Letters for Sept. 15, 2015

Letters for Sept. 15, 2015

Swim meet was a success

Mahalo Kauai for making the Mokihana Aquatics Fun Meet 2015 another great success. This was our 27th year. With more than 100 individual and business sponsors we could not possibly name them all, but all were instrumental in continuing to make our meet the best swim meet in Hawaii nei.

Personal mahalo to our coaching staff: Jeff Rahill, Bo Domingcil, and Kelsey Tanaka, and to our board: Jim Rosa, Cathy Shimabukuro, Adam Trepte, Rochelle Keoho, and Maile Silva. Special thanks to County of Kauai Economic Development, the Kauai Mayor’s Office, Parks and Recreation Department, Kapaa and Waimea Neighborhood Center managers, and to Jeremy Haupt, Aquatics supervisor and his staff.

Kudos to our own MokiOhana, our group of parents who have bent over backwards for their kids, for swimming on Kauai, for the island, and for Hawaii swimming. Mahalo to all the teams from Hawaii Island, Maui, Oahu, Kauai, and our friends from California.

Thank you also to the East Kauai Lions Club, Waimea Junior ROTC, and the Kauai High School Key Club. We utilized over 100 volunteers each day. With such a successful meet we wonder if we can match it next year, but like coach Tom Matsumoto from Maui Swim Club said, “Just watch next year, it will be better.”

Mahalo all Kauai for your support of Kauai’s team, Mokihana Aquatics, Kauai’s Best.

Me ke aloha pumehana.

Orlando S. Anaya

President/head coach

Mokihana Aquatics

Need updates on developments

Requesting updates on several development issues here on the south side. Families and ranchers affected, majestic old monkey pod trees were cut down, and yet no progress, no timeline.

1. Koloa Camp, Grove Farm low-cost housing: mess of abandoned shacks, weeds and grass.

2. Shops at Koloa Town: Trees gone, dust fence posts still up, full of weeds, grass. No shops.

3. Dairy farm at Mahalepu: Local ranch families affected but no dairy, no updates.

Stories about these projects were all over news months (years?) ago, now nothing. Would appreciate the newspaper checking with developers, answers please. Sad looking everyday at abandoned mess.

Linda Antipala

Koloa

Love takes precedence over religious rules

This letter is prompted by news stories that a pastor let a religious belief compel them to deny some citizens to have the same privileges that law gives to heterosexual unions.

I grew up under a fundamentalist Lutheran minister who rejected my gender at birth. Your belief that “God” didn’t accept such unions was my belief system based on only one verse in the Old Testament. I adhered to my father’s beliefs and competed with six brothers for his approval. I was taught the Bible was without error and that revelation ended there. Such was the patriarch’s 5,000 years of power and control which is now ending. What is true in scripture was Jesus bringing in a God of love, not judgment.

Experience and many years of prayer, plus channeled books like “A Course in Miracles,” “The Magdalene Mystery” and “Anna, Grandmother of Jesus,” changed all that for me. Patriarchal religions have taught separation — separation from creator source, from nature, from each other and from our true self. Jesus, as Jeshua in current teachings says that all our misery comes from “our belief in separation.” God within, as the voice of love, in every human being takes precedence over the rules of any religion.

Is the couple’s intent to have a loving relationship commitment recognized by the powers that be for the legal protective benefits that go with it?

Honor this voice of love within you to allow what you or I would not do, if their choice does not violate anyone else’s freedom of choice.

We are many expressions of the one self. This oneness is found in the open and awakened heart, not in the controlled mind. Jesus/Jeshua also says, “Let the Heart be the Master and the Mind becomes a useful servant. May this become true for you, and many who hold the vision of a new Earth.

Petra Sundheim

Lihue