Pope's Easter Message Urges Peace in Africa, Middle East

 Sabina Castelfranco | Rome ?April 24, 2011

Pope Benedict XVI delivers his blessing during the 'Urbi et Orbi' (Latin for to the City and to the World) message from the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican, April 24, 2011

Tens of thousands of worshippers attended Easter Mass in Saint Peter’s Square Sunday. In his message to the world, Pope Benedict prayed for victims of conflicts in Ivory Coast and other African countries and called for an end to the fighting in Libya.

Easter Sunday brings to an end a very busy Holy Week for the 84-year-old Pope Benedict. Worshippers of all ages and nationalities attended Easter mass Sunday.? For those in the square it is a very special time.

"To be here at Easter time is renewal, it’s refreshing and its looking ahead no matter what is happening in the world," says this worshipper. "It’s very, very crowded but what I think is really, really neat about it is there are people from all over the world. I like it because it is kind of an international conglomeration of people coming together."

At the end of the mass, the pope delivered his papal address to the city of Rome and to the world, known as the "Urbi et Orbi,"? from the central balcony of Saint Peter’s Basilica.

The pope asked for help for those fleeing conflict and for refugees from various African countries, particularly Libya and Ivory Coast, who have been forced to leave their homes. The pope urged people of good will to open their hearts to welcome them.

The pope also turned his thoughts to Japan and other countries that in recent months have been tested by natural disasters, which have sown pain and anguish.

Pope Benedict then gave his Easter greetings and blessings to the faithful around the world in more that 60 different languages.?

The Saturday Profile: An Evangelical Preacher’s Message Catches Fire in Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine

EVERY Sunday, thousands of worshipers crowd into an arena here for a rollicking evangelical Christian service. A choir and rock band belt out gospel tunes in Russian. People sing along and clap and shimmy in the aisles. They dash up to the stage for a chance to grab the microphone and declare how their new faith has changed their lives.

It is as if a Sunbelt megachurch had been transplanted to Kiev, birthplace of Slavic Orthodoxy, land of onion-domed cathedrals and incense-shrouded icons. But the preacher at the podium has little if any connection to the United States. Could there be a more unlikely success story in the former Soviet Union than the Rev. Sunday Adelaja, an immigrant from Nigeria who has developed an ardent — and enormous — following across Ukraine?

From his start with a prayer group in a ramshackle apartment soon after the Soviet collapse two decades ago, Mr. Adelaja has built a vast religious organization under the banner of his church, Embassy of God. He has become one of Ukraine’s best known public figures, advocating a Christianity that pairs evangelical tenets with an up-from-the-bootstraps philosophy found in religiously oriented self-help books. (Several of which Mr. Adelaja has published.)

He has throngs of admirers, but is also reviled by some in the Ukrainian establishment who resent a black man from Africa luring white Slavs away from their religious traditions. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church calls him a cult leader, and law enforcement officials have repeatedly investigated him, once accusing him of involvement in a pyramid scheme. Around Kiev, it is not hard to find racial caricatures of him.

The Russian government, too, has taken offense, barring him from entering the country, though he has a growing number of adherents in Russia. Mr. Adelaja said he believed that he was declared persona non grata because he was a staunch supporter of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the pro-Western uprising in 2004 that the Kremlin opposed.

MR. Adelaja, who has a boisterous laugh and a relentlessly sunny personality, tries to brush aside the insults. He said his church’s popularity showed that Ukrainians were on a spiritual quest after having weathered the state-mandated atheism of the Soviet era. He said that more than 100,000 people attended services regularly at the main arena in Kiev or his affiliates across Ukraine, which has a population of 46 million.

“I came to this country disadvantaged as a black person,” he said in an interview, adding that he was blistered with slurs and epithets. “But still, with all my disadvantages, with my accented Russian language, I went out and said, ‘Hey, this will help you.’ And people have responded to it.”

Mr. Adelaja, 43, arrived in the Soviet Union in 1986 as a college student, then stayed after the Soviet collapse in 1991, later moving to Kiev. His wife, Bose, is also Nigerian and often conducts services at the church. They speak fluent Russian, which is the native language for many here and is understood by most speakers of Ukrainian, the country’s other main language.

Embassy of God has sprouted affiliates throughout the world, and Mr. Adelaja has been praised by some American evangelicals for bringing their brand of Christianity to the former Soviet Union.

In Ukraine, Embassy of God undertakes a wide array of charitable activities, feeding thousands of people a month at soup kitchens and running treatment centers for alcohol and drug addiction. But it has also thrived because Mr. Adelaja has tapped into a desire of people in formerly Communist countries to learn entrepreneurial skills and make money.

Mr. Adelaja did not study in the United States, but says he has learned from the teachings of American pastors. His views sometimes reflect the so-called prosperity gospel — a belief among some strains of evangelical Christianity that God wants the faithful to attain material wealth.

On a recent Saturday night here, Mr. Adelaja conducted a seminar with a few dozen people in a church annex. Reading from an iPad, he recited passages from the Bible and discussed how Christian principles could assist in business.

Mr. Adelaja and a parishioner, Ishtvan Birov, 35, bantered about how to innovate in life, personally and professionally. The conversation veered from Jesus to Steve Jobs, the Apple chief executive, back to Jesus again.

“Apple takes a model and keeps improving on it,” Mr. Birov said.

Mr. Adelaja responded, “That is the principle of God — to always keep making it better.”

He added, “God is strategy, God is strategic thinking.”

 

The Saturday Profile: An Evangelical Preacher’s Message Catches Fire in Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine

EVERY Sunday, thousands of worshipers crowd into an arena here for a rollicking evangelical Christian service. A choir and rock band belt out gospel tunes in Russian. People sing along and clap and shimmy in the aisles. They dash up to the stage for a chance to grab the microphone and declare how their new faith has changed their lives.

It is as if a Sunbelt megachurch had been transplanted to Kiev, birthplace of Slavic Orthodoxy, land of onion-domed cathedrals and incense-shrouded icons. But the preacher at the podium has little if any connection to the United States. Could there be a more unlikely success story in the former Soviet Union than the Rev. Sunday Adelaja, an immigrant from Nigeria who has developed an ardent — and enormous — following across Ukraine?

From his start with a prayer group in a ramshackle apartment soon after the Soviet collapse two decades ago, Mr. Adelaja has built a vast religious organization under the banner of his church, Embassy of God. He has become one of Ukraine’s best known public figures, advocating a Christianity that pairs evangelical tenets with an up-from-the-bootstraps philosophy found in religiously oriented self-help books. (Several of which Mr. Adelaja has published.)

He has throngs of admirers, but is also reviled by some in the Ukrainian establishment who resent a black man from Africa luring white Slavs away from their religious traditions. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church calls him a cult leader, and law enforcement officials have repeatedly investigated him, once accusing him of involvement in a pyramid scheme. Around Kiev, it is not hard to find racial caricatures of him.

The Russian government, too, has taken offense, barring him from entering the country, though he has a growing number of adherents in Russia. Mr. Adelaja said he believed that he was declared persona non grata because he was a staunch supporter of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the pro-Western uprising in 2004 that the Kremlin opposed.

MR. Adelaja, who has a boisterous laugh and a relentlessly sunny personality, tries to brush aside the insults. He said his church’s popularity showed that Ukrainians were on a spiritual quest after having weathered the state-mandated atheism of the Soviet era. He said that more than 100,000 people attended services regularly at the main arena in Kiev or his affiliates across Ukraine, which has a population of 46 million.

“I came to this country disadvantaged as a black person,” he said in an interview, adding that he was blistered with slurs and epithets. “But still, with all my disadvantages, with my accented Russian language, I went out and said, ‘Hey, this will help you.’ And people have responded to it.”

Mr. Adelaja, 43, arrived in the Soviet Union in 1986 as a college student, then stayed after the Soviet collapse in 1991, later moving to Kiev. His wife, Bose, is also Nigerian and often conducts services at the church. They speak fluent Russian, which is the native language for many here and is understood by most speakers of Ukrainian, the country’s other main language.

Embassy of God has sprouted affiliates throughout the world, and Mr. Adelaja has been praised by some American evangelicals for bringing their brand of Christianity to the former Soviet Union.

In Ukraine, Embassy of God undertakes a wide array of charitable activities, feeding thousands of people a month at soup kitchens and running treatment centers for alcohol and drug addiction. But it has also thrived because Mr. Adelaja has tapped into a desire of people in formerly Communist countries to learn entrepreneurial skills and make money.

Mr. Adelaja did not study in the United States, but says he has learned from the teachings of American pastors. His views sometimes reflect the so-called prosperity gospel — a belief among some strains of evangelical Christianity that God wants the faithful to attain material wealth.

On a recent Saturday night here, Mr. Adelaja conducted a seminar with a few dozen people in a church annex. Reading from an iPad, he recited passages from the Bible and discussed how Christian principles could assist in business.

Mr. Adelaja and a parishioner, Ishtvan Birov, 35, bantered about how to innovate in life, personally and professionally. The conversation veered from Jesus to Steve Jobs, the Apple chief executive, back to Jesus again.

“Apple takes a model and keeps improving on it,” Mr. Birov said.

Mr. Adelaja responded, “That is the principle of God — to always keep making it better.”

He added, “God is strategy, God is strategic thinking.”

 

Bits: Message to Executives: Stop Multitasking

I spent the last year reporting and writing about the effects of heavy technology use on the brain. It figures that I’d suffer some of them myself.

In the wash of information I looked at for our series, “Your Brain On Computers,” I missed the publication in January of? “Recovering from Information Overload,” an article that advises corporate executives on the “perils of multitasking.”

The article cites various studies in arguing that multitasking slows down production, hampers creativity, makes people anxious and can be addictive. But what’s particularly noteworthy is the source: McKinsey Quarterly, a publication from the worldwide consulting firm.

This article was written by and for hard-charging corporate people — not researchers, theoreticians or nut-and-berry eaters singing Kumbaya and urging everyone to just slow down, man.

“Always on, multitasking work environments are killing productivity, dampening creativity, and making us unhappy,” the article begins. It goes on to say that “these scourges hit CEO’s and others in the C-suite particularly hard” because senior executives need time and focus to synthesize lots of information, and make good judgments.

In pithy fashion, the article urges executives to cope by Focusing (do one thing at a time), Filtering (delegating so that you don’t take on too many tasks or too much information) and Forgetting (read: exercise, take breaks, clear your head).

“Addressing information overload takes enormous self-discipline,” the article reads.

Of course, if executives are multitasking as much as the authors suggest (and as I apparently am), they probably missed the article.

 

Papercraft Wall-E checks email, dances a jig when new message arrives

By Darren Murph posted September 22nd 2009 1:42PM We've seen our fair share of Wall-E mods over the months, and yes, we've also seen an impressive papercraft creation or two. But frankly, we've never, ever seen a papercraft Wall-E, let alone a papercraft Wall-E that serves a purpose. TotoroYamada took the time to concoct what he describes as his own personal Mail-E, a servo-equipped paper robot that's programed to check his inbox every few seconds and bust a move when a new message arrives. Cuteness overload is in full effect -- just peek the videos after the break if you've any doubts.

 

Papercraft Wall-E checks email, dances a jig when new message arrives

By Darren Murph posted September 22nd 2009 1:42PM We've seen our fair share of Wall-E mods over the months, and yes, we've also seen an impressive papercraft creation or two. But frankly, we've never, ever seen a papercraft Wall-E, let alone a papercraft Wall-E that serves a purpose. TotoroYamada took the time to concoct what he describes as his own personal Mail-E, a servo-equipped paper robot that's programed to check his inbox every few seconds and bust a move when a new message arrives. Cuteness overload is in full effect -- just peek the videos after the break if you've any doubts.