കോട്ടയം : കേരളത്തിന്റെ സംഗീത ചരിത്രത്തില്‍ ആദ്യമായി ,സംഗീതത്തെ സമാധാനത്തിന്റെയും മാനവിക ഐക്യത്തിന്റെയും ശക്തമായ സന്ദേശമാക്കി മാറ്റുന്ന പുതിയ സംഗീതസൃഷ്ടിയുമായി സംഗീതജ്ഞനും ലോകസമാധാന പ്രവര്‍ത്തകനുമായ ഡോ. സണ്ണി സ്റ്റീഫന്റെ സിംഫണി – ‘ഹൃദയങ്ങള്‍ ഒന്നിക്കുന്നു”, റിലീസ് ചെയ്തു.
ലോകത്തിന്റെ വിവിധ ഭാഗങ്ങളിലുള്ള മനുഷ്യഹൃദയങ്ങളെ സംഗീതത്തിലൂടെ ഒന്നിപ്പിക്കുക എന്നതാണ് ഈ സംരംഭത്തിലൂടെ ലക്ഷ്യംവെയ്ക്കുന്നത്.

”ഒരു ഹൃദയം •-ഒരു ലോകം ‘ എന്ന സന്ദേശമാണ് സംഗീതസംരംഭത്തിന്റെ കേന്ദ്രബിന്ദു. സമാധാനം, മനുഷ്യസേവനം, സംഗീതത്തിലൂടെയുള്ള ഐക്യം, ലോകസാഹോദര്യം എന്നിവയെ ഒരേ സംഗീത ഭാവത്തില്‍ അവതരിപ്പിക്കുകയാണ് സിംഫണിയുടെ ലക്ഷ്യം.

സംഗീതത്തിന് ഭാഷയുടെയും മതത്തിന്റെയും ജാതിയുടെയും ദേശത്തിന്റെയും അതിരുകള്‍ മറികടന്ന് മനുഷ്യരെ ഒന്നിപ്പിക്കാനുള്ള അതുല്യമായ ശക്തിയുണ്ടെന്ന വിശ്വാസമാണ് ഡോ. സണ്ണി സ്റ്റീഫന്‍ ചിട്ടപ്പെടുത്തിയ ഈ സൃഷ്ടിയുടെ അടിസ്ഥാനം. യുദ്ധവും വിദ്വേഷവും സംഘര്‍ഷങ്ങളും നിറഞ്ഞ ലോകത്ത് സ്‌നേഹത്തിന്റെയും സമാധാനത്തിന്റെയും മാനവികതയുടെയും സന്ദേശം സംഗീതത്തിലൂടെ പകരുക എന്നതാണ് ഈ സിംഫണിയുടെ പ്രധാന ദൗത്യം.

ലോകസമാധാനത്തിനും മനുഷ്യസേവനത്തിനുമായി പ്രവര്‍ത്തിക്കുന്ന വേള്‍ഡ് പീസ് മിഷന്റെ സ്ഥാപകനും , ചെയര്‍മാനും സംഗീതജ്ഞനുമായ ഡോ. സണ്ണി സ്റ്റീഫന്‍, സംഗീതത്തെ തന്റെ സാമൂഹികവും മാനവികവുമായ ദര്‍ശനവുമായി ബന്ധിപ്പിച്ചാണ് ഈ സൃഷ്ടി അവതരിപ്പിക്കുന്നത്.

സിംഫണിയുടെ ആവിഷ്‌കാരത്തിലൂടെ സമാധാനം, മനുഷ്യസേവനം, ഐക്യത്തിനായുള്ള സംഗീതം, ഒരു ഹൃദയം ഒരു ലോകം എന്നീ നാല് ആശയങ്ങള്‍ക്കും പ്രത്യേക പ്രാധാന്യം നല്‍കിയിട്ടുണ്ട്. സംഗീതം, കേള്‍ക്കാനുള്ള ഒരു കലാരൂപം മാത്രമല്ലെന്നും, മനുഷ്യഹൃദയങ്ങളെ ബന്ധിപ്പിക്കുകയും സമൂഹത്തില്‍ സമാധാനത്തിന്റെ സന്ദേശം വളര്‍ത്തുകയും ചെയ്യുന്ന ശക്തിയാണെന്നും ഈ സൃഷ്ടി ഓര്‍മ്മപ്പെടുത്തുന്നു.

ഡോ. സണ്ണി സ്റ്റീഫന്റെ ദര്‍ശനം
സംഗീതത്തിലൂടെ ഹൃദയങ്ങളെ ഒന്നിപ്പിക്കുകയും മനുഷ്യസ്‌നേഹത്തിലൂടെ ലോകത്തെ കൂടുതല്‍ സമാധാനപരമാക്കുകയും ചെയ്യുക എന്നതാണ് ഈ സിംഫണിയുടെ വിശാലമായ ആശയം.

സംഗീതത്തിലൂടെ സമാധാനം എന്ന ലക്ഷ്യമാണ് ഈ സിംഫണിയിലൂടെ വിളംബരം ചെയ്യുന്നത്.
സംഗീതത്തെ സമാധാനത്തിന്റെ ഭാഷയാക്കി മാറ്റാനുള്ള ഈ ശ്രമം കലാരംഗത്തും സാമൂഹിക-മാനവിക പ്രവര്‍ത്തനരംഗത്തും ശ്രദ്ധേയമായ ഒരു സംരംഭമായി മാറുകയാണ്. മനുഷ്യഹൃദയങ്ങള്‍ തമ്മിലുള്ള അകലം കുറച്ച് സ്‌നേഹത്തിന്റെയും സഹോദര്യത്തിന്റെയും സമാധാനത്തിന്റെയും ഒരു പുതിയ ലോകം സൃഷ്ടിക്കാനുള്ള ആഹ്വാനമാണ് ഡോ. സണ്ണി സ്റ്റീഫന്റെ ‘സിംഫണി’-”UNITING HEARTS’ മുന്നോട്ടുവയ്ക്കുന്നത്.

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Sources:nerkazhcha

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For more than two decades, Evangeline Lilly built a career inside some of Hollywood’s biggest and most fantastical worlds. She survived a mysterious island in “Lost,” fought alongside elves as the elf Tauriel in “The Hobbit,” and entered the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the superhero Wasp.

But at 47, the Canadian actress, author and mother of two said that despite her successful Hollywood career, her ambitions are now different.

“I retired from acting about five years ago,” Lilly told The Christian Post. “At my core, the thing that’s most important to me is my faith. What’s most important to me is philosophy and really thinking through the great questions, the big, huge, important questions in life.”

Those priorities are part of what drew Lilly to “Legend of Destruction,” a historical epic about the violent collapse of Jerusalem and destruction of the Second Temple in 70 A.D. Lilly voices Queen Berenice, a Jewish ruler caught between her people, her faith and the political forces threatening Jerusalem, and also serves as an executive producer on the film.

According to Lilly, the project offered her something her blockbuster career, despite all its rewards and accolades, never could: the opportunity to engage directly with questions of faith, morality, biblical history and human nature.

“I’m so proud to have been a part of these huge, incredible franchises that I got to be a part of,” she said. “I think in so many ways they were important to a lot of people, and also they don’t really satisfy my passions.”

Directed by Gidi Dar, “Legend of Destruction” was originally released in Israel in 2021 and uses hand-painted images to tell the story of the Jewish revolt against Rome and the internal divisions that helped bring Jerusalem to ruin. Other stars who contributed their voices to the film include Oscar Isaac, Elliott Gould and Billy Zane.

Lilly, an outspoken critic of using artificial intelligence to replace human artists, shared how she first encountered the film before the AI explosion in film and media. The actress said the film’s reliance on paintings, sound, vocal ability and camera movement is a countercultural “celebration” of human artistry, particularly today.

“It still felt to me like this incredible act of revolution to take the beauty of these hand-painted oil paintings and bring them to life through story and sound and camera movements,” she said, calling the result something “unique and singular” that she had never seen before.

Watching the paintings move across the screen, she added, feels like sitting around a fire listening to a story while images unfold in the imagination.

“This is what human art does,” she said. “We lived this story as a species. It has our collective blood in it, and it is told by human hands through human imagination and human heart.”

For Lilly, the film, which has already won four Israeli Academy Awards and recently opened in the U.S., also provided an opportunity to highlight a little-known biblical story. Queen Berenice appears briefly in the Book of Acts (Acts 25–26) alongside her brother, King Agrippa II, and Lilly said she was fascinated by the real-life woman who wielded significant influence in a male-dominated world.

“She was still a woman caught in the middle of all of these warring male egos and all of this warring male power,” Lilly said.

The film depicts Berenice facing an agonizing conflict between preserving the Temple, and with it her religious and familial heritage, while also protecting her own political position and survival.

“She has to decide: Will I live, and will I survive, or will my people and the Temple?” Lilly said. “It’s a real impossible situation that she’s put in, and it tests her to her full limit.”

Lilly said she has long been fascinated by biblical women and has a passion for delving into their stories. She pointed to Dinah, the daughter of Jacob and Leah, whose story in Genesis is largely remembered through the violence committed against her.

“I find the same about Berenice,” Lilly said. “It was fun to have somebody fill out that picture. Who would she have been, and what would her life have been like, and what were the things she was wrestling with every day?”

Lilly shared how her own name carries a connection to her faith. She revealed how, as she became increasingly serious about her faith over the years, she researched the meaning of her name: Nicole Evangeline Lilly.

“It wasn’t until I became really passionately … dedicated to my faith that I was like, ‘I want to know what that name means,’” she recalled. “I found out it meant ‘victorious Evangelical bride of Christ,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s a big responsibility.’”

Before working on “Legend of Destruction,” Lilly said she knew little about the destruction of the Second Temple or the broader Jewish history surrounding the event. But after researching the film, the actress said she was particularly struck by the proximity of the events to Jesus’ life and crucifixion.

“Underneath every spiritual story in the Bible is always a political story,” Lilly said. “In this film, you get to see how those two things converged in the worst possible way. … In this story, there’s so much eye for an eye, and in the end, everyone winds up blind.”

Lilly added that “Legend of Destruction” serves as a warning about what can happen when ideology becomes more important than recognizing the humanity of the person on the other side.

“We’re living in a time where our ideologies and our ideas are coming before our humanity and our ability to see the other person as worthy of love, worthy of God’s love, worthy of our love,” she said.

“We choose to be divided, and it always ends in destruction,” she added. “We could catch ourselves now before … that sort of ship has sailed, and it’s gone too far. … We’re all so exhausted from the hatred and the division and the pain and the suffering and the death and the war that is going on all over the world. I think we all long for a different path, for a different solution.”

“We don’t have to keep going down the path of destruction,” Lilly said. “We can choose another way.”

After more than 20 years in Hollywood, the Hawaii resident said she no longer feels compelled by the “rat race” of proving herself or seeking affirmation. These days, she focuses on writing, study, reading and projects aligned more closely with her passions.

“The most wonderful gift of getting older is finally being able to give your time to really what matters to you,” she said.

“The rat race of trying to make it in the world, trying to prove yourself, trying to show everyone how great you are and get that affirmation that you’re looking for, which is an important part of the first half of life, is done,” she continued. “And now it’s time really to nourish and nurture your community and the world. … I call myself an elder in training right now because I’m middle-aged. I take that really seriously. It’s important that I devote my time now to things that really, really matter to me.”

“Legend of Destruction,” she said, is that kind of worthwhile project. She emphasized that through the film, she wants viewers to recognize something uncomfortable about themselves in its characters and understand the power of extending grace.

“Every single person in the film believed they were right, and every single person in the film did something very wrong, believing the whole time that what they were doing was righteous and good,” she said.

“We all think we are right, and we know, and the other person’s wrong, and they’re evil,” she said. “We’re human and flawed, and we [mess] up, and we’re going to do things wrong. … It is only by grace that the world has kept turning and humanity has survived. And so, just to remember that grace that is given to us should be passed on to our neighbor and our enemy.”
Sources:Christianpost

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Dolly Parton talked about God for 60 years and managed never to make it a dividing line. She said the way she came across was a choice.

“I look like a Jezebel,” she said on Khloé Kardashian’s podcast last year. “I want to feel like more people be drawn to that than if I came out like the Pentecostal women I grew up with. I really think that you can reach more people if you’re maybe on the edge, so to speak. I mean, if you look one way, but you’re another, it’s OK.”

It was the same instinct she described elsewhere in that conversation: she wanted God to work through her without anyone feeling preached at. “I go to that God core inside me,” she told The Christophers in a separate interview, one of the few times she got specific about what that meant day to day. Even her prayer life, she said, wasn’t formal. It was, in her words, “more a come-as-you-are.”

Parton died peacefully at her home in Nashville on Tuesday at 80. At her request the funeral will be small and private, and in lieu of flowers her family asked for donations to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.

Her grandfather was a Pentecostal preacher, and she said the church she grew up in frightened her — “hellfire, brimstone,” which left her “so scared.” She said she found God on her own, as a girl, in an abandoned church building near her family’s house where people went to drink.

“It still had an old abandoned piano, and (it) had broken down. And this was where people go to drink, have sex, stuff written on the walls, but still had Bible verses and everything,” she said. “But I would go to that old church, and I felt the presence. I felt the presence there. And so it was in that old, abandoned church that I just praying to God the way that I — I was just saying, ‘Well, just show me, help me, save me, because I want to be ready.’ So it was then that I just had this peace fall over me, and I just felt like that I had, for the first time in my life, had truly found God.”

“It had to happen without fear and without influence and without anything else,” she said.

She talked to Him the same way for the rest of her life. “I say, ‘Hey, Dad.’ So I talk about everything. I talk out loud.” It was the same plainspoken theology she leaned on when she talked about her own place in the world, telling interviewers she believed people were, as she put it, pieces of God carrying “that little God-light inside us.”

The giving started with her father. Robert Lee Parton Sr. never learned to read, and in 1995 she started mailing free books every month to children from birth to age five in Sevier County, Tennessee, where she grew up.

“You know, in the Bible where it talks about honoring your father and your mother,” Parton said. “I don’t think that necessarily means just to obey them. I think it means to bring honor to their name.”

The Imagination Library mailed its 200 millionth book in 2023. One in seven American children under five now gets one in the mail every month.

Most of the rest of it ran through the same county. In 1991 she told seventh and eighth graders she would hand them $500 when they graduated high school — payable only if the buddy they picked graduated too. The dropout rate for those classes fell from more than 30% to 6%. The year before, after her niece Hannah Dennison was treated for leukemia at Vanderbilt’s children’s hospital, she gave the hospital $1 million and funded a butterfly garden named for her. In 2000 she set up a scholarship that awards $15,000 a year to five graduating seniors in Sevier County.

When wildfires killed 14 people there in 2016, her My People Fund sent $1,000 a month to more than 900 families whose homes had burned, then raised the final check to $5,000. The Dollywood Foundation gave roughly $9 million. “I’ve always believed that charity begins at home,” she said.

In April 2020 she gave $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in honor of Dr. Naji Abumrad, a surgeon she had befriended after a car accident. The money funded early coronavirus research, and when Moderna published its vaccine results in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Dolly Parton COVID-19 Research Fund was listed among the supporters. She said afterward she had gotten “more credit than I deserve.”

She put her royalties from Whitney Houston’s cover of “I Will Always Love You” into a predominantly Black neighborhood in Nashville.

“I just thought, ‘This was great. I’m going to be down here with her people, who are my people as well,’” she told Andy Cohen. “And so I just love the fact that I spent that money on a complex. And I think, ‘This is the house that Whitney built.’”

She was offered the Presidential Medal of Freedom three times and never took it — twice under Trump, citing her husband’s illness and then COVID, and once under Biden.

“I feel like if I take it, I’ll be doing politics,” she said.

Her husband of 60 years, Carl Thomas Dean, died in March 2025. “Carl is in God’s arms now,” Parton said then, “and I am OK with that.”

In an interview with People published Friday, four days before her death, she said she had been dealing with health issues she put off while caring for him.

“Seriously, though, even though I’m still healin’, I’m still workin’,” she said.

It was the same posture she’d described to Fox News Digital years earlier, when she said her whole career had run on the belief that, in her words, “through God, all things are possible.”
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