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<font size=3>From Adam Thomson, Dover England<br><br>
This discussion does illustrate some differing concepts of the Mystery
that exist.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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 <i>anything</i> 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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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:<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
Love to all,<br><br>
Adam & Gayle Thomson<br><br>
END OF MESSAGE<br><br>
At 11:11 AM 18-09-16, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">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.<br>
Sarah<br><br>
Sent from my iPhone:<br><br>
On Sep 17, 2016, at 10:59 AM, Susan Fertig via OE
<<a href="mailto:oe@lists.wedgeblade.net">oe@lists.wedgeblade.net</a>
> wrote:<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">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.<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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?<br>
<br>
Love in Christ,<br>
<br>
<i>Susan<br>
</i> <br>
Susan Fertig-Dykes<br>
(personal email account)<br>
<br>
<i>And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in
drought . Isaiah 58:11<br>
</i> <br>
<br>
Protect against email address harvesting:<br>
Use "BCC" when sending to multiple addresses; <br>
delete senders’ E-Mail addresses when forwarding.<br><br>
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<br>
<br>
<b>From:</b> OE
[<a href="mailto:oe-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net">
mailto:oe-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net</a>] <b>On Behalf Of </b>James
Wiegel via OE<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Saturday, September 17, 2016 9:56 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> Ellie Stock
<<a href="mailto:elliestock@aol.com">elliestock@aol.com</a>>;
Colleague Dialogue
<<a href="mailto:dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net">
dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net</a>><br>
<b>Cc:</b> <a href="mailto:oe@wedgeblade.net">oe@wedgeblade.net</a><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Oe List ...] [Dialogue] 9/16/16, Spong: Charting a
New Reformation, Part XXXV Thesis #10, Prayer (concluded)<br>
<br>
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?<br>
<br><br>
PRAYER<br>
Tune: Aravah (Hebrew)<br>
<br>
When I see my life<br>
ever is torn<br>
<br>
And loved ones<br>
violated<br>
<br>
And my failures are <br>
daily reborn<br>
<br>
Then sorrow with<br>
heaven is weighted<br>
<br>
Yet I can gladly em-<br>
brace every hour<br>
<br>
And praise God’s<br>
inequity<br>
<br>
I can sing of my blessings <br>
that shower<br>
<br>
My joy<br>
inexpressible be.<br>
<br>
<br>
Now here I stand<br>
battered to and fro<br>
<br>
Now here I stand<br>
battered to and fro<br>
<br>
The chaos within<br>
yet surrounding<br>
<br>
I cry out my want and<br>
the lack that I know<br>
<br>
And power from with-<br>
out feel uplifting.<br>
<br>
<br>
The weight of the world<br>
on my shoulders I bear<br>
<br>
I echo the<br>
voices that cry<br>
<br>
The path of Mankind<br>
with my agony bent<br>
<br>
And my God I’ll fight on<br>
‘til I die<br>
<br>
Jim Wiegel<br>
<a href="x-apple-data-detectors://0">401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson,
Arizona 85353</a><br>
Tel. <a href="tel:011-623-936-8671">011-623-936-8671</a> or
<a href="tel:011-623-363-3277">011-623-363-3277</a><br>
<a href="mailto:marilyn.oyler@gmail.com">jfwiegel@yahoo.com</a><br>
<a href="http://www.partnersinparticipation.com/" eudora="autourl">
www.partnersinparticipation.com</a><br><br>
<br>
"We are no longer living in an era of change. We are living in
a change of era." Francis<br>
<br>
Upcoming public course opportunities click here<br>
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On Sep 16, 2016, at 10:12, Ellie Stock via Dialogue
<<a href="mailto:dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net">
dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net</a>> wrote:<br>
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<dd><h1><b>Charting a New Reformation</b></h1><font size=3><br><br>
</div>
<br>
</font>
<dd><h2><b>Part XXXV Thesis #10, Prayer
(concludeed)</b></h2><font size=3><br><br>
<dd>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.<br><br>
<dd>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.<br><br>
<dd>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.<br><br>
<dd>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<br><br>
<dd>“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.<br><br>
<dd>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.”<br><br>
<dd>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.<br><br>
<dd>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?<br><br>
<dd>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?<br><br>
<dd>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.<br><br>
<dd>John Shelby Spong<br>
<dd> <br><br>
</font>
<dd><h2><b>Question & Answer</b></h2><font size=3><br><br>
<dd>Clifford Hill of Wheaton, Illinois, writes:<br>
<dd> <br><br>
</font>
<dd><h4><b>Question:</b></h4><font size=3><br><br>
<dd>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,<br><br>
<dd>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?<br><br>
<dd> <br><br>
</font>
<dd><h4><b>Answer:</b></h4><font size=3><br><br>
<dd>Dear Cliff,<br><br>
<dd>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.”<br><br>
<dd>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.<br><br>
<dd>John Shelby Spong<br><br>
<dd> <br><br>
</font>
<dd><h2><b>Announcements</b></h2><font size=3><br><br>
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<dd><h1><b>Bishop Spong speaks at The American Cathedral in Paris on
October 16, 2016</b></h1><font size=3><br><br>
<br>
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