LAS VEGAS, Aug. 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- There's a total solar eclipse coming to America on August 21st 2017 and it's bringing millions of Americans together who all want front row seats to collectively witness what is anticipated as the most-viewed celestial event in U.S. history.

Others are gathering across the country to get a break from the fear, drama and discord so they can appreciate the rare beauty and mystery of the total solar eclipse as it crosses over Oregon, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

Millions of out-of-town visitors and stargazers are expected to flood into these areas, hopeful to catch a glimpse of the eclipse from the best possible viewing angle -- potentially creating a sizeable traffic jam stretching across the heart of the United States.

While no suggestions are being given on how to navigate the coming influx of traffic from Oregon to South Carolina, the historic space event has inspired a collective movement to use the celestial sign as a launch pad to put differences aside and achieve one common goal.

"Instant enlightenment," says David Griffin, Imperator of the world famous Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a respected society of intellectuals and philanthropists founded in 1888.

According to Griffin, the total eclipse happening in two weeks presents a unique opportunity to collectively achieve a quantum leap in the evolution of consciousness. He provides a simple method tested by himself to achieve an experience of illumination during the 1999 total eclipse in Hungary.

"Everyone is encouraged to come together as humanity everywhere, anywhere, of any race, class, religion, belief or culture to experience enlightenment and evolution," says David.

He is freely giving away the ancient Hermetic method for Enlightenment during a total eclipse at http://www.EclipseEnlightenment.com/

To get in contact with David Griffin for interview requests, media/talk show appearances, news segments or partnerships send an email to: admin@golden-dawn.com or phone 775-764-9828.

Contact David Griffin 171904@email4pr.com775-764-9828

View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/great-american-eclipse-inspires-new-age-movement-for-instant-enlightenment-300503660.html

SOURCE David Griffin

View original post here:
Great American Eclipse Inspires New Age Movement for 'Instant' Enlightenment - PR Newswire (press release)

Speaking of moments: One phrase that hasnt occurred in this piece so far is living in the moment. This may seem strange, since this theme is so commonly associated with mindfulness, and so emphasized by meditation teachers. Indeed, The New York Times recently defined mindfulness as the desire to take a chunk of each day and simply live in the present. Stop and smell the roses.

Theres no denying that deep appreciation of the present moment is a nice consequence of mindfulness. But its misleading to think of it as central to mindfulness. If you delve into early Buddhist writings, you wont find a lot of exhortations to stop and smell the rosesand thats true even if you focus on those writings that contain the word sati, the word thats translated as mindfulness.

The ancient Buddhist text known as The Four Foundations of Mindfulnessthe closest thing there is to a Bible of mindfulnessfeatures no injunction to live in the present, and in fact doesnt have a single word or phrase translated as now or the present. And it features some passages that would sound strange to the average mindfulness meditator of today. It reminds us that our bodies are full of various kinds of unclean things and instructs us to meditate on such bodily ingredients as feces, bile, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, fat, tears, skin-oil, saliva, mucus, fluid in the joints, urine. It also calls for us to imagine our bodies one day, two days, three days deadbloated, livid, and festering.

Im not aware of any bestselling books on mindfulness meditation called Stop and Smell the Feces. And Ive never heard a meditation teacher recommend that I meditate on my bile, phlegm, and pus, or on the rotting corpse that I will someday be. What is presented today as an ancient meditative tradition is a selective rendering of an ancient meditative tradition, in some cases carefully manicured.

But thats OK. All spiritual traditions evolve, adapting to time and place, and the Buddhist teachings that find an audience today in the United States and Europe are a product of such evolution. In particular, modern mindfulness teachings retain innovations of instruction and technique made in southeast Asia in the 19th and early 20th centuries. But the main thing, for our purposes, is that this evolutionthe evolution that has produced a distinctively Western, 21st-century version of Buddhismhasnt severed the connection between current practice and ancient thought. Modern mindfulness meditation isnt exactly the same as ancient mindfulness meditation, but the two can lead to the same place, philosophically and spiritually.

Whats more, they start at the same place. The Satipatthana Suttathe Bible of mindfulnessbegins with instructions that will be familiar to a modern meditator: Sit down, with legs crossed and body erect, and pay attention to your breath.

The text then enjoins the meditator to pay attention to lots of other thingsfeelings, thoughts, sounds, smells, and much, much more (yes, including pus and blood). Then, at the end, it makes an extraordinary claim: If you practice mindfulness assiduously, you are following the direct path for purification of beings and so can achieve nirvana. Sufficiently diligent mindfulness meditation, apparently, can lead to true awakening, complete enlightenment, and liberation.

Of course, that other Buddhist text Ive mentioned puts the story differently. It says that what leads to enlightenment is the apprehension of not-self. I hope by now its clear why these two claims coexist easily: Mindfulness meditation leads very naturally toward the apprehension of not-self and can in principle lead you all the way there. And the reason it can do so is because its about much more than living in the moment. Mindfulness, in the most deeply Buddhist sense of the term, is about an exhaustive, careful, and calm examination of the contents of human experience, an examination that can radically alter your interpretation of that experience.

Most meditators dont give much thought to going all the way down the path toward this radicalism. And many meditators, like me, would love to go all the way but arent optimistic about making it to the end. Which leads to a question: Why keep meditating if you suspect that this path wont realize your deepest aspiration, wont lead all the way to full enlightenment?

The easy answer is that meditating can make your life bettera little lower in stress, anxiety, and other unwelcome feelings. But thats the therapeutic answer. The spiritual answeror at least my version of the spiritual answeris more complicated.

It begins with one of the more striking claims made by Buddhismthat enlightenment and liberation from suffering are inextricably intertwined. We sufferand make others sufferbecause we dont see the world, including ourselves, clearly.

One common conception of this relationship between truth and freedom is that you see the entire truth in a flash of insight, and then you are free. Sounds great! And what a time-saver! Im not just being sarcastic here; there are people who seem to have been blessed with the spontaneous apprehension of not-self, and an attendant sense of liberation. But the more usual experience is incremental: A bit of movement toward trutha clearer, more objective view of your stress, for exampleleads to a little freedom from suffering.

Importantly, this incremental progress can work in the other direction: a bit of freedom can let you see a bit of truth. If you sit down and meditate and loosen the bonds of agitation and anxiety, the ensuing calm will let you observe other things with more clarity.

Some of these observations may seem trivial. Had I never started meditating, Id never have realized that the monotonous-seeming hum generated by my office refrigerator actually consists of at least three distinct sounds, weaving a rich (and surprisingly pretty!) harmony. But sometimes these observations have larger consequence. If you view your wrath toward someone with a bit of detachment, you may realize that the irate email youve written to that personthe one sitting in your drafts folderwill, if sent, create needless turmoil.

And if you carry this kind of calm beyond the meditation cushion, you may find youre less likely to label someone a jerk just because hes at the checkout counter fumbling for his credit card and youre behind him and in a hurry. Which Id say qualifies as movement toward truth, since its logically contradictory to consider someone a jerk for doing something lots of people you dont consider jerksincluding youhave done.

Indeed, according to Buddhist philosophy, not seeing this person as a jerk is, in a certain sense, movement toward profound truth. The Buddhist doctrine of emptinessthe one Jack Kerouac cryptically alluded towould take eons to explain fully, but one way to put the basic idea is to say that all things, including living beings, are empty of essence. To not see essence of jerk in the kind of people youre accustomed to seeing essence of jerk in is to move, however modestly, and in however narrow a context, toward the apprehension of emptiness.

Here again, ancient Buddhist philosophy gets support from modern psychology. In many circumstances, it turns out, we do tend to project a kind of essence onto people. We may naturally conclude, upon observing a stranger for only a few seconds, that she is a rude person, periodrather than entertain the possibility that shes had a stressful day that led her to behave with uncharacteristic rudeness. This tendency to attribute behavior disproportionately to dispositional factors, and to underemphasize situational factors, is known as the fundamental attribution error. To commit the error, as humans seem naturally inclined to do, is to see a kind of essenceessence of rude person, in this casewhere one doesnt actually exist.

Anyway, the key point is this: The two-way relationship between enlightenment and liberationthe fact that a slight boost in either may boost the othercan create a positive feedback loop that doubles as a spiritual propellant, pushing you down that slope toward deeper exploration. If sending fewer incendiary emails and spending less time fulminating in checkout lines reduces the amount of agitation in your life, maybe this effect will be so gratifyingso liberatingthat it encourages you to meditate for 30 minutes a day instead of 20. And maybe that will lead you to view more of your emotional life with greater claritylead to more enlightenmentand this enlightenment will further reduce the needless suffering in your life and further deepen your commitment to meditation. And so on. Before you know it, youve gone on a meditation retreat, absorbed some Buddhist philosophy, and are driving the Adam Grants of the world even crazier than more casual meditators drive them. Well done.

But does this really qualify as a spiritual endeavor? After all, upping your investment in meditation certainly has its therapeutic payoffs. Id say the answer depends partly on how far you gohow far toward not-self, for examplebut also on how you think about the exercise, what you take away from it. When youre standing in that checkout line, judging that credit card fumbler more leniently than usual, is that just a fleeting effect, the welcome byproduct of a particularly immersive morning meditation session? Or is it part of a sustained effort to be mindful of how casually and unfairly were naturally inclined to judge peopleand how those judgments are shaped by self-serving feelings that, actually, we dont have to consider part of our selves?

And when youre getting some distance from stress and anxiety and sadness, is the ensuing comfort the end of your practice? Or is there ongoing and deepening reflection on the way feelings shape our thoughts and perceptions, and on how unreliable they are as guides to what we should think and how we should perceive things?

For many of usmyself included, I fearpursuing enlightenment is doomed to failure if we think of enlightenment as a kind of end stateif we hope to eventually attain the elusive apprehension of not-self, of emptiness, and sustain that condition forever, living wholly free of delusion and suffering.

But you can always think of enlightenment as a process, and of liberation the same way. The object of the game isnt to reach Liberation and Enlightenment with a capitalL and Eon some distant day, but rather to become a bit more liberated and a bit more enlightened on a not-so-distant day. Like today! Or, failing that, tomorrow. Or the next day. Or whenever. The main thing is to make progress over time, inevitable backsliding notwithstanding. And the first step on that path can consist of just calming down a littleeven if your initial motivation for calming down is to make a killing in the stock market.

Read the original:
Is mindfulness meditation a capitalist tool or a path to enlightenment? Yes - WIRED

INDIANAPOLIS Training camp began with the starting quarterback on the physically unable to perform (PUP) list, and it officially ended Thursday with the news the starting center will miss the start of the regular season.

In between, the Indianapolis Colts lost a host of key contributors for varying periods of time. Rookie safety Malik Hooker, wide receiver Donte Moncrief, tight end Erik Swoope and inside linebacker Edwin Jackson are among the notables likely to miss Saturday's second exhibition game at Dallas.

They'd join quarterback Andrew Luck who still hasn't thrown publicly this summer and center Ryan Kelly who will undergo foot surgery after an injury last week on the sideline.

It's small wonder Colts head coach Chuck Pagano was feeling ever-so-slightly overwhelmed by it all on Thursday.

"Guys have got to push through," he said. "We've had our rash of stuff, but you've got to keep going; you can't stop."

The news is actually fairly optimistic on the defense, where projected starters Jon Bostic and Antonio Morrison returned at inside linebacker this week and are expected to make their season debuts in Dallas. Defensive tackle Johnathan Hankins perhaps the team's most impactful free agent addition also is expected to make his Colts debut after missing last week's game with an ankle injury.

Still, things are so thin at cornerback where Rashaan Melvin, Darryl Morris and Christopher Milton all recently missed significant time that the team is taking an extended look at a potential move of safety T.J. Green to the position.

Wide receiver also has been hit hard by injury. Moncrief continues to be limited with a shoulder injury, and Phillip Dorsett missed all of last week with a tweaked hamstring. Previous injuries forced the waiving of several receivers, and four players at the position Marvin Bracy, Brian Riley, Valdez Showers and Justice Liggins were not on the roster when training camp began on July 29.

"My hat goes off to all the guys that are here the guys that have practiced, that have pushed through," Pagano said. "There are some guys out here that are practicing that are really hurt. They're sucking it up and they're pushing through it, and it's our vets."

The sixth-year head coach got "on a soap box" and said the league's current offseason rules do young players few favors. Teams can work with their players for just nine weeks in the spring, then there's a five-week break before camp in which no football-related contact of any kind is allowed.

If players don't report in top shape, injuries such as muscle pulls are nearly inevitable.

The Colts are taking precautions to deal with the nagging injuries, including a 45-minute post-practice recovery session Thursday that used foam rollers to ease the strain on players' muscles.

But there's still a long way to go.

"So it's on all of us," Pagano said. "It comes down to ownership and doing the right thing. Hopefully, guys figure it out sooner than later."

WORK TO DO

Training camp officially ended with Thursday's practice, but there is no ceremonial break this year.

The team will continue preseason training at the Indiana Farm Bureau Football Center on Monday, and little will change aside from perhaps the starting time of practice.

"Guys love the game; they love to work," Pagano said. "But we've got a long way to go. We're in camp mode. We will not be out of camp mode until the (Aug. 31) Cincinnati game is over. There is nothing more important than tomorrow and nothing more important than the next game, which is Dallas.

"But we need to work. That's it. We've got to work."

LUCK TALK

The Colts continue to expect Luck to be activated from PUP before the start of the regular season, and Pagano admitted it will be tempting to throw the quarterback directly back into the fire.

But the team will excercise the same caution it has displayed with the situation throughout the offseason.

"I think he is going to want to jump right in," Pagano said. "We are going to want him to jump right in. (But) I'll listen to the doctors and trainers. Whatever they tell us is the right thing to do, that's what we'll do."

Read more here:

Colts Notebook: Injuries dominant at training camp - The Herald Bulletin

Stephen Colberts desktop computer monitor is ringed with reminders Post-it notes (Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin), keepsakes (cards from musicians Regina Spektor and Jack White), directives (Ask yourself this question: Is my attitude worth catching?), affirmations (Enjoy life: It is better to be happy than wise) and one note that simply reads: History.

When not in use, Colberts computer screen defaults to a live feed of the Earth taken from the International Space Station. Right now, the view has just crossed the Nile, the sun is setting and clouds are casting long shadows across the Red Sea. Colbert looks at these images whenever hes feeling anxious. Theres the whole world, he tells himself. Calm down.

Professionally, at least, Colbert has little reason for worry these days. The Late Show With Stephen Colbert has reigned as late-nights top program since February, and the recent Russia Week segments featuring Colbert visiting Moscow and St. Petersburg drew nearly half a million more viewers than its closest competitor, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

Its a remarkable reversal for Colbert, wholl be the first to admit that he stumbled out of the gate when The Late Show debuted on CBS in September 2015. I was not indulging my own instincts, Ill tell you that, Colbert says.

Thats no longer the case. Colberts blistering broadsides against Donald Trump and his revolving cast of subordinates have played to the 53-year-old hosts strengths, combining an intellectual rigor and bracing morality that make Colbert, in the words of Dave Chappelle, one of the most important voices in comedy.

Colbert, host of this years Emmys, took a break on a recent morning from preparing the show to talk about the trials and triumphs of the last two years. News alerts on his watch pinged a handful of times the Senate was moving on healthcare and Colbert, a focused man given to staying in the moment, fought against the distraction.

But you have to look, he says, glancing at his watch, apologizing. We add new material between 4:45 and 5:15 almost every night. [The show tapes around 5:30 p.m. Eastern time.] We dont want to wait until tomorrow. Theres an urgency now. We dont want to leave anything on the vine for the next day.

I dont know why I thought going from one show to the other and trying to change forms wouldnt be difficult and painful. But I had this weird feeling that it would be somehow easier than it was. Not easy. But easier.

You dont want to have the exhaustion and anxiety of trying to find a new voice, but its just part and parcel of it sometimes. And I realized I took the job so that would happen, and it comes with some rough road at first. I took the job to be challenged. I was getting a little bit on autopilot with the old show. And thats certainly not the case now.

We purposely threw out the baby with the bathwater. And we didnt realize it until a year in. So we re-indulged our appetites, if you know what I mean. Its not so much groove back as giving ourselves permission to do what we like. [Pauses.] We stepped away from politics to a fault. How about that?

The way to stay hopeful is to acknowledge and to not accept what is absolutely amoral, mentally ill behavior as normal.

Stephen Colbert

I was trying to do everything to a fault. I remember on the anniversary of doing the show for a year, I was shaving, looking in the mirror and, as I was wiping the last of the shaving cream off, I went, God, this is a hard year. Then I thought immediately, I wouldnt have traded it for anything. Because how would I have learned a new skill? How would I have learned to be able to do a monologue? How would I have changed my voice at all if it hadnt been for the challenge of this year?

Right. But every time I think that, I also have to remind myself how short I fall of what I hoped for when I said that. That poison cup, man. Its very hard not to drink from. Its very tasty.

Imperfectly. The way Ive tried to explain it both internally and to other people in the business, not the press is that, at our best, we dont engage in burning things to the ground. We point to things that are on fire and say, Do you think that should be on fire? I think that we can all agree its on fire, OK? Now, is that something we really want to burn to the ground?

And the problem with tone is: How close can I get to the fire without being in it? Cynicism is an enormous problem. Im actually a hopeful person. But the way to stay hopeful is to acknowledge and to not accept what is absolutely amoral, mentally ill behavior as normal.

To get children to boo and hoot. Better a millstone be tied around your neck and you be tossed in the deepest part of the river than you should scandalize one of these. Theres a moral heresy involved with the president getting children to engage in his own behavior.

Im not here to scold and, again, imperfectly, because you cant help but engage in that. The times you see me being my harshest or scolding, I promise you, thats not what we wrote. I just get swept up in the emotion of the moment while Im talking about it.

Its hard but thats part of the job, to maintain the discipline of pointing and not finger-wagging. Dont think youre changing the world through mime, as I like to say. Youre here as a release valve for peoples emotions. And thats a very valuable thing.

People would say, Oh, you say you just do jokes. I dont just do jokes. I do jokes. Jokes are important. They saved my life when I was younger. Hopefully were making things nicer at the end of the day for people. Thats the entire goal, and thats the touchstone and the North Star for the tone.

Im not familiar. Im not familiar. You say youve got a sock holder? I think I see the lawyers about to come in the room. Yes. That would be an example of perhaps letting my emotions get the best of me. Yes, I would say that would be in the fire, not dancing next to it.

(Laughs) I hadnt thought about it that way. That quotes a good guide for everything. That response arent all punishments Gods gifts? is such a bigger thought, bigger than a political thought. Thats a personal thought. And the personal is bigger than the political because the personal is almost unfathomable.

(Laughs) I do it all the time myself.

But you absolutely cant do it! Its a goal, but you absolutely cant do it. I dont think Ive ever said this in an interview, but when I was younger, my parents used to quote this French philosopher, Lon Bloy, who said that the only sadness is not to be a saint.

And I always think about that. Thats the great sadness, not to be perfect, meaning not to be a saint, not to see the world the way God does. Which is that everyone is going through a battle you know nothing about. But of course not, because Im sitting here making absolutely joyful fun of the Mooch [former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci]. Or Donald Trump.

But youre not talking about a person. Youre talking about ideas. Donald Trump, yes, hes somebodys little boy. But he is his ideas because his ideas are whats going to affect us. As a man, he can do very little. But his ideas could [pauses for drama] kill us all.

Fake news and fake media the interesting thing about that is that its a heresy against reality. Again, as a Catholic, I was taught that the greatest sin was heresy. Because not only are you a sinner, you are proselytizing and inviting other people into your sinful state through your heresy. Youre a recruiter for your own fallen state.

So Trump is a heretic against reality. Basically, hes lying for sport. Hes inviting people into his heresy that there is no objective reality.

I still carry a pocket Gideon around with me wherever I go.

Yes, I picked up a box of little pocket Gideons New Testament, Proverbs and Psalms from a Gideon on the street in Chicago. It was one of those 20-below days and it was so cold, I had to snap [the New Testament] over my knee to get the pages to turn.

And I immediately opened it to Matthew 5 and it was the Sermon on the Mount. Do not worry, for whom among you by worrying can change a hair on his head or add a cubit to the span of his life?

Really, that moment changed my life. I understood what it spoke to me meant because it didnt feel like I was reading it. I just felt like it was literally just talking.

That impulse toward gratitude is what originally relinked me to the idea of God.

Well, it's always the same thing which is to exist. Thats the baseline. Theres a great line from this Neutral Milk Hotel song [bangs on his desk] ... I think its In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. It goes:

And when we meet on a cloud

Ill be laughing out loud

Ill be laughing with everyone I see

Cant believe how strange it is to be anything at all

So why is there something instead of nothing? Why am I here instead of nowhere? Thats the first thing I have to be aware of. And then Im grateful for my children and my wife. Thats first and then as the hymn goes, For the beauty of the earth comes after that.

glenn.whipp@latimes.com

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View post:
Stephen Colbert on ideas that 'could kill us all' and the moment that changed his life - Los Angeles Times

The Phenomenon of Man (Le phnomne humain, 1955) is a book written by the French philosopher, paleontologist and Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. In this work, Teilhard describes evolution as a process that leads to increasing complexity, culminating in the unification of consciousness.

The book was finished in the 1930s, but was published posthumously in 1955. The Roman Catholic Church initially prohibited the publication of some of Teilhards writings on the grounds that they contradicted orthodoxy.

The foreword to the book was written by one of the key scientific advocates for natural selection and evolution of the 20th century, and a co-developer of the modern synthesis in biology, Julian Huxley.

Teilhard views evolution as a process that leads to increasing complexity. From the cell to the thinking animal, a process of psychical concentration leads to greater consciousness.[3] The emergence of Homo sapiens marks the beginning of a new age, as the power acquired by consciousness to turn in upon itself raises humankind to a new sphere.[4] Borrowing Huxleys expression, Teilhard describes humankind as evolution becoming conscious of itself.[5]

In Teilhard's conception of the evolution of the species, a collective identity begins to develop as trade and the transmission of ideas increases.[6] Knowledge accumulates and is transmitted in increasing levels of depth and complexity.[7] This leads to a further augmentation of consciousness and the emergence of a thinking layer that envelops the earth.[8] Teilhard calls the new membrane the noosphere (from the Greek nous, meaning mind), a term first coined by Vladimir Vernadsky. The noosphere is the collective consciousness of humanity, the networks of thought and emotion in which all are immersed.[9]

The development of science and technology causes an expansion of the human sphere of influence, allowing a person to be simultaneously present in every corner of the world. Teilhard argues that humanity has thus become cosmopolitan, stretching a single organized membrane over the Earth.[10] Teilhard describes the process by which this happens as a "gigantic psychobiological operation, a sort of mega-synthesis, the super-arrangement to which all the thinking elements of the earth find themselves today individually and collectively subject".[8] The rapid expansion of the noosphere requires a new domain of psychical expansion, which "is staring us in the face if we would only raise our heads to look at it".[11]

In Teilhards view, evolution will culminate in the Omega Point, a sort of supreme consciousness. Layers of consciousness will converge in Omega, fusing and consuming them in itself.[12] The concentration of a conscious universe will reassemble in itself all consciousnesses as well as all that we are conscious of.[13] Teilhard emphasizes that each individual facet of consciousness will remain conscious of itself at the end of the process.[14]

In 1961, the Nobel Prize-winner Peter Medawar, a British immunologist, wrote a scornful review of the book for the journal Mind,[15] calling it "a bag of tricks" and saying that the author had shown "an active willingness to be deceived": "the greater part of it, I shall show, is nonsense, tricked out with a variety of metaphysical conceits, and its author can be excused of dishonesty only on the grounds that before deceiving others he has taken great pains to deceive himself".

The evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins called Medawar's review "devastating" , and The Phenomenon of Man "the quintessence of bad poetic science".[16]

In the June 1995 issue of Wired, Jennifer Cobb Kreisberg said, "Teilhard saw the Net coming more than half a century before it arrived":[17]

Teilhard imagined a stage of evolution characterized by a complex membrane of information enveloping the globe and fueled by human consciousness. It sounds a little off-the-wall, until you think about the Net, that vast electronic web encircling the Earth, running point to point through a nerve-like constellation of wires.

In July 2009, during a vespers service in Aosta Cathedral in northern Italy, Pope Benedict XVI, reflecting on the Epistle to the Romans in which "St. Paul writes that the world itself will one day become a form of living worship", commented on Teilhard:[18]

It's the great vision that later Teilhard de Chardin also had: At the end we will have a true cosmic liturgy, where the cosmos becomes a living host. Let's pray to the Lord that he help us be priests in this sense, to help in the transformation of the world in adoration of God, beginning with ourselves.

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The Phenomenon of Man - Wikipedia

The Phenomenon of Man 4.09 avg rating 1,088 ratings published 1955 36 editions

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Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (Author of The Phenomenon of Man)

Times Record staff

Eddie James coming to area

Better Life Church, 4615 S. 16th St., will host a pair of events featuring Eddie James of Eddie James Ministries.

James will hold a one-hour workshop from 5-6 p.m. Monday at the church. Cost for the workshop is $25. Visit EddieJames.com or James' Facebook page to register.

James will also hold a free back to school event at 7 p.m. Monday at the church. This event will include praise and prayer for the upcoming school year.

Call Bertha Mitchell, Better Life Church social pastor, at (479) 285-5725 for information.

Camp meeting planned

Christ for the World will hold a public Divine Release camp meeting Aug. 30 through Sept. 4 at the church, 4401 Windsor Drive. Services will be held at 7 p.m. Aug. 30; at 10 a.m., 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. Aug. 31 through Sept. 1; at 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. Sept. 2; at 10 a.m., 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. Sept. 3; and at 9 a.m. Sept. 4. Speakers for the event will include Dr. Aretha Wilson, Dr. Mike Brown, Prophet Bobby Hogan and Prophet Bennie Baker.

Rooms are available for $55 at Comfort Inn. Call (479) 434-5400 and ask for the CFTW rate.

Call (479) 434-4038 for information.

St. Scholastica offers retreats

St. Scholastica Retreat Center, 1205 S. Albert Pike, will offer two ways to practice the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius.

Retreat in Daily Life will be held both in St. Scholastica Monastery and in northwest Arkansas. Participants will meet weekly in small groups from October through April, meet with a spiritual director twice monthly and spend time in daily prayer, scripture reading and journaling.

Cost is $560 plus the cost of twice monthly spiritual direction at $20 per session.

Ignatius Transposed! Retreat in Daily Life "transposes" the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius for the 21st century, according to the teachings of the great mystic and scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Biweekly meetings will be held between Aug. 29 and May 1 in northwest Arkansas and possibly Fort Smith, and can also be attended through Zoom conferencing.

Participants will meet from 6:30-8:30 p.m. every other Tuesday evening, meet with a spiritual director once a month and participate in 30-45 minutes of daily prayer, scripture reading and journaling.

Cost is $480 plus $20 per month for spiritual direction.

Scholarships are available.

Call (479) 783-1135 or (479) 651-1616 or email retreats@stscho.org or anahas@me.com to register or for information on these retreats.

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Religion notes 8.12.17 - Times Record

Id dreamed of being a nun since the age of 12, when I transformed from a caterpillar to a butterfly at the hands of Sister Helen Charles. I was a mess the day I entered her 6th gradean eleven year old misfit whod been bullied and beaten for being a tomboy. I walked with my head down, rarely made eye contact, spoke only when I had to. I didnt fit in anywhere and had no expectations things would change.

Sister Helen Charles, however, saw a spark inside and set out on a mission to kindle the flame. She called my mom and introduced her to a new idea they agreed to try. It was called positive reinforcement. Every time I did something right, they made a big fuss over it. I thought they were weird at first, going on about how athletic I was, how creative, how smart and trust-worthy.

But after a few weeks, an amazing thing happened. Their affirmations took root. I woke up one day and believed in myself. There was a fire inside me and I felt its heat. That day I decided to be a nun when I grew up. I was sure they had some kind of magic wand hidden in those folds of black serge and I wanted one. I wanted to do for other kids what Sister Helen Charles had done for me.

At the age of eighteen I entered the convent. I found my bliss in this spiritual boot camp. They scheduled our time in a way that met all my needs: equal parts of prayer, solitude, community and service. We were in training for the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and there were rules galore. I obeyed the ones I agreed with and followed my own conscience in most situations.

I was introduced to the three teachers who influence my life to this day: Thomas Merton, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin . I steeped myself in their work, studied every word they wrote, took on their mantles of monasticism, activism, mysticism. I made contact with my inner divine, explored texts from Eastern traditions, committed myself as an agent of change, and saw the infinite in all things.

In my first Theology class, I struggled to understand the distinction between religion and faith. I wanted to hold on to my certainties, my catechetical beliefs, thinking thats all I needed, when our Jesuit professor was pushing us to evolve spiritually, to say aloud what we committed to.

Your religion is a set of beliefs that you inherit, he said. Your faith, your spirituality, is what you yourself create based upon your ultimate concerns and commitments. I suffered deep anxiety as I let go of certainty to enter into the mystery of my own faith-making. It took everything I had to lay my foundation, to discern what I valued most, to develop a language of personal authority, to proclaim that my faith is my commitment to justice, to peace, to community-building.

After two years of this deepening, transformative work and prayer, I was dismissed. At the end of a long day, I was taken to a basement parlor and told by my Novice Director that my parents would be there in a half an hour. Chapter has decided youre not to continue your novitiate. I froze, unable to speak, afraid to cry for fear of what might be set loose. She took my veil, then we sat in silence till we heard my parents being ushered into the room next door.

Ten years went by before I wrote and asked why. The letter was short, but stated that I didnt have a religious disposition because of my excessive and exclusive relationships. Memories of feeling like a misfit fired in every neuron. They didnt use the word gay or homosexual, but it was right there between their lines. You dont fit in here. Youll never fit in.

I spent many hours in therapy trying to heal from the rejection, but couldnt get past the pain. Finally, after twenty years, I asked the sister who was Provincial Director at the time of my dismissal, in charge of our Motherhouse of 400 sisters, to sit with me as I unwound the story in her presence. By now, she had rotated out of leadership and was teaching in a Syracuse Catholic high school.

We sat together in a parlor, knee to knee in hard-backed chairs, and she listened to my whole story, starting with sixth grade. I told her about the formula for bliss and how I organize my life into equal parts of prayer, service, solitude and community since I learned it in the Novitiate. I told her how many years I ran to the mailbox hoping that would be the day Id get the letter where they asked me to come back, that theyd made a terrible mistake.

I told her about coming out to a priest and being refused absolution unless I denounced my own gayness, and how grateful I was for that Theology class where I learned I could be a woman of faith without religion. I told her what it had been like to have no Plan B, no idea how to create a life I had not prepared forthat I went into social work, thinking that was closest to being a nun, but left it for social activism when I realized I wanted to be more like Gandhi than Mother Teresa.

I am out here alone, but I am living the charism of the Sisters of St. Joseph. I am lonely for community and so terribly sad that it worked out this way and I cant seem to get over it, I said. Im trying this last thing to see if a miracle might happen and my heart can find its peace. Thats all.

When I was done, she took my hand and said, Sister, will you forgive me for the role I played in this terrible injustice done to you on my watch?

It cost me nothing to forgive her. I did not blame her for anything. Once I said Yes, of course, she asked if I would forgive the entire congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet for this terrible injustice that was done to me by this community. Again, I did not blame them and said immediately, Yes, I forgive the entire community.

When these words left my lips, all heaven broke loose. I felt the release of a huge weight. I felt the fire again in my belly. I felt the surprise of an illuminating thought that has remained with me to this day: there is nothing to forgive. What happened, happened for me as much as to me.

I also felt gratitude that I hadnt felt in twenty years, because there was no room inside me to hold it. All the space that was taken up by rage, angst, humiliation, despair, shameall that space opened up for gratitude when the story shifted. I turned to Sr. Marian Rispski, in tears again but for a whole new reason, and said Thank you so much for letting me live a monastic life for two years. Thank you and the whole community for my spiritual underpinnings. Thank you for the foundation I needed to find my voice and offer my gifts.

Had they let me stay, this would be the beginning of my Jubilee Year, a grand celebration of fifty years as a Sister of St. Joseph. I attended two Jubilee celebrations this summer and felt mixed blessings at both of them. I longed to stand with all the Sisters as they renewed their vows and sang Sancte Joseph, and I was also grateful for my life of freedom.

The physicist Neils Bohr writes, Opposite a true statement is a false statement. But opposite a profound truth is another profound truth. That is the case here. When I spin the story to its true end, I feel deep gratitude for the ordeal that was grist for the masterpiece of my life. They let me go because I was an eagle and needed more room to fly. They knew I could not be silenced, obedient, true to any authority other than my own. They knew I was an activist down to my marrow and would not always be on the side of the official church. They really did see me.

And as I look back at my last fifty years, I see, too, that what Ive become would not have been possible as a Sister of St. Joseph.

I became a gay activist because I experienced such cruel homophobia I could not remain silent in the face of it. I made a year long peace pilgrimage around the world which exposed me to faith traditions I would have never known had I not stayed in the homes of Hindus, Muslims, Palestinians, Israelis, Buddhists, Sikhs, Taoists and Wiccans. I am free to criticize the Catholic Church for its positions that put so many people at risk and in harms way. I have preached in hundreds of churches in dozens of countries and speak from the authority of my own experience.

My own spiritual practice is the center point of my life, and while I am not engaged with the Church, everything I do and am is rooted in my faith.. It does not matter if I believe in the God I grew up with. It does not matter if I am Catholic or not. What matters is that I am true to my own vows of authenticity, creativity and peace-making.

So its with odd and mixed feelings that I enter into this, my Jubilee Yeargrateful that I once heard my Novice Director Sister Elizabeth Thomas say, Once a CSJ, always a CSJ. I wont have any fancy reception, nor will I be preaching from the pulpit in a Catholic Church, but I thank my lucky stars that I have lived a life true to the fire in my own belly. Open the champagne! I celebrate these fifty years of being the Light I want to see in the world.

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Primary Sources

George Bernard Shaw, the third and youngest child, and only son, of George Carr Shaw (18151885) and Lucinda Gurly (18301913),was born on 26th July 1856 at 3 Upper Synge Street (later 33 Synge Street), Dublin. Shaw's father, a corn merchant, was also an alcoholic and therefore there was very little money to spend on George's education. George went to local schools but never went to university and was largely self-taught.

Shaw began work on 26th October 1871, when he was fifteen, as a junior clerk in a Dublin estate agency run by two brothers, Charles Uniacke and Thomas Courtney Townshend, at a salary of 18 a year. He later recalled that he worked in " a stuffy little den counting another man's money I enter and enter, and add and add, and take money and give change, and fill cheques and stamp receipts". He added that it was a "damnable waste of human life". According to his biographer, Stanley Weintraub: "While he performed his drudgery so conscientiously over fifteen months that his wages rose to 24." His parents moved to London and Shaw joined them in March 1876.

Shaw hoped to become a writer and during the next seven years wrote five unsuccessful novels. He was more successful with his journalism and contributed to Pall Mall Gazette. Shaw got on well with the newspaper's campaigning editor, William Stead, who attempted to use the power of the popular press to obtain social reform.

In 1882 Shaw heard Henry George lecture on land nationalization. This had a profound effect on Shaw and helped to develop his ideas on socialism. Shaw now joined the Social Democratic Federation and its leader, H. H. Hyndman, introduced him to the works of Karl Marx. Shaw was convinced by the economic theories in Das Kapital but was aware that it would have little impact on the working class. He later wrote that although the book had been written for the working man, "Marx never got hold of him for a moment. It was the revolting sons of the bourgeois itself - Lassalle, Marx, Liebknecht, Morris, Hyndman, Bax, all like myself, crossed with squirearchy - that painted the flag red. The middle and upper classes are the revolutionary element in society; the proletariat is the conservative element."

Shaw became an active member of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), and became friends with others in the movement including William Morris, Eleanor Marx, Annie Besant, Walter Crane, Edward Aveling and Belfort Bax. In May 1884 Shaw joined the Fabian Society and the following year, the Socialist League, an organisation that had been formed by Morris and Marx after a dispute with H. H. Hyndman, the leader of the SDF.

George Bernard Shaw gave lectures on socialism on street corners and helped distribute political literature. On 13th November he took part in a demonstration in London that resulted in the Bloody Sunday Riot. However, he always felt uncomfortable with trade union members and preferred debate to action.

By 1886, Shaw tended to concentrate his efforts on the work that he did with the Fabian Society. The society that included Edward Carpenter, Annie Besant, Walter Crane, Sidney Webb and Beatrice Webb believed that capitalism had created an unjust and inefficient society. They agreed that the ultimate aim of the group should be to reconstruct "society in accordance with the highest moral possibilities". As Shaw pointed out: "Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not."

The Fabian Society rejected the revolutionary socialism of the Social Democratic Federation and were concerned with helping society to move to a socialist society "as painless and effective as possible". This is reflected in the fact that the group was named after the Roman General, Quintus Fabius Maximus, who advocated the weakening the opposition by harassing operations rather than becoming involved in pitched battles.

The Fabian group was a "fact-finding and fact-dispensing body" and they produced a series of pamphlets on a wide variety of different social issues. Many of these were written by Shaw including The Fabian Manifesto (1884), The True Radical Programme (1887), Fabian Election Manifesto (1892), The Impossibilities of Anarchism (1893), Fabianism and the Empire (1900) and Socialism for Millionaires (1901). Max Beerbohm, who did not share Shaw's socialist beliefs, described him as "the most brilliant and remarkable journalist in London."

Frank Harris appointed Shaw as drama critics for The Fortnightly Review. He also published long articles by Shaw including Socialism and Superior Brains. Harris described Shaw as "thin as a rail, with a long, bony, bearded face. His untrimmed beard was reddish, though his hair was fairer. He was dressed carelessly in tweeds... His entrance into the room, his abrupt movements - as jerky as the ever-changing mind - his perfect unconstraint, his devilish look, all showed a man very conscious of his ability, very direct, very sharply decisive."

Shaw supported women's rights, and in 1891 wrote: "Unless woman repudiates her womanliness, her duty to her husband, to her children, to society, to the law, and to everyone but herself, she cannot emancipate herself. It is false to say that woman is now directly the slave of man: she is the immediate slave of duty; and as man's path to freedom is strewn with the wreckage of the duties and ideals he has trampled on, so must hers be."

Beatrice Webb wrote in her diary: "Bernard Shaw is a marvellously smart witty fellow with a crank for not making money. I have never known a man use his pen in such a workmanlike fashion or acquire such a thoroughly technical knowledge of any subject upon which he gives an opinion. As to his character, I do not understand it. He has been for twelve years a devoted propagandist, hammering away at the ordinary routine of Fabian Executive work with as much persistence as Graham Wallas or Sidney (Webb). He is an excellent friend - at least to men - but beyond this I know nothing.... Adored by many women, he is a born philanderer. A vegetarian, fastidious but unconventional in his clothes, six foot in height with a lithe, broad-chested figure and laughing blue eyes. Above all a brilliant talker, and, therefore, a delightful companion."

Edith Nesbit was one of the many women who he tried to seduce. She wrote to a friend: "George Bernard Shaw... has a fund of dry Irish humour that is simply irresistible. He is a clever writer and speaker - is the grossest flatterer I ever met, is horribly untrustworthy as he repeats everything he hears, and does not always stick to the truth, and is very plain like a long corpse with dead white face - sandy sleek hair, and a loathsome small straggly beard, and yet is one of the most fascinating men I ever met."

Jack Grein was the founder of Independent Theatre. According to his biographer, John P. Wearing: "Grein's major achievement was establishing the Independent Theatre in London in 1891.... Grein endeavoured to stage plays of high literary and artistic value rejected by the commercial theatre or suppressed by the censor (whom the Independent Theatre circumvented by being a subscription society)." A great admirer of Henrik Ibsen his first production was Ghosts.

The following year Grein met Shaw. During a walk in Hammersmith Grein said he was disappointed that he had not discovered any good British playwrights. Shaw replied that he had written a play "that you'll never have the courage to produce". Grein asked to see the play. He later recalled: "I spent a long and attentive evening in sorting and deciphering it. I had never had a doubt as to my acceptance... But I could very well understand how little chance that play would have had with the average theatre manager."

Widower's Houses opened at the Royalty Theatre in Dean Street, Soho on 9th December, 1892. Michael Holroyd, the author of Bernard Shaw (1998), points out: "The novelty of Widowers' Houses lay in the anti-romantic use to which Shaw put theatrical clich. When the father discovers his daughter in the arms of a stranger, he omits to horsewhip him, but pitches into negotiations over the marriage - and these negotiations reveal a naked money-for-social-position bargin." According to Holroyd: "At the end of the performance, Shaw hurried before the curtain to make a speech and was acclaimed with hisses. At the second and final performance, a matinee on 13th December, he again climbed on to the stage and, there being no critics present, was applauded."

This was followed by other plays by Ibsen including The Wild Duck, Rosmersholm and The Master Builder. Shaw later wrote: "The Independent Theatre is an excellent institution, simply because it is independent. The disparagers ask what it is independent of.... It is, of course, independent of commercial success.... If Mr Grein had not taken the dramatic critics of London and put them in a row before Ghosts and The Wild Duck, with a small but inquisitive and influential body of enthusiasts behind them, we should be far less advanced today than we are."

In his pamphlets George Bernard Shaw argued in favour of equality of income and advocated the equitable division of land and capital. Shaw believed that "property was theft" and believed like Karl Marx that capitalism was deeply flawed and was unlikely to last. However, unlike Marx, Shaw favoured gradualism over revolution. In a pamphlet, that he wrote in 1897 Shaw predicted that socialism "will come by prosaic installments of public regulation and public administration enacted by ordinary parliaments, vestries, municipalities, parish councils, school boards, etc."

Shaw worked closely with Sidney Webb in trying to establish a new political party that was committed to obtaining socialism through parliamentary elections. This view was expressed in their Fabian Society pamphlet A Plan on Campaign for Labour.

In 1893 Shaw was one of the Fabian Society delegates that attended the conference in Bradford that led to the formation of the Independent Labour Party. Three years later Shaw produced a report for the Trade Union Congress (TUC) that suggested a political party that had strong links with the trade union movement.

In 1894 Frank Harris was sacked by Frederick Chapman, the owner of the The Fortnightly Review, for publishing an article by Charles Malato, an anarchist who praised political murder as "propaganda by deed". Harris now purchased The Saturday Review and once again appointed Shaw as his drama critic on a salary of 6 a week. Shaw later commented that was "not bad pay in those days" and added that Harris was "the very man for me, and I the very man for him". Shaw's hostile reviews led to some managements withdrawing their free seats. Some of the book reviewers were so severe that publishers cancelled their advertisements. Harris was forced to sell the journal for financial reasons in 1898. Michael Holroyd has argued: "There had been a number of libel cases and rumours of blackmail - later put down by Shaw to Harris's innocence of English business methods."

In January 1896 Beatrice Webb invited Shaw and Charlotte Payne-Townshend to their rented home in the village of Stratford St Andrew in Suffolk. Shaw took a strong liking to Charlotte. He wrote to Janet Achurch: "Instead of going to bed at ten, we go out and stroll about among the trees for a while. She, being also Irish, does not succumb to my arts as the unsuspecting and literal Englishwoman does; but we get on together all the better, repairing bicycles, talking philosophy and religion... or, when we are in a mischievous or sentimental humor, philandering shamelessly and outrageously." Beatrice wrote: "They were constant companions, pedaling round the country all day, sitting up late at night talking."

Shaw told Ellen Terry: "Kissing in the evening among the trees was very pleasant, but she knows the value of her unencumbered independence, having suffered a good deal from family bonds and conventionality before the death of her mother and the marriage of her sister left her free... The idea of tying herself up again by a marriage before she knows anything - before she has exploited her freedom and money power to the utmost."

When they returned to London she sent an affectionate letter to Shaw. He replied: "Don't fall in love: be your own, not mine or anyone else's.... From the moment that you can't do without me, you're lost... Never fear: if we want one another we shall find it out. All I know is that you made the autumn very happy, and that I shall always be fond of you for that."

Michael Holroyd has pointed out in his book, Bernard Shaw (1998): "Charlotte had an apprehension of sexual intercourse... Over the next eighteen months they seem to have found together a habit of careful sexual experience, reducing for her the risk of conception and preserving for him his subliminal illusions... Charlotte soon made herself almost indispensable to Shaw. She learnt to read his shorthand and to type, took dictation and helped him prepare his plays for the press."

Beatrice Webb recorded in her diary that Charlotte Payne-Townshend was clearly in love with George Bernard Shaw but she did not believe that he felt the same way: "I see no sign on his side of the growth of any genuine and steadfast affection." In July 1897 Charlotte proposed marriage. He rejected the idea because he was poor and she was rich and people might consider him a "fortune-hunter". He told Ellen Terry that the proposal was like an "earthquake" and "with shuddering horror and wildly asked the fare to Australia". Charlotte decided to leave Shaw and went to live in Italy.

In April 1898 Shaw had an accident. According to Shaw his left foot swelled up "to the size of a church bell". He wrote to Charlotte complaining that he was unable to walk. When she heard the news she travelled back to visit him at his home in Fitzroy Square. Soon after she arrived on 1st May she arranged for him to go into hospital. Shaw had an operation that scraped the necrosed bone clean.

Shaw's biographer, Stanley Weintraub, has pointed out: "In the conditions of non-care in which he lived at 29 Fitzroy Square with his mother (the Shaws had moved again on 5 March 1887), an unhealed foot injury required Shaw's hospitalization. On 1 June 1898, while on crutches and recuperating from surgery for necrosis of the bone, Shaw married his informal nurse, Charlotte Frances Payne-Townshend, at the office of the registrar at 15 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. He was nearly forty-two; the bride, a wealthy Irishwoman born at Londonderry on 20 January 1857, thus a half-year younger than her husband, resided in some style at 10 Adelphi Terrace, London, overlooking the Embankment." Shaw later told Wilfrid Scawen Blunt: "I thought I was dead, for it would not heal, and Charlotte had me at her mercy. I should never have married if I had thought I should get well."

On 27th February 1900 the Fabian Society joined with the Independent Labour Party, the Social Democratic Federation and trade union leaders to form the Labour Representation Committee (LRC). The LRC put up fifteen candidates in the 1900 General Election and between them they won 62,698 votes. Two of the candidates, Keir Hardie and Richard Bell won seats in the House of Commons. The party did even better in the 1906 election with twenty nine successful candidates. Later that year the LRC decided to change its name to the Labour Party.

George Bernard Shaw wrote several plays with political themes during this period. These plays dealt with issues such as poverty and women's rights and implied that socialism could help solve the problems created by capitalism. Max Beerbohm was a great supporter of the work of Shaw. Although he did not share Shaw's socialist beliefs, but considered him a great playwright. He was especially complimentary about Man and Superman (1902), which he considered to be his "masterpiece so far". He described it as the "most complete expression of the most distinct personality in current literature".

Beerbohm also liked John Bull's Other Island (1904): "Mr Shaw, it is insisted, cannot draw life: he can only distort it. All his characters are but so many incarnations of himself. Above all, he cannot write plays. He has no dramatic instinct, no theatrical technique... That theory might have held water in the days before Mr Shaw's plays were acted. Indeed, I was in the habit of propounding it myself... When I saw John Bull's Other Island I found that as a piece of theatrical construction it was perfect... to deny that he is a dramatist merely because he chooses for the most part, to get drama out of contrasted types of character and thought, without action, and without appeal to the emotions, seems to me both unjust and absurd. His technique is peculiar because his purpose is peculiar. But it is not the less technique."

Major Barbara was first performed on 28th November 1905. The play completely divided the critics. Desmond MacCarthy told his readers: "Mr Shaw has written the first play with religious passion for its theme and has made it real. That is a triumph no criticism can lessen." The Sunday Times said that Shaw was "the most original English dramatist of the day". However, The Morning Post described the play as a work of "deliberate perversity" without any "straightforward intelligible purpose". Whereas The Clarion claimed it was an "audacious propagandist drama".

In 1912 Shaw began work on his play Pygmalion. His biographer, Stanley Weintraub, pointes out: "Although Shaw claimed that he had written a didactic play about phonetics, and its anti-heroic protagonist, Henry Higgins, is indeed a speech professional, what playgoers saw was a high comedy about love and class, about a cockney flower-girl from Covent Garden educated to pass as a lady, and the repercussions of the experiment... The First World War began as Pygmalion was nearing its hundredth sell-out performance, and gave Shaw an excuse to wind down the production."

Like many socialists, George Bernard Shaw opposed Britain's involvement in the First World War. He created a great deal of controversy with his provocative pamphlet, Common Sense About the War, which appeared on 14th November 1914 as a supplement to the New Statesman. It sold more than 75,000 copies before the end of the year and as a result he became a well-known international figure. However, given the patriotic mood of the country, his pamphlet created a great deal of hostility. Some of his anti-war speeches were banned from the newspapers, and he was expelled from the Dramatists' Club.

Kingsley Martin was one of those who went to hear Shaw speak at an anti-war meeting: "He made an indelible impression on me at this first meeting. I cannot recall what he spoke about. It mattered little. It was George Bernard Shaw you remembered; his physical magnificence, splendid bearing, superb elocution, unexpected Irish brogue, and continuous wit were the chief memories of his speech. He would give his nose a thoughtful twitch between his thumb and finger while the audience laughed. He was one of the best speakers I ever heard."

Shaw's status as a playwright continued to grow after the war and plays such as Heartbreak House (1919), Back to Methuselah (1921), Saint Joan (1923), The Apple Cart (1929) and Too True to be Good (1932) were favourably received by the critics and 1925 he was awarded the Nobel prize for literature. Cyril Joad was one of those who believed Shaw was a genius: "Shaw became for me a kind of god. I considered that he was not only the greatest English writer of his time (I still think that), but the greatest English writer of all time (and I am not sure that I don't still think that too). Performances of his plays put me almost beside myself with intellectual excitement."

Shaw continued to write books and pamphlets on political and social issues. This included The Crime of Imprisonment (1922) and Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism (1928). Charlotte's support of her husband was vitally important to his career. As Stanley Weintraub has pointed out: "Childless, they indulged in surrogate sons and daughters whose children often went to school on quiet Shavian largess. Granville Barker and Lillah McCarthy had their Royal Court and Savoy seasons underwritten by G.B.S., who lost, unconcernedly, all his investment."

In 1928 Frank Harris wrote to Shaw asking if he could write his biography. Shaw replied: "Abstain from such a desperate enterprise... I will not have you write my life on any terms." Harris was convinced that the royalties of the proposed book would solve his financial problems. In 1929 he wrote: "You are honoured and famous and rich - I lie here crippled and condemned and poor."

Eventually, Shaw agreed to cooperate with Harris in order to help him provide for his wife. Shaw told a friend that he had to agree because "frank and Nellie... were in rather desperate circumstances." Shaw warned Harris: "The truth is I have a horror of biographers... If there is one expression in this book of yours that cannot be read at a confirmation class, you are lost for ever. "

Shaw sent Harris contradictory accounts of his life. He told Harris that he was "a born philanderer". On another occasion he attempted to explain why he had little experience of sexual relationships. In 1930 he wrote to Harris: "If you have any doubts as to my normal virility, dismiss them from your mind. I was not impotent; I was not sterile; I was not homosexual; and I was extremely susceptible, though not promiscuously."

Frank Harris died of heart failure on 26th August 1931. Shaw sent Nellie a cheque and she arranged to send him the galley-proofs. The book was then rewritten by Shaw: "I have had to fill in the prosaic facts in Frank's best style, and fit them to his comments as best I could; for I have most scrupulously preserved all his sallies at my expense.... You may, however, depend on it that the book is not any the worse for my doctoring." George Bernard Shaw was published in 1932.

During the Blitz, the Shaws, now in their middle eighties, moved out of London. Shaw was a strong opponent of Britain's involvement in the Second World War, which he described "fundamentally not merely maniacal but nonsensical". He wrote very little but he did find the energy to produce Everybody's Political What's What (1944).

Max Beerbohm did over forty caricatures of George Bernard Shaw during his lifetime. He did not find Shaw's appearance attractive. He mentioned his pallid pitted skin and red hair like seaweed. "The back of his neck was especially bleak; very long, untenanted, and dead white". He admitted that Shaw's political views did not help: "My admiration for his genius has during fifty years and more been marred for me by dissent from almost any view that he holds about anything."

Charlotte Payne-Townshend Shaw, who had suffered from osteitis deformans for many years, died aged eighty-six on 12th September 1943. Shaw continued to write and his last play, Why She Would Not, was completed on 23rd July, 1950, three days before Shaw's ninety-fourth birthday.

George Bernard Shaw had a fall on 10th September 1950, while pruning trees. He was taken to hospital where it was discovered that he had fractured his hip. Bedridden, he developed kidney failure and died on 2nd November.

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George Bernard Shaw - Spartacus Educational

President Trump finds himself increasingly isolated after his comments on the clashes in Charlottesville, Va. I'm Davan Maharaj, editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Times. Here are some story lines I don't want you to miss today.

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Mourners observe a moment of silence during the memorial service for Heather Heyer outside the Paramount Theater in Charlottesville, Va.

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While much of the debate over Confederate monuments is focused on the South, California has been grappling with the issue for years too. Though it was a Union state, public sentiment was hardly unanimous. Southern California in particular was a hotbed of support for the Confederacy. This weeks events brought about the swift removal of at least two memorials a marker commemorating Confederate veterans buried at Hollywood Forever Cemetery and a plaque honoring Confederate President Jefferson Davis in downtown San Diego.

The New Urban Warfare: Pilots in Nevada, Missiles in a Syrian City

To see the latest evolution of warfare in the Middle East, a trip to Syria is not required; its playing out at Nevadas Creech Air Force Base, where most U.S. Predator and Reaper drone pilots are based. From there, they control airborne vehicles in Raqqah, Islamic States self-declared capital and one of its last urban strongholds, and routinely launch missiles at militants with U.S.-backed forces nearby. The Pentagon calls these danger-close distances, and the practice began only last year. Its risky for the soldiers and, some say, civilians too.

Preparing for the Eclipse-alypse?

When the sun, the moon and the Earth line up just right, a total solar eclipse will sweep across a swath of the United States on Monday. With its wide-open spaces, Idaho Falls, Idaho, is considered the optimal place to watch the roughly two-minute spectacle (as long as you have the proper protective spectacles). Thats been great for hotel business, but some residents have more apocalyptic visions of hundreds of thousands of people descending on their town of 50,000. Theyre telling us to have four days of water stored, prepare for power outages and even gas has already gone up 20 cents a gallon in the last week, says one.

MUST-WATCH VIDEO

-- An L.A. resident says historical monuments, like the Confederate monument removed from Hollywood Forever Cemetery, need to be preserved and used as teachable moments.

-- The first day of school at L.A. Unifieds all-boys school in South L.A.

-- Hamilton creators tell fans: History is now; history is you.

CALIFORNIA

-- Officials in Northern California are pushing back against planned rallies in the region this month that they say will attract white nationalists.

-- The states campaign watchdog agency is poised to open the spigot for large political contributions that would help a Democratic state senator fend off a recall campaign.

-- At least one expanse of protected land in California is now safe from the Trump administrations plan to eliminate or shrink some national monuments: the Sand to Snow National Monument east of Los Angeles.

-- The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is testing airport-style body scanners aimed at detecting guns and explosives at subway stations in L.A.

HOLLYWOOD AND THE ARTS

-- We dont engage in burning things to the ground. We point to things that are on fire and say, Do you think that should be on fire? : Stephen Colbert discusses the tone of his late-night political commentary and more.

-- Why is the conversation about director Kathryn Bigelows film Detroit, about a race-charged incident of police brutality, only barely above a whisper?

-- The quartet you won't forget: Iron Fist, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Daredevil team up in Marvel's The Defenders on Netflix.

-- Trump got you down? Jimmy Kimmel has a novel idea: Let's make America Great Britain again.

CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD

She was painted by Salvador Dali, admired by George Bernard Shaw, praised by critics, damned by censors and loved by audiences. Her name became an entry in the dictionary and is evoked by the line Come up and see me sometime! On this date in 1893, Mae West was born. A friend of mine once wrote that I was 'self-enchanted but never self-deceiving,' and I hope that was always true.

NATION-WORLD

-- The Trump administration backed away from causing an immediate crisis in healthcare marketplaces and agreed to continue making payments to insurance companies.

-- Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions ripped Chicago for its defiant sanctuary city stance against turning over local prisoners for deportation.

-- A Muslim American radio host is accusing the operator of the Daily Stormer website of defaming him. Meanwhile, the fate of the notorious neo-Nazi site is up in the air.

-- Humanitarian groups fear aid is being diverted to a terrorist group after militants took over a Syrian province.

-- Tijuana's big growth industry? Barbershops, with 100 opening in three years.

BUSINESS

-- The USC Village development officially opens today: It has beds for 2,500 undergraduates, and will bring a Trader Joes and Target to South L.A.

-- Conservative protesters have postponed plans to gather outside Googles offices this weekend.

SPORTS

-- Last nights Dodgers victory wasnt the home debut Yu Darvish envisioned. But columnist Dylan Hernandez writes, on this team, it was enough.

-- In just six seasons, Los Angeles Sparks star Nneka Ogwumike already has amassed a careers worth of accomplishments. Can she give the WNBA a higher profile?

OPINION

-- Hate speech is loathsome, but trying to silence it is dangerous.

-- Take it from former NFL player Nate Jackson: For pain, pot is better than opioids.

WHAT OUR EDITORS ARE READING

-- A chilling documentary on the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. (Vice)

-- On the effect of firearms on the streets and the exercise of free speech. (The Atlantic)

-- See where Confederate symbols are most concentrated with these maps. (Politico)

ONLY IN L.A.

He has cooked sold-out pop-up dinners for 50 guests a night, started a culinary events company and has starred on a TV chef competition show. Up next: a YouTube channel with recipes, how-to videos and restaurant reports. Well, that and beginning his junior year at Palos Verdes Peninsula High School. Meet Holden Dahlerbruch, who should have plenty to say when it comes time to write his college entrance essays.

Please send comments and ideas to Davan Maharaj.

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