December 2016 - Dialogue - lists.wedgeblade.net

8/11/16, Spong: The Unlikely Honored Guest at the Democratic National Convention
by Ellie Stock via Dialogue 31 Jul '18

31 Jul '18

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He was surrounded in that reserved and exclusive seating area by the power-elite of the Democratic Party: A former President, the sitting Vice-President and the “second lady,” the spouses and children of the nominees, as well as those especially invited guests, who were uniquely and politically related to the convention’s eventual nominee. This unlikely guest was in his own way quite unique. He was a Republican, one who had been elected to a state-wide office as a candidate of the opposition party. He served as the governor of Virginia from 1970 – 1974 and was the first Republican governor of Virginia since 1869 in the last days of reconstruction. Later he sought his party’s nomination to the Senate of the United States, losing to another Republican, John Warner, who served with distinction from 1979 until he retired in 2008. The name of this mystery quest is Abner Linwood Holton. He is now, and has been since the day I first met him, an extraordinary man. People, unaware of the history of the Democratic Party in Virginia, find it strange that the man I regarded as the best governor of Virginia during the years I lived in that state would be a Republican. Let me tell you his story.</p> <p>Linwood Holton was born in 1923 in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, a town deep in the heart of Appalachia. He was a Republican from the moment of his birth. He was also bright and ambitious. Being a Republican in Virginia in those days was to be part of a distinct minority, perhaps even an endangered one! The Democrats of Virginia were the only cohesive political force in the state. This majority party was run by Virginia’s senior United States Senator, Harry Flood Byrd, who after serving a term as governor from 1926 to 1930, effectively ran the state until he died in 1966. It was said of Harry Byrd that he and a few of his closest political advisors would sit on the porch at his home in Berryville, Virginia, and pick the candidates for every political vacancy in Virginia from governor on down. The electorate was deliberately kept small by poll taxes, which effectively discouraged both blacks and poor whites from voting. A Byrd loyalist was in every county seat in Virginia to run the party. Racism was deep and “States Rights” was a holy slogan designed to make racism seem socially acceptable. Virginia was a one party state. Frequently the Republicans would not even nominate candidates and, even when they did, no one paid much attention to them because whoever won the Democratic primary seldom even campaigned in the general election, since Republicans simply did not win in this state! Linwood Holton made it his life’s ambition to establish two-party politics in Virginia.</p> <p>He graduated from Washington and Lee in Lexington, Virginia, and then entered the law school at Harvard University. Along the way he married a Roanoke girl, named Virginia Rogers, who went by the name of Jinks. She was the daughter of Frank Rogers, an upright, but ultra-conservative, successful and well-connected Roanoke citizen, who was the grandson of the first Episcopal Bishop in Southwestern Virginia. In his mind, the two greatest virtues were to be a conservative Episcopalian and a loyal Byrd Democrat. Jinks, the more rebellious of Rogers’ two daughters, chose to marry a Republican and a Presbyterian! Supported by this remarkable woman, Linwood began his life’s task of strengthening Virginia’s Republican Party. This party’s base, such as it was, had always been in the mountains of the western part of Virginia. As a force in opposition to Byrd Democrats, the Virginia Republican party tilted slightly leftward. There was no room to the right of the Byrd machine. The Virginia Republicans were known for their party’s efforts to improve education statewide and to develop better state mental health facilities. Linwood’s organizational efforts were so successful that in 1965 he was the Republican nominee for governor opposing the Southside, Virginia, Byrd Democrat, Mills Godwin, who had emerged as the new leader of the Democratic Party. The sickness, retirement and subsequently the death of Senator Byrd meant that the torch of party leadership had to be passed to the next generation. It is interesting that Harry Byrd, Jr., always known as “Little Harry,” who was appointed to succeed his father in the Senate, did not succeed him in the leadership of the statewide Democratic Party. Holton was defeated in that first run for the governor’s office, but he garnered a respectable total of votes and succeeded in introducing himself to the state. The day after the defeat, he began planning for his second run in 1969. The governorship in Virginia, we need to note, is limited by the Constitution to a single term.</p> <p>National issues soon began to erode the Byrd majorities. Poll taxes were declared unconstitutional in 1964. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 opened the ballot to people of color. The feminist movement began to galvanize women into an effective political force. A national- thinking Virginia Democrat, named Henry Howell, began to build a liberal political base made up of labor unions, blacks, women and young people. His challenge to the Byrd machine resulted ultimately in his election as Lt. Governor in 1971, but he could go no farther. He remained anathema to Byrd Democrats. In the Democratic Primary of 1969, the Byrd candidate, William Battle, the son of former Governor John Battle, defeated Henry Howell in a bitter contest. The party could not heal this division, so in the General Election, Linwood Holton, supported by many of Howell’s still angry voters, rode to victory with a 65,000 vote majority.</p> <p>In his inaugural address, Holton called for an end to Virginia’s pattern of racial discrimination and its racist politics. No Virginia Governor had ever uttered such words before. Words, however, were not enough. People looked for actions. They would follow soon.</p> <p>In the most dramatic step imaginable, the new governor and his wife made the decision not to put their children in the church-related or independent private schools of Richmond, where all governors’ children had previously attended, but to enroll them in Richmond’s public schools which were at that time about 80% black. It was such a startling action for a Virginia politician that the New York Times covered it with a front page story and a picture of Virginia’s Governor Holton escorting one of his daughters into a school surrounded by a host of black faces smiling broadly. In a state where the official response of the ruling Democratic machine to “Brown vs. the Board of Education,” had been to call for “massive resistance to the law of the land,” a state in which some counties chose to close their public schools rather than to integrate them, here was the highest elected official in the state escorting his children into the majority black public schools of Richmond, Virginia. No action could have announced better that a new day was dawning in what had once been the capital of the Confederacy. One of those Holton children entering those public schools on that day was their oldest daughter, Anne.</p> <p>The white population of Virginia was shocked. They believed and stated that their new governor was sacrificing his children on the “altar of integration.” Many suggested that the “inferior education” that his children would receive in those heavily black schools would cripple them for life. It was a strange argument that gave the lie to the previous white claim that all of its racially segregated schools were “separate, <em>but equal</em>.” Anne, in her early teens, would be an exemplary student. She received a fine education and upon graduation from high school would be admitted to Princeton University, from which she graduated <em>magna cum laude</em>. She seemed not to have been penalized at all in her educational achievements. After Princeton she was accepted into the class of 1983 at the Harvard Law School, from which she now holds a doctor of Jurisprudence degree. From there she went into a legal career that in time would include being a domestic relations judge and Virginia’s Education Secretary.</p> <p>While at Harvard she met, fell in love with and married a fellow law student, who was born in Minnesota and educated at the University of Missouri. His name was Tim Kaine. She lured him back to Richmond, where his earlier life experiences, including his Jesuit high school education, his year as a volunteer missionary to Honduras and his mastery of the Spanish language, prepared him to begin his Richmond law practice as a civil rights attorney. Then responding to an expressed community need, he entered politics at the most local of levels, running for a seat on Richmond’s nine-member City Council. In a majority black city, Tim not only won that seat, but was also later elected by that majority-black city council to be Richmond’s Mayor. Two years later, in 2001 he moved to the state level, being elected Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor. In 2005, he won the governor’s office. His wife, Anne Holton, became the first person to be at one time living in the governor’s mansion as the child of a Republican governor and then a second time as the state’s first lady and wife of a Democratic governor. In 2012, Tim Kaine won a seat in the United States Senate. In 2016, with two years remaining in his first term as senator, he was chosen by the presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, to be her vice-presidential running mate. Anne Holton was there with him, waving to the crowd on the final night. As Hillary Clinton raised Tim Kaine’s hand high, former president Bill Clinton was at her side and Anne Holton was at Tim Kaine’s side. The crowd roared with approval.</p> <p>In the VIP section of that vast Philadelphia arena sat the former Republican Governor Linwood Holton, now 92 years old, with his wife Jinks, both still vibrant and attractive, watching their daughter being introduced to the nation. There is sometimes a reward for integrity. Linwood and Jinks Holton, who would not allow their lives to be twisted by the prejudice of racism, challenged the distorting and debilitating social structures of his generation in Richmond, Virginia. Doing what is right sometimes carries with it intimations of transcendence and even immortality. To this day he remains one of my heroes.</p> <p>John Shelby Spong</p> <p>Read the essay online <a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…">here</a>.</p> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top"> <div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"><h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Question & Answer</h2> <p><span style="font-size:18px">Alberto Mejia Aguilera from Mexico writes via the internet:</span></p> <h4 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 22px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;"> Question:</h4> <p>I am from Mexico and I would like to know your opinion about Liberation Theology. Do you think that this theology is still an inspiration for the struggle against the social injustice?</p> <h4 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 22px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Answer:</h4> <p>Dear Alberto,</p> <p>Liberation theology was, I believe, was born in Latin America, so you should be especially proud of it. I associate the name of Leonardo Boff, primarily, with it, but there were others like the murdered Bishop Oscar Romero. It was born in an attempt to apply the principles of the gospel not just to individuals, but also to the structures of our society, which so often drive the masses into poverty. It identifies God with the poor. For those reasons it tended to be resisted in ecclesiastical circles, especially by the leaders of the Roman Catholic during the years of Popes John Paul II and Benedict, both of whom were so politically conservative that they saw it as another manifestation of Communism. I think they were both wrong in this judgment. Liberation theology, I believe, constituted a call to Christianity to see that its alliance with power, both in Europe and the new world, had corrupted the essential justice that Christianity requires.</p> <p>Christianity was born among the poor and the outcasts. It rose to dominate society and so became the religion of kings. Liberation Theology was a necessary correction.</p> <p>I wish you well.</p> <p>John Shelby Spong <a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">Read and Share Online Here</a></p> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top"> <div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"><h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Announcements</h2> <div style="text-align: center;color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;"><a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…"><img align="none" height="262" style="width: 350px;height: 262px;margin: 0px;border: none;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;line-height: 100%;outline: none;text-decoration: none;text-transform: capitalize;display: inline;" width="350" src="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/b51b9cf441b059bb232418480/images/e67ac6a0-334…"></a></div> <h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:26px"><span style="color:#000000">Bishop Spong at the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan September 10th & 11th</span></span></h2> <strong>Schedule:</strong> Saturday, September 10, 2016 1:00 pm at the Reynolds Recital Hall, Northern Michigan University 7:00 pm at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Marquette Sunday, September 11, 2016 2:00 pm at the Memorial Union Building , Michigan Technological University At each location, there will be an opportunity for Q&A and book signing.</div></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr><tr><td align="center" valign="top"> </td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></center><center><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" id="aolmail_canspamBarWrapper" style="background-color:#FFFFFF; border-top:1px solid #E5E5E5;"><tbody><tr><td align="center" valign="top" style="padding-top:20px; padding-bottom:20px;"> </td></tr></tbody></table></center></div> </div> <style type="text/css">#AOLMsgPart_2_1c149769-41d3-4c3b-8300-eaccdde19ae7 td{color: black;} @media only screen and (max-width: 480px){ .aolReplacedBody table[id="canspamBar"] td{font-size:14px !important;} .aolReplacedBody table[id="canspamBar"] td a{display:block !important; margin-top:10px !important;} } </style>

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Guess this is going to be my favorite Christmas song this year . . . who would have thought . . take popular music and write different words?
by James Wiegel via Dialogue 10 Jan '17

10 Jan '17

"A Hallelujah Christmas" by Cloverton | | | | | | | | | | | "A Hallelujah Christmas" by Cloverton | | | | Jim Wiegel “If you want an adventure . . . what a time to be alive!”. Joanna Macy 401 North Beverly Way,Tolleson, Arizona 85353623-363-3277jfwiegel(a)yahoo.comwww.partnersinparticipation.com Upcoming ToP training opportunities in Arizona More info on: ToP® Facilitation Methods ToP® Strategic Planning: Mastering the Technology of Participation Register on line / see the ToP National ScheduleAICP Planners: 14.5 CM for all ToP® courses The AZ ToP® Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday, of every month, 1-4 pm, at ACYR, 648 N. 5th Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85003

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Fwd: Susanne Langer quote attribution
by Jo Nelson via Dialogue 29 Dec '16

29 Dec '16

Hi, all, I’m getting down to completing the footnotes in Getting to the Bottom of ToP. Here’s a quote for which I don’t have the specific source. Can anybody help with this? I need the book, publisher, date of publication, and if possible the page number. Take care, Jo > Begin forwarded message: > > From: Ronnie Seagren <ronnie.seagren(a)gmail.com> > Subject: Susanne Langer quote attribution > Date: December 29, 2016 at 10:11:24 AM EST > To: Jo Nelson <jnelson(a)ica-associates.ca> > > You have to take the work of art seriously by observing carefully what's there, and what's not. Then you have to look just as seriously at what is going on inside you as you observe the art to see how you are reacting, what repels you, what delights you. You have to peel back layers of awareness so that you can begin to ask what it means to you. You must work to create your own meaning from an artwork, or a conversation. > > - Susanne K. Langer > > <>Needs a footnote with credit. Not sure if it’s from Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art (1942), or Feeling and Form: A Theory of Art (1953), or Problems of Art: Ten Philosophical Lectures, (1957). There’s a reference copy of the last one in the downtown library; nothing of hers circulates anymore, and Google Books doesn’t have enough of her books online to find the quotes. > > A better source might be the archives in Chicago; I bet someone there has it because I’m pretty sure one of her books was in the briefcase library. Part of this quote is in the intro to The Art of Focused Conversation, but doesn’t even use her name! Ouch! > Ronnie > -- Jo Nelson, CPF, CTF <jnelson(a)ica-associates.ca> Certified Professional Facilitator and ICA Certified ToP™ Facilitator ICA Associates, Inc. 401 Richmond Street West, Suite #405, Toronto, Canada. M5V 3A8 Ph. 1 416-691-2316, x2230 Toll-free 1 877-691-1422 Fax 1 416-691-2491 Website http://ica-associates.ca Cellphone 647 233 6910 Skype “jofacilitator” Vendor of Record: Government of Ontario Learning and Training Services #OSS00536903 Vendor of Record: ProServices Canada E60ZT-120001/826/ZT Business Consulting/Change Management Pre-qualified Vendor, Alberta Education Resource List “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. Richard Buckminster Fuller”

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12/29/16, Spong/Mike McHargue: May our world learn to see the infinite shades between black and white.
by Ellie Stock via Dialogue 29 Dec '16

29 Dec '16

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Our senses relay to the brain a ceaseless, torrential downpour of stimulus and information, and so our neurons team up to sort and sift this stream into higher-order abstractions–mainly categorizations in the form of either/or classifications.</p> <p>Prey or predator. Edible or inedible. Friend or Foe.</p> <p>Modern civilization allows us the time and space to view the world with more nuance, but we generally don’t take advantage of it. A black-and-white, with-me-or-against-me worldview is just so easy for our brains, and therefore gratifying. So, we sort the world into oppositional camps via snap judgements that are hard to shake off.</p> <p>Conservative or liberal. Rich or poor. Theist or atheist.</p> <p>I understand this tendency–I was raised in the Southern Baptist tradition. I learned as a child to view the world almost exclusively in “this or that” terms–and it served me well. The world made sense, and I understood my place in it. The purpose of my life was to know and serve God–and that meant taking Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.</p> <p>I had a crisis of faith in my thirties, and because I’d been taught you were either a theist or an atheist, I took the only option available to me and became an atheist. It’s a common tale, but mine has a twist. I was an atheist, yes, but also a deacon who taught Sunday School, and I was married to a good Baptist.</p> <p>I didn’t believe in God anymore, but I loved my wife, Jenny. I knew if I admitted that I was on the other side of the theist/atheist divide, I could lose my marriage. So I did the only thing I could: I lied. I pretended to believe in God for two years.</p> <p>In time, a small circle of friends and family became part of a small circle that new “my secret.” Pretending to believe in God every Sunday was fatiguing and I couldn’t keep up the facade. I started to plan by public exit from faith.</p> <p>Then I encountered God.</p> <p>That sounds like a line ripped from one of those Christian movies they play mainly at evangelical churches, but that’s not what I mean. Yes, I had an incredible, moving mystical experience that changed how I saw the world, but it wasn’t one that sent me back to my old faith. Not at all. I didn’t cross back over to the “theist” side of the fence.</p> <p>I found myself lost, unable to fit with either camp.</p> <p>Atheists lack belief in any God or gods. My encounter with a blinding light that made me feel known and loved knocked me out of that camp.</p> <p>But theists believe in a personal God with an agency and a specific plan for humanity. They have sacred texts, and complex theological notions.</p> <p>That wasn’t me either. I’d encountered a Great Something, maybe even a Great Everything, but that light didn’t recite the 10 commandments– or anything at all. It was just a presence; a moment of profound peace.</p> <p>As an atheist, I was every bit as much a black-and-white thinker as I’d been as a Baptist, but I was in a state where neither binary view fit. Skeptics flatly dismissed such encounters as trickery from our brains, while theologians all made supernatural assumptions I couldn’t.</p> <p>I was stuck. And then I heard a book mentioned in a YouTube video (of all places) called <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…"><em>Why Christianity Must Change or Die</em></a>. I bought it immediately because of a single word in the description: nontheist.</p> <p>I’d never heard of a nontheist before, but as I turned the pages of Bishop Spong’s book, I felt at home. Here was someone compelled by the mystery of faith, and indeed by the person of Jesus, but who was also uncomfortable with a bunch of supernatural theologies bolted on to his teachings by centuries of Christianity.</p> <p>It was from Bishop Spong that I learned of God as a Ground of Being or Source of All, and how to reclaim a faith I loved, but couldn’t stomach. Spong revealed a faith based on transformation, but without a rejection of science. But most of all, Bishop Spong showed me I was not alone–other people felt like the theist/atheist dichotomy is a false one.</p> <p>That insight has become the animating energy behind my work today. I’m an author and podcaster who helps tens of thousands of people every week see beyond the forced categorization in our culture. I help the Church-in-exile realize they are not alone–that in fact there are millions of us. I count myself among the Christian nontheists, and in doing so help others to do the same.</p> <p>May our world learn to see the infinite shades between black and white.</p> <p>About the Author</p> <p>Mike McHargue (better known as Science Mike) is the best-selling author of <em>Finding God in the Waves</em>, host of <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">Ask Science Mike </a>and co-host of <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">The Liturgists Podcast</a>. He’s a leading voice on matters of science and religion with a monthly reach in the hundreds of thousands. Mike lives in Tallahassee, FL with is wife Jenny and two daughters. Visit Mike’s <a style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">website </a></p> <p>Read the essay online <a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">here</a>.</p> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top"> <div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"><h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Question & Answer</h2> <p><span style="font-size:18px">Peter from Tasmania, Australia writes:</span> </p> <h4 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 22px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Question:</h4> <p>When Jesus said, "In my house there are many mansions," was he giving legitimacy to the other world religions like Islam and Buddhism?</p> <p> </p> <h4 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 22px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Answer:</h4> <p>Dear Peter,</p> <p>The quotation you cite is from the Gospel of John and most Biblical scholars doubt the literal historicity of any of the words attributed to Jesus in that text. They do not doubt, however, that this Gospel captures much of the meaning of Jesus in its narrative.</p> <p>The idea that in the Kingdom of heaven there is room for all is one of those essential themes. Organized religion tends to become narrow in its focus to increase its power and to threaten those who think differently with exclusion from God's presence.</p> <p>What we need to hear first is that every religious system is a human creation. For this reason alone no religious system can capture the fullness of God. God is not a Christian, a Moslem or a Jew. All religious systems are designed to help us walk into the mystery of God. Most of us walk via the cultural path into which we were born. It is natural to honor the pathway on which we have found holiness. What we do not seem to understand is that we do not bring honor to our pathway by being negative about someone else's pathway.</p> <p>Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism have each produced millions of holy lives. So has Christianity. However, holiness is never found in that religious attitude that assumes that truth itself has been captured in my particular religious system. That attitude, rather, produces religious persecution, religious violence, religious bigotry and religious wars. There is far too much of that kind of religion in out world today.</p> <p>I urge every person of faith to sink their lives deeply into all that their religious system can be but never to assume that God is a Being who can be known only through that tradition. God cannot be limited and the ultimate judgment about what is finally true belongs to God alone, not to us. So walk in love. Join hands with all those who seek God and a god-filled life. They are not the enemies of your religious convictions. They have simply found the Holy One in places different from ours. You and I must honor that place, for God is bigger than any religious system that any person has ever devised.</p> <p>~ John Shelby Spong <a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…">Read and Share Online Here</a></p> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <table border="0" cellpadding="20" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top"> <div style="color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"><h2 style="color: #4487cf;display: block;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 30px;font-weight: normal;line-height: 100%;margin-top: 0;margin-right: 0;margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 0;text-align: left;">Announcements</h2> <div style="text-align: center;color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;"><a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb2…"><img align="none" height="172" style="width: 518px;height: 172px;margin: 0px;border: none;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;line-height: 100%;outline: none;text-decoration: none;text-transform: capitalize;display: inline;" width="518" src="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/b51b9cf441b059bb232418480/images/00566787-939…"></a></div> <div style="text-align: center;color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;"><span style="color:#008080"><strong>We are delighted to announce our first Embrace Festival! May 4-6, 2017 in Portland, Oregon</strong></span></div> Embrace Festival is a 3 day, international, sacred community and social transformation gathering, which will be held May 4-6, 2017 in beautiful downtown Portland, Oregon for those wishing to positively transform their lives, their local communities, and the world. <strong>Vision</strong> In May 2017, people from all over the world will gather in Portland to share knowledge and wisdom, learn from each other, celebrate, be inspired, and find the tools needed to create and enliven local movements within our communities. Together we will explore Sacred Oneness, Christ Consciousness, Eco-Spirituality, Social Justice and the way of Universal and Personal Transformation that honors the Divine in all. We want you there! Please save the date and consider joining us! Tickets are currently set at Early Bird Pricing only until December 1, 2016. <a target="_blank" style="color: #4487cf;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://johnshelbyspong.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b51b9cf441b059bb23…">Click here for more information and to purchase tickets.</a> <div style="text-align: center;color: #000000;font-family: Georgia;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;"> **********************************</div> Please send your Happy New Year and get well messages to Bishop Spong addressed to <a href="mailto:admin@progressivechristianity.org">admin(a)progressivechristianity.org</a> and we will forward them to Bishop Spong for you. </div> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> <tr> <td align="center" valign="top"> <table border="0" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0" width="600" id="aolmail_templateFooter" style="background-color: #FDFDFD;border-top: 0;"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top" class="aolmail_footerContent"> <table border="0" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td colspan="2" valign="middle" id="aolmail_social" style="background-color: #FAFAFA;border: 0;"> <div style="color: #707070;font-family: Arial;font-size: 12px;line-height: 125%;text-align: center;"></div></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2" valign="middle" id="aolmail_utility" style="background-color: #FDFDFD;border: 1px dashed #d3d3d3;"><div style="color: #707070;font-family: Arial;font-size: 12px;line-height: 125%;text-align: center;"><div class="aolmail_vcard"><div class="aolmail_adr"><div class="aolmail_street-address"></div></div></div></div></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2" valign="middle" id="aolmail_utility"><div style="color: #707070;font-family: Arial;font-size: 12px;line-height: 125%;text-align: left;"></div></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table></center><center><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" id="aolmail_canspamBarWrapper" style="background-color:#FFFFFF; border-top:1px solid #E5E5E5;"><tbody><tr><td align="center" valign="top" style="padding-top:20px; padding-bottom:20px;"> </td></tr></tbody></table></center></div> </div> <style type="text/css">#AOLMsgPart_2_25e8511c-da7e-4128-a56f-abb1b41ebfdb td{color: black;} @media only screen and (max-width: 480px){ .aolReplacedBody table#aolmail_canspamBar td{font-size:14px !important;} .aolReplacedBody table#aolmail_canspamBar td a{display:block !important; margin-top:10px !important;} } </style>

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Cynthia Vance was Hacked!
by via Dialogue 22 Dec '16

22 Dec '16

Hi folks, Pam Bergdall just called me about my email being hacked. No I am not in a foreign country (unless you count Florida) and I don't need any money! So I've changed my password. And I send your greetings this Holiday Season. Somehow, somehow, we'll survive the next 4 years and perhaps a new civil rights populism will grab hold of the younger generation and all of us to -- to create a better world here and abroad. My best, Cynthia (and Bob) Vance

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Sad News......from Cynthia
by Cynthia Vance via Dialogue 22 Dec '16

22 Dec '16

- This mail is in HTML. Some elements may be ommited in plain text. - I really hope you get this fast. I could not inform anyone about our trip, because it was impromptu. We had to be in Philippines for a Tour..the program was successful, but our journey has turned sour. We misplaced our wallets and cell phones on our way back to the hotel after we went for sight seeing. The wallet contains all the valuables we have. Now, our luggage is in custody of the hotel management pending when we make payment. I am sorry if i am inconveniencing you, but I have only very few people to turn to now. I will be very grateful if I can get a short term loan of ($1,950) from you. This will enable me sort our hotel bills and get my sorry self back home. I will really appreciate whatever you can afford at this moment. I promise to refund it in full as soon as I return. Please let me know if you can be of any assistance. Thanks Cynthia

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The Terrible Texts: Be Fruitful and Multiply and Subdue the Earth (Originally posted August 2003)
by Ellie Stock via Dialogue 22 Dec '16

22 Dec '16

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR The Terrible Texts: Be Fruitful and Multiply and Subdue the Earth (Originally posted August 2003) Christians have never been significantly committed to the preservation of our common environment. Ecological concerns are present in Church life, but they never quite make it to the top tier of the issues that consume ecclesiastical energy. That is usually reserved for theological and sexual concerns. To be fair, each denomination probably includes some environmental enthusiasts, but they tend to be an endangered species when funding is being considered. There are many reasons for this attitude, but a major one emerges under that rubric that Christians call “The Authority of Scripture.” To put it bluntly, environmental issues are simply not supported in the traditional reading of the Bible. In that sacred text there is no specific command to live in harmony with or even to be dedicated to preserving God’s world. Instead, there is both a latent and an overt anthropocentrism, which suggests that biblical authors believed that the earth exists for the benefit of human beings. Domination not mutuality is the operative word. This attitude is articulated best in the Creation Story in which God gives human beings directions about how they are to engage this world. These words constitute one of what I call “the Terrible Texts” of the Bible. Out of these texts have flowed great havoc and pain that need to be faced. In this particular verse God is said to have instructed the newly created first family to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every living thing that moves upon the earth (Gen.1: 28).” To understand what is really being said here, it is necessary to break this destructive text into its constituent parts. I intend to look at these words from several angles until its “terrible” negativity can be fully experienced. Human beings are to “be fruitful and multiply” so that they can “subdue the earth.” Ancient people saw these injunctions as essential to their survival, while modern people see them as negative to theirs. What was thought of as a divine admonition yesterday, has become a prescription for disaster today. Times have changed! In my mind a text that urges an expanded population produces the very mentality that threatens the future of our world and the longevity of the human race. That assertion drives me to state boldly its inescapable corollary: Any person, organization or institution, no matter how ancient or revered that does not understand the threat of over-population and that does not work for population control and family planning has sacrificed all claims to possessing morality. To make this case it is first essential to look at our history. The words “be fruitful and multiply” came to be thought of as a divine commandment in a particular time and in a particular context that need to be understood. When the Bible came into written form, somewhere between 1000 B.C.E. and 135 C.E., there were formidable enemies in several categories that threatened human survival. Among these enemies were first of all rival clans or tribes that sought to secure their future by winning militarily the prizes of war that guaranteed tribal survival: food, wealth and women. Next in that world major animal predators still existed. The desired outcome of the hunt would hopefully be “dinner” for the tribe but it also often resulted in death for one or more of the hunters. Weapons in that early day were primitive – sticks with sharpened or even metal tips, rocks and clubs. They did not always tilt the balance of power in favor of the hunters. A third natural enemy of human survival was both unseen and undefined and thus was even more deeply feared. Our ancient ancestors did not know anything about germs, viruses, heart attacks, strokes, leukemia or tumors. All they knew was that human life was fragile, mysteriously subject to silent and invisible forces that struck indiscriminately with fevers, pain, paralysis and even death. With these potent forces threatening human life, the goal of survival was best served by expanding the population and the more children born the better the chances were to keep the tribe at least stable and to replenish those who fell in battle, the hunt or to sickness. So people heard the command to “be fruitful and multiply” as the literal “Word of God.” Circumstances, however, change and context is altered. The world was vast and tribes moved away from their perceived enemies, into the safety of relative isolation. More efficient ways of hunting were developed and weapons were eventually deployed from a safe distance. These weapons became more and more lethal until no animal remained as an ultimate threat to Homo sapiens. Next the growing human ability to cultivate land, to plant crops and to build surpluses took away the specter of starvation that had once caused our ancestors to pray for “daily bread.” Better diet then combined with access to clean water to contribute to a growing human longevity. As death was postponed, the population grew. An enormous boost was given to that process when growing knowledge and skill in the healing arts began to identify and defeat the causes of sickness. Counter attacks against germs and viruses were launched with penicillin and antibiotics. Surgical procedures, radiation and chemotherapy were used to fight tumors and cancers. Cardiovascular accidents, now called heart attacks and strokes, were subjected to angioplasty procedures, surgical methods and drugs that opened clogged arteries. The fact that we talk routinely today of double, triple or quadruple by-pass heart procedures only emphasizes the depth of the revolution. With the introduction of pre-natal care for expectant mothers there has been a sharp decline in the deaths of women and a huge increase in the births of healthy babies. All of these forces combined to produce a geometric rise in the human population. At first these new realities were the source of joy and celebration. But then statistics began to paint another picture. It took the world millions of years before the human population reached one billion people. It took only tens of thousands of years before this population achieved two billion. Then the three billion mark was passed in hundreds of years. Now the six billion mark has been passed, and reliable estimates project a doubling of the human population every forty years. This population explosion has brought with it tremendous new strains on the earth’s ability to support such numbers. Only dramatic changes in agricultural practices, including the development of genetically modified foods, new chemical fertilizers that doubled and tripled the harvest per acre and breeding programs that exploded the amount of beef, lamb, pork, fish and fowl, have managed to keep up with the food needs of this growing population. Yet the dark side of these advances has begun to make itself apparent. We noticed first that despite massive efforts human starvation is still present in our world. Then we became aware that the practices used to expand food production were morally suspect. Next we noticed that some of these practices actually carried long-term dangers to health. A new assessment of “fruitful multiplication” had begun. Next we became aware that the energy needed to support this burgeoning population was threatening to exhaust the finite supply of fossil fuels and simultaneously to contribute to global warming. We now experience clogged highways, smog in our cities, various breathing diseases and enormous pressure on the infrastructures needed to support the human enterprise. One could argue that wars and terrorism both result from an exploding population and its rising pressure on natural resources. No end is visible in these spiraling realities and no one believes that the developing nations of the world will not exhibit the same appetites for automobiles and other energy-using amenities of modern life that mark the developed nations. This will push the common environment over the brink of destruction. In the modern world, the ability to limit human birth has thus emerged as nothing less than a necessity to our continued survival. If human survival is tied to curtailing population growth, who among us wants to define the biblical injunction calling us to “be fruitful and multiply” as the word of God? It becomes, rather, a ‘terrible’ text in the biblical story that needs to be exposed. It also creates a new demand that a case to be made for the morality of effective family planning and realistic publicly financed programs of sex education for all people that will include instruction on effective and safe methods of birth control. The Christian Church can no longer be either in opposition or quiet and passive on this subject. Some part of the Church must rise to the current challenge and make the case for birth control as a compelling moral imperative. That also means that some part of the Church must carry the debate to the heart of the Vatican and to do so in the name of Christ. I will move to that theme next week in part II of this series. ~ John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Katherine, from Richmond, VA writes: Question: What is it about this Jesus that you find so compelling? When I hear the Christmas story from the Bible I believe that I am listening to fairy tales. Stars do not announce the birth of a human being. Angels do not sing to hillside shepherds. Virgins do not conceive and give birth. Is there something behind the old mythology that I am missing? Can you still, with any integrity, refer to Jesus as “the son of God?” Answer: Dear Katharine, Thank you for your questions. Not only are they important ones but they give me the opportunity to articulate my deepest convictions about this Jesus in the column that will go out to my subscribers on Christmas Eve. So I shall frame my answer to you in the form of a Christmas meditation, for this Jesus has always both fascinated and attracted me. My deepest self-definition is that I am a Christian, by which I mean that in Jesus of Nazareth I believe I see the meaning of God most clearly. This experience of an in-breaking divine presence is what I believe created the Christmas traditions that you refer to in your question. Certainly during this season they are omnipresent. It was more than two thousand years ago that the historic figure we call Jesus lived. It was a life of relatively short duration, only thirty-three years. At most only three of those years were devoted to a public career. Yet, that life appears to have been a source of wonder and power to those who knew him. Tales of miraculous power surrounded him. Words of insight and wisdom were believed to have flowed from his lips. Love and freedom seemed to be qualities that marked his existence. Men and women found themselves called into being by him. Those laden with guilt discovered, somehow, the joy of forgiveness in him. The alone, the insecure, the warped and twisted found him to be a source of peace. He possessed the courage to be who he was. He is described in terms that portray him as an incredibly free man. Jesus seems to have had no internal needs that drove him to prove himself – no anxieties that centered his attention on himself. He rather appears to have had an uncanny capacity to give his life away. He gave love, he gave selfhood, he gave freedom, and he gave them abundantly – wastefully, extravagantly. Lives touched by his life were never the same. Somehow life’s secret, its very purpose, seemed to be revealed in him. When people looked at him they were somehow able to see beyond him, and even through him. They saw in his life the Source of all life that expanded them. They saw in his love the Source of love and the hope of their own fulfillment. This kind of transforming power was something they had not known before. Freedom is always scary. People seek security in rules that curb freedom. So his enemies conspired to remove him and his threat to them. From one perspective it might be said that they killed him. When one looks more closely at the story, however, it might be more accurate to say that he found in himself the freedom to give his life away and to do so quite deliberately. He died caring for those who took his life from him. In that moment he revealed a love that could embrace all the hostilities of human life without allowing those hostilities to compromise his ability to love. He demonstrated rather dramatically that there is nothing a person can do and nothing a person can be that will finally render any of us either unlovable or unforgivable. Even when a person destroys the giver of life and love, that person does not cease to be loved by the Source of love or called into life by the Source of life. That was his message or at least that is what people believed they had met in this Jesus. Such a life could not help but transcend human limits. For this kind of love can never be overwhelmed by hatred; this life can never finally be destroyed by death. Is it any wonder that people had to break the barriers of language when they sought to make rational sense out of this Jesus experience? They called him the Son of God. They said that somehow God was in him. So deeply did people believe these things that the way they perceived history was changed by him. To this day we still date the birth of our civilization from the birth of this Jesus. They believed that he was able to give love and forgiveness, acceptance and courage. They believed that he had the power to fill life full. Since people tended to define God as the Source of life and love, they began to say that in this human Jesus they had engaged the holy God. When they began to write about this transforming experience they confronted a problem. How could the human mind, which can only think using human vocabulary, stretch far enough to embrace the God presence they had experienced in this life? How could mere words be big enough to capture this divine meaning? Inevitably, as they wrote they lapsed into poetry and imagery. When this life entered human history, they said, even the heavens rejoiced. A star appeared in the sky. A heavenly host of angels sang hosanna. Judean shepherds came to view him. Eastern Magi journeyed from the ends of the earth to worship him. Since they were certain that they had met the presence of God in him, they reasoned that God must have been his father in some unique way. It was certainly a human reference but that is all we human beings have to use. Life as we know it, they said, could never have produced what we have found in him. That is why they created birth traditions capable of accounting for the adult power that they found in him. Our modern and much less mysterious world reads these birth narratives and, assuming a literalness of human language that the biblical writers never intended, say “How ridiculous! How unbelievable! Things like that just do not happen. Stars don’t suddenly appear in the night to announce a human birth. Angels do not entertain hillside shepherds with heavenly songs. Virgins do not conceive. These things cannot be true.” On one level those criticisms are accurate. Things like that do not happen in any literal sense. But does that mean that the experience this ecstatic language was created to communicate was not real. I do not think so. The time has come for Christians, when we try to talk about God, to face without being defensive, the inadequacy of human language. These stories were never meant to be read literally. They were written by those who had been touched by this Jesus. That is why they challenge our imaginations and sound so fanciful and unreal. Our minds are so earthbound that our imaginations have become impoverished. Literal truth has given way to interpretive images. When life meets God and finds fulfillment one sees sights never before seen, one knows joy never before experienced, and one expects the heavens to sing and dance in celebration. The story of Christmas, as told by the gospel writers, has a meaning beyond the rational and a truth beyond the scientific. It points to a reality that no life touched by this Jesus could ever deny. The beauty of our Christmas story is bigger than our rational minds can embrace. For when this Jesus is known, when love, acceptance, and forgiveness are experienced, when we become whole, free and affirmed people, the heavens do sing “Glory to God in the Highest,” and on earth there is “Peace and Good Will among Us All.” Hence, we Christians rejoice in the transcendent beauty and wonder of this Christmas story. To those who have never stepped inside this experience we issue an invitation to come stand where we stand and look through our eyes at this babe of Bethlehem. Then perhaps they too will join those of us who read these Christmas stories year after year for one purpose only: to worship the Lord of life who still sets us free and who calls us to live, to love and to be all that we can be. That is why the Christmas invitation is so simple: Come, come, let us adore him. How do we adore him? In my mind the answer to that query is clear. I adore him not by becoming religious or by becoming a missionary who seeks to convert the world to my understanding of Jesus. I do it rather by dedicating my energies to the task of building a world where everyone in this world might have an opportunity to live more fully, love more wastefully and have the courage to be all that they were created to be. This is the only way I know how to acknowledge the Source of Life, the Source of Love and the Ground of Being that I believe that I have experienced in this Jesus. How can one adore the Source of Life except by living? How can one adore the Source of Love except by loving? How can one adore the Ground of all Being except by having the courage to be all that one can be. It is not possible to seek these gifts for oneself and then deny them to every other life. So our task as disciples of Jesus is to live fully, to love wastefully and to be all that we can be while we seek to enable every other person, in the infinite variety of our humanity, to live fully, to love wastefully and to be all that each person can be. That also means that we can brook no prejudice that would hurt or reject another based on any external characteristic, be it race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation. It all seems so simple to me. God was in Christ. That is the essence of what I believe about this Jesus. Have a blessed and holy Christmas. ~ John Shelby Spong Read and Share Online Here Announcements Join Bishop John Shelby Spong as he takes us on a journey to the times of Jesus’ birth ... click below image to purchase book. Now available both in Hard Copy and Digital Download. Bishop Spong continues his recovery and wants to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! If you would like to send Bishop Spong a get well note please sent it to admin(a)progressivechristianity.org and we will forward it to him.

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The life phases
by James Wiegel via Dialogue 19 Dec '16

19 Dec '16

I am looking for some detail on the four life phases, some description of them. Anyone have anything? Jim Wiegel 401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353 Tel. 011-623-936-8671 or 011-623-363-3277 jfwiegel(a)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

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Re: [Dialogue] The life phases
by Al Lingo via Dialogue 19 Dec '16

19 Dec '16

Thank you, Prescilla, very much! As this holiday allows moments for deeper reflection, I will look forward to finding the gold in what you have mined for us. I anticipate that there are those who, also, will be ready to begin to dig into their own consciousness and willing to take the time to share their findings in this articulation of "the life phases". May you be well, Charles Al Lingo clingojr(a)aol.com -----Original Message----- From: Wilson Priscilla H via Dialogue <dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> To: James Wiegel <jfwiegel(a)yahoo.com>; Colleague Dialogue <dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Mon, Dec 19, 2016 12:40 am Subject: Re: [Dialogue] The life phases Try this one… On Dec 18, 2016, at 11:32 PM, Wilson Priscilla H <pris(a)teamtechpress.com> wrote: I’m not sure which email address goes to whom…so here is the life phases chart I have been working with. <Seasons of life chart.webarchive> priscilla wilson On Dec 18, 2016, at 9:17 AM, James Wiegel via Dialogue <dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote: I am looking for some detail on the four life phases, some description of them. Anyone have anything? Jim Wiegel 401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353 Tel. 011-623-936-8671 or 011-623-363-3277 jfwiegel(a)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 _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net Wilson Priscilla H pris(a)teamtechpress.com www.teamtechpress.com follow me on: Facebook Twitter Wilson Priscilla H pris(a)teamtechpress.com www.teamtechpress.com follow me on: Facebook Twitter _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net

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Re: [Dialogue] Article on Classes from ICA supper meeting
by George Holcombe via Dialogue 18 Dec '16

18 Dec '16

Studied this paper introduced by Stuart Hampton in a meeting the other night at our ICA colleagues. Really insightful about the structure of society these days, especially in reference to opportunities and limitations. Used to be, I thought of the upper, middle and poor classes, but this casts a new light on it. And provides some helpful categories and framework for grasping what’s going on these days. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/precariat-global-class-rise-of-popul… <https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/precariat-global-class-rise-of-popul…> George Holcombe 14900 Yellowleaf Tr. Austin, TX 78728 Mobile 512/252-2756 geowanda1(a)me.com "Whatever the problem, community is the answer. There is no power greater than a community discovering what it cares about." Margaret Wheatley

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