: About Me

My name is DEONILS, or simply DEO. I love poetry, but I do want to improve as a non-fiction, fiction and Christian writer. My first submission - today, on September 18, 2007 - is therefore a combination of expository writing and poetry. In fact I self-published a book of essays and poems titled "UNAMERICAN EDUCATION: POETRY AND POLITICS."

I was invited by a friend here. LINDA IRISH (Irishcharmer) and I met on another blog site and became fast friends with similar, spiritual outlooks. We have helped and encouraged each other. I hope you will read and encourage her with constructive criticism. (From what she has told me already, she respects everyone's talents and skills here on HELIUM.)

My article, in the category RELIGION & SPIRITUALITY, has to do with finding a solution to the fact that happiness is never guaranteed to anyone of us. I think all religions give us basic ethics that promote coexistence among people and Nature. My religion, therefore, is first and foremost about Ethics, even if summarized in the Ten Commandments. Where I differ from others in this nod to the Judeo-Christian traditions is that "THOU SHALT NOT KILL" is not negotiable for me. We cannot demand of, and celebrate with, South Africans and South Americans, the forgiving of their genocidal rulers, yet allow ourselves to kill heads of states and promote civil wars when and where we choose (usually where only darker races live). It is not a case of double standards as much as playing around with the sacred TEN COMMANDMENTS: the stricture against killing is consonant with Gandhi and King's interpretations. It is a broad commandment, not to kill or murder any form of life. If this means vegetarianism, the planet will breathe happier and so will future generations. Shalom, in Jesus-Amen-Paz

My passion is ...

words that carve and shape reality lovingly

I know too much about ...

African history, South Asian culture ... not enough about Jesus

My parents always told me ...

be good, do good

My childhood ambition ...

was becoming a lawyer

My favorite memory ...

along the rivers of South Africa...catching crabs, and climbing up mango trees

Why I write ...

no one can make me stop!

What I am reading/watching/listening to ...

mostly on the Bible, some on organic farming (plus US history-Founding Fathers)

My first job ...

teaching assistant when i was a senior (1980)

My best moment ...

when I produced a play & my students got a standing O (1981)

My inspiration ...

Jesus Christ and Friendships that are free, spiritual and uses both ears

Arts & Humanities > International Writers & Literature Book reviews: Cry, The Beloved Country, by Alan Paton

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BOOK REVIEW: CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY, by A. Paton Alan Paton, author and liberal politician, died in his native South Africa in 1992. He died a happier man than when he had witnessed the Nationalist Party, Afrikaner-dominated rightwing white supremacists, win election after election since 1948, that same year his wonderful novel about uber-segregation was first published. Paton died happy in the knowledge that Nelson Mandela had been freed, at last, after 27 years as the "guest" of the apartheid government on a barren, windswept island near Cape Town. The author had spent his life ministe...

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