Living in the Midst of a Battleground: The War in Syria
Life comes to us with many simple yet essential blessings whose value we often forget about until we no longer have them. We take such blessings as water to drink, food to eat, talking to someone freely or even simply taking a walk; we take them for granted until we have them no more. This is one of the faces of the war. It shows itself by taking away from normal people the essentials of life. How does a war start? How does it grow to last for years? How is it that in our lifetime, we, the citizens of the earth, have not yet found a way to extend a hand to stop it, to transform it? Not yet. The war in Syria has been going on for over two years. It is now extending beyond Syria. Thousands of people have died. Thousands of people have become homeless and are in danger of dying. Read more
Generally knowledge is acquired through experience. Often it results from our having perceived a pattern: every day, at predictable times, the sun rises and sets. Therefore, I know that the sun rises and sets on a daily basis. I also know, either from close observation or from the observations of others, that there is a gradual shift of the point on the horizon at which it rises or sets, and that this shift from one extreme to the other and back takes a year to complete. Generally knowledge is related to the past and is founded on past experience.