July 2012 - Dialogue - lists.wedgeblade.net

Here After
by David Zahrt 28 Jul '12

28 Jul '12

An elderly woman, Alma, lost her husband, Everett, and the pastor came to console her. Upon his arrival he said, "I'm sorry you lost Everett. I've come to talk with you about the hereafter." She said, "I know all about the here after. I go out of the kitchen into the pantry and I ask myself, 'What am I here after?' Then I come back into the kitchen and I ask myself, 'What am I here after?' The pastor continued, "Well I wanted to let you know that you haven't lost Everett, he's just been recalled." Alma said, "Oh that makes a lot of sense. He had a number of defects!" David

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McKiiben follow-up to letter that was sent on listserve earlier: Somewhat blown away
by Ellie Stock 27 Jul '12

27 Jul '12

From: Bill McKibben - 350.org organizers(a)350.org Subject: Somewhat blown away Dear Friends, I confess to being somewhat blown away by the reaction to the piece I wrote for Rolling Stone last week. Despite the fact that it was 6,000 words long and pretty technical, it has been shared almost 100,000 times —which is more than 10x as many as the interview they did with President Obama the month before. Clearly the piece struck a nerve—probably because its timing coincided with the heat and drought and fire that have so unnerved the nation this summer. I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to read all 6,000 or so of those words, and for sharing it with your friends and family. I was told by the folks at Rolling Stone that it's been viewed 450,000 times, which is just remarkable. (If you haven't had a chance to read it yet, here's the place to go: act.350.org/signup/reckoning) Monday night we had a big video chat with folks who wanted more details and I’ve been poring over the helpful comments that arrived by the kilobyte to thoughts(a)350.org. With the crazy weather putting climate change at the top of more people’s agenda, it is clear that we’re at one of those breakthrough moments that movements occasionally get, and we don’t want to waste it. If you’ve read the piece, you know that it makes clear that the fossil fuel industry already has 5 times more coal and gas and oil on hand than even our most timid governments think would be safe to burn—left to their own devices, they’ll usher us right past the brink. So—even as we continue to fight pipelines and coalmines and oil wells, we need to take on that industry as a whole. We need to change the rules. Until the election we're going to do that by pushing folks running for office to take a stand against fossil fuel subsidies. But we also have to start preparing for what happens after Nov. 6th. I've been working on something I wanted to let you know a bit about, and hopefully have your help in seeing through. Starting the day after the election, I’d like to go after the fossil fuel industry even more directly, trying—as the Rolling Stone piece suggests—to spark a movement like the ones that overturned the great immoral institutions of the past century, such as Apartheid in South Africa. On November 7th, 350.org board member Naomi Klein and I are planning to launch a road show that will cover 20 cities in just over 20 nights (we’re going to break for Thanksgiving) to bring the message I laid out in Rolling Stone to thousands of people across America. We'll have a revolving cast of musicians and great speakers, to make it an inspirational and exciting event. We're in the process of confirming venues now - but we're going to need your help to promote these events in your community, and help turn these ideas into a powerful campaign. If you can help us book a large venue, know of great musicians that might want to participate, or can lend a hand with the creative work that this will surely require, click here to let us know how you'd like to help out: act.350.org/survey/tour-help/. Look, the Rolling Stone piece was pretty grim. But the response to it shows that people understood that our backs are to the wall and that means it’s time to fight. I don’t know if we can win; but I’m certain that without each of you we’ve got no chance. So thanks in advance for jumping in. Bill McKibben for 350.org You've received this email because you've signed up to get updates from 350.org. You can unsubscribe from this mailing list at any time.

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11/26/12, Spong: A Salute to the United Church of Christ
by Ellie Stock 26 Jul '12

26 Jul '12

Homepage My Profile Essay Archive Message Boards Calendar A Salute to the United Church of Christ Sometimes, as one goes about the normal duties of one’s professional life, a pattern of activity slowly becomes visible until one wonders why this had not been seen before. When that happens, it is good to stop, to notice, to put the pieces together, to seek to understand and then to formulate the new insight so that it can become common knowledge. This was my experience in the first part of this year when I was invited to a number of churches in what might be called the heartland of America. In every incidence, the church to which I was asked to deliver lectures stood out in its community like a beacon of light. It was always the church in that community that engaged the issues of the day. It was the congregation in that community that encouraged people to think and to study. It was a church more interested in genuine education than it was in ecclesiastical propaganda. It was a congregation willing to be controversial, willing to stand up for truth in the public marketplace. It was a church that did not require that the brains of its people be checked at the door prior to worship. It was a congregation whose members cared about their world, their community, themselves and their pastor. These churches also projected vitality and they were all growing. The revelation that ultimately emerged, however, was that each one of these congregations was a part the United Church of Christ-Congregational denomination. This fact was so consistent that I concluded it could not be just a coincidence and that something about the United Church of Christ must be at least in part responsible and so my appreciation for this denomination soared. Perhaps, I thought, this church can be the one Christian denomination that will inspire, bring about and participate in the necessary reformation required to break the Christian faith out of its dying patterns, its no longer believable theological understandings and its medieval worship practices. Maybe this can be the church that will break the traditional Christian paradigm based on human depravity and transform it to a paradigm based on human wholeness. Until these aspects of Christianity are faced, engaged and changed, there is, I believe, little realistic hope for a Christian future. Let me briefly tell you, my readers, the story of these four individual UCC congregations: The first one was the Plymouth United Church of Christ in Wichita, Kansas. Under the enlightened and competent leadership of its senior pastor, Donald Olsen, and his able staff, Plymouth Church has gathered to itself a group of members who are individually and corporately stepping beyond traditional religious formulas to build a church for tomorrow. Gifted young adults, well-educated and in positions of local and national authority, are finding the integrity of a new religious dimension for themselves by their participation in this church’s life. No one is fighting yesterday’s wars against Darwin, the equality of women or the oppression of gay and lesbian people. The Bible is not seen as a cudgel to be used in debate to shore up the conclusions of a long dead past. They appear to enjoy their life together and, during the time I was there to deliver these lectures, they also brought in a spectacular a Capella male singing group named Cantu for the joy and entertainment of those attending the lecture series. Cantu was magnificent and the combination of lectures and entertainment was a memorable experience for me and for that congregation. The second one was the First Congregational-United Church of Christ in Greeley, Colorado. This small Colorado city, founded by Horace Greeley in the 19th century, is the home of a community college that has grown into being the University of Northern Colorado and is now the third or fourth largest university in the state of Colorado. In a state where Colorado Springs has become the national headquarters for many right wing fundamentalist groups such as James Dobson’s “Focus on the Family,” this church in Greeley has accepted the vocation of speaking to this university with an understanding of the Christian faith that is well informed and not dedicated to the perpetuation of biblical ignorance. Its senior pastor, Nathan Miller, is respected as a leader in the entire community and one of this church’s most active members is the recently retired president of the University of Northern Colorado. The third church was in Norman, Oklahoma, the location of the University of Oklahoma, where former Democratic Governor and Senator, David Boren, is now the highly-regarded president. A small group of people led by an urologist formed a new Congregational Church to fill a vacuum in Norman, where fundamentalists and evangelical Protestants are the overwhelming majority. They were assisted in this birth by the UCC pastor at the Mayflower Church in Oklahoma City, Robin Meyers, who is one of America’s brilliant new religious leaders. They contracted with a retired UCC minister on a part time basis to lead this new congregation, which has no more than twenty-five members. Undaunted by their newness and their smallness, they organized a public lecture on progressive Christianity to be held in the University of Oklahoma’s Museum of Natural History. This was their way of announcing their presence in the city. I was invited to deliver that lecture and also to speak to the members of this congregation at their regular meeting place on Saturday morning. The public lecture attracted over 400 people. It was also the first time I have ever spoken with a mastodon on display immediately behind me! In their own worship space on Saturday, which seated less than seventy people, the two lecture seminar was sold out and every available chair was filled. This new congregation is dedicated to finding ways to serve the larger community and even the world. One program, organized by the urologist and including his two sons, both of whom are planning careers in medicine, has them volunteering for medical missionary duty in some of the deprived parts of the world. Vitality and the hope of good things to come mark this congregation. Finally, there was the First Congregational-UCC Church of Hendersonville, North Carolina, served so ably by its senior pastor, Richard Weidler. Hendersonville is a small town in the mountains of Western North Carolina, about 30 minutes south of Ashville. Calls to repent, invitations to be saved and warnings to prepare to meet your God are painted on signs on almost every nearby highway. Three crosses adorn the countryside in more than one field. A visit on the radio dial will reveal a steady diet of evangelical preaching, punctuated only by the ranting of Rush Limbaugh. Yet because of Hendersonville’s wonderful summer climate, it has attracted many retirees to that area who are left looking mostly in vain for a church if they do not want fundamentalism. Into that vacuum, this church has moved led by its former, now retired, pastor, David Kelly. About a decade ago a layman, named Walter Ashley, taught an adult Bible class in that church and it had been an erudite and transformative experience for many. A “Classics Scholar” with a degree from Oxford University in the UK, he had opened that congregation to a whole new way of being a Christian. They became the one church in town that was a haven for thinking Christians. When Walter died, his widow Jo Ann, an attorney well into her eighties, endowed a lectureship in memory of her husband. Twice each year, a well-known Christian scholar is invited to do the Ashley Lectures in this church in Western North Carolina. John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg, Amy-Jill Levine and I have all been among those visiting lecturers. The event attracts people from miles away and has helped to identify this church as something quite different. Recently in North Carolina, there was a statewide referendum to ban gay marriage by a constitutional amendment. It seemed like every preacher in the state from Billy Graham on down came out in support of this amendment, identifying it with the Bible and the will of God. This was not true, however, of the First Congregational-United Church of Christ in Hendersonville. Instead they bought and ran a large advertisement in the local newspaper every other day for a period of time prior to that vote stating their opposition to North Carolina’s “Marriage Amendment.” In this ad they stated first the historical tradition of the United Church of Christ as a supporter of social justice and civil rights. They reminded readers that their forebears were Pilgrims who came to this country in 1620 seeking freedom from restrictions imposed in Europe. They recalled the history of their denomination, telling the newspaper’s readers that in 1785 the UCC ordained Lemuel Haynes, America’s first African-American pastor; in 1853 the UCC ordained Antoinette Brown, America’s first female pastor; in 1972 the UCC ordained Bill Johnson, America’s first openly-gay pastor. Now this church, representing this denomination, called on all to reject this prejudiced marriage amendment. This ad dramatically lifted this church into public awareness causing them to be attacked and ridiculed by almost every other church in the area, but it also caused the religiously disenfranchised to discover a new possibility for their religious lives. So, new people began to show up at their doors on Sunday Mornings. These four churches I have described so briefly had several things in common. They each had a well-trained and well-educated senior pastor. Each was linked to a national denomination that encouraged them to press the edges. Each had drunk deeply of that denomination’s courage in the public arena on the right side of the cultural issues of our day. If the United Church of Christ is represented locally by the churches I have encountered in Wichita, Greeley, Norman and Hendersonville, they must be doing something right. So to these churches and to the leadership of the National United Church of Christ, I first raise my hand in salute for your courage and your dedication. Second, I stand before you in awe for what you have meant in my life and in the life of Christianity itself. Third, I bow my head and my heart in thanksgiving for your witness to the Truth. ~John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Sister Rose, OP, writes: Question: I just finished Bishop Spong’s latest book. He really does a great job. I am a Catholic Dominican Sister but I admire Bishop Spong and everything for which he stands: honesty, integrity, etc., which I don’t always find in my own church. I have a question. In the Gospel of St. John, the text says, “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you shall not enter the kingdom of God.” Most of St. John’s gospel is symbolic or signs. How would Bishop Spong interpret this passage? This is so important to me. Answer: Dear Sister Rose, Thank you for your letter and your comments. I have been working on the Gospel of John almost exclusively for the past five years. The text you quote is from the 6th chapter where John, who does not present a story of the Last Supper, attaches all of his Eucharistic teaching to the account of Jesus feeding the multitude with five loaves and two fish. I find John to be the least literal and the most symbolic of all the gospels. Indeed, he seems to poke fun at those who respond to Jesus literally. That would include Nicodemus, who thought that being born again meant that he had to climb back into his mother’s womb, and the Samaritan woman by the well, who responded to Jesus’ offer of “living water” by telling him he did not have a bucket. The secret to John’s gospel is, I believe, that sense of mystical oneness to which this gospel points. I see this oneness in the image of the branches that have to abide in the vine and in the text you quote, where being at one with Jesus is portrayed as eating his flesh and drinking his blood. No, I do not see this as a cannibalistic orgy, but as the experience of oneness so deep that it is portrayed as taking the life of Jesus into yourself in what seems a literal manner. I am now convinced that most of the Johannine characters are the dramatic mythological creations of the author. I include in that list, Nathanael, Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman, the man crippled for 38 years, the man born blind, Lazarus and even the beloved disciples. I will try to justify that statement when my book on John comes out in late 2013. ~John Shelby Spong Announcements Read what Bishop Spong has to say about A Joyful Path Progressive Christian Spiritual Curriculum for Young Hearts and Minds: "The great need in the Christian church is for a Sunday school curriculum for children that does not equate faith with having a pre-modern mind. The Center for Progressive Christianity has produced just that. Teachers can now teach children in Sunday school without crossing their fingers. I endorse it wholeheartedly. Subscribers, please remember that your subscription is automatically renewed. You can unsubscribe at any time. Simply login to access your profile page and cancel your account. Login to be able to comment directly on the website. Join in the discussion! Look for Bishop Spong on Facebook and LIKE the Facebook page for ProgressiveChristianity.org You can also follow Bishop Spong on Twitter. Thank you for taking this journey with us! Any questions or concerns, please contact us at support(a)johnshelbyspong.com or 503-236-3545. Copyright © 2012 ProgressiveChristianity.org, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you have a membership at our website. Our mailing address is: ProgressiveChristianity.org 4916 Pt Fosdick Dr, NW #148 Gig Harbor, WA 98335 Add us to your address book

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Bob Stewart
by Ann Shafer 25 Jul '12

25 Jul '12

Dear Colleagues, Bob Stewart is a United Methodist pastor, retired, who was part of the Local Church experiment in San Francisco in the 60s and 70s, maybe 80s too. I married his eldest son, David, at the South House in 1972. I am writing today to inform you that Bob has lymphoma and is on Hospice care. He and his second wife are in a care facility. I would like to propose that those of you who knew Bob and who would like to, send him a card recounting some memories at the institute or at Westside where he and Pat were in the summer of 68, or in San Francisco. Bob has been such a spirit giant. He has become involved a little in Native American spirituality. He has written his own prayers and has had several hours of prayer time in the early morning. Now he is dealing with his imminent death by telling all his friends that he is dying. I wish I could be with him but it is not possible at this time. However, he is with his daughter, Candi Delgardo, and his son, Tim Stewart. Chris Stewart is not far away and there are many of the next two generations attending to him as well. Send a card to: Rev. Robert H. Stewart, c/o Candi and Dave Delgardo, 5438 Havenhurst Circle, Rocklin CA 95677. Thank you for your care and concern. Journeying on in grace, Ann Shafer No mattter how far you've gone down the wrong road, turn back. ~ Turkish Proverb

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ICA Archives Sojourn Program
by Jack Gilles 25 Jul '12

25 Jul '12

Dear Friends and Colleagues, Many of you have recently received an invitation to participate in the fall sojourn program for working with the ICA archives. The dates start September 17th and go for five weeks, through the week of October 15th. There are a number of ways you can participate besides being on site at the ICA-USA headquarters in Chicago for one or more weeks. The full information, including what work is going to be done, how your participation can enable the task and all the logistical information is included in the letter I sent out and the links contained in that email. We hope all who have received my email will respond. However, we did not have everyone on these two list serves email and some of those we did send bounced because of outdated emails from the sources we used. If you have not received this information and are interested in this exciting opportunity, we ask you to send a request to: Steve Harrington <stevehar11201(a)gmail.com> and he will add your name to the mailing list and get you a copy right away. Steve has done a wonderful job of setting up the mailing list, creating the videos and links as well as the site that compiles people's responses to the questions we ask in the survey link. Let me close with the invitation for you to participate with those of us who have a passion for making our historical work and wisdom available to the world. For close to 20 years I have worked with Lyn Edwards, Betty Pesek, David McCleskey, Marge and Phil Philbrook and many others on this tremendous task. We now feel we are in position to make this on-line access a reality. But we need your help, your memories and your passion to make it into a new frontier for the ICA. Grace & Peace, Jack Gilles For the Archives Team

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Enos Mythos Dance
by Ellie Stock 25 Jul '12

25 Jul '12

Does anyone remember the steps/choreography we used for the Enos Mythos Dance? Ellie elliestock(a)aol.com

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Transition Initiatives Movement and ICA
by Carleton Stock 25 Jul '12

25 Jul '12

July 18 and 19 I participated in a Transition THRIVE course at the ICA Office in Chicago. I wanted to write about the great opportunity and hope I see in collaborating with this decade-old movement from the UK called Transition Town or Transition Initiative who led this course. Transition is about enabling local communities to make the transition from dependency on fossil fuels to resilience and sustainability especially in regards to renewable energy sources. (google transition town). ICA Chicago has been partnering with T.I. over the past year in planning and implementing the Accelerate 77 project in all the communities of Chicago to help them prepare for a future without fossil fuels and to create stronger, more resilient communities in these revolutionary times. All efforts are now being directed toward a huge Share Fair on September 15 in Chicago to showcase environmental projects in each of the 77 clusters. Student interns from six area universities have been instrumental in doing the research and making the contacts in these communities this summer. I was able to sit in on a weekly reporting session where I witnessed the incredible maturity and skill and commitment of these students! Ellie and I will both be volunteering in August and September for this event. I see what the Transition Movement is doing as a continuation of what the Institute has always been about.....the resilience and sustainability of local communities. The added dimension of course is the environmental one which has come to the fore in recent years as it has loomed larger and larger in scope and consequence. The three forces that are driving T.I. are: climate change/global warming, the unsustainable use of natural resources (the end of cheap oil), and unstable economies. There are 428 T.I. in 34 countries in 13 languages and 117 in 32 states in the U.S. See if there is one near you. There are no official ones in Missouri where we live but we are working on becoming the first (Ferguson, MO). It combines our four decade plus commitment to community transformation with our deep commitment to caring for the earth and all creation. And there is an urgency to it all. How to turn the Homo Sapien from a destructive force on the planet to a constructive force before the planet can no longer support the species. There is also a spiritual dimension to all of this. Some call it the New Cosmology and the effect on humans who have consciousness of the 14 billion year history of the universe and the incredible interconnection of all beings in this universe and particularly on this planet. We are indeed one. This should sound familiar to those who know anything about the Institute. The Spirit Movement of old was about buiding the New Religious Mode and the New Social Vehicle begging of course a 21st century update. This is just a brief sketch of the possibilities I see in this partnership. I could go on. Hope it makes sense! Have any of you run into this Transition Town Movement where you are? See you in September! Grace and peace, Carleton Stock St. Louis, MO USA

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Re: [Dialogue] Bending History?
by Sunny Walker 24 Jul '12

24 Jul '12

Same title, different subtitle: Selected Talks of Joseph W. Mathews. From my Android phone on T-Mobile. The first nationwide 4G network. -------- Original message -------- Subject: [Dialogue] Bending History? From: David Walters <walters(a)alaweb.com> To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> CC: The Brooking Institution has published a book entitled: Bending History: Barack Obama's Foreign Policy Amazon says: "The seasoned authors aim to present the first serious book-length appraisal of Obama's foreign policy. They are Martin Indyk, a diplomat with great experience in the volatile region that has seen almost unimaginable political change in 2011 (the Middle East); Kenneth Lieberthal, an oft-quoted authority on the historic rise and political economy of China; and Michael O'Hanlon, an accomplished analyst of national security policy, particularly the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. With fairness and sophistication, the authors blend their own expertise with access to major military and diplomatic players at top levels of the administration. They find little strategic coherence in a foreign policy that is notable mostly for its individual initiatives rather than unifying themes, despite what the persona of Barack Obama himself represents symbolically and rhetorically." Don't we already have a book with this title? -David Walters

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Bending History?
by David Walters 24 Jul '12

24 Jul '12

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Weigel said it was Nat'l old joke day
by KarenBueno＠aol.com 24 Jul '12

24 Jul '12

Games For The Elderly 1. Sag, You're it 2. Pin the Toupee on the bald guy 3. 20 questions shouted into your good ear 4. Kick the bucket 5. Red Rover, Red Rover, the nurse says Bend Over 6. Doc Goose 7. Simon says something incoherent 8. Hide and go pee 9. Spin the Bottle of Mylanta 10. Musical recliners

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