Estrella

I sit here, writing this post on the 29th day of March, which is my birthday. No one could have predicted how my birthday would have turned out this year, in the midst of the global coronavirus epidemic - least of all me. But as I commemorate my birthday here in a foreign country without friends or family, the best thing that I can do today is to remind myself of who I am truly am and how this virus won't defeat me or this world. For after love, I would say that the second most powerful force in this world is storytelling, especially the stories we tell ourselves - stories about our origins, our peoples and our faiths. In the midst of pain, we can find hope and strength from the stories that we tell ourselves. How will my story end? I don't know exactly. But I know that my faith has one story to tell, and that is the story that I cling to most dearly in dark times like these.

“ITALY! You’re going to ITALY!” That’s how everyone responded when they heard that I would be spending the fall semester of my graduate program in Bologna. Now, Bologna is a great city itself, and with quick access to other Italian cities like Venice, Rome and Florence, I was sure to be in heaven on Earth. And I am in many ways. The air is clean; the food tastes better here; and the work-life balance makes living to 82 years old a piece of cake. But what makes me stutter in my breath when I say that I am doing fine here in Italy? Why the sadness behind the smiles? Maybe because I don’t belong to Italy’s people. I’m not talking about the color of my skin or my English language. Italy has long been a country of different cultures meshed together under multiple empires – before and after the Romans. Sicily and Northern Italy are practically different countries culturally, an Italian would tell you. That “uh” feeling doesn’t reflect that I’m a foreigner or my ethnicity, but my faith – m...

--> The power of strong mentorship begins with in childhood. The child’s first mentors will be the child’s parents, and if the parents are not present, the child’s guardian. At this young age, the mentorship relationship is more of an adult pouring into the child, but adults can learn a lot from children as children learn from adults. Mentorship is necessary to society according to the Aristotelian principle that everyone needs a mentor or a friend. If more formal mentorship existed today in American society, I believe that there would be a decrease in crime and teenage pregnancy and higher attrition rates in high school and college graduations. As it stands, the American youth is not competing as highly as it could with other developed countries in terms of education when it comes to secondary education. When it comes to youth and mentorship, it is important to protect the youth from outside forces that can manipulate the youth. Adult-youth relationshi...

What is KatnissStrong ? Modeled after the fictional warrior character Katniss from The Hunger Games trilogy, KatnissStrong is modeled after Katniss' physical and mental strength and determination she had to fight battles in life.  KatnissStrong is my call to action. It's my personal brand. It's a statement saying, "I'm going to take care of this temple that God has given me." KatnissStrong means that I am powerful beyond measure. KatnissStrong is my act of worship to my Creator as I strengthen my body and reach my full potential of strength through combined cardio and muscle building exercises and daily meditation. KatnissStrong is engaging with my Creator, using his strength to be mentally and physically disciplined. KatnissStrong is a reminder that no many how many times I fail in taking care of myself, I can get back up again and rise in the morning to a new opportunity. I am KatnissStrong .  " Do you not know that in a race all the runners r...

Two weeks ago the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) heralded the twentieth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, which began in April of 1994 and lasted for 100 days until June of that same day. It became know as the quickest mass execution and killing spree since the Holocaust. In 1994, the Hutu president of Rwanda’s plane was shot down, and the blame was put on the Tutsis, who had historically been in power, but there wasn’t any hard evidence to who shot down the plane. This incident followed the peace process between ethnic Tutsis and Hutus, which only erupted into a civil war turned genocide when Hutu radical militias known as the interhamwe went from village to village, encouraging Hutus to murder their Tutsi neighbors and any Tutsi sympathizers. Graves still remain in Rwanda, and bones and sinew still arise out of the churches where Tutsis and Tutsi sympathizers went for safety but were instead trapped to be hacked to death. Hutus and Tutsis now l...

I have started watching films based on the war motif. I kicked off the war series with Red Tails , a heroic portrait of the Tuskegee Airmen who flew in combat for the U.S. against the Nazis during WWII. Real characters of men came to life as well as the hurt of segregation and racism and the pain of losing men in war. But war is hell, and my second film showed a much more visual and guttural graphic of that saying. In the Land of Blood and Honey was Angelina Jolie’s first directed film, but I know that it won’t be her last. As much as Jolie is embraced and embedded into American Hollywood, her underlying skin breathes for international conflicts, hoping to bring peace to them. In another life, I see her being a diplomat, an activist and a reporter. In this life, her efforts to meet with other distressed people in the developing world in international conflicts has made her all three.   The Bosnian War was noted as “the worst war in European histo...