Day 78, Ogden Enterprise

After a few setbacks (including a huge kidney stone and a lithotripsy), and the added inconvenience of having to get jobs and go to work for a living, we are still making progress on the Brick House! We finally have a few rooms that are finished enough to be able to sit down and relax in. We even had our first guests for pizza and a game night in our newly painted dining room. But first let me show you the outside view. The lawn has greened up, just in time for fall. I'm hoping the bushes in the back will get a little taller. By next spring I should have it just the way I want it:

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Virtue or Stupidity: Why Daniel Reminds me of the "M-Word"

OT SS Lesson #45

If there still exists anyone in the greater world of Mormon blogs who thinks I am writing these Old Testament posts as a resource for Sunday lessons and not for my own simple entertainment, this one should surely disabuse them.

Let me start out all faith-promoting, though, and I'll degenerate as I go along: The book of Daniel has always greatly inspired me. One of my very favorite Conference Talks was taken from the book of Daniel. In April 2004, Dennis E. Simmons' talk, "But If Not..." speaks of the faith of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego as they were about to be cast into a fiery furnace for refusing to bow down to the king's golden idol. They said that they knew that the Lord had the power to deliver them, but if not, they would still refuse to serve the king's false gods. Elder Simmons continued by enumerating other scriptural figures who had faith even if things didn't turn out the way they hoped.

"Our scriptures and our history are replete with accounts of God’s great men and women who believed that He would deliver them, but if not, they demonstrated that they would trust and be true...

Our God will deliver us from ridicule and persecution, but if not. … Our God will deliver us from sickness and disease, but if not … . He will deliver us from loneliness, depression, or fear, but if not. … Our God will deliver us from threats, accusations, and insecurity, but if not. … He will deliver us from death or impairment of loved ones, but if not, … we will trust in the Lord.

Our God will see that we receive justice and fairness, but if not. … He will make sure that we are loved and recognized, but if not. … We will receive a perfect companion and righteous and obedient children, but if not, … we will have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, knowing that if we do all we can do, we will, in His time and in His way, be delivered and receive all that He has."

Other stories in Daniel and this week's Sunday School lesson reinforce this type of faith. Daniel prays to his God, knowing that he will be cast into a lion's den for so doing.  Esther goes before the king to plead for her people, saying, "if I perish, I perish."  This type of faith is very appealing to me. I greatly admire those who have it. Yet, as I strive to develop it in myself, I begin to falter. How am I to react when prayers are unanswered over a long period of time, when promised witnesses fail to materialize? Is it virtue or stupidity to continue to believe when reason and circumstance seem to prove contrary? Haven't you heard the quote attributed to Albert Einstein, "Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results?"

Our God will deliver us, but if not, does reason dictate we should look for another way?

The reason why Daniel reminds me of the "m-word," is because of a story that was told by Vaughn J. Featherstone in a 1975 Conference Talk, "A Self-Inflicted Purging."

“We shouldn’t have a problem with masturbation. I know one fine father who interviewed his 11-year-old son and he said, “Son, if you never masturbate, the time will come in your life when you will be able to sit in front of your bishop at age 19, and say to him, ‘I have never done that in my life,’ and then you can go to the stake president when you are interviewed for your mission and tell him, ‘I have never done that in my life.’ And you would be quite a rare young man.”

“The father again interviewed the young man, who is now 18 years old, and he asked the son about masturbation. The son said, “I have never done that in my life. You told me, Dad, that if I didn’t do that, I would be able to sit in front of the bishop and stake president and tell them I had never done it, and I would be a rare young man, and I am going to be able to do it.”

You see, there is a young and idealistic part of me that thinks it is valiant and honorable to be able to take such a challenge, to stick to it for years and years, and then finally to be able to stand up and say, "I am a rare young man!"  But then, on the other hand, I'm not sure that this isn't a completely natural and normal part of life.  It would also be a rare young man who didn't eat chocolate for 19 years, wouldn't it?

What about those Daniels who are out there trying to sexually "starve" themselves, and finally give in, and despair of ever becoming the noble being they desperately desire to be?  What about those Daniels who are cast into the lion's den, or the fiery furnace, and who don't have an angel come to rescue them by morning?

Are there any "but if not's" in your life?  Are you still hanging on in faith that the miracle will come, even though it hasn't yet manifested itself?

Day 14, Ogden Enterprise

Today marks two weeks that we've been in our new home! And there have been a whole lot of changes goin' on! I'm especially excited about the change in curb appeal. The front yard has been cleaned up, trimmed, weeded, and watered--and it's starting to really green up. There was a flower bed along the front, but it was filled with wildflowers gone wild! I really love wildflowers, but I'm pretty particular about how they should be planted in a home garden. By all means, plant the tallest varieties toward the back. And keep them in neat-ish clumps, don't let them tangle together. Here's what we started with:

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Day 8, Ogden Enterprise

The days have been flying by, full of hard work and dizzying heat! Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday we finished the floor. In order to do the back rooms, we took all of the doors off. Some were so damaged, they had to be thrown away.

Many of the doors in the house look like this, especially in the downstairs.

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Day 4, July 4th, Ogden Enterprise

I briefly thought about taking a shower, but since I had one last night, I just threw my hair into a ponytail and went with it. We were on a roll, so we thought we'd spend this Fourth of July working on the house, and next Fourth of July we will plan to have friends over to our gorgeously refinished home!

We have our shopping trips down to a science now. Since it get so hot in the middle of the day (94 today!) we try to do our running around early in the day, or after the sun goes down. We needed a giant trash can for the inside of the house, fly strips, and about 10 other things, including ice cream. While there, I spotted a darling 70-ish year old lady with red, white, and blue flowers on her white bun. So adorable, so Utah!

Our floor work today began with finishing the sanding of the filler.

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Day 3, Ogden Enterprise

I spent most of the day on my hands and knees--or bent over like a crone. Today was floors, floors, and more floors. I was pretty pleased with the results after the first sanding. This is what they looked like:

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Day 2, Ogden Enterprise

We got up at daybreak, still feeling absolutely exhausted! But we were excited to begin our home project. We went to Home Depot, Lowes and WalMart. We bought painting supplies, picked out our paint colors for the living room, dining room and kitchen, and got tons of other stuff. I began preparing the walls for painting. It took well over an hour just to scrub the large living room wall. The walls have dirty fingerprints and spills that are years old, and nails and screws hanging everywhere. The nasty looking blinds came down, too.

Then we had a conversation about floors vs. paint.

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Day 1 Ogden Enterprise

After a 14 hour drive (we took our time!) we arrived in Ogden at 3:00 am. We were planning on crashing as soon as we got here, but we spent about 30 minutes getting everything out of the car. Then I went in to go to the bathroom and I found this:

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The Fun Part

And now, it's time for the fun part of my eating experience! With the $20 I saved by eating for $1.50 per day this past week, I am able to buy a flock of chicks for a family through Heifer, International.

Flock of Chicks Changes Lives

Your gift of a flock of chickens gift donation helps provide a family in need with a starter flock of 10 to 50 chicks, along with the training that will empower them to turn your donation into a lifetime of opportunity. Each flock of chicks:

• Provides eggs and protein for nourishment
• Boosts income through sales of extra eggs and offspring
• Ensures security for generations through Passing on the Gift

 Chickens require little space and can thrive on readily available scraps; this allows families to make money from the birds without spending much. And since a good hen can lay up to 200 eggs a year, your flock of chickens gift provides a steady source of nutrition and income.


Wouldn't you love to be able to do this for someone? I learned so much by spending just one week eating on $1.50 per day. I'm sharing my experience because I would love to see others help with world hunger in this way!

Third World Eating: Day 7

Have you ever had Madras Vegetables? It makes such a tasty breakfast. This was made with a bag of coleslaw mix--98c a bag and it was buy one, get one free! There are also frozen peas, a bit of oil, a single arbol chili, and turmeric, salt, cayenne pepper, black mustard seeds, cumin, and madras curry powder. With all of these ingredients, it is still about 60c a serving. It is cool, fresh, and lovely for a spring or summer morning. And speaking of that...

Just look at the view outside my kitchen window this morning. The Seattle area is absolutely gorgeous this time of year! I feel so lucky to be living where I do, where it is nice and green, and where I have access to all of the different foods that are such a pleasure to eat.

I was reading more about Pierre Ferrari's experience of eating on less than $1.50 per day and realized that the challenge he participated in was called "Live below the Line." I read about his experience shopping, where he took $7.50 in cash to the store to spend for his weekly groceries. He was able to buy so much less than what I have been using, because I already have so many grains and spices and such in bulk. When you buy a small bag of rice in the grocery store, you pay so much more per serving than if you have a 50 pound bag.

Take, for example, this Thai purple rice (also known as "forbidden rice") that I had for lunch. This is my absolute favorite rice, and it is one of the more expensive rices. In my nearby grocery store, the Lotus Foods brand of organic forbidden rice costs $4.49 for a 15 oz bag! But when bought in bulk it is $2.89 a pound. Thus, I was able to have about a half-cup of this delicious rice and stay at 35c a serving.

I rounded out my lunch with a filling bowl of lentil soup, 15c per serving. Once again, the lentils were purchased in bulk, and therefore cost less. I imagine it would be much harder to purchase in bulk if you didn't have some start-up money to buy the large bags of rice and beans.

For dinner, I was once again craving fruit, so I had a 40-cent apple.

Total for the day came to $1.50. I could have eaten a lot more if I'd had lentils only, but I really liked the variety I was able to eat today. Come back tomorrow and see the culmination of this experiment of living below the poverty line!

Third World Eating: Day 6

I ate mostly leftovers today: An egg for breakfast, curried cauliflower dish and rice for lunch, and for dinner I had rice, curried cauliflower, and curried chickpeas. (Yes, I love curry!) The total came to a little over $1.50. I had a lot of rice for lunch, about 2 cups of it; and I was quite full. So I went off to work without packing a dinner, because I didn't think I would need it. I was so wrong. I got so hungry I couldn't think straight. I had to eat more. The leftovers I had for dinner don't look very appetizing in the pictures, but I wolfed them down!

I don't know if it is just me, but when I'm on this kind of a restricted diet it's impossible to skip a meal. It made me feel so sad for people who often go long periods of time without food. It's hard to work or do anything, really.

When I look at my blog posts for the past week and see just how much food I have eaten--and it really is pretty nourishing food--I can hardly believe how hungry I have been. I hate being hungry.

Can you believe I want to do this for another week? I'd like to experiment some more with this diet and see if I can eat some different things and some different quantities so that I won't feel hungry. I'll try to figure out calories and see how much it takes to make me feel satisfied. I might add some more fats to this diet and see if that is what has kept me from feeling full. If you have any suggestions, let me know!

Third World Eating: Day 5

I was in a bit of a rush this morning, so I grabbed a hard-boiled egg. I've discovered that eating this way is not convenient. Especially when it comes to breakfast. There are so many convenience foods that make breakfast quick and easy here in the States, but they are not easily available in third world countries, or else they are empty calories, or too expensive. The protein in this 17-cent egg kept me going on a nearly 5-mile hike this morning!

When I got home at noon, I had to rush off to work, so I was looking for something quick and easy to pack for my lunch and dinner as well. I settled for more upma for lunch. I just smashed 2 cups of it into a container, noticing that it was nice and fresh from being refrigerated. Maybe that was cheating, too? Again, I realized how lucky I was to have a way to keep food fresh.

Dinner was chana masala, made from curried chickpeas. I estimate that this was about 50c a serving, and it was soooooo spicy! I didn't need much of it to fill me up, because of the spiciness. But I ate around 5 pm, and after 6 I've been really hungry.

Total cost for today, about $1.55.

Third World Eating: Day 4

Is it really only Day 4? Seems like I have been doing this for a long time now! Do you know that upma is the perfect breakfast food? I'd much rather have my semolina like this than like cream of wheat, with butter and sugar. It's tasty and spicy, and starts the day off just right. 37c a serving, and I kept to just one--but I really wanted more! Afterward, I went for a 2 mile walk, and I felt energetic.

Off to work, and I brought my lunch and dinner with me. I was craving some sort of fruit, so for lunch I splurged on an apple. I really don't know how plentiful fruit is in poverty-stricken countries. It was maybe cheating to have an apple, so I took a very small one. I accompanied it with about a quarter cup of hummus. My estimation for the total cost of lunch is around 50c. I was still hungry after I ate that, so I had a little bit of my dinner, too.

Here is my dinner. It was so cheap! A cup of rice and a cup of dal--22c. I didn't even heat it up. Brown rice has really been a staple of this diet. It fills me up and only costs about 2c a cup, since I buy my rice in bulk (50 pound bags!) This is the only way to buy rice, by the way.

Total cost for the day was $1.09. I could have had another apple!

Third World Eating: Day 3

Note: I am cranky.

Breakfast was spiced Dal (yellow lentils) which cost 20c a cup. This was accompanied by a boiled egg, 17c. I found it filling and delicious. As you get hungrier, food tastes really, really good.

I ate early, around 7am, and I didn't really feel any hunger until around noon. But there was a lot of cooking going on around here in the early afternoon. On the menu was a vegetable upma. Here's a picture of the ingredients used in this dish.

It looks like a lot of stuff, but this upma can be made with whatever vegetables are available. Pictured is 98c worth of cabbage mix, 1/4 lb of cut up cauliflower stems (people usually throw these in the trash!) a few cashew pieces, I estimated 10c, $1.00 worth of semolina, 50c of zucchini, 25c of peas, and less than 2c worth of each of the following: salt, hot chili, urad dal, rye, cumin, and turmeric.

The finished product was estimated to cost 37c a serving.
I think something similar could be made in third world countries using veggies from the garden or from the market.









Here's the finished product, all ready to eat. It made quite a bit--8 to 10 servings. This was a really filling dish as well. I limited myself to 1 cup, but I was satisfied for several hours.

It really is amazing how much inexpensive food is available to us in the U.S. It does take time to make things from scratch, but using grains and dried legumes is healthy, satisfying, and cheap.

Right after I ate this, I walked to my place of employment and worked fairly strenuously for 8 hours. Midway through, I had my dinner, which I had packed from home. It was rice and more of the spiced Dal from this morning. I was surprised that I didn't feel any of the hunger I felt yesterday. But now that I am home and it is late, I feel grumpy. So it's off to bed, and only 4 more days to go!

Total cost for the day: 96 cents.

Third World Eating: Day 2

I made it through Day 2! I had to work from 6 to 8am, so I waited to have breakfast when I returned. This is a bowl of quinoa with edamame and arame (seaweed). This was not a cheap dish to make, but once again, it was leftover in the fridge, and I only had 1/2 cup of it. Homemade, it cost about 40c. I have bought this exact thing in the store and it is about 4x more expensive. The hard-boiled egg was 17c. It lasted me about an hour before I was hungry.

Lunch was a cup of rice, (2c) and some more of the cauliflower dish that I had yesterday (44c). I am eating on small sized dishes to make it seem like it is more than it is! I feel like I'm getting a lot more variety and nutrition than would be possible if I were really in a third-world country. Spices really help a lot, and the amount used in all of the dishes makes them cost a penny or two. I just don't think they would be available in many parts of the world. The next time I send a care package as part of a service project, I'd like to include small packages of spices.


Dinner! I know this looks like a piece of chicken with rice, but nope. This is more of the hummus from yesterday, costing 45c. The rice adds 2c more. This meal actually filled me up a bit more than I thought it would. The hummus is sprinkled with a dash of paprika.

I can say that I felt hunger for most of the day. It wasn't enough to keep me from doing what I needed to do, but I definitely noticed it. Looking at these pictures, it seems like it should be plenty of food for one person. So I figured out the calories in these foods, and came up with 1857. That's certainly more than enough to sustain life, but less than I am used to eating.
Total cost today: Exactly $1.50.




Another thing: I was out and about today, and I saw this. Watermelons, the first I have seen of the season. Ordinarily I would have bought one, just on an impulse. But then I realized that the price of one of these watermelons would be the cost of an entire week of meals in the third world!

Sobering.

Third World Eating: Day 1

This morning I started with some leftover cheesy omelet from yesterday's breakfast. It certainly isn't anything someone from the Third World would have available to eat. But I've got to finish my leftovers or let them go to waste. This was just a small corner of an omelet, and probably used about one egg (17c) and 2 oz of cheese (38c). I was lazy and didn't count the onions, peppers and mushrooms that were in the omelet either, since there was such a small quantity. Then I only ate half of it, and saved the rest for lunch.

Here's what I had for lunch. On the top part of the bowl is the rest of the leftover omelet. It gave me a lot of my protein for the day. Then I added a scoop of rice. A whole cup of rice costs about 2c ! Now you know why people who don't have extra money for food eat a lot of rice. It fills you up and doesn't break the bank. On the right hand side of the plate is hummus. Not the kind you get from the store in a little plastic container. This was made this morning from dried chickpeas. When you make it this way, it costs 45c per cup. I think that serving was a lot smaller than a cup, but I just counted the 45c. I'll get better at measuring later!

After lunch, I had almost spent my limit, and I was really hungry. I drank a lot of water during the afternoon, trying to fill myself up. As I was drinking my nice glass of ice water, I realized that in the third world it probably wouldn't be so easy to get ice for drinks, so I decided to go with cool tap water for the rest of the week. For dinner, I had more rice, and a curried cauliflower dish, using some cauliflower that was in the fridge and needed to be used. I figured out that a cup of that cauliflower dish was 44c. I ate dinner about 4:30, because I was pretty hungry.

Total cost for today's meals was $1.48. The key to keeping it so low is definitely making the meals from scratch. Dried beans and grains are going to form most of my diet for the next week.

So far, so good!

Eating in the Third World

Last week I read a blog post by Pierre Ferrari, CEO of Heifer International. He wrote to share his experience of eating for one day below the poverty line ($1.50). I thought this would be a fantastic way to raise my awareness of third-world eating, and decided to do this for one week. I estimate that with all the meals, snacks, drinks, and eating out that I do, I spend between $5 and $10 a day for my food. This is a small bit I can pass on to help solve world hunger.

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Nephi and the Kabbalistic “Four Worlds” of Human Consciousness

In the opening verses of the Book of Mormon, Nephi gives an intriguing four-fold reference:

1. I make a record of my proceedings in my days
2. I make a record in the language of my father
3. I make it with mine own hand
4. I make it according to my knowledge

These descriptions of Nephi’s record are reminiscent of the Kabbalistic “Four Worlds,” exhibited in Isaiah 43:7, "Every one that is called by My name and for My glory (atziluth "emanation/nearness"), I have created (beriah "creation"), I have formed (yetzirah "formation"), even I have made (asiyah "action"). This describes the creative power of God, which descends through the four Kabbalistic worlds. As well as the functional role each World has in the process of Creation, they also embody dimensions of consciousness within human experience.

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The Sacred Embrace as Five Points of Fellowship

I often lament that modern Mormonism has lost portions of its early history. While some of these forms and concepts are best consigned to the trash-bin, others are sorely missed. I believe that there are traditions from our nineteenth-century past which have lost their significance because there has been a lack of understanding about their religious symbolism.

Many older members of the Church and students of LDS history will recall the "Five Points of Fellowship," which was a part of Mormon liturgy up until the last two decades. This was an important emblematic ritual -- a sacred embrace which preceded entering into the presence of the Lord through the veil. Because this symbolic rite had its origins in Nauvoo-era Freemasonry, there is much we can learn about the meaning behind the symbol from Masonic writings. But I don't believe these understandings were ever carried over into LDS discourse.

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4-Month Bell's Palsy Update

It's been about 4 months of Bell's Palsy and I want to put another update up here. The biggest thing I notice about my face that still hasn't cleared up is that I can't squeeze my right eye shut tight like I can my left. This bothers me a little bit, mostly when swimming without goggles on. When I laugh, I can't feel it, but the left side is a bit more squinty than the right. You can see it in this picture:

The past few weeks I have been feeling some twitchiness in the BP side, and a little tightness in the muscles. I am hoping this means more healing is taking place... I noticed when I close my mouth tight there is a lumpiness in my chin, I'm using muscles there that I never used before. I'm trying to remember to relax my chin when I close my mouth. My mouth is sometimes symmetrical and sometimes crooked. Both corners of the mouth work, but not always in unison. I think when I'm tired, the BP side doesn't cooperate as well. Here's what it looks like when crooked. (The BP side of the mouth is actually bigger here.)If I look in the mirror or concentrate on it, I have no problem making both sides look the same.

I haven't been doing facial exercises, and I think I should do them again for a few weeks and see if I can get to 100% recovery. All in all I am very happy with how things are going!

An Easter Ode

If you've read this blog for many years you know that I love to attend Easter services. Today I went to the Old Fort Baptist Church nearby for their morning service. I enjoyed watching their reenactment of Christ's resurrection (a short clip of the passion play they've been presenting this week), singing their modern worship songs, and listening to their fiery pastor. During the sermon, he said that there is a time and a place for reverence, but that this day is not one of them. I can't imagine a Mormon ever saying that about Easter Sunday. In fact, it inspired me to write a poem, which I titled: To the Virgins and High Priests of the Second Ward: An Easter Message.

I am pleased to note that Church with the Mormons this afternoon did not suck. There was some nice music by the choir, a Primary class did bells to "He Died that we might Live Again," (yeah, that was my class), and the closing talk on Resurrection was wonderful. The first talk was on the Atonement, and I'm glad we didn't spend the whole time on that subject. Though I think it's necessary to talk about the death of Christ at Easter, I like the emphasis to be on the risen Christ and the joy in such an event! (and, come on, we have all heard the story of the boy who took the whipping for the kid who stole his lunch...)

I can never get enough of the music, the pageantry, and the poetry that is Easter. Kristine has given some wonderful musical links for the day, Lynette compiled some Easter theology, and I will leave you with one more poem before you end your Resurrection Day. 

Drawing: "Violets" by Veronica Lawlor

An Easter Ode

by Paul Laurence Dunbar

To the cold, dark grave they go
Silently and sad and slow,
From the light of happy skies
And the glance of mortal eyes.
In their beds the violets spring,
And the brook flows murmuring;
But at eve the violets die,
And the brook in the sand runs dry.

In the rosy, blushing morn,
See, the smiling babe is born;
For a day it lives, and then
Breathes its short life out again.
And anon gaunt-visaged Death,
With his keen and icy breath,
Bloweth out the vital fire
In the hoary-headed sire.

Heeding not the children's wail,
Fathers droop and mothers fail;
Sinking sadly from each other,
Sister parts from loving brother.
All the land is filled with wailing,
Sounds of mourning garments trailing,
With their sad portent imbued,
Making melody subdued.

But in all this depth of woe
This consoling truth we know:
There will come a time of rain,
And the brook will flow again;
Where the violet fell, 'twill grow,
When the sun has chased the snow.
See in this the lesson plain,
Mortal man shall rise again.

Well the prophecy was kept;
Christ "first fruit of them that slept"
Rose with vic'try-circled brow;
So, believing one, shalt thou.
Ah! but there shall come a day
When, unhampered by this clay,
Souls shall rise to life newborn
On that resurrection morn.

Eye Roll

This is going to be TMI for some of you...

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Progress Report and Introspection

This is my one-month report. I am amazed at how well my recovery from Bell's palsy has gone. My right eyebrow and forehead work almost the same as they always have. (Downside is, I've lost the Botox effect, and my forehead wrinkles are back.) My eye closes and doesn't dry out at night. The blink reflex is back, but I can't squeeze my eye shut tightly, and the undereye muscles are still weak. My smile looks

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Busted!

I'm well enough that I can "fake" normalcy when I go out in public for short periods. So I thought I was going to get away without telling the whole ward that I was incapacitated. I did tell my Primary class, because it was very obvious the Sunday after I got Bell's Palsy. But then we had Stake Conference and I didn't go, and after that my face was beginning to look better. Friday my daughter and I went to visit a lady in our neighborhood who just had a baby and we dropped off a fruit basket. We were just about to leave, and DD made an ill-considered remark about me having Bell's Palsy. I was rather annoyed. Just after we visited, the compassionate service leader came by, to bring dinner in to the family with the new baby. That's when the Mormon grapevine went to work. So, today at Church I had to discuss my affliction with sundry people and put on a cheery attitude. GRRRRR. Also, the Bishop sent me a little message on my Facebook expressing condolences and asking if he could do anything to help. I know everyone means well. And they are very kind. There just isn't anything they can really do to "serve" me at this time. I'm probably being overly sensitive. But if they don't want anything to do with me on a regular basis, I don't really want them coming around me when I'm at my worst. Does that make any sense at all?

Do Mormons Need a "Nostra Aetate" of Their Own?

In 1965 the Second Vatican Council produced a declaration on the relation of the Catholic church with non-Christian religions. In this document, "Nostra Aetate" (In Our Age), the Catholic Church revolutionized its relations with Jews by saying Christ's death could not be attributed to Jews as a whole at the time or today.

A forthcoming book by Pope Benedict XVI supports and furthers this doctrine. In the second volume of “Jesus of Nazareth”, which will be released by Ignatius Press on March 10, the Pope explains that although scripture has the Jewish crowd shouting, “Let his blood be on us and on our children,” as they demand that Pilate execute Jesus, the crowd should be read to represent all humanity. News sources are hailing this excitedly with headlines like: "Pope Exonerates Jews..." and "Pope Absolves Jews..." For the interest of FPR readers, I am going to include a lengthy excerpt from the book, which has been released as a "trailer" from the publishers. Pertinent information to this post is italicized.

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