with cancerand they channeled their grief into music. Lord Dyings previous two albums may have felt heavier in a musical sense, but Mysterium Tremendum (which translates to terrible mystery) is heavier psychologically: the band use a diverse array of techniques from the prog-metal toolbox to meditate on death, spirituality, and the afterlife. The result is not just awe-inspiring but also surprisingly tender and kind. Olsen relies mostly on clean vocals, and on thoughtful tracks such as The End of Experience he sounds vulnerable and plaintive in the face of the inevitableemotions that are cushioned by the ghostly instrumental buildup of the following track, Exploring Inward. That song winds up in shreking defiance, but the high, clear melodic notes of the ballad Even the Darkness Went Away strike a tone of elegiac acceptance. Maucere uses her striking singing to great effect, and its presence is evidence of Lord Dyings willingness to shake up their already powerful sound in order to explore a greater emotional range. Though death is a staple subject in metal lyrics, its rarely explored with as much grace and depth. v

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Lord Dying's Mysterium Tremendum is a beautiful meditation on tragedy - Chicago Reader

Jared Leto says he walked out yesterday into a very different world, after being in total isolation from the outside communication during a 12-day meditation trip in the desert. The Oscar winner took to social media on Monday to share that he had no idea what was happening outside the facility amid the current coronavirus climate.

Wow. 12 days ago I began a silent meditation in the desert. We were totally isolated. No phone, no communication etc. We had no idea what was happening outside the facility, Leto wrote on his social platforms.

He continued, Walked out yesterday into a very different world. One thats been changed forever. Mind blowing to say the least. Im getting messages from friends and family all around the globe and catching up on whats going on.

He made sure to send well-wishes to his millions of followers. Hope you and yours are ok. Sending positive energy to all. Stay inside. Stay safe.

Leto is up next set to star as the titular character in Sonys Spider-Man spinoff, Morbius, due out in July, and opposite Denzel Washington and Rami Malek in Warner Bros The Little Things, which is slated to hit theaters in January 2021. As of now, both release dates are still in place.

As of Tuesday, the total number of coronavirus cases in the U.S. has grown to 4,226 known cases in 49 states plus the District of Columbia, and that the death toll has passed 70. President Trump declared the pandemic a national emergency last Friday and recommended that Americans avoid gatherings of 10 or more people.

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Jared Leto Says He Just Became Aware Of Coronavirus Pandemic After 12-Day Isolated Meditation Trip - Deadline

As Australians suffer the blow of the COVID-19 pandemic, experts say meditation is a skill worth learning to help us cope and you don't even need to formally practise it.

Although many meditation practices recommend sitting twice a day for 20 minutes, research shows we can get the perks from far less.

Dr Elise Bialylew is using meditation to ease anxiety about the COVID-19 pandemic.

In fact, we may not need to be consistent to get its anxiety and stress-relieving benefits.

Monash University researchers say a 15-second comma, placed here or there between our daily activities, can be enough to punctuate our day and clean the slate.

This involves simply pausing to notice any tension in your body, the depth of your breath and how you are feeling. You then allow your body to relax, slow and deepen the breath, and name whatever thought or feeling you are having.

Dr Elise Bialylew, a psychiatrist and founder of Mindful in May, says meditation teaches skills and perspective around how we relate to our thoughts and emotions. It also makes you more likely to be able to release negative feelings.

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[It] is invaluable, even if you are not doing a regular meditation practice, says Bialylew, who is also the author of The Happiness Plan. For me, its about emotional intelligence and self-awareness and the ripple effect of that.

This means that simply dropping into it for a moment can be enough to provide us the grounding we need.

Crisis support service Lifeline is experiencing a spike in calls related to COVID-19 over financial stress, social isolation and health concerns, with chairman John Brogden saying about a quarter of callers last week were ringing to discuss the coronavirus.

In an op-ed for The New York Times last week, psychiatrist Judson Brewer, an associate professor at Brown University, wrote that simply pausing and naming what we are feeling is a brain hack that can help to break the cycle of COVID-19 anxiety.

Overwhelmed by uncertainty and fear of the future, the rational parts of our brains go offline, Brewer wrote.

By taking a moment to become aware of our angst and what has prompted it (do we really need a six-month supply of loo roll?), Brewer says we give our prefrontal cortex the brain's rational part a chance to come back online.

We can compare anxiety to what it feels like to be calm. To our brains, its a no-brainer."

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This technique pausing, perceiving and naming is also commonly taught as part of meditation practice.

Looking at whats happening moment to moment and labelling it silently thinking, worrying, whatever that naming has been shown to activate the prefrontal cortex, Bialylew explains.

While we may not need a formal practice of meditation, Bialylew does recommend an initial period of regular practice to integrate it into our lives so that we remember to use it when we need.

Once integrated, she says the results can extend beyond calming COVID-19 anxiety.

People are often coming to meditation for stress relief and to get blissed out, but I think its about so much more than that, Bialylew says.

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Get our Coronavirus Update newsletter for the day's crucial developments at a glance, the numbers you need to know and what our readers are saying. Sign up to The Sydney Morning Herald's newsletter here and The Age's here.

Sarah Berry is a lifestyle and health writer at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

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15 seconds can help calm the spread of coronavirus anxiety - The Age

Find Peace at Home With This 10-Minute Guided Meditation

Yes, we should all be social distancing right now but that doesn't mean we can't metaphorically lean on one another for support during these times of uncertainty.

I'm finding stress relief since reaching out to Kelsey Patel, a certified reiki expert and yoga instructor. She created a guided meditation for moments when I need to catch my breath and mentally escape from the confines of my home, and it may help you out, too.

Before getting started, it's key to clean up your space and set the mood. Lighting a candle, brewing a cup of tea, and settling in among blankets and pillows does the trick for me.

By priming our environment, Patel explains that we are creating an intentional practice of slowing down and catering to ourselves.

As you embark on the meditation below, remember to be easy on yourself it's normal for your mind to wander. If this happens, though, allow yourself to readjust and find your center.

"You can do this practice at any time of the day, and do it as many times as needed to reclaim your sense of peace and calm," Patel notes.

Click here for more health and wellness stories, tips, and news.

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This 10-Minute Guided Meditation Will Help Mentally Transport You to a Happier Place - POPSUGAR

If you truly want to let go of negative energy, this cord-cutting meditation will do wonders. Take it from Bernstein, who used it personally after wanting to release her attachment to a negative message on social media.

"You might be feeling a cord attachment to news, political views, your own anger, or frustration if you're living in compromising circumstances," Bernstein explains. Whether it's a negative person, headline, or thought, this meditation works to "cut yourself off" from whatever negativity you may be experiencing.

As you close your eyes, place your palms facing upward and identify an area in your body where you may hold discomfort.

As you breathe, identify any person, story, or fearful thought that you feel attached to right now. Visualize the dark cord that's attaching you to that negative energy, whatever it looks like to you.

First, forgive yourself for being hooked, and honor that attachment. Then breathe in and welcome that intention to release the cord attachment. Place your hand on your heart, and breathe into your heart space.

Tune into this podcast to follow along with Bernstein and me in real timeso you can have the necessary tools to free yourself from this state of trauma. With all the uncertainty going on in the world, you still have the ability to control your own breath, purpose, and emotional freedom.

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3 Meditations From Gabby Bernstein To Help Regulate The Nervous System - mindbodygreen.com

Twenty seconds isnt enough to wash our hands of some things.

For instance, on Friday, March 13th, after the count of presumptive positive COVID-19 diagnoses crossed 50 in four days and Gov. John Bel Edwards announced month-long, state-wide school closures, I combed the aisles of a store owned by Jeff Bezos, the wealthiest person in the world, wondering why the hell anybody was there right then.

The glove-handed store workers were there, re-stocking shelves, butchering meat, serving food, ringing up baskets. depending on an hourly wage to care for themselves and their families.

If they dont clock in, they dont have food if/when stock runs dry from the pandemics impact on trade (or if the government issues a mandate to close stores as chainmail that claims to be from the neighbor of a cousin of a friend of a so-called upper-level military person suggests will happen in the next 48 to 72 hours).

And I was there, creating the demand that justifies the supply of labor. The vast majority of us depend on grocery stores for access to food and potable water, and we expect stores to remain open even hope they will, in spite of the fact that in just a week, as WWL-TV reported Monday, New Orleans had become the city with the second highest per capita rate of COVID-19.

We dont yet know if or for how long stores might close or go barren. But in the event that they do, weve stocked up on out-of-season food items transported here from around the world and tap water branded by Coca-Cola and Nestle.

Meanwhile, the wealthiest person in the world is being made wealthier and more secure through the insecurity of his employees and customers in the face of a global public health crisis.

What is the outcome for people, institutions, industries, and systems that hegemonize dependence on them to the point that, only two or three generations from their inception, we cant imagine our lives without them in order to hoard power?

Louisiana history has seemingly been an experiment in answering that question: slavery, the petrochemical industry, tourism. And no matter how many happy birthdays we sing, we cant wash our hands of some things.

Every time my toddler son sings happy birthday while washing his hands, I think about the apocalypse. I grew up in a doomsday religion in which celebrating birthdays is considered devil worship that exponentially increases the likelihood of one being destroyed in the Apocalypse.

Though I left my parents religion nine years ago, I did take from it the belief that, if we have faith that there is a way of thinking and being that will make the world a better place to live for all its inhabitants, the apocalypse doesnt have to be a frightful end.

It is simply a revelation, a confirmation of things we already knew that this system is insufficient for all of us; it offers us the choice to assess the way we live and accept that changes must be made and that we do indeed have the resources necessary to make them.

Rightfully, Louisianans are currently focused on flattening the curve of COVID-19 using our head to stop the spread, as Mayor LaToya Cantrell recommended.

But whenever we get to the here-on-out, will the decisions we make be based on the hope that a pandemic doesnt happen again? Or will they be based on the reality that it can, with the understanding that no one should be in such desperate positions as some of us are now in?

It is considered normal, in the world in which we live, for us to demand that others put themselves at risk in service to our chosen dependencies, for people to be so financially insecure that they have to gamble their life chances for the possibility of survival.

As I ration water, oatmeal, honey, and cranberries for my toddlers breakfast, its hard to believe Mardi Gras the finale to a season of excess was just a few Tuesdays ago. COVID-19s ingress into Louisiana coincides with the Lenten season, the 40-day fast that follows Carnival, a meditation on purpose and our commitment to a path that will make life better for all who come after us.

Per Christian mythology, Jesus is led after his baptism by spirit to the wilderness where, over the course of 40 days, he faces the Devil who tempts him three times. Jesus turns down opportunities to demonstrate his power by turning a stone into bread, to prove his importance by jumping off the cliff with the expectation that the angels will catch him, to rule the world in exchange for worshipping the Devil.

Jesus confirms his commitment to his purpose: to sacrifice his perfect life to absolve the sin humanity inherited from Adam.

In the 10 days since the novel coronavirus first reared its head in New Orleans, 347 people in Louisiana have been given positive diagnoses of COVID-19, 231 of them in New Orleans. Six people have died in Orleans Parish, one in Jefferson Parish and one in St. James Parish.

This Lent, were being asked to make collective sacrifices for the health of the world, now and beyond the moment of crisis. Unlike Jesus, were not martyrs who have left the comforts of heaven, but necessary parts of a bio-social ecology that is increasingly debilitated by the maldistribution of resources and life chances.

What will we relinquish out of commitment to humanity, and who will we put behind us once COVIDs curve has been made flat, once we return to work (for those of us with such job security) and send the kids back to school?

It can feel overwhelming, impossible even, to imagine a society in which no one has to submit to the will of another to survive.

But just because you cant wash your hands of everything, doesnt mean you stop trying.

Lydia Y. Nichols is a writer native to New Orleans. Her critical and personal essays about race and the environment in visual art, film, and literature have been published in 64 Parishes, Bayou Brief, The Lens, Pelican Bomb, and Tribes Magazine and on her blog at ModernMaroon.com.

The Opinion section is a community forum. Views expressed are not necessarily those of The Lens or its staff. To propose an idea for a column, contact Engagement Editor Tom Wright at twright@thelensnola.org.

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The World, the Flesh, and the Devil: a Lenten meditation on COVID-19 in New Orleans - The Lens

During its three years of existence in Prague, the Tibet Open House has served to connect east and west via language classes, Buddhist teachings, exhibitions, and other events.

Due to the current movement restriction put in place by the Czech government, the culture space has had to postpone a number of its courses and events, many of them devoted to bringing Tibetan culture history, tradition, art, philosophy and religion to the Czech capital.

This week the organization has announced that it will continue its efforts online by offering mindfulness and meditation with the Residential Lama of Open Tibet House, Geshe Yeshi Gawa.

Born in eastern Tibet, Geshe Yeshi Gawa studied in the Loseling monastery in southern India and later in Dharamsala. From Monday, March 23 (6 pm) he will be offering online courses in meditation and mantra recitation.

The sessions are intended for the general public, not just Buddhist practitioners, according to the Tibet Open House website. Geshela has chosen the topics very sensitively and up to date. We hope those will help you and your loved ones.

The classes are free and in English and will take place over Zoom daily through March 26. The Tibet Open House was established by the Linhart foundation and personally blessed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 2016. From tomorrow, two daily sessions will take place at 10 am and 6 pm.

Also read: Czech military plane returns with 150,000 rapid coronavirus testing kits from China

According to the invitation, the Green Tara mantra will be recited as part of one online course, as recommended by His Holiness the Dalai Lama for the current days.

A spokesperson for the organization said that it may continue with the classes but will wait and see the outcome of the current quarantine situation in the Czech Republic.

For more information about the classes and the Tibet Open House space see here.

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Prague-based Tibetan monk hosting free online meditation and mindfulness sessions this week - Prague, Czech Republic - Expats.cz

On late afternoons, after his work was done, the modernist poet, novelist, religious omnivore, and occasional playwright Jean Toomer observed a ritual that he called deserving time. Much of the latter half of his life was spent in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, north of Philadelphia, on his property, Mill House. On the grounds, alongside his family, Toomer housed a revolving retinue of devotees who came to learn his home-brewed adaptation of the spiritualist George Gurdjieffs mystical practices; the students also performed manual labor, a classicand, for Toomer, quite convenientaspect of Gurdjieffs Work. At four oclock, when the teacher had finished his writing and his charges had finished with their chores, theyd gather in the main house, where adults made drinks and children had cookies and ginger ale.

The placid hour wasnt only for idle fun. Toomera brutally intense, relentlessly abstract, comically vain man who took every quotidian moment as an opportunity to philosophizewould ask probing, pointed questions, turning conversation into a kind of Socratic extension of his teaching. (In 1937, he tried to sell a book of dialogues with one young student. Talks with Peter was rejected by several publishers.) Later in his life, deserving time devolved into a grandiose cover for Toomers encroaching alcoholism. Ive been working very hard, he wrote in a teasing letter to his wife, Marjorie Content. Dont you think Im deserving? Dont you think I might stop at that tavern and put my head in just to see if they have any beer?

During these virus-haunted days of padding around the house, anxiously taking in news and visiting my friends via video chat, I keep thinking about Toomers afternoon ceremony. A Sabbath atmosphere not unlike the one at Mill House has sprung up between my wife and me: we sit around reading and cooking and listening to music, contemplating work more than doing it, calling our moms, pushing each other fruitlessly to extrapolate on figures (testings and infections, hospitalizations and deaths) that neither of us fully understands. Cocktail hour starts a bit earlier than usual, and ends a bit later.

One of the little tortures of the moment is the sudden disappearance of live theatre, and the thought of all the plays that had been scheduled to open, some of which, barring an economic or logistical miracle, will go all but unseen by large audiences. Ive tried to console myself by turning to plays that have seldomsometimes neverbeen seen, but which I love nonetheless. Some are intentional closet plays, meant for reading rather than seeing; others are simply interesting attempts, still waiting for their turn onstage.

One such strange but promising specimen is Toomers odd, keening 1935 play A Drama of the Southwest, written, Im sure, between many deserving times but never completed. Id love to see it staged someday, perhaps clipped into a one-act and presented on a bill with Toomers other little-known plays. He was an earnest dramatist; the knotty contradictions of his life and his ideas seemed to rhyme with the dialectical possibilities of playwriting. Still, his attempts at having his plays produced were failuresas were many literary endeavors after his classic 1923 work, Cane, a quilt of poems, prose, and drama set in black Georgia.

Two versions of the manuscript of A Drama of the Southwest were skillfully collaged in a 2016 critical edition by the scholar Carolyn Dekker. In her introductory essay, Dekker presents the Toomer who, having firmly abandoned his identification with the Harlem Renaissance, black Americans, and the South, continued to rove the country, yearning to find a locale fit to birth what he imagined as a new race in America. The play, which is semi-autobiographical, chronicles his attempt to manage this trick among the cacti and adobe houses at the Taos art colony, in New Mexico.

Tom Elliot, the plays leading man, is not unlike Toomer: cruel, curious, nave, self-involved, cluelessly sexist, an essentialist obsessed with racial and regional admixture, a vague but expansive theorizer even when the moment calls for concision. He and his wife, Grace, have arrived in Taos, where theyve rented a house. Theyve been to New Mexico before, magnetized by its small but vibrant artistic scene; theyve come to visit with friends and to frack spiritual energies from a land that, to them, feels fresh. Tom and Grace are mirror images of Toomer and Content, who were acquainted with the scene in Taos thanks, in part, to their friendship with the wealthy arts patron Mabel Dodge Luhan (a fellow Gurdjieff disciple who fell rapturously in thrall to Toomers high talking) and with Georgia OKeeffe.

The play is a test of that groups guiding, if often unspoken, principle: that, owing to a places intrinsic, elemental featuresblue sky, red mud, brown folksit might work as a symbol of the American future and as an enabler for art. This was familiar territory for Toomer. Cane ends with a play called Kabnis, which portrays a Northern teacher who has come southward, to Georgia, his tourism the outer sign of an inner quest. Where Kabnis is poetic and mysterious, in places hard to follow at all except by rhythm and deftly enjambed nighttime images, A Drama of the Southwest is unsubtle in its study of oppositions.

Before Tom and Grace show up in Taos, after a lush stage description that works better as a guide to Toomers psyche than as an inducement to set design (try staging this: Then silence again... and life becomes existence again . .. and existence, focused for a time in a group of singing men, expands to the mountain and the close stars), we meet a pair of Taos locals named BuckterT. Fact and Ubeam Riseling. They sit on a roof and talk about all those art colonists descending on their corner of the country. Riselingwhom Toomer describes, cryptically, as being above artis rhapsodic about the visitors; Fact, a butcher who is below art, is more cynical. Through their patter, Toomers own unmistakable voice is sometimes awkwardly audible:

UBEAM: The spirit of the Indian still lives in and dominates this land. Disappearing elsewhere, it is vital here, vital like these hills.... To this little cluster of earth-built houses the entire world comes.

BUCKFACT: Comes and goes as fast as it can.... And why? Whats to be seen here? One bank, one newspaper, grocery and drug stores like you can see anywhere, an armory, a baseball field, a fish hatchery, bad roads, the plaza, and a dump heap. Why should anyone come all this way to get dust in his eyes? As for me, it means a job.

Read more:
Jean Toomers Odd, Keening A Drama of the Southwest - The New Yorker

THE Covid-19 pandemic is World War III in a different sense. Instead of soldiers, doctors and other medical personnel are all fighting against a common enemy now with personal protective equipment (PPE) as our armour and medical treatment as our weapons.

Over the past few weeks, Covid-19 cases have steadily increased in Malaysia. When the existing manpower could not continue to cope with the workload, major hospitals had to seek floating medical officers as back-up support teams in the front line of this battle.

Floating medical officers refer to those who have completed housemanship but are currently in limbo, waiting for their next posting and confirmation on whether they will continue as contract or permanent medical officers.

Many of us readily accepted the call of duty to play the crucial role as pawns on the front line of this pandemic. With our leave frozen until further notice and our next posting put on hold, we are still doing our best to serve the public despite the creeping fatigue and dangers of being infected with the coronavirus.

We obeyed orders as a pawn, hoping that when we advanced to the other side of the board, we would be promoted to higher ranks, be it knight, rook, or bishop not necessarily a queen yet. We just want to be on the same rank as other permanent medical officers.

But no, life isnt like a game of chess. It was revealed last week that no one from the latest batch of housemen (May 2017) have been offered a permanent post and all would remain on contract basis. In fact, this will be the last two years contract offered.

This means that the employment of a whole generation of medical officers will be terminated after the end of another two years.

Our performance during the two years of housemanship did not matter anymore, contrary to what we were told previously. All will be sacrificed come May 2022.

The worst news is that despite being required to work with the same responsibilities as permanent medical officers (UD44), we are not even given the contract medical officer grade (UD43) that was already agreed upon by the previous Cabinet last year.

All contract medical officers are stagnant on the same house officer grade (UD41).

Even though we feel cheated and demotivated now, we continue working every day to fight the Covid-19 war.

We are not turning our back despite being treated like we are dispensable, non-critical and sacrificial pawns.

This is because we know that we are better than the circumstances surrounding us and we do not want the worst to befall our nation.

We will fight till we win this war against Covid-19 together, but the demotivation we feel now is akin to putting a lighted candle in a vacuum.

We will burn out, and this makes us burn out even faster.

On a final note, eventually the strategists might be playing a game of chess without pawns.

Remember that pawns are the pieces that can advance on the board, and if you sacrifice all your armies, you will end up fighting a losing battle alone.

DEMOTIVATED AUDREY

Kuching

The rest is here:

Game of chess with no pawns - The Star Online