[Oe List ...] Salmon: Prayers of DOING
William Salmon via OE
oe at lists.wedgeblade.net
Sun Sep 18 19:35:36 PDT 2016
The 144's have informed my inward life for a good long time. Several years ago, I made a master chart of all nine for the cost of $30 plus shipping. Several were delivered to Order Colleagues. The dynamic of PRAYER is located on the DOING pole. For me, this shifts the activity of prayer from a metaphysical identity to an ontological experience; the intensity is located in the right/bottom box and reveals that I AM prayer.
To wag the tail of the dog again (and again), in order to speak THE WORD** to the post-modern generation (born since 1985) it is necessary to name life-happenings as experiences that point to an inner reality; the metaphysical makes no sense to them. What I've discovered is that once it is established that we have a depth/inner reality then a dialogue can begin. For a long time, I've used the image of an inner cave to be explored as a handy metaphor.
Inner Peace,
Bill Salmon
** THE WORD ALL IS GOOD, THE PRESENT IS A GIFT, THE PAST IS NOT ONLY FORGIVEN IT IS FORGOTTEN, AND THE FUTURE IS OPEN.
wes
----- Original Message -----
From: David Flowers via OE
To: oe at lists.wedgeblade.net ; oe-request at lists.wedgeblade.net
Sent: Sunday, September 18, 2016 4:06 PM
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] OE Digest, Vol 54, Issue 15
I often think of prayer without ceasing in the context of meditation, contemplation, and prayer.
meditation - connect with what comes to you and let go.
contemplation - connect with creation and listen.
prayer - connect with creation in dialogue.
so - I'm working on listening skills because ..... as a white middle-class male - the prayers of my generalized historic demographic have not served God's creation, if one is to notice the condition of our biosphere.
(meditation for the sake of feeling "better" about a self-destructing global system is ....... your favorite expletive)
On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 1:27 AM, via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
Send OE mailing list submissions to
oe at lists.wedgeblade.net
To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
oe-request at lists.wedgeblade.net
You can reach the person managing the list at
oe-owner at lists.wedgeblade.net
When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of OE digest..."
Today's Topics:
1. Re: [Dialogue] 9/16/16, Spong: Charting a New Reformation,
Part XXXV ? Thesis #10, Prayer (concluded) (Bill Schlesinger via OE)
2. Salmon: On prayer (William Salmon via OE)
3. Re: Responding to Spong on prayer (Adam Thomson via OE)
4. Re: Responding to Spong on prayer (Paul Schrijnen via OE)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 09:04:32 -0600
From: Bill Schlesinger via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
To: "'zbarley'" <zbarley at earthlink.net>, "'Order Ecumenical
Community'" <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] [Dialogue] 9/16/16, Spong: Charting a New
Reformation, Part XXXV ? Thesis #10, Prayer (concluded)
Message-ID: <048301d210f4$ccad74b0$66085e10$@pvida.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Not following the disappointment ? sounded like Spong was echoing the non-magical understanding of prayer. ?These are little more than the delusions of yesterday that we are now called on to abandon.? It?s pretty clear that there are a lot of folk who would like a magically manipulated world and who ask for it. Friend of mine says ?no gambler avoids superstition. How the cards are held in the hand must influence the random sequence of events!? Luck, superstitious prayer, magic ? or ?the act of embracing transcendence and the conscious practice of sharing with another the gifts of living, loving and being.? Sounds a lot like the prayer short course from RS-1 to me.
Bill Schlesinger
From: OE [mailto:oe-bounces at lists.wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of zbarley via OE
Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2016 8:50 AM
To: James Wiegel; Order Ecumenical Community
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] [Dialogue] 9/16/16, Spong: Charting a New Reformation, Part XXXV ? Thesis #10, Prayer (concluded)
Ken and I just talked about Spong's latest and are disappointed in him on this topic. I have trouble believing there are people who ask a Being in the sky to intervene. But then I have trouble with people who believe Trump.
Thanks for the prayer words - we had good poets amongst us.
Zoe
Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone
-------- Original message --------
From: James Wiegel via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
Date: 2016/09/17 7:56 AM (GMT-07:00)
To: Ellie Stock <elliestock at aol.com>, Colleague Dialogue <dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net>
Cc: oe at wedgeblade.net
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] [Dialogue] 9/16/16, Spong: Charting a New Reformation, Part XXXV ? Thesis #10, Prayer (concluded)
Trying to make sense of Spongs call for reformation and what is really there. Read this section on Prayer, remembered the prayer song. See below. Anyone recall the short courses on prayer from the RS1?
PRAYER
Tune: Aravah (Hebrew)
When I see my life
ever is torn
And loved ones
violated
And my failures are
daily reborn
Then sorrow with
heaven is weighted
Yet I can gladly em-
brace every hour
And praise God?s
inequity
I can sing of my blessings
that shower
My joy
inexpressible be.
Now here I stand
battered to and fro
Now here I stand
battered to and fro
The chaos within
yet surrounding
I cry out my want and
the lack that I know
And power from with-
out feel uplifting.
The weight of the world
on my shoulders I bear
I echo the
voices that cry
The path of Mankind
with my agony bent
And my God I?ll fight on
?til I die
Jim Wiegel
401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353
Tel. 011-623-936-8671 or 011-623-363-3277
jfwiegel at yahoo.com
www.partnersinparticipation.com
"We are no longer living in an era of change. We are living in a change of era." Francis
Upcoming public course opportunities click here
http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=10
For online registration go to http://www.top-training.net
The AZ ToP? Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday, 1-4 pm, starting again on Sept 5th at ACYR, 648 N. 5th Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85003
AICP Planners: 14.5 CM for all ToP? courses
> On Sep 16, 2016, at 10:12, Ellie Stock via Dialogue <dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR
>
> Charting a New Reformation
> Part XXXV ? Thesis #10, Prayer (concluded)
> Before prayer can be made real our understanding of God, coupled with our understanding of how the world works, must be newly defined. Before prayer can have meaning, it must be built on an honest sharing of life. Cornelia, the woman about whom I wrote last week, did that for me. Before prayer can be discussed in the age in which we live, it must be drained of its presumed manipulative magic. It must find expression in the reality of who we are, not in the details of what we do. These were the insights that my third story gave to me as I walked through what was probably the darkest period of my life, the years 1981-1989. The learning curve was steep; the depth of despair was real. I invite you now to enter that time period with me and to walk through that experience as I did. This narrative is true, personal and painful. I have spoken verbally of it before. I have not written about it. Doing so even now makes me feel quite vulnerable.
>
> Around Christmas of 1981, my first wife, Joan Lydia Ketner Spong, was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer. She had never been fond of doctors and so had postponed seeing one until she felt her symptoms had become critical. She had discovered a lump in her breast much earlier and had decided to tell no one for a very long time. It grew very slowly causing her to assume, perhaps to hope, that it must be benign. It remained her secret. That December as the holidays came into focus, however, the tumor erupted externally and became a draining sore. When that occurred, I became alarmed and got her as quickly as I could to a doctor. After an examination and later a biopsy, we heard the verdict. She had a stage four malignancy. Immediate surgery was required and massive chemotherapy would have to follow the surgery. No guarantees were offered even then. In fact we were told that about two years of life might be all that we could reasonably expect. We sank into the shock of that
diagnosis.
>
> At that time I was an active and fairly high-profile public figure as the bishop of Newark. We had been engaged in great controversies over the full acceptance in both church and society of gay, lesbian, transgender and bi-sexual persons. I was clearly identified in this fight and my name was widely recognized from press and television coverage. People in public life learn quickly that they really do not, perhaps cannot, have a private life. Within minutes, it seemed, the news of both my wife?s diagnosis and her prognosis spread until it seemed to me as if the whole world knew. From that day on, I never visited a congregation in my diocese for confirmation that prayers were not offered publicly for my wife and for me. Prayer groups all over New Jersey informed us that they were praying for us ? some were Episcopal, some were Roman Catholic and some were ecumenical. The one thing they all appeared to have in common was that they knew of the two-year maximum boundary that pre
sumably my wife and I were facing. I did not resent this invasion of our privacy. I was rather appreciative of their efforts, as was Joan. Their actions felt supportive and loving. In their own way, the people were telling us that they really cared for us and, in whatever way they could, they wanted to help. They were willing in this way to stand with us, to share in our pain and in our struggle. One never rejects love that is so freely offered, even when the form in which it comes might not be one?s particular style. So Joan and I were carried by this wave of love from those who reached out to us in what was clearly our time of need.
>
> The months passed and then the years began to mount. When we passed the two-year prediction date, and things were still going positively, I noticed that these prayer groups began to take credit for my wife?s longevity. In their letters to me, it almost sounded as if they believed that they had engaged the powers of evil in some profound contest that pitted them on God?s side, holding back God?s enemies. Their prayers, they suggested, were pushing back the advance of this demonic sickness. They were winning the battle and they felt good about their success. Once again, my response was not to debate the theological implications of their understanding of prayer, but simply to appreciate the level of caring that they were offering. It was, at least in its intention, sustaining. I could not help, however, in the darkness of each night to wonder about the implications of their understanding of prayer
>
> ?Suppose,? I thought to myself during a particularly sleepless time, ?that a member of the City of Newark?s sanitation department had a wife with cancer.? At that time, Newark, New Jersey, was either at or very near the top of the list of America?s poorest per capita cities. I tried to envision just who it was who might occupy the bottom tier of Newark?s socio-economic status system. My mind settled, whether rightly or wrongly, on the garbage collector working for Newark?s sanitation department. So I focused on him.
>
> In this long dark meditation, I wondered how many prayer groups would have added her name to their lists. How much public notice would her illness have achieved? If this couple went to church, perhaps that community might have been aware of their struggle, but would services have been interrupted with passionate petitions for healing? Would the gates of heaven have been stormed by massive number of prayers? Would God, I then wondered, let this man?s wife die more quickly than my wife? My high public profile and social prominence alone caused more prayers to be uttered for my wife than for his. Would those prayers be a factor, I wondered, in either healing or longevity? Does God operate on the basis of human status? If I believed that prayer worked in this way, I would immediately become an atheist! I could not possibly believe in such a deity. This capricious God would be demonic, it seemed to me. The cumulative power of many people praying existed in the case of my wife on
ly because I was a fairly well known public figure. Is status a factor in what is thought of as the healing power of God? When John Paul II lingered on his death bed for so long, the whole world joined in prayer for him. Was that a factor in his long lingering death? When hurricanes barrel down on a population center like New Orleans, the cries of millions are lifted heavenward in prayer. Will the cumulative power of many prayers affect the course of a life, change the direction of a hurricane or alter the path of a disease? Is that what prayer does? If so, then prayer is a tool to be used by the mighty, the powerful and the well-known. If that is true then God clearly cares more for the rich and famous than God does for the poor, the forgotten and the unknown. Such a conclusion becomes theologically violent, absurd and even hate-filled. Whatever prayer means, it cannot be that. My wife lived for six and a half years from her diagnosis in December of 1981 to her death in Aug
ust of 1988. In retrospect, I treasure that extension of time, but I did not fully understand then the gift that I was given. Life is like that. As St. Paul says, we see only ?through a glass darkly.?
>
> So I put these stories with their varied and distinctive insights together. Then I seek to draw conclusions about what prayer means in the 21st century. Prayer is not and cannot be a petition from the weak to the all-powerful one to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Prayer does not bend God?s will to a new conclusion. Prayer does not bring a cure where there is no possibility of a cure. Prayer does not create miracles to which we can testify publicly.
>
> These are little more than the delusions of yesterday that we are now called on to abandon. They arose out of the childhood of our humanity. Today a new question emerges, which we must face with honesty. Is prayer only the human act of last resort? Does praying reflect anything more than the fact that all else has failed? Why do we say so frequently to people, ?You will be in my prayers,? when we never stop to pray? Is it not our impotence in the face of life?s pain that draws us to pretend that we actually possess the power to make a difference, creating nothing more than a comfortable fantasy land in which we can hide?
>
> Is my experience, which tells me that loving, caring and sharing matter, actually real? Can prayer be defined as something other than this pious activity? Does it have any claim on reality? Is prayer a holy activity or is it a preparation for a time of engaging in a holy activity? Increasingly, I am moving to the latter conclusion. It is life that is holy. It is love that is life-giving. Having the courage to be all that I can be is the place where God and life come together for me. If that is so, is not living, loving and being the essence of prayer and the meaning of worship? When Paul enjoined us to ?pray without ceasing? did he mean to engage the activity of praying unceasingly? Or did he mean that we are to see all of life as a prayer calling the world to enter that place where life, love and being reveal the meaning of God? Is Christianity not coming to the place where my ?I? meets another?s ?Thou? and in that moment God is
present?
>
> I pray daily. In my own way, I bring before the eyes of my mind those I love and thus into my awareness of the holy in which my life seems to be lived. Do I expect miracles to occur, lives to be changed or wholeness suddenly to replace brokenness? No, but I do expect to be made more whole, to be set free to share my life more deeply with others, to be enabled to love beyond my boundaries and to watch the barriers that divide me from those I once avoided lowered. Prayer to me is the practice of the presence of God, the act of embracing transcendence and the conscious practice of sharing with another the gifts of living, loving and being. Can that understanding of prayer, so free of miracle and magic, make any real difference in our world? I believe it can, it does and it will.
>
> John Shelby Spong
>
>
> Question & Answer
> Clifford Hill of Wheaton, Illinois, writes:
>
>
> Question:
> I am a member of a United Methodist Church in Wheaton, Illinois. Over the years, I have taught many adult classes and would, in that process, include many of Bart Ehrman?s offerings in the Great Courses series. Currently, my class has six sessions of his course: After the New Testament: The Writings of the Apostolic Fathers, remaining and I had planned to present these this coming fall. I received a call from our Director of Care Minister, who is the scheduler for adult classes. She asked me to cancel this class because some persons, (unknown to me), but who are not members of the class, had complained about it. Earlier our senior pastor had mentioned to me that I sho
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.wedgeblade.net/pipermail/oe-wedgeblade.net/attachments/20160917/1dc25c25/attachment-0001.htm>
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2016 22:36:14 -0500
From: William Salmon via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
To: "Bill Schlesinger" <w.schlesinger at pvida.net>, "Order Ecumenical
Community" <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>, "'zbarley'"
<zbarley at earthlink.net>
Subject: [Oe List ...] Salmon: On prayer
Message-ID: <C9A446D512AA410FBF17039390B2F9FD at hp>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Colleagues-in-Dialogue:
Spong is a prime member of the vanguard for contexting the future. The Order--et al--are those standing between the No Longer and the Not Yet. Unfortunately, the language used by Spong, and those like him, represents the worldview of the Renaissance Human; the give away is such phrases as, ". . .the act of embracing transcendence. . . " Such words imply a metaphysics that is the gift of Greek dualism and eventually Newtonian physics.
Those born on the cusp of 1985 have no appreciation of such language. This is the reason that today's youth, and their parents, left the church, because their intuitions are based on transparency rather than on transcendence.
Today's worldview embraces an inner awareness.
The key praxis is to ask, "How do you experience. . . ?," instead of, "What do you know?"
For instance, the provocative question is, "How do you experience God?" rather than the more traditional question, "What do we know about God?"
The Head Trip answer is, "God is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent? Observe how these answers lead us into irrelevance.
The Gut Trip answer is: "God is love?"
"When was the last time you were loved?"
"It is when my wife forgave me for being a fool."
"Everyone knows what a fool is like, and what forgiveness is like."
Theologically, this approach is experiential and existential. This exercise does not give us a definition of God, instead we know we stood in the presence of God; in God's shadow.
It's late, and I'm off to bed!
Inner Peace!
Bill Salmon
----- Original Message -----
From: Bill Schlesinger via OE
To: 'zbarley' ; 'Order Ecumenical Community'
Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2016 10:04 AM
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...][Dialogue] 9/16/16, Spong: Charting a New Reformation, Part XXXV ? Thesis #10, Prayer (concluded)
Not following the disappointment ? sounded like Spong was echoing the non-magical understanding of prayer. ?These are little more than the delusions of yesterday that we are now called on to abandon.? It?s pretty clear that there are a lot of folk who would like a magically manipulated world and who ask for it. Friend of mine says ?no gambler avoids superstition. How the cards are held in the hand must influence the random sequence of events!? Luck, superstitious prayer, magic ? or ?the act of embracing transcendence and the conscious practice of sharing with another the gifts of living, loving and being.? Sounds a lot like the prayer short course from RS-1 to me.
Bill Schlesinger
From: OE [mailto:oe-bounces at lists.wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of zbarley via OE
Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2016 8:50 AM
To: James Wiegel; Order Ecumenical Community
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] [Dialogue] 9/16/16, Spong: Charting a New Reformation, Part XXXV ? Thesis #10, Prayer (concluded)
Ken and I just talked about Spong's latest and are disappointed in him on this topic. I have trouble believing there are people who ask a Being in the sky to intervene. But then I have trouble with people who believe Trump.
Thanks for the prayer words - we had good poets amongst us.
Zoe
Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone
-------- Original message --------
From: James Wiegel via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
Date: 2016/09/17 7:56 AM (GMT-07:00)
To: Ellie Stock <elliestock at aol.com>, Colleague Dialogue <dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net>
Cc: oe at wedgeblade.net
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] [Dialogue] 9/16/16, Spong: Charting a New Reformation, Part XXXV ? Thesis #10, Prayer (concluded)
Trying to make sense of Spongs call for reformation and what is really there. Read this section on Prayer, remembered the prayer song. See below. Anyone recall the short courses on prayer from the RS1?
PRAYER
Tune: Aravah (Hebrew)
When I see my life
ever is torn
And loved ones
violated
And my failures are
daily reborn
Then sorrow with
heaven is weighted
Yet I can gladly em-
brace every hour
And praise God?s
inequity
I can sing of my blessings
that shower
My joy
inexpressible be.
Now here I stand
battered to and fro
Now here I stand
battered to and fro
The chaos within
yet surrounding
I cry out my want and
the lack that I know
And power from with-
out feel uplifting.
The weight of the world
on my shoulders I bear
I echo the
voices that cry
The path of Mankind
with my agony bent
And my God I?ll fight on
?til I die
Jim Wiegel
401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353
Tel. 011-623-936-8671 or 011-623-363-3277
jfwiegel at yahoo.com
www.partnersinparticipation.com
"We are no longer living in an era of change. We are living in a change of era." Francis
Upcoming public course opportunities click here
http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=10
For online registration go to http://www.top-training.net
The AZ ToP? Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday, 1-4 pm, starting again on Sept 5th at ACYR, 648 N. 5th Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85003
AICP Planners: 14.5 CM for all ToP? courses
> On Sep 16, 2016, at 10:12, Ellie Stock via Dialogue <dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR
>
> Charting a New Reformation
> Part XXXV ? Thesis #10, Prayer (concluded)
> Before prayer can be made real our understanding of God, coupled with our understanding of how the world works, must be newly defined. Before prayer can have meaning, it must be built on an honest sharing of life. Cornelia, the woman about whom I wrote last week, did that for me. Before prayer can be discussed in the age in which we live, it must be drained of its presumed manipulative magic. It must find expression in the reality of who we are, not in the details of what we do. These were the insights that my third story gave to me as I walked through what was probably the darkest period of my life, the years 1981-1989. The learning curve was steep; the depth of despair was real. I invite you now to enter that time period with me and to walk through that experience as I did. This narrative is true, personal and painful. I have spoken verbally of it before. I have not written about it. Doing so even now makes me feel quite vulnerable.
>
> Around Christmas of 1981, my first wife, Joan Lydia Ketner Spong, was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer. She had never been fond of doctors and so had postponed seeing one until she felt her symptoms had become critical. She had discovered a lump in her breast much earlier and had decided to tell no one for a very long time. It grew very slowly causing her to assume, perhaps to hope, that it must be benign. It remained her secret. That December as the holidays came into focus, however, the tumor erupted externally and became a draining sore. When that occurred, I became alarmed and got her as quickly as I could to a doctor. After an examination and later a biopsy, we heard the verdict. She had a stage four malignancy. Immediate surgery was required and massive chemotherapy would have to follow the surgery. No guarantees were offered even then. In fact we were told that about two years of life might be all that we could reasonably expect. We sank into the shock of that
diagnosis.
>
> At that time I was an active and fairly high-profile public figure as the bishop of Newark. We had been engaged in great controversies over the full acceptance in both church and society of gay, lesbian, transgender and bi-sexual persons. I was clearly identified in this fight and my name was widely recognized from press and television coverage. People in public life learn quickly that they really do not, perhaps cannot, have a private life. Within minutes, it seemed, the news of both my wife?s diagnosis and her prognosis spread until it seemed to me as if the whole world knew. From that day on, I never visited a congregation in my diocese for confirmation that prayers were not offered publicly for my wife and for me. Prayer groups all over New Jersey informed us that they were praying for us ? some were Episcopal, some were Roman Catholic and some were ecumenical. The one thing they all appeared to have in common was that they knew of the two-year maximum boundary that p
resumably my wife and I were facing. I did not resent this invasion of our privacy. I was rather appreciative of their efforts, as was Joan. Their actions felt supportive and loving. In their own way, the people were telling us that they really cared for us and, in whatever way they could, they wanted to help. They were willing in this way to stand with us, to share in our pain and in our struggle. One never rejects love that is so freely offered, even when the form in which it comes might not be one?s particular style. So Joan and I were carried by this wave of love from those who reached out to us in what was clearly our time of need.
>
> The months passed and then the years began to mount. When we passed the two-year prediction date, and things were still going positively, I noticed that these prayer groups began to take credit for my wife?s longevity. In their letters to me, it almost sounded as if they believed that they had engaged the powers of evil in some profound contest that pitted them on God?s side, holding back God?s enemies. Their prayers, they suggested, were pushing back the advance of this demonic sickness. They were winning the battle and they felt good about their success. Once again, my response was not to debate the theological implications of their understanding of prayer, but simply to appreciate the level of caring that they were offering. It was, at least in its intention, sustaining. I could not help, however, in the darkness of each night to wonder about the implications of their understanding of prayer
>
> ?Suppose,? I thought to myself during a particularly sleepless time, ?that a member of the City of Newark?s sanitation department had a wife with cancer.? At that time, Newark, New Jersey, was either at or very near the top of the list of America?s poorest per capita cities. I tried to envision just who it was who might occupy the bottom tier of Newark?s socio-economic status system. My mind settled, whether rightly or wrongly, on the garbage collector working for Newark?s sanitation department. So I focused on him.
>
> In this long dark meditation, I wondered how many prayer groups would have added her name to their lists. How much public notice would her illness have achieved? If this couple went to church, perhaps that community might have been aware of their struggle, but would services have been interrupted with passionate petitions for healing? Would the gates of heaven have been stormed by massive number of prayers? Would God, I then wondered, let this man?s wife die more quickly than my wife? My high public profile and social prominence alone caused more prayers to be uttered for my wife than for his. Would those prayers be a factor, I wondered, in either healing or longevity? Does God operate on the basis of human status? If I believed that prayer worked in this way, I would immediately become an atheist! I could not possibly believe in such a deity. This capricious God would be demonic, it seemed to me. The cumulative power of many people praying existed in the case of my wife
only because I was a fairly well known public figure. Is status a factor in what is thought of as the healing power of God? When John Paul II lingered on his death bed for so long, the whole world joined in prayer for him. Was that a factor in his long lingering death? When hurricanes barrel down on a population center like New Orleans, the cries of millions are lifted heavenward in prayer. Will the cumulative power of many prayers affect the course of a life, change the direction of a hurricane or alter the path of a disease? Is that what prayer does? If so, then prayer is a tool to be used by the mighty, the powerful and the well-known. If that is true then God clearly cares more for the rich and famous than God does for the poor, the forgotten and the unknown. Such a conclusion becomes theologically violent, absurd and even hate-filled. Whatever prayer means, it cannot be that. My wife lived for six and a half years from her diagnosis in December of 1981 to her death in A
ugust of 1988. In retrospect, I treasure that extension of time, but I did not fully understand then the gift that I was given. Life is like that. As St. Paul says, we see only ?through a glass darkly.?
>
> So I put these stories with their varied and distinctive insights together. Then I seek to draw conclusions about what prayer means in the 21st century. Prayer is not and cannot be a petition from the weak to the all-powerful one to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Prayer does not bend God?s will to a new conclusion. Prayer does not bring a cure where there is no possibility of a cure. Prayer does not create miracles to which we can testify publicly.
>
> These are little more than the delusions of yesterday that we are now called on to abandon. They arose out of the childhood of our humanity. Today a new question emerges, which we must face with honesty. Is prayer only the human act of last resort? Does praying reflect anything more than the fact that all else has failed? Why do we say so frequently to people, ?You will be in my prayers,? when we never stop to pray? Is it not our impotence in the face of life?s pain that draws us to pretend that we actually possess the power to make a difference, creating nothing more than a comfortable fantasy land in which we can hide?
>
> Is my experience, which tells me that loving, caring and sharing matter, actually real? Can prayer be defined as something other than this pious activity? Does it have any claim on reality? Is prayer a holy activity or is it a preparation for a time of engaging in a holy activity? Increasingly, I am moving to the latter conclusion. It is life that is holy. It is love that is life-giving. Having the courage to be all that I can be is the place where God and life come together for me. If that is so, is not living, loving and being the essence of prayer and the meaning of worship? When Paul enjoined us to ?pray without ceasing? did he mean to engage the activity of praying unceasingly? Or did he mean that we are to see all of life as a prayer calling the world to enter that place where life, love and being reveal the meaning of God? Is Christianity not coming to the place where my ?I? meets another?s ?Thou? and in that moment God i
s present?
>
> I pray daily. In my own way, I bring before the eyes of my mind those I love and thus into my awareness of the holy in which my life seems to be lived. Do I expect miracles to occur, lives to be changed or wholeness suddenly to replace brokenness? No, but I do expect to be made more whole, to be set free to share my life more deeply with others, to be enabled to love beyond my boundaries and to watch the barriers that divide me from those I once avoided lowered. Prayer to me is the practice of the presence of God, the act of embracing transcendence and the conscious practice of sharing with another the gifts of living, loving and being. Can that understanding of prayer, so free of miracle and magic, make any real difference in our world? I believe it can, it does and it will.
>
> John Shelby Spong
>
>
> Question & Answer
> Clifford Hill of Wheaton, Illinois, writes:
>
>
> Question:
> I am a member of a United Methodist Church in Wheaton, Illinois. Over the years, I have taught many adult classes and would, in that process, include many of Bart Ehrman?s offerings in the Great Courses series. Currently, my class has six sessions of his course: After the New Testament: The Writings of the Apostolic Fathers, remaining and I had planned to present these this coming fall. I received a call from our Director of Care Minister, who is the scheduler for adult classes. She asked me to cancel this class because some persons, (unknown to me), but who are not members of the class, had complained about it. Earlier our senior pastor had mentioned to me that I sho
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
OE mailing list
OE at lists.wedgeblade.net
http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2016.0.7797 / Virus Database: 4656/13036 - Release Date: 09/17/16
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.wedgeblade.net/pipermail/oe-wedgeblade.net/attachments/20160917/15cc368e/attachment-0001.htm>
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 06:40:16 +0100
From: Adam Thomson via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
To: "Sarah H. Buss" <shbuss at mac.com>, "Order Ecumenical Community"
<oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Responding to Spong on prayer
Message-ID: <57DAE58D0050A1EB at rgout06.bt.lon5.cpcloud.co.uk> (added by
postmaster at btinternet.com)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; Format="flowed"
From Adam Thomson, Dover England
This discussion does illustrate some differing
concepts of the Mystery that exist.
I recall with great affection my time at close
quarters with Movement colleagues back in the 70s
and 80s, and I am sad now that I am so far away
when discussions like this current one on prayer get going.
As Gayle (Wright) my wife and I have journeyed -
in relative isolation - we have made contact with
our local Anglican church in Dover whose view on
anything is pre-RS1, so we find ourselves
participating and adjusting our public stance to
ensure that individuals within the congregation
do not feel threatened by anything we may say,
but are affirmed; any strategy that might journey
the group would have to be more on the lines of a
secular approach such as LENS was.
As it happens, I get great satisfaction out of
reading Bishop Spong's weekly column, and I don't
see any "destructive" intention on his part in anything that he says.
As for me, my time in the Order (especially the
Academy) combined with encountering the writings
of Spong and Richard Dawkins, suggests to me that:
1) The human response to the Mystery of Life has
been to rationalise the Mystery by calling it
"God", and creating the mythology around it.
2) Thus "God" is entirely a fabrication of the
human imagination, embraced - thank God - in the
scriptures to which we humans are privileged still to have access.
3) The reality is that there is nothing
"supernatural" in our existance - the very term
denies it - but there is indeed the mythology
that has freighted human consciousness, and will continue to do so.
4) The mystery of the human spirit and
spirituality remains - thank God - a mystery.
However we need to pay heed to the continuing
fact that we humans have the capacity both to
create life-giving stories, and to propagate
life-denying stories. And that is where we in the
Spirit Movement will always have a job to do - to
ensure the right stories are told.
5) In terms of prayer: I have found prayer - as
voiced in a public setting - entirely helpful, as
part of sharing and developing a public story.
And of course, silent prayer is helpful to those
who have a sense of a personal God - which I don't.
6) What I have found, in my latter years, is that
the ONLY way things get done is when we decide to
work WITH OTHERS to get it done: the word
"corporate" as we used it in the Order, still has a strong pull on me.
7) That is why - as an example - Gayle and I are
utterly bereft and in despair at the disaster
known as "Brexit" that has struck Europe like a
bad disease. Nothing in my life has been as bad.
I am now REALLY looking for the hope beyond hope.
Love to all,
Adam & Gayle Thomson
END OF MESSAGE
At 11:11 AM 18-09-16, you wrote:
>Perhaps setting ones intention has to do with
>prayer, assuming we surrender the outcome to the
>Mystery. Sometimes the "magic" works and
>sometimes it doesn't . However, it is my
>experience that the outcome can exceed my
>expectations or at the very least reveal
>relevant and creative ways to get there.
>Sometimes, if I am open, the process and/or the
>outcome exceeds my expectations. AWESOME when this happens--sheer Mystery.
>Sarah
>
>Sent from my iPhone:
>
>On Sep 17, 2016, at 10:59 AM, Susan Fertig via
>OE <<mailto:oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
>
>>This makes me so sad to read Spong???s intended
>>destruction of what I believe to be a real
>>force and a most precious aspect of our relationship with God.
>>Why not miracles today as in Jesus??? time?
>>I???ve witnessed some myself. He sent out
>>thousands to heal in His name. And they did,
>>with some success and some failure. Why is one
>>person healed and one not? How can we know? Why
>>do we need to know? The outcome in any one case
>>does not change the call to us to engage in this way.
>>
>>And the supernatural qualities of the stories
>>of Jesus healing people is not mutually
>>exclusive with the symbolic importance of these
>>events. Whether the pallet I lie upon
>>represents my own physical ailment or
>>disability or whether it represents the
>>problems in my life that I have not chosen to
>>confront or overcome and that have crippled me
>>in a symbolic sense, both elements of that
>>situation are healable and can be miracles. if
>>we ask and God chooses to respond. A big
>>IF. But suppose God does not choose to respond
>>in the way we have prayed for? Does that negate
>>the importance of the interaction with Him? Not
>>at all. The prayer is a potential source of
>>intimacy with God for the pray-er that has
>>little to do with whether or not physical
>>healing occurs???Does not Spong understand that
>>his wife???s illness brought great numbers of
>>people into a new relationship with God as they
>>prayed for her? If they then took new hope in
>>concluding that their prayers were being
>>answered, who is to say that wasn???t true?
>>Doesn???t he wonder if perhaps his wife lived
>>longer than expected just to enhance a new or
>>intensified relationship those praying for her
>>were discovering with their God? How is Spong
>>so arrogant as to assume that a sanitation
>>worker???s wife wouldn???t have people praying
>>for her just as passionately as people prayed for his wife?
>>
>>Love in Christ,
>>
>>Susan
>>
>>Susan Fertig-Dykes
>>(personal email account)
>>
>>And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and
>>satisfy thy soul in drought . Isaiah 58:11
>>
>>
>>Protect against email address harvesting:
>>Use "BCC" when sending to multiple addresses;
>>delete senders??? E-Mail addresses when forwarding.
>>
>>NOTE: I won???t be offended if you ask me to remove you from my emails.
>>
>>
>>From: OE
>>[<mailto:oe-bounces at lists.wedgeblade.net>mailto:oe-bounces at lists.wedgeblade.net]
>>On Behalf Of James Wiegel via OE
>>Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2016 9:56 AM
>>To: Ellie Stock
>><<mailto:elliestock at aol.com>elliestock at aol.com>;
>> Colleague Dialogue
>><<mailto:dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net>dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net>
>>Cc: <mailto:oe at wedgeblade.net>oe at wedgeblade.net
>>Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] [Dialogue] 9/16/16,
>>Spong: Charting a New Reformation, Part XXXV ? Thesis #10, Prayer (concluded)
>>
>>Trying to make sense of Spongs call for
>>reformation and what is really there. Read
>>this section on Prayer, remembered the prayer
>>song. See below. Anyone recall the short courses on prayer from the RS1?
>>
>>
>>PRAYER
>>Tune: Aravah (Hebrew)
>>
>>When I see my life
>>ever is torn
>>
>>And loved ones
>>violated
>>
>>And my failures are
>>daily reborn
>>
>>Then sorrow with
>>heaven is weighted
>>
>>Yet I can gladly em-
>>brace every hour
>>
>>And praise God???s
>>inequity
>>
>>I can sing of my blessings
>>that shower
>>
>>My joy
>>inexpressible be.
>>
>>
>>Now here I stand
>>battered to and fro
>>
>>Now here I stand
>>battered to and fro
>>
>>The chaos within
>>yet surrounding
>>
>>I cry out my want and
>>the lack that I know
>>
>>And power from with-
>>out feel uplifting.
>>
>>
>>The weight of the world
>>on my shoulders I bear
>>
>>I echo the
>>voices that cry
>>
>>The path of Mankind
>>with my agony bent
>>
>>And my God I???ll fight on
>>???til I die
>>
>>Jim Wiegel
>><x-apple-data-detectors://0>401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353
>>Tel. <tel:011-623-936-8671>011-623-936-8671 or
>><tel:011-623-363-3277>011-623-363-3277
>><mailto:marilyn.oyler at gmail.com>jfwiegel at yahoo.com
>>www.partnersinparticipation.com
>>
>>
>>"We are no longer living in an era of
>>change. We are living in a change of era." Francis
>>
>>Upcoming public course opportunities click here
>><http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=10>http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=10
>>For online registration go to
>><http://www.top-training.net/>http://www.top-training.net
>>
>>
>>The AZ ToP?? Community of Practice meets the
>>1st <x-apple-data-detectors://8>Friday, 1-4 pm,
>>starting again <x-apple-data-detectors://9>on
>>Sept 5th at ACYR,
>><https://www.google.com/maps/place/648+N+5th+Ave/@33.456329,-112.080545,16z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x872b123a5312512d:0x93c9f71171108956?hl=>648
>>N. 5th Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85003
>>AICP Planners: 14.5 CM for all ToP?? courses
>>
>>On Sep 16, 2016, at 10:12, Ellie Stock via
>>Dialogue
>><<mailto:dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net>dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>[]
>>
>>
>>
>>
>><http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=ef935d3f1d&e=0471473479>Homepage
>><http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=185c7ac18b&e=0471473479>My
>>Profile
>><http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=151543cc51&e=0471473479>Essay
>>Archive
>><http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=7e84bb76c5&e=0471473479>Message
>>Boards
>><http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=03ea9f51ec&e=0471473479>Calendar
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>Charting a New Reformation
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>Part XXXV ? Thesis #10, Prayer (concludeed)
>>
>>
>>
>>Before prayer can be made real our
>>understanding of God, coupled with our
>>understanding of how the world works, must be
>>newly defined. Before prayer can have meaning,
>>it must be built on an honest sharing of life.
>>Cornelia, the woman about whom I wrote last
>>week, did that for me. Before prayer can be
>>discussed in the age in which we live, it must
>>be drained of its presumed manipulative magic.
>>It must find expression in the reality of who
>>we are, not in the details of what we do. These
>>were the insights that my third story gave to
>>me as I walked through what was probably the
>>darkest period of my life, the years 1981-1989.
>>The learning curve was steep; the depth of
>>despair was real. I invite you now to enter
>>that time period with me and to walk through
>>that experience as I did. This narrative is
>>true, personal and painful. I have spoken
>>verbally of it before. I have not written about
>>it. Doing so even now makes me feel quite vulnerable.
>>
>>Around Christmas of 1981, my first wife, Joan
>>Lydia Ketner Spong, was diagnosed with advanced
>>breast cancer. She had never been fond of
>>doctors and so had postponed seeing one until
>>she felt her symptoms had become critical. She
>>had discovered a lump in her breast much
>>earlier and had decided to tell no one for a
>>very long time. It grew very slowly causing her
>>to assume, perhaps to hope, that it must be
>>benign. It remained her secret. That December
>>as the holidays came into focus, however, the
>>tumor erupted externally and became a draining
>>sore. When that occurred, I became alarmed and
>>got her as quickly as I could to a doctor.
>>After an examination and later a biopsy, we
>>heard the verdict. She had a stage four
>>malignancy. Immediate surgery was required and
>>massive chemotherapy would have to follow the
>>surgery. No guarantees were offered even then.
>>In fact we were told that about two years of
>>life might be all that we could reasonably
>>expect. We sank into the shock of that diagnosis.
>>
>>At that time I was an active and fairly
>>high-profile public figure as the bishop of
>>Newark. We had been engaged in great
>>controversies over the full acceptance in both
>>church and society of gay, lesbian, transgender
>>and bi-sexual persons. I was clearly identified
>>in this fight and my name was widely recognized
>>from press and television coverage. People in
>>public life learn quickly that they really do
>>not, perhaps cannot, have a private life.
>>Within minutes, it seemed, the news of both my
>>wife???s diagnosis and her prognosis spread
>>until it seemed to me as if the whole world
>>knew. From that day on, I never visited a
>>congregation in my diocese for confirmation
>>that prayers were not offered publicly for my
>>wife and for me. Prayer groups all over New
>>Jersey informed us that they were praying for
>>us ? some were Episcopal, some were RRoman
>>Catholic and some were ecumenical. The one
>>thing they all appeared to have in common was
>>that they knew of the two-year maximum boundary
>>that presumably my wife and I were facing. I
>>did not resent this invasion of our privacy. I
>>was rather appreciative of their efforts, as
>>was Joan. Their actions felt supportive and
>>loving. In their own way, the people were
>>telling us that they really cared for us and,
>>in whatever way they could, they wanted to
>>help. They were willing in this way to stand
>>with us, to share in our pain and in our
>>struggle. One never rejects love that is so
>>freely offered, even when the form in which it
>>comes might not be one???s particular style. So
>>Joan and I were carried by this wave of love
>>from those who reached out to us in what was clearly our time of need.
>>
>>The months passed and then the years began to
>>mount. When we passed the two-year prediction
>>date, and things were still going positively, I
>>noticed that these prayer groups began to take
>>credit for my wife???s longevity. In their
>>letters to me, it almost sounded as if they
>>believed that they had engaged the powers of
>>evil in some profound contest that pitted them
>>on God???s side, holding back God???s enemies.
>>Their prayers, they suggested, were pushing
>>back the advance of this demonic sickness. They
>>were winning the battle and they felt good
>>about their success. Once again, my response
>>was not to debate the theological implications
>>of their understanding of prayer, but simply to
>>appreciate the level of caring that they were
>>offering. It was, at least in its intention,
>>sustaining. I could not help, however, in the
>>darkness of each night to wonder about the
>>implications of their understanding of prayer
>>
>>???Suppose,??? I thought to myself during a
>>particularly sleepless time, ???that a member
>>of the City of Newark???s sanitation department
>>had a wife with cancer.??? At that time,
>>Newark, New Jersey, was either at or very near
>>the top of the list of America???s poorest per
>>capita cities. I tried to envision just who it
>>was who might occupy the bottom tier of
>>Newark???s socio-economic status system. My
>>mind settled, whether rightly or wrongly, on
>>the garbage collector working for Newark???s
>>sanitation department. So I focused on him.
>>
>>In this long dark meditation, I wondered how
>>many prayer groups would have added her name to
>>their lists. How much public notice would her
>>illness have achieved? If this couple went to
>>church, perhaps that community might have been
>>aware of their struggle, but would services
>>have been interrupted with passionate petitions
>>for healing? Would the gates of heaven have
>>been stormed by massive number of prayers?
>>Would God, I then wondered, let this man???s
>>wife die more quickly than my wife? My high
>>public profile and social prominence alone
>>caused more prayers to be uttered for my wife
>>than for his. Would those prayers be a factor,
>>I wondered, in either healing or longevity?
>>Does God operate on the basis of human status?
>>If I believed that prayer worked in this way, I
>>would immediately become an atheist! I could
>>not possibly believe in such a deity. This
>>capricious God would be demonic, it seemed to
>>me. The cumulative power of many people praying
>>existed in the case of my wife only because I
>>was a fairly well known public figure. Is
>>status a factor in what is thought of as the
>>healing power of God? When John Paul II
>>lingered on his death bed for so long, the
>>whole world joined in prayer for him. Was that
>>a factor in his long lingering death? When
>>hurricanes barrel down on a population center
>>like New Orleans, the cries of millions are
>>lifted heavenward in prayer. Will the
>>cumulative power of many prayers affect the
>>course of a life, change the direction of a
>>hurricane or alter the path of a disease? Is
>>that what prayer does? If so, then prayer is a
>>tool to be used by the mighty, the powerful and
>>the well-known. If that is true then God
>>clearly cares more for the rich and famous than
>>God does for the poor, the forgotten and the
>>unknown. Such a conclusion becomes
>>theologically violent, absurd and even
>>hate-filled. Whatever prayer means, it cannot
>>be that. My wife lived for six and a half years
>>from her diagnosis in December of 1981 to her
>>death in August of 1988. In retrospect, I
>>treasure that extension of time, but I did not
>>fully understand then the gift that I was
>>given. Life is like that. As St. Paul says, we
>>see only ???through a glass darkly.???
>>
>>So I put these stories with their varied and
>>distinctive insights together. Then I seek to
>>draw conclusions about what prayer means in the
>>21st century. Prayer is not and cannot be a
>>petition from the weak to the all-powerful one
>>to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
>>Prayer does not bend God???s will to a new
>>conclusion. Prayer does not bring a cure where
>>there is no possibility of a cure. Prayer does
>>not create miracles to which we can testify publicly.
>>
>>These are little more than the delusions of
>>yesterday that we are now called on to abandon.
>>They arose out of the childhood of our
>>humanity. Today a new question emerges, which
>>we must face with honesty. Is prayer only the
>>human act of last resort? Does praying reflect
>>anything more than the fact that all else has
>>failed? Why do we say so frequently to people,
>>???You will be in my prayers,??? when we never
>>stop to pray? Is it not our impotence in the
>>face of life???s pain that draws us to pretend
>>that we actually possess the power to make a
>>difference, creating nothing more than a
>>comfortable fantasy land in which we can hide?
>>
>>Is my experience, which tells me that loving,
>>caring and sharing matter, actually real? Can
>>prayer be defined as something other than this
>>pious activity? Does it have any claim on
>>reality? Is prayer a holy activity or is it a
>>preparation for a time of engaging in a holy
>>activity? Increasingly, I am moving to the
>>latter conclusion. It is life that is holy. It
>>is love that is life-giving. Having the courage
>>to be all that I can be is the place where God
>>and life come together for me. If that is so,
>>is not living, loving and being the essence of
>>prayer and the meaning of worship? When Paul
>>enjoined us to ???pray without ceasing??? did
>>he mean to engage the activity of praying
>>unceasingly? Or did he mean that we are to see
>>all of life as a prayer calling the world to
>>enter that place where life, love and being
>>reveal the meaning of God? Is Christianity not
>>coming to the place where my ???I??? meets
>>another???s ???Thou??? and in that moment God is present?
>>
>>I pray daily. In my own way, I bring before the
>>eyes of my mind those I love and thus into my
>>awareness of the holy in which my life seems to
>>be lived. Do I expect miracles to occur, lives
>>to be changed or wholeness suddenly to replace
>>brokenness? No, but I do expect to be made more
>>whole, to be set free to share my life more
>>deeply with others, to be enabled to love
>>beyond my boundaries and to watch the barriers
>>that divide me from those I once avoided
>>lowered. Prayer to me is the practice of the
>>presence of God, the act of embracing
>>transcendence and the conscious practice of
>>sharing with another the gifts of living,
>>loving and being. Can that understanding of
>>prayer, so free of miracle and magic, make any
>>real difference in our world? I believe it can, it does and it will.
>>
>>John Shelby Spong
>>
>>
>>
>>Question & Answer
>>
>>
>>
>>Clifford Hill of Wheaton, Illinois, writes:
>>
>>
>>
>>Question:
>>
>>
>>
>>I am a member of a United Methodist Church in
>>Wheaton, Illinois. Over the years, I have
>>taught many adult classes and would, in that
>>process, include many of Bart Ehrman???s
>>offerings in the Great Courses series.
>>Currently, my class has six sessions of his
>>course: After the New Testament: The Writings
>>of the Apostolic Fathers, remaining and I had
>>planned to present these this coming fall. I
>>received a call from our Director of Care
>>Minister, who is the scheduler for adult
>>classes. She asked me to cancel this class
>>because some persons, (unknown to me), but who
>>are not members of the class, had complained
>>about it. Earlier our senior pastor had
>>mentioned to me that I should be
>>???sensitive??? to others??? feelings about
>>this class and presumably, about Bart Ehrman,
>>
>>My question: What is your professional opinion
>>about the credibility and qualifications of
>>Professor Bart Ehrman and what is your opinion
>>about his scholarship as evidenced in his books
>>and in his Great Courses classes?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>Answer:
>>
>>
>>
>>Dear Cliff,
>>
>>I know Bart Ehrman and believe him to be a
>>competent scholar of the first order. His
>>expertise is in the period of early Christian
>>history more than it is in scripture studies
>>per se. I have listened to all of his classes
>>in the Great Courses series and have
>>appreciated his insights, controversial as some
>>of them well may be. Dr. Ehrman challenges the
>>popular, but not substantiated, assumption that
>>there ever was such a thing as ???Orthodox
>>Christianity. He demonstrates, rather
>>powerfully, that there were originally ???many
>>Christianities??? long before what came to be
>>called traditional orthodoxy emerged with power as ???The One True Faith.???
>>
>>I suspect that what you are now hearing is not
>>an objection to Bart Ehrman???s scholarship,
>>but rather the fact that in one of his recent
>>books, he stated that he was no longer a
>>believer. He now calls himself an atheist. He
>>has had an interesting history, starting in one
>>of the most conservative and fundamentalist
>>parts of the Christian Church. In my opinion,
>>he is still processing his life experience. He
>>has much to teach us all. No one has to agree
>>with either his current faith position or with
>>any of his conclusions; his scholarship is
>>still impressive. In the book in which he said
>>that he was no longer a believer, I have an
>>endorsement on the back cover. In that
>>endorsement I said I had come to a very
>>different conclusion, but that I still had a great respect for his work. I do.
>>
>>John Shelby Spong
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>Announcements
>>
>>
>>
>>
>><http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=e95984a88b&e=0471473479>
>>[]
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>Bishop Spong speaks at The American Cathedral in Paris on October 16, 2016
>>
>>
>>
>>
>><http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=2b3daada24&e=0471473479>Click
>>here for more information
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Dialogue mailing list
>><mailto:Dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net>Dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net
>>http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>OE mailing list
>><mailto:OE at lists.wedgeblade.net>OE at lists.wedgeblade.net
>>http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
>_______________________________________________
>OE mailing list
>OE at lists.wedgeblade.net
>http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.wedgeblade.net/pipermail/oe-wedgeblade.net/attachments/20160918/8514bce0/attachment-0001.htm>
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2016 07:35:13 +0100
From: Paul Schrijnen via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
To: Adam Thomson <adam.thomson007 at btinternet.com>,
"oe at lists.wedgeblade.net" <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Responding to Spong on prayer
Message-ID: <2AA42D6E-7A01-4297-A2EC-941CB815670D at aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Good Adam,
Like you, I suffer from a deep Brexit blues. A great regressive tragedy.
God only knows how we rise from this.
Indeed, with love to all,
Paul
Paul Schrijnen
13 Bloemfontein Avenue
London W12 7BJ
paul.schrijnen at gmail.com
+44 7973 206 766
skype: paulus.schrijnen
> On 18 Sep 2016, at 06:40, Adam Thomson via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
>
> From Adam Thomson, Dover England
>
> This discussion does illustrate some differing concepts of the Mystery that exist.
>
> I recall with great affection my time at close quarters with Movement colleagues back in the 70s and 80s, and I am sad now that I am so far away when discussions like this current one on prayer get going.
>
> As Gayle (Wright) my wife and I have journeyed - in relative isolation - we have made contact with our local Anglican church in Dover whose view on anything is pre-RS1, so we find ourselves participating and adjusting our public stance to ensure that individuals within the congregation do not feel threatened by anything we may say, but are affirmed; any strategy that might journey the group would have to be more on the lines of a secular approach such as LENS was.
>
> As it happens, I get great satisfaction out of reading Bishop Spong's weekly column, and I don't see any "destructive" intention on his part in anything that he says.
>
> As for me, my time in the Order (especially the Academy) combined with encountering the writings of Spong and Richard Dawkins, suggests to me that:
>
> 1) The human response to the Mystery of Life has been to rationalise the Mystery by calling it "God", and creating the mythology around it.
>
> 2) Thus "God" is entirely a fabrication of the human imagination, embraced - thank God - in the scriptures to which we humans are privileged still to have access.
>
> 3) The reality is that there is nothing "supernatural" in our existance - the very term denies it - but there is indeed the mythology that has freighted human consciousness, and will continue to do so.
>
> 4) The mystery of the human spirit and spirituality remains - thank God - a mystery. However we need to pay heed to the continuing fact that we humans have the capacity both to create life-giving stories, and to propagate life-denying stories. And that is where we in the Spirit Movement will always have a job to do - to ensure the right stories are told.
>
> 5) In terms of prayer: I have found prayer - as voiced in a public setting - entirely helpful, as part of sharing and developing a public story. And of course, silent prayer is helpful to those who have a sense of a personal God - which I don't.
>
> 6) What I have found, in my latter years, is that the ONLY way things get done is when we decide to work WITH OTHERS to get it done: the word "corporate" as we used it in the Order, still has a strong pull on me.
>
> 7) That is why - as an example - Gayle and I are utterly bereft and in despair at the disaster known as "Brexit" that has struck Europe like a bad disease. Nothing in my life has been as bad. I am now REALLY looking for the hope beyond hope.
>
> Love to all,
>
> Adam & Gayle Thomson
>
> END OF MESSAGE
>
> At 11:11 AM 18-09-16, you wrote:
>> Perhaps setting ones intention has to do with prayer, assuming we surrender the outcome to the Mystery. Sometimes the "magic" works and sometimes it doesn't . However, it is my experience that the outcome can exceed my expectations or at the very least reveal relevant and creative ways to get there. Sometimes, if I am open, the process and/or the outcome exceeds my expectations. AWESOME when this happens--sheer Mystery.
>> Sarah
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone:
>>
>> On Sep 17, 2016, at 10:59 AM, Susan Fertig via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net <mailto:oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> > wrote:
>>
>>> This makes me so sad to read Spong???s intended destruction of what I believe to be a real force and a most precious aspect of our relationship with God.
>>> Why not miracles today as in Jesus??? time? I???ve witnessed some myself. He sent out thousands to heal in His name. And they did, with some success and some failure. Why is one person healed and one not? How can we know? Why do we need to know? The outcome in any one case does not change the call to us to engage in this way.
>>>
>>> And the supernatural qualities of the stories of Jesus healing people is not mutually exclusive with the symbolic importance of these events. Whether the pallet I lie upon represents my own physical ailment or disability or whether it represents the problems in my life that I have not chosen to confront or overcome and that have crippled me in a symbolic sense, both elements of that situation are healable and can be miracles. if we ask and God chooses to respond. A big IF. But suppose God does not choose to respond in the way we have prayed for? Does that negate the importance of the interaction with Him? Not at all. The prayer is a potential source of intimacy with God for the pray-er that has little to do with whether or not physical healing occurs???Does not Spong understand that his wife???s illness brought great numbers of people into a new relationship with God as they prayed for her? If they then took new hope in concluding that their prayers were being answered,
who is to say that wasn???t true? Doesn???t he wonder if perhaps his wife lived longer than expected just to enhance a new or intensified relationship those praying for her were discovering with their God? How is Spong so arrogant as to assume that a sanitation worker???s wife wouldn???t have people praying for her just as passionately as people prayed for his wife?
>>>
>>> Love in Christ,
>>>
>>> Susan
>>>
>>> Susan Fertig-Dykes
>>> (personal email account)
>>>
>>> And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought . Isaiah 58:11
>>>
>>>
>>> Protect against email address harvesting:
>>> Use "BCC" when sending to multiple addresses;
>>> delete senders??? E-Mail addresses when forwarding.
>>>
>>> NOTE: I won???t be offended if you ask me to remove you from my emails.
>>>
>>>
>>> From: OE [?mailto:oe-bounces at lists.wedgeblade.net <mailto:oe-bounces at lists.wedgeblade.net>] On Behalf Of James Wiegel via OE
>>> Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2016 9:56 AM
>>> To: Ellie Stock <elliestock at aol.com <mailto:elliestock at aol.com>>; Colleague Dialogue <?dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net <mailto:dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net>>
>>> Cc: oe at wedgeblade.net <mailto:oe at wedgeblade.net>
>>> Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] [Dialogue] 9/16/16, Spong: Charting a New Reformation, Part XXXV ? Thesis #10, Prayer (concluded)
>>>
>>> Trying to make sense of Spongs call for reformation and what is really there. Read this section on Prayer, remembered the prayer song. See below. Anyone recall the short courses on prayer from the RS1?
>>>
>>>
>>> PRAYER
>>> Tune: Aravah (Hebrew)
>>>
>>> When I see my life
>>> ever is torn
>>>
>>> And loved ones
>>> violated
>>>
>>> And my failures are
>>> daily reborn
>>>
>>> Then sorrow with
>>> heaven is weighted
>>>
>>> Yet I can gladly em-
>>> brace every hour
>>>
>>> And praise God???s
>>> inequity
>>>
>>> I can sing of my blessings
>>> that shower
>>>
>>> My joy
>>> inexpressible be.
>>>
>>>
>>> Now here I stand
>>> battered to and fro
>>>
>>> Now here I stand
>>> battered to and fro
>>>
>>> The chaos within
>>> yet surrounding
>>>
>>> I cry out my want and
>>> the lack that I know
>>>
>>> And power from with-
>>> out feel uplifting.
>>>
>>>
>>> The weight of the world
>>> on my shoulders I bear
>>>
>>> I echo the
>>> voices that cry
>>>
>>> The path of Mankind
>>> with my agony bent
>>>
>>> And my God I???ll fight on
>>> ???til I die
>>>
>>> Jim Wiegel
>>> 401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353 <x-apple-data-detectors://0>
>>> Tel. 011-623-936-8671 <tel:011-623-936-8671> or 011-623-363-3277 <tel:011-623-363-3277>
>>> jfwiegel at yahoo.com <mailto:marilyn.oyler at gmail.com>
>>> www.partnersinparticipation.com <http://www.partnersinparticipation.com/>
>>>
>>>
>>> "We are no longer living in an era of change. We are living in a change of era." Francis
>>>
>>> Upcoming public course opportunities click here
>>> http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=10 <http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=10>
>>> For online registration go to http://www.top-training.net <http://www.top-training.net/>
>>>
>>>
>>> The AZ ToP?? Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday, 1-4 pm <x-apple-data-detectors://8>, starting again on Sept 5th <x-apple-data-detectors://9> at ACYR, 648 N. 5th Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85003 <https://www.google.com/maps/place/648+N+5th+Ave/@33.456329,-112.080545,16z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x872b123a5312512d:0x93c9f71171108956?hl=>
>>> AICP Planners: 14.5 CM for all ToP?? courses
>>>
>>> On Sep 16, 2016, at 10:12, Ellie Stock via Dialogue <?dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net <mailto:dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Homepage <http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=ef935d3f1d&e=0471473479> My Profile <http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=185c7ac18b&e=0471473479> Essay Archive <http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=151543cc51&e=0471473479> Message Boards <http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=7e84bb76c5&e=0471473479> Calendar <http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=03ea9f51ec&e=0471473479>
>>>
>>>
>>> Charting a New Reformation
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Part XXXV ? Thesis #10, Prayer (concludeed)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Before prayer can be made real our understanding of God, coupled with our understanding of how the world works, must be newly defined. Before prayer can have meaning, it must be built on an honest sharing of life. Cornelia, the woman about whom I wrote last week, did that for me. Before prayer can be discussed in the age in which we live, it must be drained of its presumed manipulative magic. It must find expression in the reality of who we are, not in the details of what we do. These were the insights that my third story gave to me as I walked through what was probably the darkest period of my life, the years 1981-1989. The learning curve was steep; the depth of despair was real. I invite you now to enter that time period with me and to walk through that experience as I did. This narrative is true, personal and painful. I have spoken verbally of it before. I have not written about it. Doing so even now makes me feel quite vulnerable.
>>>
>>> Around Christmas of 1981, my first wife, Joan Lydia Ketner Spong, was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer. She had never been fond of doctors and so had postponed seeing one until she felt her symptoms had become critical. She had discovered a lump in her breast much earlier and had decided to tell no one for a very long time. It grew very slowly causing her to assume, perhaps to hope, that it must be benign. It remained her secret. That December as the holidays came into focus, however, the tumor erupted externally and became a draining sore. When that occurred, I became alarmed and got her as quickly as I could to a doctor. After an examination and later a biopsy, we heard the verdict. She had a stage four malignancy. Immediate surgery was required and massive chemotherapy would have to follow the surgery. No guarantees were offered even then. In fact we were told that about two years of life might be all that we could reasonably expect. We sank into the shock of that
diagnosis.
>>>
>>> At that time I was an active and fairly high-profile public figure as the bishop of Newark. We had been engaged in great controversies over the full acceptance in both church and society of gay, lesbian, transgender and bi-sexual persons. I was clearly identified in this fight and my name was widely recognized from press and television coverage. People in public life learn quickly that they really do not, perhaps cannot, have a private life. Within minutes, it seemed, the news of both my wife???s diagnosis and her prognosis spread until it seemed to me as if the whole world knew. From that day on, I never visited a congregation in my diocese for confirmation that prayers were not offered publicly for my wife and for me. Prayer groups all over New Jersey informed us that they were praying for us ? some were Episcopal, some were RRoman Catholic and some were ecumenical. The one thing they all appeared to have in common was that they knew of the two-year maximum boundary tha
t presumably my wife and I were facing. I did not resent this invasion of our privacy. I was rather appreciative of their efforts, as was Joan. Their actions felt supportive and loving. In their own way, the people were telling us that they really cared for us and, in whatever way they could, they wanted to help. They were willing in this way to stand with us, to share in our pain and in our struggle. One never rejects love that is so freely offered, even when the form in which it comes might not be one???s particular style. So Joan and I were carried by this wave of love from those who reached out to us in what was clearly our time of need.
>>>
>>> The months passed and then the years began to mount. When we passed the two-year prediction date, and things were still going positively, I noticed that these prayer groups began to take credit for my wife???s longevity. In their letters to me, it almost sounded as if they believed that they had engaged the powers of evil in some profound contest that pitted them on God???s side, holding back God???s enemies. Their prayers, they suggested, were pushing back the advance of this demonic sickness. They were winning the battle and they felt good about their success. Once again, my response was not to debate the theological implications of their understanding of prayer, but simply to appreciate the level of caring that they were offering. It was, at least in its intention, sustaining. I could not help, however, in the darkness of each night to wonder about the implications of their understanding of prayer
>>>
>>> ???Suppose,??? I thought to myself during a particularly sleepless time, ???that a member of the City of Newark???s sanitation department had a wife with cancer.??? At that time, Newark, New Jersey, was either at or very near the top of the list of America???s poorest per capita cities. I tried to envision just who it was who might occupy the bottom tier of Newark???s socio-economic status system. My mind settled, whether rightly or wrongly, on the garbage collector working for Newark???s sanitation department. So I focused on him.
>>>
>>> In this long dark meditation, I wondered how many prayer groups would have added her name to their lists. How much public notice would her illness have achieved? If this couple went to church, perhaps that community might have been aware of their struggle, but would services have been interrupted with passionate petitions for healing? Would the gates of heaven have been stormed by massive number of prayers? Would God, I then wondered, let this man???s wife die more quickly than my wife? My high public profile and social prominence alone caused more prayers to be uttered for my wife than for his. Would those prayers be a factor, I wondered, in either healing or longevity? Does God operate on the basis of human status? If I believed that prayer worked in this way, I would immediately become an atheist! I could not possibly believe in such a deity. This capricious God would be demonic, it seemed to me. The cumulative power of many people praying existed in the case of my wif
e only because I was a fairly well known public figure. Is status a factor in what is thought of as the healing power of God? When John Paul II lingered on his death bed for so long, the whole world joined in prayer for him. Was that a factor in his long lingering death? When hurricanes barrel down on a population center like New Orleans, the cries of millions are lifted heavenward in prayer. Will the cumulative power of many prayers affect the course of a life, change the direction of a hurricane or alter the path of a disease? Is that what prayer does? If so, then prayer is a tool to be used by the mighty, the powerful and the well-known. If that is true then God clearly cares more for the rich and famous than God does for the poor, the forgotten and the unknown. Such a conclusion becomes theologically violent, absurd and even hate-filled. Whatever prayer means, it cannot be that. My wife lived for six and a half years from her diagnosis in December of 1981 to her death in
August of 1988. In retrospect, I treasure that extension of time, but I did not fully understand then the gift that I was given. Life is like that. As St. Paul says, we see only ???through a glass darkly.???
>>>
>>> So I put these stories with their varied and distinctive insights together. Then I seek to draw conclusions about what prayer means in the 21st century. Prayer is not and cannot be a petition from the weak to the all-powerful one to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Prayer does not bend God???s will to a new conclusion. Prayer does not bring a cure where there is no possibility of a cure. Prayer does not create miracles to which we can testify publicly.
>>>
>>> These are little more than the delusions of yesterday that we are now called on to abandon. They arose out of the childhood of our humanity. Today a new question emerges, which we must face with honesty. Is prayer only the human act of last resort? Does praying reflect anything more than the fact that all else has failed? Why do we say so frequently to people, ???You will be in my prayers,??? when we never stop to pray? Is it not our impotence in the face of life???s pain that draws us to pretend that we actually possess the power to make a difference, creating nothing more than a comfortable fantasy land in which we can hide?
>>>
>>> Is my experience, which tells me that loving, caring and sharing matter, actually real? Can prayer be defined as something other than this pious activity? Does it have any claim on reality? Is prayer a holy activity or is it a preparation for a time of engaging in a holy activity? Increasingly, I am moving to the latter conclusion. It is life that is holy. It is love that is life-giving. Having the courage to be all that I can be is the place where God and life come together for me. If that is so, is not living, loving and being the essence of prayer and the meaning of worship? When Paul enjoined us to ???pray without ceasing??? did he mean to engage the activity of praying unceasingly? Or did he mean that we are to see all of life as a prayer calling the world to enter that place where life, love and being reveal the meaning of God? Is Christianity not coming to the place where my ???I??? meets another???s ???Thou??? and in that moment God is present?
>>>
>>> I pray daily. In my own way, I bring before the eyes of my mind those I love and thus into my awareness of the holy in which my life seems to be lived. Do I expect miracles to occur, lives to be changed or wholeness suddenly to replace brokenness? No, but I do expect to be made more whole, to be set free to share my life more deeply with others, to be enabled to love beyond my boundaries and to watch the barriers that divide me from those I once avoided lowered. Prayer to me is the practice of the presence of God, the act of embracing transcendence and the conscious practice of sharing with another the gifts of living, loving and being. Can that understanding of prayer, so free of miracle and magic, make any real difference in our world? I believe it can, it does and it will.
>>>
>>> John Shelby Spong
>>>
>>>
>>> Question & Answer
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Clifford Hill of Wheaton, Illinois, writes:
>>>
>>>
>>> Question:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I am a member of a United Methodist Church in Wheaton, Illinois. Over the years, I have taught many adult classes and would, in that process, include many of Bart Ehrman???s offerings in the Great Courses series. Currently, my class has six sessions of his course: After the New Testament: The Writings of the Apostolic Fathers, remaining and I had planned to present these this coming fall. I received a call from our Director of Care Minister, who is the scheduler for adult classes. She asked me to cancel this class because some persons, (unknown to me), but who are not members of the class, had complained about it. Earlier our senior pastor had mentioned to me that I should be ???sensitive??? to others??? feelings about this class and presumably, about Bart Ehrman,
>>>
>>> My question: What is your professional opinion about the credibility and qualifications of Professor Bart Ehrman and what is your opinion about his scholarship as evidenced in his books and in his Great Courses classes?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Answer:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Dear Cliff,
>>>
>>> I know Bart Ehrman and believe him to be a competent scholar of the first order. His expertise is in the period of early Christian history more than it is in scripture studies per se. I have listened to all of his classes in the Great Courses series and have appreciated his insights, controversial as some of them well may be. Dr. Ehrman challenges the popular, but not substantiated, assumption that there ever was such a thing as ???Orthodox Christianity. He demonstrates, rather powerfully, that there were originally ???many Christianities??? long before what came to be called traditional orthodoxy emerged with power as ???The One True Faith.???
>>>
>>> I suspect that what you are now hearing is not an objection to Bart Ehrman???s scholarship, but rather the fact that in one of his recent books, he stated that he was no longer a believer. He now calls himself an atheist. He has had an interesting history, starting in one of the most conservative and fundamentalist parts of the Christian Church. In my opinion, he is still processing his life experience. He has much to teach us all. No one has to agree with either his current faith position or with any of his conclusions; his scholarship is still impressive. In the book in which he said that he was no longer a believer, I have an endorsement on the back cover. In that endorsement I said I had come to a very different conclusion, but that I still had a great respect for his work. I do.
>>>
>>> John Shelby Spong
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Announcements
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ? <http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=e95984a88b&e=0471473479>
>>>
>>>
>>> Bishop Spong speaks at The American Cathedral in Paris on October 16, 2016
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Click here for more information <http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb232418480&id=2b3daada24&e=0471473479>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Dialogue mailing list
>>> Dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net <mailto:Dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net>
>>> http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net <http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> OE mailing list
>>> OE at lists.wedgeblade.net <mailto:OE at lists.wedgeblade.net>
>>> http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net <http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net>_______________________________________________
>> OE mailing list
>> OE at lists.wedgeblade.net
>> http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net <http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net>
> _______________________________________________
> OE mailing list
> OE at lists.wedgeblade.net <mailto:OE at lists.wedgeblade.net>
> http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net <http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.wedgeblade.net/pipermail/oe-wedgeblade.net/attachments/20160918/4902e6f3/attachment.htm>
------------------------------
Subject: Digest Footer
_______________________________________________
OE mailing list
OE at lists.wedgeblade.net
http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
------------------------------
End of OE Digest, Vol 54, Issue 15
**********************************
--
David Flowers
"Whatever the problem, community is the answer. There is no power greater than a community discovering what it cares about." Margaret Wheatley
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
OE mailing list
OE at lists.wedgeblade.net
http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2016.0.7797 / Virus Database: 4656/13042 - Release Date: 09/18/16
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.wedgeblade.net/pipermail/oe-wedgeblade.net/attachments/20160918/d8b11fed/attachment-0001.htm>
More information about the OE
mailing list