Everyday Canvas

December 14

For "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" 
Prompt: What do we mean by the word “indulgences”? What may common indulgences be, and do you have any indulgences?

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It depends from which stand one addresses this question. From the psychological point of view, an indulgence can border on what hedonism and self-centeredness might be. Thus, an indulgence can be overlooking someone else’s self-pleasing actions like eating too many sweets or allowing oneself such or similar an action. When one self-indulges like that, they obtain the object of their desire up front without any regard to the cost of it, be it physical, psychological, or financial. Since most addicts become addicts by letting themselves enjoy such temporary ecstasies, which in turn become addictions, any indulgence should be treated with caution.

Some people mix indulgence with self-nurturing, but they are not the same things. When people self-nurture, they take care of themselves in a loving, prudent, and respectful way, say when they are feeling down, by eating a piece of chocolate but not repeatedly overdoing it.

As far as the word indulgences go, Roman Catholicism has had a different take on it.The church announced, at one time, that it would accept prepayment or confession for the absolution of future minor sins or a sort of amnesty for afterlife and called it Indulgences. The history of Indulgences goes far back into the First Crusade.

Then, according to the America magazine, close to our time, it was: “On Jan. 1, 1967, Paul VI issued the apostolic constitution Indulgentiarum Doctrina, a long instruction that was a modest reworking of the medieval teaching on indulgences. It ended with 22 norms on the doctrine and some relatively modest revisions of the practice. The definition of indulgences the pope gave is quoted verbatim in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven.”

In our day, according to Simply Catholic, it is accepted as: “Indulgences can be applied only to the punishment that is due for sins already forgiven, either in sacramental confession (in the case of mortal or venial sins) or by personal expressions of sorrow (in the case of venial sins only).”

For: "Space Blog" 

Prompt: From afinger83’s "Invalid Item" 
Write about acts of kindness.

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From my point of view, acts of kindness are giving from oneself to others or doing something nice for someone else without any expectations.

Kindness in itself is mostly a behavior or an action. It has nothing to do with a feeling such as gratitude or the wish for reciprocation. It doesn’t matter to whom kindnesses are shown.

Acts of kindness can cause recipients feel loved and can raise their self-esteem and optimism. Acts of kindness also offer positive results to the people who show such kindnesses. It is been said that the people who volunteer their time or money for charitable causes often have better immunity and fewer aches and pains.

I believe, however, that most of the time, kindnesses are shown by positive functioning people who are themselves satisfied with life and who may experience little or no negative emotions. Those who are experiencing serious griefs or anxieties and can still show a good number of kindnesses are probably saints walking among us.