[Oe List ...] A Run-in With History

[Richard via OE]

A Run-in with History

Monday, May 9th

 

I am pretty involved with my local
Euclid Av. United Methodist Church particularly as chair of the African T/F
which supports ICA Zimbabwe HIV/AIDS and another project in South Sudan. So
today is the Northern Illinois Methodist Conference and the Conference asked if
I would do a table on our African work. Sure.

 

 So go to Conference that has about 1,000 people.
Get table set-up and  people stop by. Lunch
comes and my pastor and the Euclid delegation ask me to go to lunch..sure, as
they had a Conference special at Culver’s across the street. We go over and get
in line which goes out the door.

 

I am sort of not listening
but know my pastor is speaking to two older men behind her. Suddenly, I hear
them talking about Paul Tillich and You are Accepted. I look at the man talking
and he has a retired pastor badge on. I said I had been with the Ecumenical
Institute and knew the paper. The pastor said he had the paper in his brief
case and carried it with him always. He asked if we could sit together along
with his friend who turned out to be a seminary professor.

 

This retired pastor (Thomas
Babler) said he had actually met Joseph Mathews in Singapore.  He was a seminary intern in Singapore when
Mathews came there. Thomas was in a group of about 8 people who met with Joe.
Two of the people in the meeting were from the Singapore House. They sat in a
circle and Joe asked them to stand and he proceeded to walk around the circle
and stand facing each of them, staring deeply into their eyes. As he stood
facing you he would breath very deeply.. the pastor said it was like he was
breathing spirit into you Then Joe gave a talk. The one thing that stood out
for Thomas is that Joe said they were going to put a religious house in each of
the 24 time zones around the planet

 

Now the older seminary
professor said he had actually been at Union Seminary when Tillich was a
professor and heard Paul Tillich give the You Are Accepted sermon at Union.  Amazing what can happen over a lunch

 

 

The next Day I happened to be
in an office of a friend of the Institute and on his wall he had what is an
appropriate Tillichan quote:

 

“ The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being
unwanted” Mother Teresa

 

Dick Alton, spent the best part of my life in a Religious House and may never have left.


Richard H.T. Alton 166 N. Humphrey Ave, Apt, 1N
Oak Park, IL 60302
T:1.773.344.7172
richard.alton at gmail.com

Don't let the fear of striking out hold you back 
   Babe Ruth 		 	   		  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.wedgeblade.net/pipermail/oe-wedgeblade.net/attachments/20140611/42691acc/attachment-0001.htm>