UPDATED -- NIGERIAN ANGLICAN GENERATES MORE FEAR/HATE AGAINST FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS: ¨God’s Punishment Awaits Those Against Anti-Gay Law¨ Anglican Archbishop Nicolas

The Most Reverend Nicolas Okoh, Primate of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) and CANA/GAFCON accomplice

The Primate of All Nigeria Anglican Communion, Most Revd. Nicholas Okoh has said that those canvassing same-sex marriages in the country would face the punishment of God.

Anglican Archbishop/Nigeria, emeritus, Peter ¨Massacre at Yelwa¨ Akinola, center/purple
http://frjakestopstheworld.blogspot.com/2008/02/abp-akinola-and-massacre-of-yelwa.html
¨He was speaking in Abeokuta, the Ogun state capital during the 70th birthday of his predecessor, Dr, Peter Akinola, held at the Cathedral of St. Peter, Ake, Abeokuta.

He however commended President Goodluck Jonathan for his courage in signing the anti-gay bill into law which has continued to generate reactions in some quarters in Nigeria and beyond.

According to him, those not in support of the bill are like the biblical duo, Adam and Eve who questioned God for asking them not to eat the fruits from the Garden of Eden.

His words: “Many people do not realise that what is referred to as the homosexual trouble is not the homosexual or lesbian trouble but people’s refusal to accept the scripture for what it is, authority for life and practice following God.

He added: “in the beginning, man questioned the authority of God in the garden by saying did God actually say that you should not eat the forbidden fruit. That challenge to God’s authority dethroned God’s power and enthroned man’s power...´there is more: 

http://www.channelstv.com/home/2014/01/27/gods-punishment-awaits-those-against-anti-gay-law-okoh/

Thanks to Channels

Thanks to Erika Baker, U.K.

Thanks to Father Jake Stops the World, sidebar

Emphasis, Leonardo Ricardo

UPDATE:

Archbishops write to all Primates & to presidents of Nigeria, Uganda

 http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/006416.html

A WARNING TO THOSE I LOVE: Never eat a Guatemalan ¨empanada de leche¨ or you will never recover!

Deadly Guatemalan Empanadas de Leche

I warn you.  I am not kidding.  All of my adult life (and by this time I am more than adult and gaining on just plain old codger) I have avoided eating most all food with dairy products/other sold off the street carts in Latin America. 

It's not that the food isn't fresh and appealing when offered on the street, and it mostly is, it's just that I am kind of a fussbudgety (is that how you spell it?) when it comes to food purchased, prepared and served.  I like my meals served in a sparkly clean restaurant, humble or elegant. Any food is fine and just dandy with me as long as I feel assured I will survive the meal (or not die during the night after I eat it).  I also am really/really careful about dairy products since I was almost assassinated by a cream puff as a young lad in Washington State growing up to become the ¨Norteamericano¨that I now am.  Enough about me.  

I have met the enemy and it has taken me over.  I am a lost soul. It's name:  Empanada de Leche (still hot and filled with a creamy sweet/thick milk in a delicateish pie crust and sprinkled with raw sugar).  Surely las empanadas will kill me because, just after two Sundays (the day of the really good ones prepared and sold to families wandering the plazas and calles) I am fully hooked.  

Have mercy on me, I'm a gonner.  How could this be happening to me after I have been so very, very good?  So charming, such a nice guy with good manners (mostly). No doubt some kind of brujaria has come down and possessed me...some unknown evil sugar goddess has grabbed me and insists that I pay full attention to her cookeriaja.  

Come see me. We will investigate this grave matter and besides that, I'll share (maybe). 

 Leonardo Ricardo on a chilly Sunday night at the foot of the Fuego volcano. 

BE MY NEIGHBOR IN PARADISE: Boutique Coffee Finca ¨Los Nietos¨ For SALE outside of Antigua,Guatemala (active volcanos not nearby)

Published on Jan 14, 2014

¨On our Organic coffee farm we grow the world famous Arabica coffee, known for its fine aroma and flavor. Arabica coffee only grows at high altitudes close to the equator.

The coffee farm faces south at the foot of Volcano Agua. The rich volcanic soil nourishes four varieties of Arabic coffee trees and our beautiful botanical gardens. Our visitors agree with us that Finca Los Nietos is a paradise and the most unique place in Guatemala where you can see coffee grown, processed, roasted, packaged and sold.¨ 

Raul Freyre,  contact at facebook

http://www.facebook.com/christina.raul

christina.raul@yahoo.com

JANE MASON: ¨Friend or foe, I don't know¨*

¨Friend or Foe, I Don´t Know¨  Leonardo Ricardo, 2014

Recently I started painting ceramic plates, huge pots and large format paintings portraying exotic faces.   Faces from afar. I used a style of mine from over two decades ago that I simply called Maya. 

Maya Geometrics is my own, folkloric version of cubism and it is inspired because it seems to fly-through-all-time Guatemala in my mind...from pre-Columbian era until after the Spanish invasion and right now. The indigenous people of Guatemala are a deeply spiritual,  brilliant, creative and colorful peoples.  A fabulous multi-cultural-ethnic group with different backgrounds, languages but yet, who all celebrate, initiate and purify life as life arrives before them (joyfully or sorrowfilled) in a passionate and similar manner.   

After I lived in Guatemala a few years I noticed the atmosphere was thick with the Maya spirit, both now and from before now, and that spirit was quite ¨fealable¨ and  it impacted my life and the lives of those around me.  My whole of reality was impacted by the Maya.  

My earliest intention was to combine every mood, surprise, shock and stunning awareness that came into me from the land of this daily mystery and magic.  I wanted to paint many clammouring faces that seemed just below the surface of everyday life....faces that needed to get out.  Faces that wanted to be seen (and heard?). Faces that emerged at the foot of the Fuego volcano. 

Guatemala is the land of deep and sacred beliefs.  Spiritual awareness, customs and costumed/masked rituals often leave me speechless and in awe of this world around me.  Speechless, but with some understanding of the earliest moments of life that were born here. 

There is far more to the ¨Land of the Eternal Spring¨ than could ever meet the eye...but, I will try.

Faces painted on Totonicopan apaste, photo Elizabeth Bell
Leonardo Ricardo

Leonardo Ricardo 
Sacatepequez, Guatemala
Central America

*Thanks to Jane Mason, South Africa

THE WORLD AROUND ME: The Tikal Ciudad Maya (gorgeous and real)

Published on Jan 4, 2014

Uno de los reinos más poderosos de los antiguos mayas, es la mejor ciudad de las tierras bajas de Mesoamérica.

Thanks to YouTube

Thanks to AerialVideoG
Thanks to Elizabeth Bell, Antigua Tours

HAPPY NEW YEAR: With thanks and gratitude I send each of you ¨un gran abrazo¨ from the land of the Maya!

The Fuego Volcano, Sacatepequez, Guatemala

Last night there was a little celebration.  It was with a group of friends.   I had the opportunity to share the events of my life over the last 35 years of sobriety.  Now I am 70 years old, 35 years  sober represents half of my life.

My own real life experience has been one of being fortunate in most respects.  My parents were loving, providing, hospitable and kind people.  I come from a whole long line of English people on both sides of my family.  My mothers family go all the way back to the earliest colonists of Conneticut after immigrating from England.  Mom's name is the well known name of many early settlers of that colony who then became noteable citizens of the State of Conneticut.

My father and his family came directly from Yorkshire, in England and I am first generation American on my fathers side.  A name amongst millions of English people named the same name. In Latin America I use all three names.  I like having both my parents names incorporated into my name.

Since my retirement at age 62 I have lived at the foot of the ¨Volcan de Fuego¨ in a small village in the Department of Sacatepequez, near Antigua, Guatemala.  I have an art studio in the living room of my home and all my furniture is painted by me. My life is colorful, it always has been.  I live in a rented/cozy and modest house amongst  birds chirping, four dogs barking and lots of religious processions that go right down the Calle Real which happens to be just outside my front door.  I am one of just a few ¨Norte Americanos¨ who live in this town.  

When I got up early this morning I was already greeted with New Years holiday well-wishers from around the World at facebook and email. Tomorrow will be 2014 and I will have lived to see it. No doubt there will be no confusion about when the New Year arrives in this little tiny of patch of human clustering as there will be lots of fireworks.   Fireworks and ¨bombas¨ (they´ve started already) that will take us through the night. Yes, all night.  Already I hear Mexican Ranchera music playing from concert sized speakers placed in the many ¨plazalitos¨ around town.  The beat goes on and by tomorrow morning, this same time, it will finally stop...exhausted but happy, the folks of San Miguel will have brought the New Year in  with a bang! 

Life around me truly astounds me.  It, life, always has.

I send you my warmest and best greetings from the foot of the volcano. May peace, happiness and good health be with you in the New Year, 2014.  I feel the love from those of you  that have touched my life both now and before now...you have been generous to me and you have made me glad and I love you.

With thanks and gratitude I send each of you ¨un gran abrazo¨ from the land of the Maya on New Years Eve,

Leonardo Ricardo

UPDATE -- ARCHBISHOP STANLEY NTAGALI OF UGANDA and GAFCON: Go jump in Lake Victoria (and clean off your filthy spittle)

GAFCON ¨Obsessed with sex¨ at Nairobi Conference 

http://leonardoricardosanto.blogspot.com/2013/11/acnaanglican-global-south-obsessed-with.html

¨The Church of England is now recommending that same-sex relationships be blessed in the church....¨  Archbishop Stanley/Uganda

From Thinking Anglicans

Friday, 27 December 2013

More on Pilling from Uganda and elsewhere

Archbishop Stanley Ntagali of Uganda has criticised the Pilling report in his Christmas Message:

…We believe the Bible is the authoritative Word of God and trustworthy to tell us the Truth. Unfortunately, some in the Anglican Communion members no longer believe the Bible is the infallible Word of God. That’s why I and other Archbishops from the Global South, Sydney, and the Anglican Church in North America organized the second Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON)* in October in Nairobi. We were altogether 1358 delegates worldwide. These included 169 delegates from Uganda. We are so determined to refuse anything that contradicts the Biblical authority without fear or compromise. I appeal to all Ugandans to join us in this struggle to protect our God given rights.
We are very concerned that our mother Church of England is moving in a very dangerous direction. They are following the path the Americans in the Episcopal Church took that caused us to break communion with them ten years ago.
The Church of England is now recommending that same-sex relationships be blessed in the church. Even though they are our mother, I want you to know that we cannot and we will not go in that direction. We will resist them and, with our other GAFCON brothers and sisters, will stand with those in the Church of England who continue to uphold the Bible as the Word of God and promote Biblical faith and morality…

Thanks to Thinking Anglicans, sidebar 

TO GAFCON:  Stop instigating hate at the Anglican Communion

GAFCONS WELCOME ¨OBSESSED WITH SEX¨ IN NAIROBI:

http://leonardoricardosanto.blogspot.com/2013/11/acnaanglican-global-south-obsessed-with.html

HATE UPDATE: 

Anti-homosexuality legislation in Nigeria and Uganda

http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/006375.html

FROM FATHER CHRISTIAN TROLL: 

http://gafcon.blogspot.com/2013/12/stanley-ngtali-gafcon-priorities-in.html
FROM THE UNITED NATIONS
http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/faith_and_terror/un_uganda_antigay_law_violates.html

35 YEARS OF CONTINOUS SOBRIETY: ¨Thirty five years of God helping me encounter reality and the authentic in me¨ Leonardo Ricardo´s Christmas Story

My active alcoholism was lifted on December 13, 1978

I just celebrated my 35th year of continous sobriety. I didn't know how to not drink when I got sober at age 35. My life changed. It took a year for me to see better...I hated being sober but I was trapped, I was at the falling off place. I thought I knew I would be better but I didn't know how to live in/with reality. Strangers helped me. Strangers became friends, they were like me. Climbing down from the smoky balcony and sitting in the front row of my own life has been breathtaking and startling to me...I liked spotlights or dark better. At first I just held on, tried to be quiet (never easy for me), knowing that there was something inside of me that I could almost touch...some nights I would touch that place and think it my Soul. It's deep inside...it isn't available always for me to touch with my head or heart as I get busy insisting or demanding life be different than it really is. My Soul likes life as it really is, it likes me touching life (and sometimes even making love to life)...not easy sometimes for a sober, real human being, who I discovered was the real me.

35 Years of clairty:

Fun/not, shy/bold, young/old, love/lust, found/lost, fear/fearless, hate/happy, healthy/ill, buff/fat, rich/not, popular/avoided, talented/restrained, traveled/reclusive, admired/scorned, trusted/maybe...reality just takes some getting used to. 

I still am growing toward Gods will for me but I think God just wants me to be the authentic me and go with it. Go with life. My Soul knows who I am better than me. 

I send you love and I send you my best/sparkly/glittery holiday friendship to family, friends, loved/beloved ones and to all of you I don't even know. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all from the foot of the Fuego Volcano  (and kisses to those whom I love but have gone on before me)

At the foot of the Fuego volcano

Leonardo Ricardo
Sacatepequez, Guatemala, Central America
Christmas Eve, 2013

UGANDAS GIFT OF HATE THAT KEEPS ON GIVING: Ugandan Parliament passes bill that could mean gays face life in prison

Uganda’s Parliament has passed the country’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

The bill increases the penalty for other acts – including mere sexual touching – from seven years to life imprisonment.

Promoting homosexuality and aiding and abetting others to commit same-sex acts will be punishable by five to seven years in jail.

A person in authority – gay or heterosexual – who fails to report violators to the police within 24 hours will be sentenced to three years behind bars.

A clause which included the death penalty for some offences has been dropped.

The bill was first introduced in 2009 by MP David Bahati

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2013/12/20/ugandan-parliament-passes-anti-homosexuality-bill/

President Museveni of Uganda

Activists urge Ugandan President not to sign Anti-Homosexuality Bill into law

Campaigners are calling on Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni not to sign the country’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill into law, following today’s vote by the Uganda Parliament.

On Friday, MPs passed legislation to toughen the punishment for same-sex sexual activity, including life imprisonment for ‘repeat offenders’.  

The bill increases the penalty for other acts – including mere sexual touching – from seven years to life imprisonment.

Promoting homosexuality and aiding and abetting others to commit same-sex acts will be punishable by five to seven years in jail.

A person in authority – gay or heterosexual – who fails to report violators to the police within 24 hours will be sentenced to three years behind bars.

Ugandan Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi is said to have opposed the parliamentary vote – and attention is now on President Yoweri Museveni to see if he will sign the bill into law...there is more, thanks to Pink News U.K.: 

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2013/12/20/activists-urge-ugandan-president-not-to-sign-anti-homosexuality-bill-into-law/

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: The Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs adopted the recommendation for a roadmap to tackle homophobia and discrimination based on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity.

¨A European Parliamentary committee this morning adopted a recommendation for an EU roadmap against homophobia and transphobia.

The Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs adopted the recommendation for a roadmap to tackle homophobia and discrimination based on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Today’s report builds on ten previous requests by the European Parliament over three years to roll out an equality strategy for LGBT people.

Similar strategies already exist for Roma integration, gender equality and discrimination.

The report today, which is non-binding, calls on the commission to make proposals for the areas of employment, education, health and access to goods and services.

In May, eleven EU member states expressed support for such a roadmap...please read it all, thanks to Pink News, United Kingdom

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2013/12/17/european-parliamentary-committee-adopts-roadmap-against-homophobia-and-transphobia/