Here it is, my keynote address at the American Federation of Ramallah Palestine Convention in Jacksonville, Florida. The event was lovely. This is a Christian Palestinian organization that is focused on maintaining Palestinian culture within the diaspora in the US. They have numerous cultural events, tours, and annual gatherings. This is the organization that invited me as well as 6 others to tour the Holy Land in October of 2019. My group included three clergy members, two medical professionals, and an educator. The trip was incredible and educational. We visited holy sites of all three Abrahamic religions, swam in the Dead Sea, and rode camels. We visited Tel Aviv and stayed in Jeruselum and Ramallah. We visited numerous Palestinian art and music centers and ate the most delicious food. And of course, as we toured, we witnessed the occupation first hand. It was shocking and humbling. Forever changing. I am grateful I was asked to go on this trip. I was later asked to be the keynote speaker at their annual convention. I'm sorry the quality isn't the greatest, I had one of the attendees film it for me on their phone.
Had a fun time this weekend at a birthday party and wanted to share my GIF. btw..I learned it's pronounced JIFF with a soft G not GIFF with a hard G. The more you know I suppose.
Kim, this post will be a little different, but worth your while.
Please skim the intro of this book (up to page 4 or pages 3-4) as it discusses something I think you'll find interesting. I will post the link to the PDF and paste a piece of it, below:
Crowley, Aleister - 1904 - The Book of the Law.pdf (free)
Exerpt: Consider the outcrop of dictatorships, only possible when moral growth is in its earliest stages, and the prevalence of infantile cults like Communism, Fascism, Pacifism, Health Crazes, Occultism in nearly all its forms, religions sentimentalised to the point of practical extinction.
Consider the popularity of the cinema, the wireless, the football pools and guessing competitions, all devices for soothing fractious infants, no seed of purpose in them. Consider sport, the babyish enthusiasms and rages which it excites, whole nations disturbed by disputes between boys.
Consider war, the atrocities which occur daily and leave us unmoved and hardly worried. We are children.
So the arguments over the ceasefire have already begun. Iran says that the agreement for a 2 week pause included Lebanon. Israel says it will carry on with it’s attempted land grab.
The Iranian leaders must be extremely patient because we all know that Israel will not be content until Iran has been Gazafied and it’s indigenous population are living like rats whilst the IDF takes potshots at them on a Friday afternoon!
Perhaps the real point of the ceasefire is to allow time for the US to set up the THAAD missile defence system recently relocated from South Korea
