Hesychastic Prayer Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

My fellow Americans, Last month, on November 8th, 2016, we voted to elect a new president. The outcome of that election sent a wave of surprise and trepidation around the world. We knew at that moment, that the United States of America has reached a new crossroad that may forever change our cause for humanity. Many of us are afraid, many of us alarmed, many are still deeply troubled by the possibility of re-experiencing the drastic results of racial arrogances that culminated in blatant destruction of precious human lives across time. We all remember the Trail of Tears, Shark Island, Greenwood in Tulsa, ButcherQaeda, ISIL, Boko Haram, Abu Ghraib, 9/11, Guantanamo, and so many other tragic death traps that marred human history across time and around the world. The progress that we have made in the tenure of human civilization was marked by a speech delivered by President Ronald Reagan to the people of West Berlin a little over two decades ago. That faithful afternoon, in West Berlin on June 12, 1987, Reagan said, " We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! " The Berlin Wall, referred to by the President, was built by Communists in August 1961 to keep Germans from escaping Communist-dominated East Berlin into Democratic West Berlin. The twelve-foot concrete wall extended for a hundred miles, surrounding West Berlin, and included electrified fences and guard posts. The wall stood as a stark symbol of the decades-old Cold War between the United States and Soviet Russia in which the two politically opposed superpowers continually wrestled for dominance, stopping just short of actual nuclear warfare. We have since come a long way in the progress of human development and world peace. Because of the peace between the East and the West, we have made a huge leap in the world of technology, medicine, humanities, and trade; the world has become more cohesive and tolerant. However, a new wave of religious defiance, civil unrest, and sectarian wars persist especially in the middle east. Disharmony and divisions are once again encroaching upon us all, as we found ourselves at the mercy of leaders whose yearning for power and record of arbitrary decisions reflects uncertainty and high level of risk. The new leader of the free world threatens to build a wall between our nation and its neighbor; threatens to pull U.S. out of World Trade Organization and threatens to pull U.S. funding for the United Nations. This is revealing of perhaps unintended retraction of the advancement of human civilization. He has reawakened unprecedented apostles of greed and racial arrogances who are nihilistic of everything we hold dear and erode the cultural rapprochement and civil right improvement we have made in our society. This brings the gravity of the challenges we face with the new administration in the new year and coming years to a new level of concern. We are in a time where we can predict weather patterns, we can predict volcanic eruption, we can see far into other galaxies. We understand the lessons of historical challenges, we can interpret previous experiences in-order to engage current challenges, as well as to prepare for future challenges. Our diversity is our strength, it provides us with so many resources and it is time to tap...