Sunday Seven 27-1-2014

 Today begins a new series - a way for me to share things I love/enjoy/recommend.  Introducing...  the Sunday Seven!  Read on for inspirations and recommendations...

1.  A book:  Rachel Carson's The Sea Around Us beautifully combines biology, poetry, and history (geologic history, the histories of sailing and oceanography).  I read it while in Maine this summer, and it inspired me to closely examine and enjoy tiny organisms (whelks and seaweed-dwelling bugs) in addition to the vastness of the sea.  Ms. Carson's writings motivate me to spend hours scouring seaside boulders, trees, and lichens.

2.  A movie:  The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a witty, British drama about a group of 60+ Britons settling in India for their retirement, and discovering that life's biggest adventures can whisk you away in your golden years.  The cast - Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy - initially attracted my attention, and carried the film beautifully.  Seeing Bill N. and Penelope Wilton play a married couple made me wonder if I had discovered an alternate ending to Shaun of the Dead.

3.  A game:  The Sims - using fancy, modern technology to play...  with dolls.

4.  A TV program:  Modern Family is hilarious!  Recently, I enjoyed a scene that overlaid Cam tenderly singing "Ave Maria" whilst Mitch destroyed their living room with a tennis racquet, trying to kill a rogue pigeon.  I haven't laughed that hard since the first four times I watched Arrested Development (no, not the first four episodes...)

5.  This organization:  Defy Ventures, Inc. trains and equips criminal offenders to become entrepreneurs after their release from prison.  Founder Catherine Hoke spoke at church this morning, and told us how the program releases her clients from the cycle of poverty, welfare, and crime; and suits them up as successful business owners, creating new jobs and pumping tax money into the economy.  Did you know that in New York, it costs $167,000 a year to incarcerate one person?  Check out Defy Ventures - the stories of redemption are beautiful!

6.  This news article:  "South Sudan ceasefire takes effect" - hopeful!

7.  These cookies:  SAMOAS and THIN MINTS.  Thank God for Girl Scout cookie season.

One Day

Sometimes I lay under the moon and thank God I'm breathing;

Then I pray, "Don't take me soon, 'cause I am here for a reason."

Sometimes, in my tears I drown, but I never let it get me down.

So when negativity surrounds, I know some day it'll all turn around, because...

All my life I've been waiting for, I've been praying for, for the people to say

That we don't wanna fight no more; there'll be no more wars and our children will play.

One day, one day, one day...

It's not about win or lose, because we all lose when they feed on the souls of the innocent,

Blood-drenched pavement; keep on moving through, the waters stay raging...

In this maze you can lose your way; it might drive you crazy, but don't let it faze you, no way...

Sometimes, in my tears I drown, but I never let it get me down.

So when negativity surrounds, I know some day it'll all turn around, because...

All my life I've been waiting for, I've been praying for, for the people to say

That we don't wanna fight no more; there'll be no more wars and our children will play.

One day, one day, one day...

One day this all will change; treat people the same, stop with the violence, down with the hate.

One day we'll all be free and proud to be under the same sun,

Singing songs of freedom like...

All my life I've been waiting for, I've been praying for, for the people to say

That we don't wanna fight no more; there'll be no more wars and our children will play.

One day, one day, one day...

Pursuing Peace

I love reading TIME magazine.  They cover news from all around the globe, illustrate figures with infographics (oh, how I love looking at them!), and provide a bit of humor, too (thanks, Joel Stein).

This week, TIME's article, "2014 User's Guide" has some exciting predictions for this year:

• The U.S. Capitol building will begin a two-year restoration process.
• Google Glass will reach national levels of distribution.
• El Nino (Spanish for... "the Nino") will warm the Pacific to record temperatures.
• Kohlrabi will replace kale as the trendy, hipster vegetable of the year.
• More states will legalize recreational marijuana (OR, CA, AZ, and RI, in particular).
• Private space exploration companies will continue to probe the cosmos.
• Girls born in 2014 will have names ending in "-lyn, as in Marilyn or Madilyn."  Children born this year may, for the first time in history, have a shorter life expectancy than their parents... due to obesity.
• Skype will replace non-emergency doctor visits.  Doctors can asses symptoms and diagnose illnesses through "telemedicine" - a technology that's actually been used for years to serve remote fishermen along the Gulf of Maine, by the nurses of the Maine Seacoast Mission.

Besides all these global happenings...  What will you do this year?

It's a question I have been asking myself.

I've been pondering a statement that TIME quoted, from Pope Francis:  "True peace is not... a lovely 'facade' which conceals conflicts and divisions.  Peace calls for daily commitment."

Pope Francis echoes the words of Psalm 34:14:  "Seek peace and pursue it."  As I consider my goals for 2014, a life of peace seems a worthy endeavor.  More than that, a daily commitment to prayer and seeking Christ's peace will be my goal for the year.

Scripture calls us to live peaceably with our neighbor.  Again, peace isn't merely the absence of conflict, but a daily commitment to support and love one another.

Romans 12:17-18 - "Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.  If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all."
II Corinthians 13:11 - "Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you."

God reconciles His people to Himself; and He also wants His people to be reconciled to one another.  This can take place at the family level... and at a global level.  A huge part of living a wise, peaceful life is praying for our neighbors and our leaders.

"I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way."  (I Timothy 2:1-2)  This year, I will pray for those in need of reconciliation, and will work toward restoration with those in my own life.  Won't you join me?

Pray for peace in places like Sudan (where civil war rages) and Uganda (whose government has enacted violent land grabs from its agrarian citizens - see SolidarityUganda.com for more info).  Pray for the U.S. government to end its reckless policing of countries around the globe.  Pray for local communities to join in unity, strangers joining as friends supporting one another. Pray for the end of oppression and exploitation.  Pray for missionaries and churches to reach out, love those around them, and bring the peace of Christ to many.

My prayer is that God will change me, giving me more compassion for His people and endurance in prayer. Not only is prayer necessary for peacemaking, but prayer can indeed lead to a deep, godly inner peace. Philippians 4 tells us, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

I pray that God gives me the wisdom to work toward peace. As I enter a new season in a new place, it will be essential to lean upon the Lord and His wisdom as I seek peaceable relationships with new friends, co-workers, and neighbors. In the fall, I'll begin grad school - academically studying the Word of God. I pray that this new wisdom will bring me a softened heart and hands prepared to work toward reconciliation.

James 3:17-18 - "But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.  And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace."

May 2014 be filled with the pursuit of knowledge, compassion, and humility... with much prayer... to better love and serve those around us in peace.

[Be sure to check out other bloggers' aspirations for the coming year at I Don't Have a Clue, but I'm Finding Out!]

Crazy Fall

 We are crazy.  My husband and I are crazy.  We've been from Maine to Miami in the past two months.  Who does that?  We dipped our paddles into the frigid Gulf of Maine, then dove into the bathwater-warm Gulf of Mexico.  "Why?" you may ask.  Well...

We did camp this summer.  That means we worked 18 hours days 6 days a week for three months.  It was fun.  It was also exhausting.  After the summer, we headed up to Maine to our usual spot:  the family place at Petit Manan Point.  It's Down East.  It was cold.  We bundled up in many layers of L.L. Bean gear and did hiking, boating, reading, and sleeping.  We ate lobster:

After all that fun, we returned to Central PA, and decided that from there, we wanted to hit up the Great White North.  Oh, yes.  I had never been to Canada before - what a beautiful, exotic land!  Along the way, we hit up the Niagara, New York area, exploring wineries and visiting the Falls.  The Falls are SO impressive.  I definitely recommend a visit there, if you can.  We also got to stop at the Corning Museum of Glass, where art and science collide and shatter into a million brilliant pieces.

at CMOG

Toronto Harbour

CN Tower, in Toronto

 So, we finally got to Canada; we finally got to get donuts and a coffee at Tim Horton's (after an earlier misadventure all over Rhode Island - our GPS lies to us sometimes); finally got to use our passports at a border crossing.  The city of Toronto seemed pretty great, but we didn't want to spend money on anything cultural, so we pretty much just ate and walked around.  We did discover something called Poutine.  Poutine!!  It's an incredible concoction of French fries... covered in gravy and cheese.  Oh, yum.  I could eat it daily.

Another discovery included the fact that the stereotypes one hears of Canadians are true:  1.  they are so polite.  2.  they love donuts.

The reason we went to Florida after all this northern nonsense was that over the summer we had been called to help work at a conference at Disney World.  Oh boy!  The magic!

We got a little taste of the typical Disney magic, but spend 98% of the week inside the air-conditioned hotel conference center.  The trip to Florida, however, afforded us the opportunity to visit some camp friends, which was awesome.  Florida is a crazy place.  Two friends go to school in Tampa, and two just moved to the Fort Lauderdale area.  I think they are a bit crazy for doing so!  It is SO hot there; even in late October, it was 90 degrees and insanely humid.  Also, getting around town can be nightmarish at best.  All the worst drivers from New York and New Jersey retire there, so careening around town is a complete free-for-all.  Every car ride was a stressful experience.  Because the Sunshine State consists of cities built between sandy shorelines and swamp, every town is very crowded.  Sprawling suburbia with a zillion shopping centers as far as the eye can see - until you get to the Everglades.  The Everglades were beautiful in their quiet, besides calling birds and fan-boat motors.  We did an air-boat ride to see the alligators, which was fun; although our captain/guide was feeding popcorn to the birds to attract them to the boat.  I think that's kind of counter-productive to conservation, right?  Well, we didn't see a gator eat any of the birds.  Besides that, we swam in the ocean and got to see our fabulous friends!  In short, Florida has fun stuff to do, but I could not see myself retiring there.  It is vacationland, indeed.  Oh wait, that's Maine's title.

Besides all the fun and adventures, we did take the opportunity to visit some graduate schools in the South.  The idea for this came from my memory of every Pennsylvania winter and how much I dislike the slush.  The promise of warmth and very little snow is rather appealing!  Anyways, we visited three schools in North Carolina and one in Virginia.  I also reconnected with an old-time camp friend who highly recommended that school; and we were so glad to hear of her and her husband's experience there!  We also had a great visit with our admissions guide, Harrison Ford (for reals).  Filling out applications now... we're going to give it a shot!

In short, the past two months have been rife with adventure (and driving!) and we are grateful for hospitable friends, generous employers, and God's provision and sovereignty.  Looking forward to where He'll take us next!  We have learned that Florida is fun, North Carolina is warm and promising, but Maine is still The Way Life Should Be.

defining Christianity

These days, I am hesitant to label myself as a "Christian."

A weighty reason that I am is the Republican party's use of the name of God to attract "moral voters."  Voting for wealthy, white men in business suits has nothing to do with emulating Jesus Christ.

Another reason is the damage the Church has caused over centuries of history.  Many people (at least in America) hate or disagree with Christians because they've been hurt by them.  All Christians are hypocrites.

Unfortunately, there are so many Christians who will not admit their own hypocrisy.  From small issues, like not forgiving quickly enough or vying to win theological arguments; to massive ones, like picketing hatefully in the name of God.  I don't think God could ever agree with those who hate.

Personal disclaimer:  I AM A HYPOCRITE.  I am messed-up; I am bitter; I am selfish.

These days, I prefer to call myself a Christ-follower.  A follower of Jesus.  That's the original denotation of the word Christian.

Chris·tian  [kris-chuhn] 

1.  (adj.) of, pertaining to, or derived from Jesus Christ  or His teachings: a Christian faith.

7.  (noun) a person who believes in Jesus Christ;  adherent of Christianity. 

(from dictionary.com)

 

It's hard to identify oneself with a word so often used for morality or church-going or slightly-less-evil-than-most-people.

A great essay on the misuse of the word Christian can be found here.

Definition:  CHRISTIANITY is following the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth and embracing Him as Lord.  (Lord:  one's master/ruler/care-taker/provider)

True Christianity has nothing to do with following rules!  It is heartbreaking that this is such a common misconception.  It is commonly perceived as such because there are too many preachers or Sunday school teachers telling their children that if they behave, God will be happy.

Following Jesus means accepting His grace.  He already KNOWS that we will break rule after rule, every single day, and yet He still offers us love and life.  He enables us to quit living for ourselves and grasp for the truth and beauty and eternity He gives.

Look around you.  If you're inside, step out for a moment.  How massive is that maple tree?  How many birds are singing?  Can you count the blades of fragrant grass beneath your feet?  Do you have any idea how many different species of insects are living within your tiny acre of Earth?

How amazing is it that God created so much beauty?  He created it all to woo us to Him!  ...to show us that He does love us and wants us to enjoy life!  Remember the last time you coasted down a steep hill on a bike - how thrilling and breezy and breathtaking!  Swimming in the ocean is one of the best ways to feel miniscule and entirely overwhelmed by the Earth's size and the fact that there are other bathers dipping their toes in the SAME water in England, Morocco, South Africa, Brazil!

I cannot fathom a simple "big bang" throwing dust together to form this world.  It is simply too gorgeous and astounding.  It must have been done by the Creator's Hand.

Religion is defined in two places in the Bible:

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." (James 1:27)

"But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God." (I Timothy 5:4)

True religion means taking care of other people.  Take care of your family; take care of the needy.  Don't become jaded by the sin (selfish behavior of every person on Earth) you see around you.

Going to church is not in the Bible's definition.

God isn't even mentioned.

Christianity is not a religion.

It is a free life of enjoying God and His people and His world.

It is following Jesus' commands when He says,

"Let your light shine before others." (Matthew 5:16)

"Go and be reconciled to (your brother or sister)." (Matthew 5:24)

"But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." (Matthew 5:44)

"Love your neighbor as yourself." (Luke 10:27)

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy;

I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep."  (John 10:10-11)

...and so many other life-giving things.

Real Christianity is a life of redemption, reconciliation, love, mercy and grace.

It is learning from and loving Jesus Christ.

For more on Jesus and life with Him, read Waking the Dead, Crazy Love, Because He Loves Me and the Holy Bible.  Listen to Derek Webb's album She Must and Shall Go Free.

biblegateway.com is a great online resource for reading God's love letters to us.

In the news

Truthfully, I can say that I'm "out of the loop."  Folks around me discuss the latest episode of this-or-that prime time program, the best new video games, news stories, the "Occupy" movement, final scores... and my continually repeating response is, "what's that?"

My husband and I do not own a television.  This is partly because of the decision we made upon hearing that it's beneficial to avoid mindless entertainment during the first year of marriage (when you can talk to each other instead), and partly because neither of us owned the television at our prior residences.  Cable is one bill for which we don't pay, and I like that it fits into the ideal of "cheap living."  We also don't subscribe to the internet at home... and we don't have those intellectual mobile phones everyone loves.

Additionally, we haven't subscribed to any newspapers... yet.  We may look into receiving the Sunday Inquirer, since there's no local news here worth reading.

We are living in ignorance... but is it bliss?  I don't toss and turn at night, reviewing national economic problems in my mind.  There is less to worry about, a freedom from concerns about others' situations... but are we missing out, not knowing what's happening in the world at large?  Are we avoiding hearing about conflicts to which we could possibly lend a hand?

Should we re-connect?

French Cooking!!

Some conquests for my upcoming personal adventurement:

aioli

Bouillabaisse

branade

cassoulet

confit Byaldi

Cozze gratinate

crudites

escargot

gratin Dauphinois
gratin Languedocien

gougere

hollandaisse

insalata Caprese

lobster Thermidor

piccalilli

pistou
quiche
ratatouille
remoulade

rouille

roux

salade Nicoise

Tapenade

Tourtiere

 
 
And now, to polish my skills in the kitchen, refine & awaken my palette to new flavours, discover wine pairings, and to learn how to properly accent the accents in these French words. Pronounciation as well?  A French language class, perhaps?  Julia Child, please!

Two things

There are two things I wish all Americans would do. The world's cost of food has been rising because North Americans have been using corn for non-food purposes. If I could broadcast myself in the national media, I would ask folks to:

1. Stop using corn-based ethanol to fuel your cars. Sure, it may be a tiny bit more environmentally sound, but it still pollutes and it's wasting food that could be used to feed hungry kids in Africa/Asia/South America. Carpool. Ride a bike. Take a hike.

2. Eat less meat. It takes 5 months of feeding a pig 8 pounds of feed per day to get it to full size - 265 pounds. (http://www.pork4kids.com). 1200 pounds of food (say, corn) create only 265 pounds of meat (less the inedible parts of the animal). Those 1200 pounds of corn can feed a LOT more people than ~265 pounds of pork. Additionally, more energy and vitamins & nutrients are absorbed through eating corn - because the pig has already digested & used much of that energy by the time you get to eating the pork. Seriously, beans & rice will save the world. If we allow it.

Every day, I'm more and more appalled by the wasteful gluttony I see here in this country. I may just learn Spanish and move to a monastery in Peru.

On a more fun note, my friend Matthew has made a fun video to share:

With what do you wipe your butt?

Guess I never really thought about the fact that we literally send trees down the toilet every day. It makes me want to stop pooping! Or figure out an alternative...

American taste for soft toilet roll 'worse than driving Hummers'

The tenderness of the delicate American buttock is causing more environmental devastation than the country's love of gas-guzzling cars, fast food or McMansions, according to green campaigners. At fault, they say, is the US public's insistence on extra-soft, quilted and multi-ply products when they use the bathroom.

Greenpeace offers a guide comparing recycled post-consumer vs. virgin paper pulp toilet papers here.

Crap Reduction

Okay, so this is a weird thought, but my brain enjoys tangents so this is what's going on in there:

Yesterday at Cornerstone Pastor Nate gave a sermon on John 15: Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. We have to be connected to Him or we'll whither.

His visual aide was a bit different. He had placed a large bowl of pure water on a pedestal above a smaller bowl filled with vegetable oil. He connected a siphon between the two, which allowed the larger bowl to fill the smaller one with water, pushing the oil out over the top. He likened God to the larger bowl, filled with goodness, and us to the smaller bowl, filled with icky stuff. We need to be connected to God so He can cleanse us of our gross stuff (our sins, our pain, all our dirt).

So that was a good idea. Then, he unveiled what was placed on a neighboring pedestal: a toddler-sized training toilet. You know, the plastic kind of tiny potty that comes in bright colours. He set the siphon between the toilet and the smaller bowl (representing individual people). He talked about how often we disconnect from God and suck our spiritual nutrition from something else - anything except God - which essentially means we're drinking from the toilet. Ick.

I loved the point P. Nate made and wrote notes and drew small diagrams of toilets and bowls of oil and then came the tangent...

Most people in America that are between ages 0 and 40 have parents who used disposable diapers on them. Now, the average baby soils about 6 diapers/nappies per day. That means one baby goes through 2190 diapers in one year. Multiply that by the time it takes for a kid to graduate from diapers to being potty trained, and that's between 4380 and 8760 diapers that each person in America has indirectly deposited into a landfill (how could plastic + crap be recycled?)

Let's say the average weight of a used diaper is one pound. That means each person has added between 2 and 4 tons of waste to any number of landfills in our country.

Are you as dumbfounded by this as I am??

I feel awful for the amount of waste my own body produced when I had no control of how it was disposed. Robin and I discussed this at breakfast (good timing, I know), and she could gladly say her parents used cloth diapers on her as an infant.

I usually try to be pretty cautious about wasting materials, but now I'm feeling the weight of this realization of my past as a babychild. How ridiculous!! I don't know what it will take to negate the effects of all that crap (+plastic) I put into the world, but I hope I can find a way to de-impact the environment, some how.

25x

001. i must eat m&ms in the correct order: blue, green, orange, red, yellow, brown.
002. i thrive on summer activities like hiking, climbing, kayaking; exploring nature.
003. if i had excess money i would buy a taylor guitar.
004. i once punched a raccoon in the face.
005. for years, i settled for a combustible-black marshmallow on my s'more.
006. one time i witnessed a girl nearly fall into the abyss at hershey's chocolate world.
007. the concher is my *favorite* part of the chocolate factory tour ride.
008. donald miller is one of my top 3 favorite authors.
009. green is the color to which i'm most drawn.
010. i have seen the sun set over cadillac mountain on the down east coast of maine.
011. i have not seen a puffin.
012. this summer i saw two bears, two porcupines, and several doe. and the raccoon.
013. i have only heard, never seen, a pack of coyotes (sneaky buggers).
014. wallace and i aspire to drive route 50 from ocean city to sacramento.
015. this spring i discovered how inexperienced arkansasians are at snow driving.
016. my favorite thing about florida is the abundance of anoles *everywhere*.
017. the only time i flew was to visit 2 friends in chicago in 2005.
018. i worshipped God with homeless folks in a church next door to a crack house.
019. my roommate and i once cleansed the waters of the atlantic in wildwood, nj.
020. i have been to 10 weddings, and was the maid of honor in one of them.
021. i am a founding member of the ice cream challenge.
022. i once licked a cave formation that has been filmed for television.
023. one of the best things about camping can be trying to hang up your bear bag.
024. i enjoy driving a 15 passenger van
025. i hope to travel extensively in the somewhat-near future.

Greatness

How do we rank the level of greatness between one person and the next? What leaders are greater than others? Are inventors ranked by quantity of inventions or by several more impactful ones? I was browsing wikipedia.org [a new favourite pastime of mine] and I ran into two lists. One was the "Greatest American" list, which was compiled in 2005 by the Discovery Channel by taking votes from American viewers. In 1978 the Top 100 "Most Influential Persons" list was published in a book by Michael Hart [b. 1932, NYC].

Here is the beginning of the "Greatest Americans" list:

1. Ronald Reagan, former President - 24% - named "Greatest American"
2. Abraham Lincoln, former President - 23.5%
3. Martin Luther King, Jr., civil rights leader - 19.7% - named "Greatest African American"
4. George Washington, first President - 17.7%
5. Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father and scientist - 14.9%
6. George W. Bush, then President - named "Greatest Living American"
7. Bill Clinton, former President
8. Elvis Presley, singer - named "America's Greatest Entertainer"
9. Oprah Winfrey, talk show host - named "Greatest Woman in American history"
10. Franklin D. Roosevelt, former President
11. Billy Graham, evangelist
12. Thomas Jefferson, former President
13. Walt Disney, founder of Disney
14. Albert Einstein, physicist - named "Greatest American Scientist" and "Greatest Jewish American"
15. Thomas Alva Edison, inventor

Perhaps this list is less biased, as many persons' input formed one cognitive list. However, this would require each individual voter to consider all the nominees and rank them, and then vote on his or her "top American." This list does not prove that Elvis Presley was a greater American than Franklin Roosevelt, just that there are more Elvis fans than FDR enthusiasts. Surely Elvis shaped our culture in the 1950s, but aspects of Roosevelt's New Deal are still in operation today. I think that this list shows not each nominee's "greatness," but the number of Americans who were most affected by that person.

Here are Michael Hart's top 15 "Most Influential Persons":

1	Muhammad	Founder and main prophet of Islam, conquerer of Arabia, political figure
2	Isaac Newton	physicist, theory of universal gravitation, laws of motion, major developments in mathematics, optics, thermodynamics
3	Jesus	central figure of what would become Christianity
4	Buddha	founder of Buddhism
5	Confucius	founder of Confucianism
6	St. Paul	proselytizer of Christianity
7	Ts'ai Lun	inventor of paper
8	Johannes Gutenberg	developed movable type and made great advances in printing
9	Christopher Columbus	explorer, led Europe to the Americas
10	Albert Einstein	physicist, relativity, Einsteinian physics
11	Louis Pasteur	scientist, pasteurization, Germ Theory
12	Galileo Galilei	astronomer, accurately described heliocentric solar system, led way to Newton's work
13	Aristotle	Greek philosopher
14	Euclid	Greek mathematician, Euclidean geometry, author of various influential theories
15	Moses	major prophet of Judaism and leader of Israel

This list is the product of one man's research into the history of the world and into the influence that these persons still have in the world today. And how do we define influence? Is Mohammed ranked higher than Jesus because there are more Moslems in the world than Christians today? Should Confucius be ranked higher because his influence is most clearly seen within the country with the highest population?

Many of these men influenced only one area; should the list be broken into certain spheres of influence? Should we group Jesus, Mohammed, Moses, Confucius, Paul, and Buddha together because of their influence on world spirituality and religion; T'sai Lun and Gutenberg together for their impact on world literature; Newton, Galileo, Euclid, and Einstein together for their help in understanding the world around us?

And can we consider chronology as well? T'sai Lun invented paper; several centuries later Gutenberg invented the printing press. Without paper, there would be no need for print, so whose influence is greater? Galileo's work led to Newton's work which led to Einstein's work - whose was more important?

15th century explorer Vasco da Gama was ranked #86 on this list. Do the Portuguese-speaking people of Brasil consider him more important than everyone else on the list? Have we considered that the men on this list may have differing rates of impact geographically?

It seems that my questions might be answered if I were to read this book [which I will probably do at some time within the next...5 years, so I'll do that and see Mr. Hart's opinions on greatness.

Clearly "greatness" is a very subjective matter when speaking about a person's influence. Does one good deed surpass several others on a scale of "greatness?" Perhaps we should each re-arrange these two lists according to our personal tastes and thoughts on these figures' works. Give me your input.